Yippie!! I got an award.

The Humane Award


Rules of the game:

The award is given for being "Humane as being characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion; marked by an emphasis on humanistic values and concerns."

You are also requested to

1. Accept and post the award on your blog.
2. Link to the person from whom you received it.
3. Pass the award to 5 other blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment.
4. Let them know they’ve been chosen for this award.

Today, I got an unusual award. The humane award, as the name suggest is given for being humane. According to Wikipedia:

" An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. "

So this means, I am excellent in the feild of being humane.

But am I really? I don't think so.

Lets examine the three essential qualities of being humane as described by the award:

Kindness: I don't give alms, I hate beggars and I kill cockroaches with my slippers. So am I kind? You decide.

Mercy: Does mercy mean I have to forgive the bastards who kill innocent people for religious fanaticism? Thank you, but I am not merciful. I believe these fuckers should be dealt with the an-eye-for-an-eye rule. Forgive my french.

Compassion: I don't feel for the guys being killed in Afganistan. I will never join a biking trip to showcase the plight of the children dying in Africa. And I will definitely never join any charity dinner where you drink a-thousand-rupee-per-glass-of-wine to discuss the atrocities of child labour.

But then, I do help blind people write out application forms, give way of passage to people crossing the streets when I drive and give the child on the street a packet of biscuits. I told ya. I am a bundle of conflicting and confusing actions.

Do I accept the award? Heck I do. Come one come all. I accept all the goddamn awards of this world.

You can say I am a selfish, popularity-seeker. I won't mind.

Thanks a ton Shas for this award.

Now for the 5 other blogs worthy of this achievement, I would like to give away the awards to:

1. Neeraj
   
2. Deepak
3. Mustafa
4. Tys
5. Maurya
   

Lazy bum that I am, I would like them to come and collect the award from me. One other reason for this is, I dunno how much humane these guys are or whether their conscience will allow them to accept the award. But then its on their conscience, isn't it?

Force India gets the first podium finish!!

Congratulations and Celebrations!! After 2 years and 29 races Force India gets the coveted podium finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.

And do I give a damn? No I do not.

Is Force India the real Indian dream? In the land of 50 odd Crore people below poverty line, I don't suppose it is. I want to ask a question to all those of you who are rejoicing, is an investment of € 88 million a way to boost the Indian Spirit? No. Its a cold, calculated, business decision. We were never a part of the decision and would never be. All we can do is follow the sports, because it is supposed to raise the Indian Flag in a hitherto unchartered territories.

Do we need a F1 racing team in India? Not now. We have lot more to contend with. Poverty, unemployment, hunger to name a few are more important than a german racing a car that has, among hundred other logos, a Force India written over it.

Talk about jingoism and False national pride.

Me... Going Green.

Commuting is a word I learnt in my early, formative years. In the 1st standard, suppose. Damn Convent Schools!! There was a story where a big, fat Mrs. Sharma used to commute to her office daily. She was a major cause of tyre punctures in the city. So much that they had to finally hire a bullock cart with wooden wheels for her. This word has caused troubles then and is causing trouble now.

The deal is, I have to commute some 14 kms to my office daily. I am no eco-conservationist, in the strict sense of word, but I hate when I see people travelling to the office solo in those huge fuel guzzling monsters. Now, my Rampyari is no monster, but my God, does she guzzles fuel! I spent two litres of petrol every day just to reach office and go back home.

Everyday I reached home, I felt guilty of wasting precious fuel, and robbing off the future generations. Simply because I can afford it, doesn't mean I should do it. So I decided to do something about it.

Travelling in company buses was impossible as I hate being bound to routines. What's the fun in standing in the bus queue 7 o'clock in the morning?

Car-pooling was also out of the question as I can't see myself being tied down to someone else's whims and fancies.

Push-biking (riding a bicycle, for the uninitiated) was not even in the option list. I didn't want to be a part of the Hosur road forever. Maybe when the mandarins at BMC decide to provide us with dedicated cycle lanes. But definitely not now.

