Flashback!! (5 things - Week 52)

Sorry, but there will be no "special" post that was promised to you last week. Having been left terribly busy by circumstances, I've barely been able to make time to type this out. After all, you wouldn't want me to be late to publish the 52nd part of this series. Okay, in case you didn't get the significance of that, it means that this conversation between us has been going on for nearly a year now. (1 non-leap year of 2014 = 52 weeks and 1 day)

Even though this conversation has been severely limited to an one sided communication in the online world, your feedbacks and inputs in the real world have kept this counter ticking on. Thank you for that. And over the past year, I realized something. If you talk out loud in the real world, you'll called mad. If you do the same in the virtual world, you are called a blogger.

The first words between us were on the 5th of April, 2013. My life was in a rut, and I had this unbearable itch to change it. And that's how, on the advice of my friend Mahavir, I started writing these posts. Summing up whatever has happened in that week in my life, all the things that I learnt, things about something special day that falls in that week; all things under the sun and beyond this universe has been discussed here in these pages.

A fellow blogger recently wrote something about why we bloggers find it hard to push that publish button. Extrapolating her thoughts, I reached at the conclusion that we are actually scared of you, the readers. We subject our creations to unnecessary scrutiny so that they won't be a waste of your valuable time.

But like Rinz pointed out in her blog, we have reached the stage where we understand that the blog is for us to write. Whether it is being read or not doesn't matter. All that matters is that we satisfy our urge to express ourselves through words.

And I believe this holds true for all creative personnel. So, if you have the drive to do something, but are afraid to act on it because of the social reaction, please stop thinking so much. As long as your interest  is not illegal, I would recommend you to go through with it, with no forethought on the response.

That's all for now. The lecture will be continued at a later post. We'll go on to the 5 things for this week.

***

1. Same wine, different bottles.

I had met a genius recently. For a project that we worked on recently, we needed to make a bike engine switch gears automatically as the speed increases. To make the gear shifting more visible, Midhunchettan sliced the engine; to make what you would call a sectional view of the engine, if it were to be on paper. And all this with the engine losing neither its working nor its stability.

And he gave us some gyan yesterday. He has performed similar operations on various bikes from Hero Honda and has found that most of the non-posh bikes use almost the same engine. Same engine, different exteriors.

2. Start from the beginning.

Consider you are working on a project. Consider that the day before its due it starts functioning weird. Consider that you are pulling off an all nighter to get it to work. Consider that even at 5am on the day of submission, it still doesn't work. In such a case, you should consider doing it from scratch. You have been looking at the same thing for hours that you are bound to skip noticing the error that's driving you crazy. This is NOT based on a real life incident that happened this week, especially within the past 24 hours. :D


3. "Man, I'm pretty."

"If you are kid from the 90s", you'll remember all these awesome cartoons. Even after all these years, they bring a smile to your face when you watch 'em. And you guessed it right. There will be a post exclusively for those cartoons - Dexter, Dee Dee, Centurions, Swat Kats, Powerpuff girls, et al will make an appearence soon.

4. Just $5995

I read somewhere that they sent men to the moon using a processor that was far more slow that those that we have on our phones these days. (It would be very helpful, if someone can send me a link to that) Anyways, the processing power at our fingertips is beyond most of our abilities. After all we use them to Whatsapp and play addictive games, instead of sending men to Mars. :P

5. google and the dot

This week, I met a friend of Midhunchettan too - Renju. And this information comes from him. There is a bug in Gmail. Try logging in with your username and password, but with any number of dots in the username. It'll still login. This is an issue, as if in an unfortunate twist of coincidence, if two people with the same username, bar a dot here or there, set the same password for their account, they could access each other's mails. Not so secure a connection after all, huh.

***

That's it for this week.

You all have a great weekend.

'til next week.

En iniye pon nilave (5 things - Week 51)

To say that it came as a breath of fresh air in our college lives would be a lie to say the least. The freshest of airs were provided much earlier by the on screen campus lives of a group of friends in 'Happy Days'. What 'Vaaranam Aayiram' brought to us non-level headed souls was the dream.

Watching the actor Surya live out three awesome, completely different love stories in a span of under three hours was the most enthralling experience of our lifetime. It still is for me. The way the whole movie was crafted by GVM, the controlled acting by Surya, the music by Harris, each and every frame and note in that movie inspires a feeling in your heart.

And it is those high points in this movie that we are going to look at, for this week's post. It might be the effect of having just finished watching the movie, but this post on THAT movie was long overdue. Let's not make it wait any longer.

***

1. At first sight

Whenever a guy hears this movie being mentioned, he'll first remember this scene.

As Surya takes his seat on the train, he takes a casual glance across and sees Meghna for the first time. What follows is a frame by frame representation of what goes on in most guy's heads. Instead of reading me describing that scene to you, you should be spending your hoarded MBs of internet data on that 11 minute video. It's that good.

P.S. One of the best bits in that scene is when the Ticket Inspector asks from Surya, his ticket and the ensuing 10 seconds of expressions. We've all been there.

