museman

Whats in a name? Of all the

Stale News

Contrary to popular belief, and connotations, stale news always makes for an interesting read. Sometimes, far more interesting than current hot news.

In the past two weeks, Jinnah has hogged more limelight and print space than any other current politician. Another channel, History channel, is making a fortune out of selling the stalest news possible. Each newspaper has a column dedicated to the events of the day, 50 years ago.

Lifes biggest surprises await you, if only you could straighten up the paper in which u just ate ur bhelpuri and read its contents. Although, for reasons very dramatic,in movies, it would always contain a walk-in interview call, u will chance upon far more interesting write-ups.

If not for the very same reason, there won't be any archives anywhere in the world.

Having done the justification bit, i reproduce here, a post of mine which was written two months ago. Before u proceed, let me warn you, it's not that all stale news are interesting, some do justice to their notions!

modm

Perspective shift

I am waking up at 11am on a regular basis...god knws whts gonna happen to my life. And ended up watching news. The flash news was that Narendra Modi was denied a Visa to America. When i was a kid, it used to be Amrish puri, in teenage, it happened to be and happens to be Narendra Modi. So, it was a welcome news for me. And i hoped that the indians too would see the light of the day and exile him to some dark island. Sometimes i wonder and agape as to how the people of gujarat voted him back to power. I always used to wonder,is this the new face of jingoism? In the garb of religious patronism? America i felt, had slapped him on his right and left cheek.

And in the evening, i came home at 12:30 AM. Again, i wonder, god knows whts gonna happen to my life. By the time, the flash news had changed. Apart from sachin getting a raw deal, two things were of prominence. The indian government had taken strong objection to

America's denial of a visa to Narendra modi. And my immediate reaction was a WOW!

Atlast, the government had suppported BJP, although in some discrete fashion. The spirit of democracy had prevailed. the UPA said that Narendra modi was a democratically appointed representative of the people and that he must be treated with far more respect. I have always maintained that the ruling party and the opposition should compliment each other and should pat each others back when the other does good work and should cooperate with each other. In this one instance, they had acted properly. Although the BJP went a little futher,far to furthur actually, and decided to host a rally of Aatma samaan in gujarat. Cheap antiques again.

As an afternote, i reflected, have i had a perspective shift in about 12 hours? Let me clarify things.

My happy reflections in the evening were only because of the fact that the opposition and the ruling alliance had cooperated with each other. My disapproval of Narendra modi is still as much strong.

Another development was that of Sanjaydutt,salman khan,arbaaz khan holding a press conference to support the actors caught in the sting operation concerning the casting couch.

This was one instance where every stakeholder involved can be termed guilty.  Neither do i approve of the sting operation nor do i endorse the view of the cinema industry. The whole affair stinks. In times of crisis, all thieves come together to protect each other. Very Phunny,sarcastically though.

TailPiece: What is the best that could happen to India? The following four in the same order.

1)America fears a diplomatic backlash and issues visa.

2)Modi flies to america

3)India refuses to take him back.

4)Modi plays the role of "Tom Hanks" in some obscure american terminal,this time though, he is the villain of the piece.

18/04/05

Additionally yours.

Its been quite a long time since i have written exams at leisure. I love this format of writing exams and taking a break of a week or so before writing the next exam. Why didnt we have this time gap before? Anywayz, the fact still remains that i hate exams. And if it all i hve to give the most stringent punishments to the worst of my enemy, i will make him write exams day in and day out.

Why do i hate exams? I presume there is a two-fold reason for it.

1)The preparation part. The moment we prepare for an exam, the very objective of education,learning, is lost. We prepare to get marks in the exams. We don't learn. I mean, we prepare to get good marks/pass the exam(depending on who is reading this article,a nerd/someone-like-me). Even when we(the regular roomies)sit for a group discussion the day before the exam, and someone asks a why(it is usually M, he is very inquisitive)he gets a cold reply,"listen buddy, we are not here to understand the whys and hows of the subject,just remember it.We have an exam in 6 hours".And all of us have a hearty laugh.Or someone else would quip,the why's and how's are supposed to be asked in the very starting of the sem.Not now.

