11 February, 2010

Nomadic Existence - Part 4


“On 11th September HMC representatives will have a meeting with the first years of the hall with regard to relocation of first years to MMM Hall of Residence. All first years are to be present at 9 PM on that day in the common room without fail.”
This was one notice which shook every first year in my hall. Even my roomie was back into his body and was going to different rooms to talk to people. There were many questions floating in air.
“Will all first years be made to shift?”
“How many first years will remain here?”
“Is this a better hall or MMM?”
“Should we revolt? How?”
“Is there any female among the representatives of HMC???”
Numerous questions stayed afloat. The seniors called a meeting of all the first years of the hall and gave an undersized lecture. “In this hall, you’ll face many problems. Illu is coming. There all first and second years have to work till late at night and no one takes any action against it. All management bodies want that to happen. This can affect your grades. No such problem is there in MMM. MMM is a very lucrative offer to you. We were ourselves residing in MMM in our first year. Here you are bound by rules. There you have a free rule. You do whatever you want without any interference. But yes, if you have any talent you want to bring out, you can stay here. Also you must know MMM has rooms 2.5 times the rooms we have here. Here 50 of you share a 4 bathrooms at the end of a wing. There 2 rooms, meaning 4 people share one bathroom. It’s a bigger hall. You’ll find most first years there. If you don’t want to move tell us. We’ll ask the HMC for time to make you shift and stretch the time till next year by asking for more time and then your second year will come and no second year is kept in MMM. It’s a government job, we can ask for as much time as we want and ultimately the case will be forgotten. You are being asked to shift because here even the third years are living in single rooms on a sharing basis. So we need some empty rooms to adjust the third years. But they can live like this an year more (these are the fourth years speaking, who live in single rooms) as they’ve lived like this for over two years now. They are used to it Your shifting is totally optional and upto you. If you don’t want to go then no one can make you leave. Don’t get tempted by what others are doing. Think on your own. What you want to do. If your roomie is leaving and you don’t want to go; then let him leave and you stay. This hall will prove to be better in anything you want to participate in…”
He continued for 45 minutes. More than anything I was amazed at his ability to keep the topic on for so long. So I’d got all the points and had made my decision. I was not leaving my hall. For one thing, I wanted to participate in events, for another, I’d had enough of shifting for a lifetime. My roomie was going to MMM. No, he was staying. Nah, he was leaving. Well I don’t know. He changed his decision every two hours. Even if it meant waking up in the middle of the night and asking me, ‘Should I go?’ I’d made my decision. It was a binary question. Every time I said it’d be better not to go, he’d ridicule me by saying that seniors will make life hell here. If I want to take care of my grades then I should invariably shift. Plus we’d get a bigger room. Every time I said it’d be better TO go, he’d ridicule me by saying that we won’t get seniors there to give us “funda.” If I want to take care of my life at kgp then I should NOT shift. Plus we get better food here. I’d thought a lot. I had listed down the points.
Advantages of going to MMM:
  • Free rule. No irritating seniors
  • Bigger room
  • Better bathroom facilities
  • Better academic conditions to improve my grades
  • Two lan ports so no more haggling for internet (we both had bought laptops now and often fought for internet which we had only one connection of)
  • Almirah with doors
  • Balcony
Disadvantages:
  • No seniors to give fundas
  • No participation in extra curricular activities
  • Living with same roomie
  • Worst food in the campus
  • Less interaction with batch mates
  • I’d have to shift again
  • Lack of information about campus events
I’m a person who doesn’t think after he takes a decision. My roomie, he doesn’t take a decision after he thinks. So I’d decided. I was not going to shift. It was me who’d gotten this room in proper shape. Got it painted, got it cleaned, added racks to the cement, shifted the beds, called friends to help in shifting, got the windows made up, bought extension cables as we had only one plug point. One plug point for two laptops, two cell phones, one mosquito repellant, one detachable mouse, one detachable keyboard, one detachable webcam and mind you these detachable things were my roomie’s who still thought that these detachments made him very attached to his laptop. I often wondered what would have happened to him if laptops weren’t invented. There would be a very big void in his life since his laptop covered 26 hours of his average day. Yes, he managed to use the laptop 26 hours a day. So it was decided, I was staying and he was leaving. I still remember the date, 18th September 2009. He shifted and I celebrated. I was overjoyed until there was a knock on my door. A familiar voice said, ‘This wing is to be given to the third years. You’ve got one week. There are many people left alone in B wing. Shift.’

07 February, 2010

The Yellow Rose

Faced, by the anomalies of the world
I once looked towards the heavens for hope
Thus bestowed I was again
by His beautiful yellow rose.

In praise of His precious deed
this piece I try to compose
as this will always live in this world
and will immorta
lize my yellow rose.

It stays with me always
even when the whole world does oppose
it gives me strength to stand by my values
that, is my friend, my yellow rose.
Seldom in life you find someone such
someone who becomes so close
and once you find them that’s all you need
Ho! you’ve found your yellow rose.

we fight together for one another
‘cause together we cant be harmed by foes
and when times are low and loads are high
all we need is our yellow rose.

When life throws fireballs
and a hail of difficult time snows
you just need one thing to fight back
you guessed right. You need your yellow rose.

It once faced a choice to leave me
but to stay, I know not why it chose
I shudder to think what would have happened
had I missed my yellow rose.

Even today I’m faced by difficulties
but something through the dark clouds like the yellow sun glows
and I get back, on with my life
just knowing, that I have a yellow rose.

