Wokay!

This is cheesy, but the blogosphere is full of cheese as it is. So, for the new year, here’s what I’m thankful for- in no particular order.

• I am thankful that I started talking to my batchmates again.
• … that I went through with two very major projects this year- CAT preparation and the Mod Quiz- without losing interest or quitting.
• … that my dad isn’t as tense about business as he was halfway through 2003.
• … that the summer of 2003 was mild, the monsoon of 2003 was well behaved, and that the winter of 2003 wasn’t foggy.
• … that Shiv and Kunal have been accepted to Stanford and Harvard, that Manasvini is likely getting a job, that Rukhein has got a job at Salomon Smith Barney, that Ishaan has got an internship where he will- as Bhaiyya puts it- build bigger and better mammaries, that Mridu, Mallika, and Rabani have great jobs, and that Baldy, Ishaan, Asim, Meenakshi and many other people- too numerous to mention- are enjoying their stay at college so much.
• … for the Matrix movies.
• … for the Theory of Computation and the existence of language.
• … that I no longer feel a sense of deprivation when I see other people with girlfriends.
• … that I made new friends this year.
• … for the British sense of humour, British accents and British swear words.
• … for comic books.
• … for the Biblio membership plan.
• … that Project Gutenberg gives me books for free.
• … for good food, including methi malai matar, catfish and salmon, cornflakes with chocolate chip cookies, chocolate that is not American, and Nutyumz.
• … that aadisht.net has such an awesome PageRank at Google.
• … for dimples.
• … for my new MP3 player, and for good music.
• … that the Fillet on British swear words led to a cartoonist contacting me, which led to me supplying Punjabi swear words for a British comic strip.
• … that Delhi is becoming so much better to live in, and that India nowadays is like what England must have been when the Industrial Revolution kicked off.
• … that I can finally drive, and that my driver’s license allows me to buy my own cellular connection.
• … that I got to spend New Year’s Eve with seniors I admire and respect, some of whom I was seeing after more than five years.
• … that those same seniors seem not to have changed at all.
• … that this list ends here.

My last endsem is tomorrow, and that’s of a non-credit course. My state of mind right now is pretty much summed up by “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”.

My endsems have gone better than any of the other evaluations thus far in the semester. I sat down, girded my loins, and finally devoted time to something other than the CAT. Tomorrow, they’ll be over.

So here are my plans for the vacattion.

1. Start studying for the CAT and the XAT again. I’ve got fifty more days now to study maths, and improving my quant score by about six marks could make me a lot more secure in the admissions process.
2. Meet people. Friends and relatives. I realised this Diwali that I haven’t seen most of my extended family for ages, and winter should be a good time to remedy that.
3. Movies! Kill Bill, Pirates of the Caribbean, and possibly Kal Ho Na Ho. Yes, it has Shah Rukh Khan, who is evil. But on the other hand, he dies before the interval. It should be the cinematic event of the decade.
4. Get my driver’s license. I’m finally comfortable in a car, and after three years of renewing a learner’s, it’s finally time for me to give the test and get a permanent license. I only have until the thirty-first, so better do this quick.
5. Update Project Sonali. I’ve neglected the programming of this site too long. Before the New Year, I should have RSS feeds and a digest for email in place. I’d also like to implement the cool crossreferencing Sacha has on her wiki. And she does it with plaintext files. Wow. Oh, and I should update my blogroll, too,
6. Second Language- if there’s a weekend course for Spanish or German on offer at Inlingua which winds up by April, that would be a good thing to take.
7. Transcription- I think I should do my bit for literature by transcribing a book for Project Gutenberg. I think Carry On, Jeeves is in the public domain, and untranscribed so far.

And that’s that.

I’m back.

I have not been writing not because my ‘Net connection is down, nor because my life is devoid of interest. I have not been writing because I have been lazy.

So I’m making up for it with this post. Today we discuss transportation.

After four years of being on a learning curve, I have finally learned how to drive. I’m still not perfect- I smashed the Palio’s left rear indicator light cover the other day when I went down the wrong road in South Extension, but I’m doing pretty well. Smashing a car is an abberation now, not routine. I can drive. Whee.