Also,sometimes, we get to read the most obnoxious of text-books. I mean, look at Embedded systems. Mr.Raj kamal jha is one big geek. I wish that we cud make him write an exam and give him no other material to learn from than the book written by him. I tell you, he will flunk the exam majorly.I wish i could quote some of the sentences from the textbook. They are far more cryptic than the clues given in "The Hindu"s daily crossword.I wish i hadn't bundled 'Embedded systems' to koti bookstalls. It would have served as an excellent relic.

2)The writing exams part. Somewhere around 4-1 i realised that i had completely forgotten the art of writing exams. Even if i wanted to get good marks, i was not able to get them after putting in all the efforts. Kya hua?untill around 2-2, the only thing that i used to carry to examinaiton theatre, was the hall-ticket.From 3-1,i also made it a point to take a pen along with me.Now, i take a pen(only reynolds racer,gel pen)a spare pen, a pencil, a spare pencil(In 4-1, i also used to take an eraser with me,but later realised that i was not finding any use for it. No diagrams to draw, nothing to erase). Things havent improved though.

I was discussing this issue of writing exams with a friend.And we were amazed at how we both have a very same pattern of writing exams. From 10:30(that is when we get in)till 1, we have five sessions of half-an hour each in which we write one long answer per session. The short answers are written when we are feeling very bored or frustrated to fill the pages for those long answers.

Most of the half an hour is spent in brooding over the paper or looking at each other or just peeping into the nearby classmates answer sheet.Its hell personified boss. May be the reason is we are left with no energy after a hard nights study. I mean, imagine this,studying frm 9 in the night to 9 in the morning and then taking an auto to panjagutta and get inside to write the exam! And the last food intake being at 4 in the morning at the friendly tiffin centre beside the local theatre(i tell u, he makes delicious vadas)

For 8 thru 9 is the most precious time of going thru what we have already gone thru, we cant afford to waste time eating something,anything at all.All the energy is sapped and we are no more energetic than a long distant runner after a 32km marathon.

For those of u who have been patient enough to have read untill this point, first of all, i thankyou and please do carry on because the most interesting segment of the modm starts now. Our room was changed for distributed systems.One positive and one negative. The negative first(iam an optimist u see, i save the best to the last).

My fool-proof plan of cheating which i had designed with a coupla classmates was shattered. I found myself sitting in the first bench and i told myself,there go ur extra five marks buddy.

The postive.

This class was far bigger and accomadated more ppl.A wider audience to amuse me while i tried to go thru the dull motions of writing the exam.The drawing chairs, are always convenient to write the exam. U dont have to lean forward. Instead u can drag those drawing boards backwards,making a hell lot of noice while doing so, and hence disturbing that studu fellow who has been writing like hell for the last half an hour as if his life depended on it. Even as i entered the room at around 10:30,one particular gentleman was running towards the invigilators chair and i was worried that something was seriously wrong. My worries aggaravated when i realised what was happening. This gentleman was running to get some additonals. He took four additionals and went(sorry,ran) back to his chair. And all this at 10:30.(i have to admit i was exagerrating a bit. All this happened around 10:45)

Another gentlemen from another branch ,took 8 additionals in all. Now what was the logic? More the additonals,more the marks?hey?

Sadly,thats the truth. More the additionals,more the marks. A majority of the students end up filling additionals because they know this sad truth. To beat the system, we have to do such nonsensical things. I too have my own way of filling in additonals. I sometimes leave white sheets in between and fill it with a straight diagonal line. You see, i apparantly skipped that page unintentionally. On the last sheet of the main booklet, i write with big font,ROUGH,although thats the only thing that is ever written on that page.Now when i reflect, i understand, its my own idiotic dumb way of beating the system. Idiotic it is,it never fetched me good marks. After the exam, i asked a chummy,the only question i ever ask,"how many additionals?"and he tells me,"none,

the main booklet was enuff". And i thought, here was a thorough gentleman. Some of the roomies took one additional. And i took two,thanks to those blank sheets in between.

Maybe ppl would retort back and say this, listen buddy,we took veryfew additionals and yet got good marks,if thats the case,please do get back to me, i wud love to learn the art of writing exams from you.Or it is that your paper went in to hands of a true examiner,(a rare commodity he is)

Untill the next modm,this is museman signing off.

