caterpillar.. munch munch!

Well what is a caterpillar? Behaves like a snake, crawl crawl crawl it goes. but then it can’t bite. What would it be then? Some kind of reptile? Don’t know. If u kill a caterpillar by splatting it with your shoes… some oozy green stuff flow out, Yuck! Caterpillar has thorny things all over it’s body just like in a porcupine. Yeah right…  does it mean it’s some kind of evolutionary brother to porcupine? What’s procupine? A mammal as far as I know… anyway it looks like a rabbit with thorns. It it possible that caterpillar is a mammal? let me guess… well escapes me.

You know evolutionary biology is a tough thing, and the way I am progressing either I am the next Charles Darwin or I’ll ultimately deduce Humans are descendent from caterpillars. Spare yourself the torture.

P.S: My exams are over, get ready for a daily dose of Torture!

If we can leave aside the being poetic thing, there was also a entirely different experience I went through, rather as yet going through. It is Love. I am not going to spill all the beans about who what how why when where. But just know this, she is there… and we are together for more than six months. I never thought I would say to somebody that I love her, but thing was I did. We took our time to come to that point. And I still do remember the morning when I was on a bus to the institute feeling dazed having slept late (talking with her ) and woken up early, like the joy of the first raindrop she dropped in a sweet little message in my in-box that signalled a sunrise. From that day onward I rarely have a dream in my sleep, because the dream part is my waking reality (this is quite true, I did not make it up… infact on most days I don’t even realise when I have dozed off at night, I just wake up in the morning to realise uh oh… a new day has begun!). The emotional aspects of being in love + staying away from home initially had a de-stabilising effect on me. I had really become a scared cornered mouse for some two months… lost my older self.

However a complete break from everything … a 10 day visit to Kashmir restored everything. Getting detached from everything allowed me to widen my gaze and get the big picture (getting 10 out of 70 in an algebra paper yet the prof. just sending an encouraging message to try harder next time and forget about the past… just boosts ones confidence like anything, and you really get the feeling– Nothing could possibly go wrong). Also not to forget her caring and reassuring presence.

Initially I was quite sceptical about being able to fit in to the ISI groove, having never imagined that I could possibly ever get into a institute of that stature. Also the fearsome rules of “Chucking out” under performers brought chills down the spine! But a groovy bunch of total fun friends and you get the feel. With all due respect and no premature boasting… assuming that I will safely pass this semester, I will study harder the next semester… my excuse of fear has ended. And I also have to meet her … for the first time… I am looking forward to that!

What’s your opinion? If you want to convince others about something with all your heart and at every step you have to reiterate the same facts and prove your stand from the ground up… do you think the one at the receiving end is worth it? If you want to be damn honest… to the damned possible core of your existence to someone, and the honesty is intentionally thrown away. Do you think the one apparently receiving it is worthy of it?What if someone continually makes fun of your sincerity? Should they keep receiving the sincerity?

I am not making a damn scene! I’d rather fall silent than scream in a public square slinging mud! But I am really troubled to organise my thoughts. Some thing is happening to me which I can’t tell to my friends, and I am taking a heavy beating! So I chose to write to my silent friend who listens as always but says nothing.

That silence and lull you sink into when you see the rejoicing around you and you sit there knowing you are the only one who did not even make the most meager mark, you really sink… and finally you realize you are on your own. You can hear the sound of crushing dreams, sounds somewhat like breaking glass. Never been so vulnerable in life as I was on a day in March 2011. When I am looking back now, from comfort afar, the intensity is missing, but the imprint is not gone. What was however a horror back then, turns into a journal account on a blog written from a hostel in Indian Statistical Institute.

Life comes with a lot of levels, and they commence at any point, non-linearly and then also there are no save-rewind options. Lately we have been dividing hyperspaces with hyper planes, so if you consider your life in multiple dimensions i have hyperplanes orthogonal to the time axis, one at March 2011, one at June 2011 and another at July 8, 2011. The March to June subspace has been darkest hour of my life in my knowing (other than one in 3rd standard when i had not taken class notes of almost 3-4 chapters in English and did not know they were in the final exams, that’s another story, another day ). June to July was strange with one of the happiest incidents in my life, but July and ahead is unbounded with multitude of experiences. It takes one some time to re-acquire the hang of commanding the situation once he has fallen from there, but it comes back rather not to worry!