However, I will say this. The independence that comes with having a car and being able to drive is not absolute.

For the past four or five years, I’ve been using public transportation in Delhi- DTC buses and autorickshaws. Acutorickshaws charge exorbitantly, so when you’ve got the time and you’re on a bus route, DTC is better.

Here’s the problem. DTC buses are slow, you don’t always get them, and they don’t always go where you want them to go. For example there’s no decent bus route from Safdarjung Enclave, where I live, to Green Park, where I buy comics, have my hair cut, and buy books.

Enough with detail. Getting down to the nitty gritty, here is the point which I wish to make.

The DTC bus gives you freedom of movement- but only to the places where it actually goes. I can go to Vasant Vihar, South Extension, Connaught Place, and Saket. I cannot go to Greater Kailash or Green Park.

Having a car also gives you significant freedom of movement- but only to places where you can park. And I have to go to a large number of places where parking is a major headache. Green Park, Basant Lok, South Extension. Heck, South Extension isn’t just a headache, it’s impossible.

So, the lesson I draw from this is that absolute freedom of movement is conferred only by motorcycles. They’re cheap, they’re fast, they’re fuel efficient, and you can park them without hassle.

My New Year’s Resolution, then, is to learn how to drive a motorcycle. And this time, do it within six months.

What I’m driving at is that Providence seems to look after the chumps of this world; and, personally, I’m all for it.– PG Wodehouse

While this Fillet is late, better late than never, as the poet said. I forget which poet, but I’m sure a poet did say it. Right. Let’s get the extraneous bits out of the way.

About three weeks ago, Business Today held the all-India inter B-school competitive festival, Acumen 2003. Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai was the B-school that won the business quiz.

One of the two guys on the LIBA team was my senior from school, Anahat. Hence the PG Wodehouse quote about chumps at the beginning of this post.

You see, Anahat is- or at any rate, was- a chump. In all kindness, one cannot call him anything else. While one can certainly appreciate his chumpitude and even enjoy it, one cannot deny it. After all, this is a guy whose previous claim to fame was running naked through Vasant Vihar with Joytan. Oh, and while he was involved in juvenile dramatics as the assistant director of the Class 9 play- The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Zubin and Sahil, he used to freak Zubin out by eating the plastic tubing in the auditorium chairs. Once the play was over, he would just eat Zubin’s ham sandwiches, which would annoy Zubin even more. Oh, and he once scored zero in a computer quiz, but had the whole auditorium in splits by replying “The EE stands for Exterminate Everybody, the rest is just a terminating character.” when asked “What is the significance of the phrase EEC369 in the game Quake?”.

You get my point. There was never a dull moment around Anahat. He would do fun, invigorating things. But, nevertheless, the things a chump would do.

Which is why Anahat’s recent accomplishment is so astounding. I mean, here is a confirmed chump going off and winning a national quiz. And he’s cleaned up, he has- the first prize is a full scholarship to Summer School at Middlesex.

Why do I mention this? Because it suddenly makes the PG Wodehouse quote at the top so much more relevant. And I approve of real life resembling a Wodehouse book, because that means a happy ending for everyone.

And that’s all I have to say.

In my earlier Fillet about chocolate, I had mentioned in passing that while American chocolate is big, it isn’t good. Sure, there’s lots of it and it comes in large economy sizes. If you ever want to get toothache by eating lots of chocolate without spending too much, the United States is the place to be. On the other hand, if you want to indulge yourself in delicious, flavourful chocolate, go get a bar of German chocolate. Or Swizz. Or Italian. Surprisingly, even Australian or Thai are up to standard. But not American.

Which is bizzare (or is it spelt bizarre?) on the face of it. After all, it isn’t as if Americans don’t know what good chocolate is. For well over a decade, my mum has been baking cakes out of a recipe book by Diana Dalsass, an American lady who, I am sure, would shudder at the thought of cakes without chocolate. And good chocolate at that. Half the introduction deals with how to proportion butter and chocolate so that the chocolate spreads evenly through the batter. Only my brother is as obsessive, and in his case it’s about spreading butter on toast- which is nowhere near as important.