P.P.S. In case you think that the behaviour of the character is stretched for effect, I would like to tell you that I know someone who would behave in the exact same way (including the air guitar part). I'm looking at Mr.ShivJ. :P

2. The songs

Talking of Mr.ShivJ, I think he was the one who started the trend of having the songs from the movie as the hellotune. There are eight songs in this movie, each brilliant in its own sense. But three songs caught the imagination of the youth - Nenjukkul Peidhidum, Mundhinam and Ava Enna. Of the three, I have lost count of the number of phones I've heard ringing to the tune of Nenjukkul Peidhidum. In case you were wondering, yours truly had Mundhinam as his ringtone for a long time.

3. Three types of love

In the movie, GVM depicts three different types of love.

The Krishna-Malini love is the purest form there is. Falling in love at first sight, and then living together happily for many years.

The Surya-Meghan love is the perfect love, expect that it doesn't have a happy ending. No matter how hard the two souls try to make it work, something or the other crops up to quash it out. If it was a terrorist attack in the movie, it's arranged marriages in real life. ;) :D

The love between Surya and Priya is what you can call real love. One friend of mine put it elegantly as, "Even if you don't get to live with the person you loved, live with the person who loves you."

4. Six pack

I guess this was the movie which brought the six pack phenomenon. Surya worked hard and showed off his six pack in the movie. And it became a trend through out the nation, with other leading stars putting in the effort for the same.

5. This song

Did you really think that I would do a post on this movie without giving due space for this song?? It will always be one of the most romantic songs.

***

This must have been the fifth time that I watched this movie, but it still sets bells ringing. I don't have words to describe this feeling. You need to watch this movie to get that. So I suggest you get yourself an original DVD of the movie (with english sub titles, if required) and watch it.

***

That's it for this week. Next week marks the 52nd part in this weekly series. That's one whole year that we've dragged this through. I hope that I get enought time to do the special thing that I've planned on doing. And I hope I haven't jinxed it by saying that.

You all have a great weekend.

'til next week.

To teach is divine (5 things - Week 50)

Among the numerous conversations that I've had this week, the subject of my love for teaching cropped up. I've always had a peculiar urge to teach things. Since I have always been a blabbermouth, I never feel any pang in sharing any/all of my knowledge with anyone who has asked me for help.

I always feel happy when that person comes and asks me to explain something else. That means that I was able to help him/her the last time out, and they are hopeful of me being able to do the same once again.

And that brings us to today's post. We'll go through the basic qualities that we all look forward to from teachers.

***

1. A Teacher should have intelligence

We're not talking about knowledge here, but INTELLIGENCE. What's the difference?? Knowledge is just the know-how about the stuff. Intelligence is how to apply that in real life. Let's be honest. We all "loved" to find quotients and remainders in our primary classes. But when you use that to get the mileage of your bike, that's when you are happy that you know it.

2. A Teacher should be inspiring.

A subject's level of tediousness and boredom can be reduced by the level of enthusiasm that the Teacher shows to it. If the first thing you heard in your first algebra/calculus class is that it's tough, then you would still be cursing your fate that you had to learn them.

3. A Teacher should be patient.

Not all of us are bright to the same level. Not all of us can grasp the concepts at the same rate. A Teacher should be patient enough to guide and encourage all students.

4. A Teacher should be humble.

In most cases, a Teacher will have a better grasp of the subject, but it is still possible that the student will have something new to add to it, or have a new way to look at the problem. For the better development of the student, a teacher should be humble enough to encourage him/her.

5. A Teacher should be rewarding.

NO!! I'm not talking about physically rewarding us with candies and toffees (although I won't say no to that). What a teacher should reward is the effort a student puts in, and that is most effective with encouraging words.

***

And then, I was introduced to this 10th standard student, who was, to put it lightly, not so humble. He demanded  me to tell him about how to reduce the turning radius of a vehicle. Even though I knew the answer, I withheld it from him. It's not any rocket science that he can't find it from somewhere else, but I felt uneasy for the first time in my life about teaching.

That's when one remembered something that my grandfather had told me,

"What you teach is Vidhya, the purest form of Goddess Saraswati. Share it with only those, who'll value it."

All the qualities that I had talked about earlier has to be there, but it should be there only in a measured quantity. It has to be balanced. If not, you'll either be a bad teacher, or you'll be an ineffective one.

Not this balance!!!

This BALANCE!!!

***

Well, that's it for this week.

You all have a great weekend.

'til next week.

***

EPILOGUE

This is the prologue. I'm too lazy to move it to the top. So, the post which should have been posted on this week's Friday, comes out 14 hours late. I hope you are wondering why. I'm involved in a few projects right now, and one which was supposed to be completed by 8am today morning decided to take us all on a ride yesterday. If I hadn't heard of the saying, "Whatever will CAN wrong, WILL go wrong", I would have made it up by myself after the experience, which left me awake for nearly 24 hours.

Anyways, sorry for the delay. Hope you have a great weekend. Well, of what's left of it at least.