Facebook friendships don’t change your life, that’s what I believed. And it just got back at me. It not only changed but rather went into a tailspin. Some long time friends hanged me over a non-issue, so I stopped playing Counterstrike online with them, and I started talking with one very unknown and mysterious stranger and seconds have passed into minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days and days to months! A lot had been written on my life’s scratch book in these several months and I am happy they have been written.

Anyway it feels good to be back, writing is quite an exercise. Life at Indian statistical Institute as an M.Tech (CS) student is quite stressful. After behaving like a scaredly mouse for over 4 months finally have got a little hold over myself. And I’ll hold through. One word, “You can do anything and everything… just believe you are going to do it no matter what, the journey would be rewarding!”. Adios.

Boarded up in a room alone,
with mosquitoes the only companions,
I sit silently listening to the world–
breathing happily outside.

your one careless comment…
get’s me out of breathe, suffocated–
your one trivial praise,
brightens up the daylight.

It happens so, when a coward dreams big,
when an introvert decides to open up his heart,
to throw inhibitions to air,
to take the leap of faith, for once.

I can’t dream about you…
haven’t had a dream over the last 2 months,
the dream that I dreamt
is an waking reality now.
Although you are so far away…

I’d hold your hand,
and we would walk…
speaking not a word,
we would walk long indeed, timelessly,
but will you not make your cute demands?

Yet you may choose to be silent,
often silence is more articulate,
but i’d stare into your eyes,
but i’ll not brush away the stray locks,
that are waved into your face by the careless breeze.
But we’ll walk long indeed until
everything we have known to exist will
vanish into distant haze…. we’d walk forever.

I wait for you,
and I wait for you to hear my thoughts.

ps: The discrete mathematics, algebra and optimization technique books are lying strewn around,
but my mind is only searching for you, is the problem NP hard?

Even now the feeling of being ‘A Graduate’ (minus the caper that made the Dustin Hoffman classic by a similar name — famous) is not quite sinking in… the feel is as if I joined the college just the previous day and I haven’t seen enough and I haven’t enjoyed enough! It’s quite hard to let go… sometimes!

Out of school, 4 years back, did not have many friends to share my thoughts with, only friend of day to day was Subha Guhathakurata –an equally hapless geek! I never mention to my best friends, or, to the people I love that they are beloved, as there’s a pet superstition that I’ll loose them if I do so –ridiculous but that’s me. But we share a long history– classmates from seventh grade till the end of graduation, I rechristened him to 6kka in a casual reference to his roll number and that caught on very fast and now he is every body’s beloved 6kka! 6kka has transformed phenomenally through the last 4 years into an exceptionally smart and distinguished individual but somehow he hasn’t gotten over the fact that he is not the poor-old-geeky-subha anymore! Over all this years I have argued with him many times but fought with him once, actually I landed a tight slap on him. He did forgive me & I did apologize but I never forgave my self or did I? Certainly I am not proud that I did that but it was sporadic and more on the accidental side and not an intentional incident. Taking anything to head is a bad trait. That’s old history now but a landmark in our friendship anyway, we will go a long way no doubt– we live just 10 minutes of cycling distance apart! (and a girl after whom I was capering about in my 2nd year of college presumably lives somewhere on the way!).

First day of visiting the college to complete official formalities, I met a man that was going to be a very good friend in future. Bodhiswatta ‘bodhi’ was sweating it out at the PNB outlet to submit the money of admissions and so was I, simple officious interaction gifted me with a very considerate and close friend. Chiradeep and Abhishek ‘Dari’ soon joined my list of trusted and Sudip and Basu ‘Mota’ followed there after. Chiradeep was the bratty kid a la Shinchan who called me to exhibit his imitation of a thinly voiced ‘Physics lab assistant’ right in the first week of our college! As you know birds of feather flock together so Chiradeep was very fast to catch bodhi as a friend! So never dwell in your dreams that bodhi is some very polite ‘vije beral’, he is an equal brat and can give Chiradeep a hard time anyday! Infact they were testing an Wifi chat application over our laptops in first year. And if that chat would be saved somewhere, 100 years on that could be considered the manual of creative trash talk! And it has been always a risky business walking down the road with these guys mainly because nothing binds there mouth and way they comment randomly at people on the road — that too so loudly, I am fortunate I wasn’t ever beaten up in these 4 years. Walking back home from college was ever fun… all kinds of jokes would be cracked. There was our Chingri who had a severe crush on a girl in the class, and incidentally there were several Laundry’s and saloon’s named after her in the area– this was a butt of some severe ridicule! Then again our very own Prasun was slapped twice by a Cow Tail (that was en effing rare achievement I’d say!). Basu mota’s eternal habit of wedging in between walking people while there was ample space on the road did it’s job of tripping people full time. And we’d always eat the local made Rs. 2 ice creams, we would not have the pocket money to go to some posh destinations but we liked it this way… Saving & optimizing the resources, escape every situation with the greatest possible amount of cash and cut all the useless trills and frills.