So it’s not as if Americans don’t care about the chocolate they eat. And yet American chocolates are crap. This is befuddling.

And this week, Bill Bryson told me why this is so.

If you have not already read Bryson’s book Notes From a Big Continent, I suggest you run out and get a copy as soon as possible. It’s brilliant. In one of seventy eight essays in the book, he explains why American chocolates are crap- because all the candy manufacturers compete on price and dilute the taste until nobody can possibly say it’s too strong. He also elaborates on the joy of having a garbage disposal unit, how Americans refuse to walk anywhere, why Americans are stupid despite producing most of the world’s new research, and why Americans have no sense of humour. To make up for bitching about America and the Americans in seventy six essays, he also slips in two pieces on how gloriously beautiful North Hampshire is, and how friendly the people there are.

The focus of this post has slipped away from chocolate to Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Continent, and there’s a reason for this. Be patient.

One of the nicest essays in NFABC is the one in which Bryson describes watching the basketball games at Dartmouth College, which is a walk down from his home. He says that the Dartmouth College basketball games are free of the rampant commercialism that affects American sports, that they’re nailbiters, and that the Dartmouth players play for the love of the game.

He also compliments the “endearingly nerdy Dartmouth band” that plays tunes like the Hawaii Five-Oh theme during halftime.

Now, here is the reason the focus of this post has shifted.

Checking my website stats, it turns out that one of the top visitors to aadisht dot net is an American desi- I don’t know if he’s an ABCD or an FOB- called Shounak Simlai from Dartmouth College. And Googling further, we find that- drumroll, please, Billy- he’s in the Dartmouth College marching band, playing the didgideroo.

So, I write a W-Fillet about India’s Third World Mentality as measured by the size of it’s chocolates, which leads to me wondering why American chocolate is awful, which is answered by a bloke who likes the Dartmouth College Marching Band, which just happens to have a didgiderooist who reads the Fillets.

How’s that for the fundamental interconnectedness of all things?

This is not a Britannia ad. It is actually a post about Eating Healthier. Thinking Better, we shall see later.

Last week, I was sick. My lips were cracked and dry, I had a cold (and still do), and I had (oh agony of agonies!) constipation.

This week, I’m better. The cracked lips have been taken care of with grape flavoured lip wax. I still have the cold, but it’s not that bad. And the constipation is a fading memory. I attribute this to eating better.

Now, eating better does not refer to the amazing pineapple and jalapeno pizza I had on Sunday- that was eating well. Eating better means that right now, there are three bananas and quite a few carrots lying in my hostel room. My fibre requirements are met by the carrots and supplemented by the bananas. The bananas also provide me with vitamins, though at the moment I cannot recall which ones.

At twenty rupees for a dozen bananas, and ten rupees for a kilogram of carrots, this is an economical diet that I can keep up all through the exams until it gets too repetitive. Fourteen days shouldn’t be too much, though. And, as far as food processing goes, all I have to do is wash the carrots under the tap, and peel the bananas. In this respect, I am much better off than Sacha, whose adventures with microwave and sacuepan you can follow at http://sacha.free.net.ph/notebook/wiki/CookOrDie.php.

Did I mention I have exams coming up? Well, I do. Fear not, though, I will be home again in just over two weeks. Then, to quote Asim, I shall boogie, darnit.

Until then, toodles.

It’s horrifying what a university education does to you.

Last night, I was watching The X-Factor on NDTV 24×7. The topic of discussion in the first segment was, well, yes, the CAT leak scandal. NDTV had invited Bakul Dholakia, the IIM-A director, and Murli Manohar Joshi, the minister of the ridiculously-named human resource development ministry. The aam junta was represented by two people who had given the CAT- some bloke whose name I forget, and Sakshi Sharda.

I had last seen Sakshi Sharda a little over four years ago, when she had represented Vasant Valley School at MSVV’s biology symposium, LifeBeat. Back in 1999, she had been one of the fixed stars in my firmament of hot women.