The days are slowly going by
like a river my time constantly flows
but I know wherever this boat may take me
I wont be very far, from my yellow rose.
When the crowd misjudges me
I’m healed by understanding that someone knows
and if the burdens around me froze
I know they’ll be broken apart, by my yellow rose.

I tell you something pleasing about my rose
I notice no thorn upon it grows
separated and carved by the hands of God
from the gardens of heavens, comes my yellow rose.

Its heart is deep that I can see
to me the all goodness in mankind it shows
its smell my words are unable to dignify
it just sits sweetly there on my palm, my innocent yellow rose.
It has lost a petal I see
lost it traveling the hard road
I promise not to let it loose another
nor will the yellow petal be away from the yellow rose.

On this note I end my ode
in His deed, my head still bows
He gave me something I love Him for
he gave me
my yellow rose.

01 February, 2010

DN8

Hey guys, a poem after a long time. Enjoy but just one thing, don't ask me to justify the title
:P

DN8

Walking once again, down the memory lane
I stumble on a page where I miss a dear friend
I found her by chance, I chose to stay
and now I miss her, when we are away.

There came a time when I had to choose
Between her and another friend, one I had to loose
she tried, in gain, to keep me near
which laid the foundations, of a friendship very dear.

Her constant chats would irritate me though
but even without them, time just wouldn’t flow
I never realized, when the talks became sweet memories
it was like a breeze, which would come and go.

My sweetest memoirs with her,
are nothing but simple walks to the bus stand together,
but even now when I go on lonely walks
my ears yearn to cherish her beautiful thoughts.

We teased each other, on small lil’ things
and derived the pleasure, such small talks bring
as if our talks had no end
And today, I miss those days, and I miss my friend.

When faced by problems, we used to share
one’s troubles, the other would bare
She showed me how much, just listening can mean
‘cause even when you cant help, you can still care.

Not that we did not make any mistake
but even with gold, some coal one does rake
but a friend is one, who can forgive easily
as bonds of trust, on frail accidents don’t break.

We had our problems, and faced them brave
and even if we fell, there was someone to save
We cheered the other up, when days seemed low
I never realized those moments, were the ones which made the bond grow.

She said I was helpful and honest
I believe her to be sweet and pure
She said one was lucky, to have me as a mate
But alas! it came to an end, my fate I regret.

Sometimes it happens, that good friends loose touch
are remembered seldom, and missed very much
sometimes you need to walk back, just to say a “hey!”
might not mean much to you, but can make someone’s day.

And so once again, I walk down memory lane
and stumble on a page, where I miss a dear friend
I found her by chance, I chose to stay
and now I miss her, when she is away.

- Vishal Gupta

Nomadic Existence - Part 3

It was another day of my life at IIT Kgp. I get up and see my curse the alarm clock waking me up. 7 AM! It stared back at me. I still have one hour and thirty minutes till classes start. I can get up at 7:15 and make it. I go back to sleep. At 7:15 the clock is again asked to wake me up at 7:30. I was living a basic IITian life. Finally at 8, I woke up, terrified. I’d wasted so much time here. I immediately sprang up from the 5’6’’ cot supporting my 5’10’’ frame. Rubbed off the dust from the clothes I was to wear. Changed. Picked up my toothbrush. Rushed to the bathroom 70 feet away from my room. When I came back I remembered. My roomie! He’d asked me to wake him up for the class today. Somehow the squeal of my alarm clock was incapable of waking him. I shook him. No effect. I kicked him, nothing. Kumbhkaran had finally taken over my roomie. I had to take the ultimate measure now. I emptied his bottle of water on him. He shook. Looked at me the same way the gatekeeper had once. Before he could say anything I gave him a Godzilla look and said, ‘attend a class at least once.’

‘You know my signature. Proxy,’ and with that Mr. Sleepyhead drifted back to neverland again. After the first week he’d announced, ‘these teachers don’t teach anything. They can’t match my speed. I can study without them.’ And he’d stopped going to classes. Now he attended labs. Only labs. Me? I accepted I’m no intelligent specie. Maybe the OMR I submitted in JEE goofed up the computer well enough to make an opposite decision for me and get me selected. I went to class. When I came back my roomie was happily playing counter strike on his laptop. The day his chachaji left, just before leaving he handed over a beautiful Del laptop for my roomie. When he left, my roomie had tears in his eyes staring at the laptop. When he turned that machine on, he magically went into a different world leaving his body behind. He never responded to me unless I’d add a few slangs to my words. I asked him if he’d go for lunch today. No reply. Another thing I found weird about my roomie. He never had lunch or dinner, never mind sleeping through the breakfast and was never hungry. But I never had the opportunity to question the body of my roomie. At 1:15 PM I left for the lab scheduled at 1:30 and I knew he’d reach at least by 1:40. He was never late by more than ten minutes. After the lab we came back and my roomie was again drifted to the world of no worries. I completed enough assignments to let the prof keep me in the class for the next day and then went off to the next room to bhaat. In case you don’t know, bhaating is THE activity of Kharagpur.Bhaating means a herd of IITians sitting down in a room and chat about everything which can matter to us. From the placements in final years to the length of the dresses of girls wear. We talked about it all. Somehow I found these bhaating sessions utterly ridiculous and couldn’t stand for more than 15 minutes but I couldn’t leave the group. But soon it all started to make sense and now, I also interacted. And I knew all there was to know, or at least as much as my wingies (neighbors) knew. When we grew tired of bhaating we turned on the ‘best’ Hollywood movie which was a must watch and which none of us had seen. By 1 AM that would end and I’d come back to my room. Say goodnight to the body of my roomie and would goto sleep.