Souvik, Debopom, Udayan, Satya, Abhishek Bose were some weirdly funny characters whom I knew from first year. Souvik later became a close friend when he led our Counter-Strike team Tac.T, and then very good-close friends when we organized the first two Counter strike tournaments of Netaji Subhash Engineering College! Debopom is a very good singer and a gentlemanly person as compared to my rough edge-hot head-shooting mouth persona and it’s my good fortune I could become his good friend and quite close at that! However I will always be sorry for one incident when we had applied for a 4th year elective subject without telling him for he was trying for another elective. However to some extent it was intentional as we there was a word out, that only one extra subject might be allowed for an elective, but given the number of students also preferring the other subject we were like “that would be given any way, let’s secure this first!”… ultimately the college did not allow them the subject, and in a way I was directly responsible. At that time when quite hot emotions were flowing I even wrote a blog to bash them up, for blaming us… I was in-considerate and was not thinking of the sadness they have felt when they were denied, what we did was more of a back-stab so to say. I don’t want to name other people who took the decision with me but I just say– “I too was responsible!” But Pom should take my word, not to be so trusting with others, everyone is not as considerate as your elder brother is! With Udayan, I have a constant hot and sweet exchange, I don’t really understand when matters will end with daggers drawn. Got to know him well in my 3rd and 4th years– though the guy has some ego issues, but he is  as good guy over-all. Tends to be hot headed and as you know egoist people will clash, so my getting in tussle with him is quite destined to happen! Lot can be said about satya, a very talented writer but with a big luck of being mis-understood. The amount of chat messages that has been exchanged between me, Satya, Udayan and Debopom can fill volumes. But I do take pride in resolving a long standing dispute of misunderstandings amongst these three over some utterly simple incident blown out of proportion that came to my knowledge during what I referred to as the back-stab affairs. Now these 3 are hearty pals… I am missing like a host of some 100 guys in this list each one of you is a gem in my memory.

Now my Girls-pals will grill me if they aren’t mentioned… clearly you should commend my choice of words. I have had cordial relations with most of those with whom I was in talking terms. Few if I mention would be Payel, Sanghamitra, Basundhara, Anindita, Piu, Pallami etc. All comments, quarrels, exchanges that has taken place will be cherished, not that I was some exceptionally welknown and good friends with you all (people like me tend not to ) but I did enjoy whatever interaction I had. Special mention should be of Payel and Sanghamitra as they also play Counterstrike with us regularly into the late night… and they play quite well to warn you all cs players out there– these ladies can give you tough time any day!

It was some 4 years… and you think I’ll every forget you, all of you? You have some special place in my heart. With most of you 26th May 2011 might have been my last meeting, may not see you again in my life (especially my friends from out of state). I’ll pray to my god, that you will always be the way you are… no sorrow should touch you because if you cry my heart will bleed whether we are in touch or not. Each of you are the best that you ever could be! Please nobody be angry that I left you out!

What I summarized above that’s quite the imperfect me, those of you who joked that I’d rather marry a computer as I spent so much time  with it… well that was me below four years  of dust, and as of now I’d rather keep my computer (as it’s the most faithful friend you would ever find) also marry some human being . But if you do remember any of these me’s — I’d be glad if you keep in touch!

Lazaruszaman (Cousin fool-wise)

All hail, Masud Zaman, author name: lazaruszaman , our cousin beloved who seems to have some (?) talent that’s fitting to be referred to as foolishly wise. He has been scattering his talents all over the facebook, tagging everyone the umpteenth time, but then loosing stack of what has been the moonshine in the crowdy closet of  guerrilla talent mongering spree!