So much so, that one of the reasons I’m so unenthusiastic about college is that the DOSA (Dean of Student Affairs), HB Sharda, just didn’t live up to my expectations of what a Sharda should be. On registration day, I found out that he was a gent named Sharda. Exposed until then to a very high standard in Shardas, I expected a graceful and distinguished professor, who possessed an inherent nobility. Two days later, I discovered that he was a pompous, puffed-up, and portly popinjay. I never really recovered from the disappointment. Had I know back then that Patiala possessed a Canal, I would have unreservedly leapt into it, seeking to end it all in a watery grave. Well, I wouldn’t. But I was looking for an opportunity to use that phrase.

Which is why I felt like weeping when I saw Sakshi Sharda last night. Far from being the vibrant damsel of years past, she looked like a toad beneath the harrow. Her eyes looked like dark pits. Add a couple of pendulums, and you would be wondering why she was on a news channel, rather than in an Edgar Allen Poe short story. Her face was sallow and drawn, as if she had been through some terrible experience. And though giving a CAT in all seriousness only to find out that you’ve got to do it again is disappointing, it’s not that bad.

Which is why I repeat my starting line. It’s horrible what a university education does to you. Or if not a university education, the passage of time at any rate. Not only has it stolen my own boyish good loooks (though, I confess, the depredations I have suffered are in no small part also due to my orthodontist and the constant company of sardars), but Sakshi Sharda’s too (though her good looks, of course, were not boyish). Nobody is safe.

Anyway. I’m returning to Patiala now, so this is probably it for this spurt of writing.

Forgive me for the rather pathetic (and, I have to admit, geeky) pun in the title. But six months of preparing for the CAT does permit one to play with one’s vocabulary.

Okay, the pun is still unforgivable.

If you’ve been following the Indian news today, you’ll know what happened. The CAT (Common Admission Test for Indian MBA programs) paper was leaked. Of course, this was not actually revealed until some time after the paper had actually started. So this is what happened.

Monday to Saturday: Bihari crooks sell the CAT paper and answer key at 200 to 400 Kilorupees.

Sunday, 10:30 am: the CAT procedure starts.

Sunday, 11:00 am: the CBI nabs the Bihari crooks. At this time, everyone giving the paper (which includes me) has opened the seal and started marking answers on the response sheet.

Sunday, 1 pm: The CAT ends, people walk out of the exam centres, and find out that the paper was leaked, and has thus been cancelled.

Whooopsie.

The feeling you get when you hear news like that is the same feeling you get when you set an alarm, wake up early, and set off for the eight am tutorial only to find that the instructor hasn’t turned up. Magnified several thousand times. In the immortal words of sPas- is this bugging? I mean, this is the second time in my life I’ve ever taken anything so seriously, and it goes fruit shaped.

But then, surprise is the nature of the universe.

As of now, there is every indication that there will be another CAT in a couple of months. Hoo boy, there goes what little was left of my winter vacations. On the other hand, I haven’t prepared for more than half a year just to get discouraged now. I will give the CAT again, and when I do it the next time, I will pull my quant score up too, by Mars and Juno! So there.

Some other thoughts follow. This is not a terribly well structured Fillet, I’m afraid.

I went and met Bhaiyya after lunch. Bhaiyya had been watching SET Max rather than the news channels, so I redirected him to Aaj tak. He was pretty amused, especially at the news segment with the bellyaching guys from Meerut and Bikaner. He found himself unable to sympathise with them, feeling that they should rather be delighted. They got a free mock CAT in an ultra-realistic environment, and that, too, one set by IIM profs.

Bhaiyya always manages to see the bright side of things. It’s wonderful.

Bhaiyya was also tickled pink at the thought of everyone who had coughed up muchos moolah for the CAT paper having sunk their investment with no return. I must confess, I hadn’t though of that aspect of the affair before, and I too was tickled pink.

Another thought that pops up is that the security level at MODEM, the computer symposium held at my old school MSVV is far superior to the security level at the IIMs. At MODEM, the programming papers would be sealed in brown evelopes, unseen by all except the people who’d set the questions, the Computer Club President, and the guy who stapled the sheets (who was always handpicked and trustworthy). This, when MODEM runs more on faith, dumb luck, and caffeine than anything else, while the IIMs are probably ISO 9000 organisations.