So I decided on the next best thing.... Public Transport. BMTC has started a new service called BIG 10, which runs from the CBD on the 10 arterial routes of the city. The one which I am interested is in the G-2 route. It starts from MG Road and ends bang in front of Wipro's office in EC. And the best part is it passes very near to my home. I said to myself "Dude.. It looks like it has been run just for you. Go board it."

The course of action decided, it was now only a matter of 2 Km walk to the bus stop. Poor me.

Biwi took pity on me and offered to drop me to the bus stop everyday. Offered gladly accepted. For a few weeks, the arrangement worked awesomely. She used to get up at 6, cook breakfast for me, cook and pack lunch for me, wake me up at 8, drop me to the bus stop at 8:45, come again to pick me up at 7 in the evening from the bus stop. Basically she took all the pain, and I gloated with the new found pride of helping save the planet.

But now no more. Though she smiles every time I ask her if its trouble for her, but I knew she has to put up with loads of my idiosyncrasies already. I have decided now I will drive, to the nearest point to the bus stop where I can find a parking.

Today was the first day of this exercise. Though I had to wait some 20 mins to get a bus and stand all the way on the foot stand to the office, I loved it all.

Now I have an answer to my kids' questions when they will ask, "Dad! What did you do to save the planet for us?".

Live long and prosper

2:00 AM. Live long and prosper.

As the Vulcan said these words, I was overwhelmed with relief. The USS Enterprise had saved us humans once again.

2:10 AM. Biwi is furious at me for watching movies till so late in the night. I am tired. Watching 2 Star Trek movies back to back is a daunting task. I lay on the bed and think, "Why has Star Trek been the favorite series of all we boys for decades?". Maybe because of the heroism and recklessness shown by a certain James T Kirk has been what we always aspire for.

I don't say girls are not heroic or they don't like gadgets. Hell no. But then we guys have a natural inclination for the quest of the unknown. The motto of the Starfleet, embodied in the words of Commander Spock (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before", has inspired many a generation of boys.

I ,on my part, am eagerly waiting for 5th of April, 2063, for the warp drive and the Vulcans to come to the Earth. Time travel and Warp speed travel would be fun!

Networking or Content

Disclaimers:

• I am a shameless egotist.
• I love praises.
• I love compliments.
• I love comments.

Hmmmm... now I can start.

When I started on blogger, way back in February this year, I did it because of contempt for my corporate blogging censure. I hate it when my posts get rejected for their questionable content, whereas stupid love stories get published because they do not ask straight questions. When three posts got rejected in a row, I knew it was time to bail out. To search for a safer haven, I transferred all my IPs from the corporate blog to blogger and set shop here.

I was new to the blogging world with no readers and more importantly no comments. I was suddenly missing my old place. I had scores of followers and people who appreciated my writing style. I was hungry for appraisal.

It was then when someone suggested me that you need to build up a network for attracting readers. Blogging is a very esoteric community task and you need the secret password to join the club. For a few days I tried hard, commenting on all the stupid blogs out there, adding people on my blogroll and even inviting people to review my blog on Indiblogger. I had installed a counter to see how many people checked in my blogs, and a widget to check where they came from.

In short, I tried all the tricks in the book. But all an exercise in futility. People checked out my comments, thanked me for blogrolling them and then forgot about me. Poor me.

Today I came across an ongoing discussion on Indiblogger and a post by a guy named "Udtahaathi" (what a name!!) about the impact of networking on your readership. This was my reaction to the question put up by him :

"hmmmm... there are bloggers, good bloggers and then there are great taggers. People who tag others and share awards among themselves.

Blogging in our times is distraught with people who have the networking clout of 200 followers and 40 people who comment daily on their posts. Even a post about "Why I sneezed today?" gets a lot of *wink wink*'s and bravo's.