So he’s ‘cleaning out his closet’– he likes the song, and he is starting on a new page as a co-author on the blog! The present authors ibipul & meetool just welcomes him aboard and wishes him a new writing spree!

Sugar and spice and all things nice!

Mind is a indeed maze. But jokes that go like ‘the maze in a woman’s mind is a straight line on a spherical plane (a curved line, that is) are not in a sense apt. Mind of a woman and that of a man are actually sets that intersect over large regions. But the problematic part is that the portion that controls emotions are complements of each other. And that’s where the fun starts.

If you are curious enough, just look at the mental age of a man and a woman. Oh sorry, I forgot to inform you guys that the inception of this article is from a Facebook app that apparently measures the user’s ‘mental age’. If its logic is to be believed, a human’s mind never acts according to his biological age – either its far advanced, or, far too backward.And according to this data analysis, women can be placed in two well-defined groups(mind you, am talking only about pre,current and late teenage girls, as older women of india seldom use fb), the groups being ‘born kids’ and ‘born mothers’.The names are self explanatory.Obviously there are exceptions and they form a very interesting set for analysis.But that can come only after one has analysed the two major groups.

mon Dieu, that's Cindrella

‘Born kids’ – one of my friends tell me that boys call them ‘dumbos’ live in the fantasy land for most of the time, with squirrel’s dreams, tree-houses, funny-walking-talking animals. Feminism for them is the Barbie. Even today they dream of being Cinderella, spend sleepless nights for the ‘Prince Charming’ destined to come in horseback from the world of clouds. Obviously there are mutant variants in this group — some modern creatures who rather remain awake at night for Robert Pattison,oops, I meant Edward Cullen. And the ‘sensitive’ ones among them pine for Taylor Lautner, sorry again– I meant a werewolf. Their worlds are far  from the teenage boys’ who seldom dream of riding in horseback and slaying dragons.Well there are some perverts among them that do dream of actresses but they are just not men-we call the ‘lesser mortals’. So we are throwing them out of discussions. As one of my friends(‘lesser mortals’ aren’t my friends) observed, the ‘born kids’ girls’ group is funniest to make friends with as they are kiddish playful, childish and all that guardianship that you have to show over them flatters your ‘male ego’. So you are just not slaying the dragons but you are enjoying the same position of pride-so who would love to lose that. Thus my friend associates with this group and his expert comment regarding them was,”They are perfect till they ‘taste’(mind you, ‘taste’) reality–then nag so much and play a victim so skillfully that you can’t help but get tired of them.”

Fairy Godmothers Don't Exist!

‘Born mothers’, ah the Divine Spark, are generally the monitors in school, Club Presidents in college and MA-MATI-MANUSH(MA=mother, MATI=raises a child very well, MANUSH=create perfect citizens out of their babies; but taken together the MA-MATI-MANUSH stands for a successful professional) when out of college.They are always hovering over you with an overpowering shadow of power and guardianship.They just diminish the male ego and seem to be totally indifferent about it. Ideally they should have been arch-enemies of males.But strangely men seem to be fed up with taking care of ‘born kid’ girls and wish for some ‘mother/father figure’.Thus they rally around the ‘born mother’s’. These girls have a perfectly clear vision of the world-so clear that at times it borders on seeing the whole world painted white). They can detect all ‘grey levels’ in the world and know almost everything.So given sufficient inspiration they turn into feminists.The ones with lesser motivation turn social workers and some of them go to work in jails and marry off prisoners.Same story here–the ‘born mothers’ feel that the prisoner committed wrong due to the absence of a mother figure.Others follow their passion and succeed in life. These are actually the girls that keep the world habitable for both girls and boys.

A Declaration?

The two groups are emotionally diverse but their sum total keeps the male emotion and female emotions balanced.But the exceptions form a beautiful group whom boys generally refer to as ‘bitches’. They generally consist of pretty and intelligent girls who can stump any guy(don’t worry, I have not yet been stumped by any.:P). But don’t mistake them for ‘dumb blondes they are well versed in  techniques of manipulation, are graceful, elegant and extremely courteous, with reasonable knowledge of psychology and literature. The irony is they can camouflage as ‘born kids’ and ‘born mothers’ at ease-just like a chameleon. And the queer fact is this disguise can exclusively be detected by other girls but never by guys. The ‘bitches’ are nature addicts if you happen to the guy who mistook her for a ‘kid’ or a mother’, then she will walk up the cliff with you hand-in-hand to watch the sunset, share the pop-corn with you, and finally push you past the cliff’s edge when the sunsets.  Why? Silly, her radar has picked up a better idiot than you! They are great friends-they never tell you do anything for them but such is their style that you end  up doing everything for them without having them to ask. So they are never indebted to you while you are submerged in ‘generous loans’– apparently angels descended on to earth, they are the most gentle creatures who cannot even hurt you in their dreams — so what? they generally throw you into the muck when they are fully awake and not dreaming.