Yours additionally,

Museman.

PS.Let me contradict myself. Its not that i hate exams. If not for these exams, i would never have written the longest modm till date. If not for the exams, i wud never have had backlogs,if not for the backlogs i wud never hve learnt the subject twice.hahahaha

Long live exams and let there be a short supply of additional sheets. I wud love that.

4/06/05

Hyderabad

The writing instrument

Untill around the 12th class...i always used to carry a pen with me. The only otherwise time was when i used to sleep.

But the engineering days were different. Pen was carried only on the day of the exam. And that too on and off. I mean..people were so very paronoid that they wud bring 3-4 pens. Its always easy to find someone with an extra pen on an exam day.

There was a time when i used to believe that the only reason they manage a 70+ % was because of those pens. Anywayz....lets carry on with our dissection of the writing instrument.

All of us would agree that the transition frm 4th to 5th class is a monumental event in most of our lives. Pencil gaya pen aaya.

And in those days there was no other pen than the Reynolds 045. And i remember we used to put in small rolled up papers inside the blue transparent part of the pen with our names on it as a distinguisher. And when quarells ensued on the ownership of the pen,the bully wud claim the pen with more refill.

Then,with the famous Rotomac-likhte likhte love ho jaaye ad of raveena..ppl changed their preference but yours truly struck to his older allegiance with 045. The only time that i changed my pen brand was when i used a Hero pen. With its made in korea tag,they had a charm of thier own. Although i used it only for a week. Three reasons...1)The Hero leaked. My shirts started to bleed with blue color. 2)Being a lefty...its always tuff to write with foutainpens. The nibs are designed for right handers. 3)As was the tradition, i lost the pen after the mandatory week.

And then came the oh-so-wonderful era of jetters and the gel pens. My allegiance changed to Reynolds jetter for abt 5 years and then it was time for Reynolds racer.

Pens also make a fashion statement. If u dont agree...plz see the parker ad of Amitabh Bachan. I always wonder why the Parkers cost so much. Although i wud hve to agree that the arrow symbol of the pen is very elegant. And most of these politicians use pens whose cost runs into 6 figures. I believe i wud never indulge in such things. My idols being the likes of George Fernandes and RamalingaRaju who flaunt their Reynolds 045 with great pride. My strong feeling tht George is innocent in the Coffins scam stems from the fact that he still uses a Reynolds!

Apart from my communist inclination there is another reason why i will never invest much in buying pens. My awesome talent to loose them in the first week of buying them. Better to loose a Rs6 Reynolds than a Rs225 Parker. And i hear there are brands whose starting price runs into lakhs. We should never buy such stuff unless they have all the features that BONDs pens have.

Pens, like newspapers, are public property. The most easy way to loose a pen is to stand idly in banks/post offices/std boothes. There is no dearth of people like me who shamelessly ask for a pen when they need it. Although i wud admit, one of the most embarassing moments of life come when u borrow someones pen in the bank to fill up a DD form and subconciously put the pen into the pocket and the owner tells u,"excuse me sir the pen is mine". The routine of mumbling a sorry and returning the pen with a sheepish smile is a very excruciating affair. A classmate of mine still pesters me abt a parker pen which she claims, i took from her. Although the only parker i have at home is of a friend from whom i took the pen an year ago..promising that i wud return it in a weeks time.

In any bachelors room,one of the biggest battles waged are the ones for the pens on the morning of the exam. And the guiding rule is that the ones who find it, keep it. Somewhere around 2-1 it became an obsession with the class boys to remove pens from others pockets thru deft legerdemain.

And sentiments too. I've got used to writing exams with a reynolds racer for about 18 months now. And for every exam..i either buy a new pen or a new refill from the same store. Has brought me lots of luck.But thats relative though. Others with my marks wud feel devasted.

This association with the writing instrument is for a lifes time. And my wish is that iam still around to gift my grandchild a Reynolds045 fine calibure, when he takes that step forward from 4th to 5th. Welcome to the world of the writing instrument!

My only wish is i get hold of that special fountain pen...which my left-handers-club newsletter states, is manufactured with a nib specially designed for lefty's like me.