I really envy people with so much of a loyal fan base. Why, I would give one arm and a leg for having 200 followers of my blog. But then, on second thoughts, I may not. Who the hell cares if someone likes my blog or not. Or then is it? I am confused. Udtahaathi, you owe me an apology for bringing me down this extrospection lane."

But the real question is, Do we really need readers' comments to know that we are good in what we do? Or rather, Do I need readership? I like to categorise my blog as "Personal Blog". Wikipedia defines a personal blog as :

The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following.

So, a personal blog can have no readers and I can have no comments on my posts. Sad. Not fair. But that's how life is!

I am on google...

I just had to share this with you all. I am, or rather on of my posts is, on google and that too on the first page.

Looks like there had been only 9 cuter proposals than mine on this planet. I just found this out with the help of the FEEDJIT widget that I have installed. Just search for "cutest proposal" on Google and you will see me on the front page :).

Three cheers for my blog! Hip Hip Hurray!!

Tag Time

Tag time... Dhiman tagged me with this ,like , millions of years ago. So its time to fulfill my responsibilities. As for passing on the tag, I decided to let it be an open Invitation. Anyone is free to take up this tag from me.

Getting on with the tag, I have to answer 20 questions and all the answer should start with 'P', the first letter of my name. So here we go :

1. What is your name: Paritosh ( Wow! that's another entry of my name in the virtual world. Eat that you Gogglebot!)

2. A four Letter Word: Puke (Disgusting is my middle name. Wait, I don't think that came out right)

3. A boy’s Name: Patrick [ My nickname when I called for AT&T in Convergys. ]

4. A girl’s Name: Parineeta

5. An occupation: Painter

6. A color: Purple (Is there any other color starting with P?)

7. Something you wear: Pajamas

8. A food: Pancakes

9. Something found in the bathroom: Pot (My throne)

10. A place: Patna

11. A reason for being late: Pukezilla... it puked on my clothes as soon as I came out of my home.

12. Something you shout: Phatashsh (Oh how I wish my parents named me "Farishta" so that I could have given a better expletive here)!!

13. A movie title: Pink Panther (I just swear by Inspector Jacques Clouseau)

14. Something you drink: Paani... plain and simple with a dash of lemon and few drops (or rather more than a few drops of) Whiskey.

15. A musical group: Puddle of Mudd (Of "She Fucking Hates Me" fame)

16. An animal: Platecarpus : Platecarpus was a medium-sized mosasaur with long, narrow jaws lined with sharp, pointy teeth. This marine lizard grew to 24 feet (7 meters) in length and roamed the shallow seas of the Late Cretaceous in search of small fish and squid.

OK... I took NGCs help for this. I couldn't have written Pig (fear of loss of readership you see).

17. A Street name: Potholed road (can be found in almost every nook and corner of India)

18. A type of car: Pontiac... one of the best car makers in the world.

19. A song title: Paint my Love by MLTR

20. A verb: Puke (see its verb too)

The School City : 4

Before we go any further ahead with my journey, I think its best if you are acquainted with the characters. The quirks of these characters is difficult, no, impossible to portray in a paragraph, but I would try to cover up as much as I can. All these people have influenced my life to a great deal and I owe much to them for what I am today. For good or for bad.

So Ladies n Gentlemen, here are some of my best friends :

AS: My roommate (in XIIth), my loveguru, my best friend and a very confused person. No more than I am though, but still very confused. He was the ladies' man. Soft spoken, a good listener, studious (before we met each other) and good looking (well, I had to say this lest he killed me). We both acted like a catalyst for each other's doom. It was like we had met each other to take us away from the paths of glory. A lanky, tall guy who used to wear his pajama under his trousers to look meaty. And ya, he was also very fond of his hair which he used to pull back with his hands in the manner girls do. I tried to stop him from that but man, you can never really stop the horse from farting, can you?