Bubble bubble toil and Trouble!

Ideally such a cunning race must have taken over the world quite easily from males. BUt like the TRAGIC HERO of Shakespeare, Pride is their greatest enemy. So efficient and pretty they are, they cannot help but boast of their unmatched qualities and their numerous prized kills(guys they have bowled over and fooled at ease). This is the ‘tell-tale’ signature, always watch out for this before you ‘dissolve’ yourself in any group.

Who said fb apps are just for kids?See, they just exposed the whole world of female psychology in front of you.Wait, who ‘loose mouthed’ fb apps in front of you?Was it some girl? Did she boast of things?What sort of… was she a….

Just see, I had already told you that human mind is a maze. And I have already planted some funny ideas in it…now it will only keep growing.(just like the film INCEPTION).

I am the CEO, bitch -- Mark Zuckerberg said that, I am re-emphasizing

Once over! we are elated! (sharing a pranky mood!)

Finally the great fiasco of Counterstrike 1.6 clanwars @Avenir 2011 came to an end in a hard hitting finish, when surprise underdogs ‘Inception (ubs)’ beat the defending champions and this year’s finalists– the ‘LOD’.

Me, and Souvik breathed a sigh of relief once the final shots were fired… and entire packed room burst in a spell of clapping! 4 days had been endlessly hectic! On the final hour the Cs Theatre was jam packed with interested viewers from all across streams, even the AC’s were having a hard time. Even the president of Phoenix Priyanka Samanta chose to stay and see the Grand finale!

Me and Souvik during the final Showdown!

It was a fair and equally balanced finale. LOD looked all set win with their concrete performance blowing off the opponents off every map right from the prelims. Comparatively Inception looked quite an underdog, but yet giving a solid performance! The match generated considerable interest since the final match was to be played in de_Train, a convoluted and perilous map for any team! Veton, Shade and Skull of LOD’s gave an expected start with 2-0 lead in train but then the hell broke loose, as the Inception unleased their lethal strategy on the complacent and off guard LOD. The initial shock bought Inception a quick mental as well as score lead which held off till the end!

Grand finale in progress!

Cornered LOD even started holding back to almost camping positions… with a breath taking point when the ‘lethal ear’ LOD cap’n Skull was killed from behind at his holed up position.. Souvik fittingly commented “he could as well have been knifed!”

This time the event has become bigger and competition has been fierce! We (me and Souvik) are proud of our Associates and voulanteers, even we should thank LOD captain Pulak Panda for his cooperation and aiding during our crisis situations!

Whatever … it rocked!

Semi finals:

LOD vs Divinity
Inception vs DTS

Grand Finale:

LOD vs Inception

Winner:

Inception beats LOD

The Spirit of NSEC! The fraternity!

Some Highlights of the Final day all from me and my Cam

The Poster art of CS!

This was an interesting day… The day started with disqualification of R.I.P of N.S.E.C  because they did not turn up at their fixed schedules that the organisers had called. The day was eventful enough! First my own team lost in a quite close match with a friendly team called “Shadows” and our Junior year team “DTS” defeated the “Xfires” in a race to 9 match! However our another college team “G5″ had lost to “Xfires”.

XYZ vs Inception--major upset

“DIvinity” gave some great perfomormance, and so did the kids only pro- team “Horizon” who finally lost to “Lod” in quarterfinals. The biggestdraw of today race to 16 match between Veteran “XYZ” and pro-”Inception” aftre much delays had the Inception dudes beating the shit out of the veterans! They were too dazed with the initial shock that they could not recover in the rest of the match!

With two teams still in quarter-finals, the teams who have gone to the Semis are:

LOD

Divinity

DTS

with one quarter final match between  LEGACY &  Inception remaining.It was one rocking day!

(All pics in this post are by Sounak Gupta and his Cam )