All because of a red light...

Yellow has been found to be the most visible of colors. That is why people use it for headlights when there is fog. That is why marketeers use it for getting people attracted to their ads. That is why yellow is used to indicate the CAUTION state in traffic lights.

Yellow comes just before it turns red to indicate that the flow is going to stop. And that is what I precisely understood as I saw the yellow on the traffic junction. And like every "busy" modern man, I tried to squeeze through, so that I won't have to wait at the junction for the light to turn green again.

But sadly, I was a little too late to start my acceleration and ended up just not bumping into a car. And so I was stuck at the junction for 120 seconds, as this is arguably the most crowded traffic point in the city. And the story is about how those two minutes I spent at that traffic point killed another being.

You see, I was in a hurry because it was 7.40pm already and I was supposed to visit the temple before it closed at 8pm. And that was because I was mad enough to challenge myself to visit the temple every day for a month. It felt really simple at first, cos this temple was right in front of my house.

And today was the 14th day. I couldn't lose now. Well, you might think why I didn't go in the morning. Well, that was cos I was trying to practice the SUNDAY - Sleep Until Noon DAY. I failed in that too. I woke up by 10am, by which time the temple had closed. And so, the visit was to be, as planned, in the evening. But like all things planned, it had to go wrong.

A friend called up for something important and I had to go out without a fixed time to get back. But when I was able to leave his place by 7.30pm, I saw a chance to keep my challenge alive, at least for another day. And that was the reason for the rush.

Now, about the killing part. I got to the temple in time, prayed before the temple closed, felt proud to have been fortunate enough to keep my challenge alive, when I unfortunately did something to kill something else. As I was stepping out of the temple, I didn't pay attention to where I was stepping and I stepped on a leech, squishing the life out of it in the process.

This got me thinking. All other things remaining constant, what would have been the case if I had got through that junction without having to wait two minutes. Would I have been the one who takes the life?? Would it still have been taken by someone else, or would it have been left for me to finish off??

FATE. It's something we all are too afraid to believe in, but still we can't ignore the fact, that the concept of it not being alterable is far too unnerving. And if you are asking me if I have an answer, then I'll have to say no. All I have, are more questions.

Recap (5 things - Week 49)

*** When a TV series's scriptwriters have a shortage of ideas for the next episode, they improvise on a simple, short script by adding a lot of flashbacks They, thus make an entire episode, which is basically a look back at the best moments in that series. This is my own humble attempt at the same. ***

One of the worst kept secret in this world is that everyone is unique. I won't digress by trying to explain the difference we all have in our personalities, our behaviours and our intelligence. You don't need to have a keen sense of observation to realize that.

Even in this blog, in this series, I've seen that uniqueness - on what different people want from the posts. The humour I often try to employ, the way I describe my experiences, my style of writing and the selection of topics - everything has been influenced to cater to those varying needs. And the response to a post has always varied due to the variety of people who read these random mumblings of mine.

But still, among the 75+ posts in this blog, there is one post which has been read the most. 

"Ormayundo?"

Why is it so, you may ask. Well, let me tell you that it's cos it has got everything. A climax, a funny twist, a real life incident and maybe, most importantly a bit of self mockery.

In the past, you had to submit your creation, whether prose or poem, to an editor and then be dependent upon his taste and his whims to get your article published somewhere; anywhere. But all I got to do now is to click the orange "Publish" button at the top. It's that simple, it's that tough. You get judged by a far bigger crowd with widely varying tastes and preferences.

But thanks to constant feedbacks (both positive and negative), we have been able to keep this blog alive. So, for this week's "5 things", we'll have a look at the favorite posts, which were not a part of this series.

***

1. "Ormayundo?"

This was always going to be the first. Click that link and read on to find out how interesting/embrassing meeting an old friend can be.

2. Seven stages of Love

One punch line gave life to a whole post. Go on and read about the seven stages of love, and how, in the right relationship, you'll fall in love over and over again.

3. On his last game

A personal favorite, because it was the first poem I had written in a decade. What got me so swelled up with emotions?? Well, I had to play my last game of football. And in that one game, I felt, for one last time, all the things which made me fall in love with this beautiful game.

4. Right next to her

Three hints.

Hint 1 : A flight journey from Delhi to Trivandrum.

Hint 2 : "God!! Please let her sit right next to me."

Hint 3 : God wishes you had be more specific about your wishes.

5. Aise na mujhe tum dekho

My tribute to one of the best voices I've had the luck to listen to. Read that post and find out how Kishore Kumar will have you laughing through one song, and crying as you listen to the next one.

***

I know I'm not allowed to give excuses, but still I've been swamped with work. It's ironic that this has happened only after I quit my job. If it weren't for the "Leap of Faith", I would have been writing this post out in my room at Gurgaon, after another week at office, getting ready to enjoy the weekend. It would have been easy, but it wouldn't have been the same. Take your own leap of faith to know what that means.

***

Well, that's it for this week.

You all have a great weekend.

'til next week.