PS: A tomboy, prankster, a very dear friend and again a very confused person. Maybe I was the magnet attracting confused people, but then aren't the teens a time to be proud of confusion? She was the third musketeer of our team of well two guys and a gal. She had the shortest hair among us three. Before I shaved them off in a moment of false bravado. She had the habit of writing love letters. She wrote a 3 page one for me, which was for obvious reasons duly disposed off. What reasons? She sent the letter with one of her friends, whom I was dating at that time. And the funny thing is that her friend asked me to accept the proposal. Damn bro... Do I look that bad?

Kallu : He was the universal brother, i.e. brother of every damn hot lass in the school. Well, except one. But then it was better if she was also his sis, because then they would have had talked more than they ever did. He was also a good person at heart. I must say that because now he is a close friend. But at that time all he did was cause trouble for me and AS. Physically, he was like the Hitler, except maybe a few inches tall. And definitely without the mustachios.

Parul : She was a tall, lanky and beautiful girl. A very close friend and thus a very confused person. She was the most sensible amongst us. And she was in love with AS. Not madly, deeply, etc, etc, but ya, the teenager's "pehla pehla pyaar". I tried to tell her about AS's dark secrets to keep her heart from breaking (AS and I had sworn in to save each other's ass) but "Honi ko kaun tal sakta hai". Anyways, she was smart enough to come to senses by her own. Well, as they say "All's well that ends well".

DB : If we ever wanted to laugh our ass off, he was the dude. He had the most funny stories to tell. He even knew how to sing in rhyme those small "rangeen ramayans" we had. He had two of his front teeth missing and a spectacle with lenses as thick as the paperweights. And he is dead now, all due to one misadventure. RIP DB !! I always miss you whenever I read a "men's only" magazine.

Paul : He was our "Steve Stifler". Love him or hate him but you just can't ignore him. He had no sense of respect for the girls, pulled off the hair off any body's hand (but mostly the gruesome waxing took place on his own hands), had his hair cut practically every Sunday AND most importantly was fun to be with. A Bong with the vocabulary of the choicest Bihari profanities, which he constantly exchanged with DB. Oh! those were the golden, olden days.

Chopra : A very, very dear friend. I am using his real name here because I can't bear to change all that's left of him. He was a true gentleman and a brilliant guy. He died a few years after we left school. RIP Chopra. We miss you everyday dude!

P.S.
1. Any person described here, dead or alive, if he ever has a problem with this description, go get a blog ;) .
2. There are many others but these were the ones who I remembered after racking my brains for two hours. More people will be added to the list as we progress with the story and as I remember them. This post is to act as a reference for anyone who gets confused with the principle character and ode to all my friends.

If pigs could fly

Whatever they do, pigs don't fly. And thank God for that.

This "Swine Flu" thing is creating a lot of panic in India. Even when Pigs don't fly and we as a country are not pork eaters. (There is a small minority of the population which eats pork but then they eat our pigs which are not deceased.) Who knows what would have happened if we all ate pork? Maybe there would have been no pigs left to spread this flu. Imagine a population of 110 crores eating pigs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh! What a dreadful nightmare... for the pigs.

But we do not. Still this flu has reached India because of some stupid NRIs who came back to die in their motherland. And not to forget the firangs who come every year to witness the poverty and backwardness of our third-world-darkness. What the hell!

You know, I am not afraid of death. But to die because someone else was glutton enough to eat a diseased pig and idiot enough to sneeze without covering in public is what I can't tolerate.

Today I went out to get my car serviced. What I saw shocked me out of my senses. There were people walking around covering their mouths and noses with what their pockets permitted. Handkerchiefs. Scarves. Face Masks. Everything was on prominent display.

It seemed like a scene from the doomsday-hawking-B-Grade-Hollywood movies. So surreal.

They are saying 40% of Earths population will be infected by this Flu by 2011. Is this the end of the world as we see it?

The School City : 3

There were two great things that happened in the first week at school, I escaped being ragged by three of the largest blokes I have ever seen and I fell in love, with my freedom. I was not a schmuck to fall in love with a gal, at least not for my first few days in DPS.