Another point to be noted is that the whole trouble started with Biharis. Time to quote a passage from William Dalrymple’s The Age of Kali, a book I had read less than a week ago:

In a very real sense, Bihar may be a kind of Heart of Darkness, pumping violence and corruption, pulse after pulse, out in to the rest of the subcontinent…. So serious and infectious is the Bihar disease that it is now throwing in to question the whole notion of an Indian economic miracle. The question is whether the prosperity of the south and west of the country can outweigh the moral decay which is spreading out from Bihar and the east.

While I am opposed to violence, there must be exceptions to every rule. And if the Assamese wish to kill any Biharis they come across in the future, I will not stick my oar in. Indeed, I might cluck approvingly. And if this is vigilante violence, what of it? So is Daredevil a vigilante. And there are action figures of him.

Of course, a more non violent way would be to simply grant Bihar independence from India, and then erect a fence around it. Later, we could do the same to Uttar Pradesh.

For the nonce, though, I’m going to study for CAT 2003 Mk II.

It so happens that my masi’s driver, who also doubles up as deliveryman for the thermal vest firm she runs with my mum, has run off to his village to settle a property dispute. Property disputes being what they are, it wouldn’t be surprising if Jagdish, the aforementioned driver has been declared dead. At any rate, he’s been gone long past his return date. So, today auditions were held for a replacement driver.

Anyway, this guy came over today to test for the position. He turned out to be an even worse driver than me (though, with constant practice over the past five months, I have improved a lot).

He got into the very new Palio, turned it on, and drove it straight up the drive into the very new aluminium door and window frame of the house.

Here’s the interesting thing, though. While the aluminium frame collapsed inwards and now looks like something lining the floor of a tunnel to Zion, the Palio is unaffected. Unscratched, even. The bumper absorbed the entire impact, and came out looking like new. Jeeves could take lessons in absorbing shocks from that car.

Two things have come out of this incident.

The first is that I have newfound respect for Italian automotive engineering. True, the Palio takes a couple of years to go from zero to sixty, and true, it can’t turn properly. But as far as crashing into things and emerging unscathed is concerned, it stands alone.

The consequence of this is that now, on the rare occasions when the Palio is able to get up to sixty, I don’t need to slow down, halt or turn for cows. I can charge straight into them, and send them flying over the moon, without inflicting any injury to the Palio. Of course, I shall continue to sedulously avoid mowing down pedestrians, innocent or guilty.

The second thing that comes out of this incident is that I have written to Vikram, and asked him how I can get in touch with Ram Avtar, that prince among chauffeurs. Ram Avtar left Vikram’s service earlier this year, as he didn’t want to move out of West Delhi. My masi lives in Rajinder Nagar, so that is not really a problem. If all goes well, Ram Avtar may become the newest person on the payroll of The Banyan Tree.

All in all, things look pretty good.

Don’t believe what the reviews say. The Matrix Revolutions is fantastic.

I saw it this Saturday, which is a week later than my brother, and much much later than my cousin BG who saw the premiere show, but I saw it in style. Balcony tickets at Priya. A wide screen and Dolby sound. The way Matrix Revolutions should be watched.

True, it doesn’t match up to the original, but then, what could? On the other hand, it leaves Reloaded gasping in the dust. The action sequences and music are every bit as good as in the original Matrix, and so the CGI effects are superior. Matrix Revolutions is every bit as kickass as the Real Star Wars Trilogy.

Story? Story’s awesome too. It’s nice and accessible if you’re a layman. If you’re a CS person who’s finished a course on Theory of Computation, than it’s even better. Determinism and nondeterminism, baby. That’s the key. If you’ve done NFAs and DFAs, then the story isn’t just nice, it’s wow. You’ll leave the theatre understanding why everything happened, but not exactly how it happened. It’ll take you a couple of days (and maybe a couple more viewings) to understand that. And if you’ve got a book on the general principles of chaos (I recommend Does God Play Dice, by Ian Stewart), you’ll be just fine. That’s what happened to me, anyway.

Next, I’m going to watch Kill Bill. Live action anime. Yeah!