To be ragged or not to be ragged

On the third day of my joining DPS, during the lunch break, three of the most notorious seniors came up to me. I was a puny little creature in the presence of those towering brats. They asked me to come to the parking lot after the school. Now, there is this thing about notorious guys. I am wary of them if I get to know about their exploits only in the second day at school. They must be some kind of pirates to have that reputation. Though I had much intent of confronting them, I acted brave and slipped out of the school from the other gate.

The next day, I came to know one more guy from my class was summoned yesterday. But here the luck of the three musketeers ran out. The other guy, Aman, lived in a very big lodge (with some 80 odd seniors from our school) and he had already gone through the ragging ritual. One thing about ragging is after it is over your seniors own your ass and they won't let anyone EVER to play with their bounty. So, the threesome were properly shown their place by Aman's saviours. And I thanked God for his divine intervention.

A month or so later we came to know about the person who had "arranged" the ragging for us. The worst part about it was that the person was a "she". So much for the male female camaraderie in the class. Anyways, the story about this "she" is a very long one and deserves another post. Don't you worry I will come to that later.

The Pursuit of happiness

This was the first time in my life that I was alone. No one to fend for me, no one responsible for my decisions, no one to break my fall. Some might think of it as a very nasty proposition, but for me it was bliss. All my life, I had been shielded and protected from the bad bad world. But now here I was at loggerheads with it.

It was a time of discovery.

We as a species were genetically hardwired to hunt and gather. I first understood the enormous impact of this statement in my first week alone. Finding food three times a day was a daunting task enough, so I never worried about the edibility attribute of the food. For the first week, I constantly suffered from an ailment very fondly called in our part of the world as "loose motion". Damn! the motion used to be so smooth that I didn't even bother to sing songs to create the pressure. Anyways, my system acclimatised to the situation pretty quickly and thankfully, my record breaking dashes to the loo ended. It can be pretty embarrassing, you know, to rush to the loo when the teacher is busy explaining the mystery of vectors and kinematics.

If you think finding food is the most difficult part of a teenager's hostel life then you have missed out a very vital part. The girls. Welcome to the world of constant adrenaline surges where in every passing glance, every prolonged smile could be misunderstood as a sign of eternal love. We were young colts then, powered by the gallons of testosterone pumping in our body. Though I never got pass the glance and the smile phase, partly due to my ecstatic taste in gals and partly due to the beauty God had endowed upon me, but I have a very interesting incident to recall.

Mera pehla pehla KLPD

There was this girl, Ria, in our class, in a different section, who was in the fantasy of most of us lechers. She was not very beautiful but had that attitude and style which we all drooled about.

It was the time of appointment of the prefects in our school, a month after I had joined. All the interested students were asked to submit their applications. In a normal school, like the one where I came from, everyone would scorn at this and get ahead with their lives. We had better things to do. But... this was not a normal school. This was DPS. Everyone and their grandma was head over heels to impress upon the teachers that they were the best role models for students in the world. This was ridiculous.

One fine morning, after returning from the long monotonous assembly, I found one application on my desk. When I raised an eyebrow, Parul, my desk mate (there is a long and interesting story about how she became my desk mate) said, "Its from Gauri Ma'm. She asked me to hand it over to you".

Hand over a prefect application form to me? Did she even know of my existence? I smelt a rat but didn't say anything. I had never talked to a girl for 5 straight minute before in my life. Arguing with one was definitely out of question.

After the lunch while we were having the boring physics lecture by our beloved "Phaphua Sir", Ria knocked on the door and asked, "Excuse me Sir... Can I talk to Paritosh for a minute, please?". As was usual by the time, I was fast asleep in the class. Someone shook me up and broke my sweet-sweet dream. I heard my name being called and looked out of the door in a daze. There she was, beckoning me. Oh! I was in heaven. All of a sudden, Parul pushed me, "Kya kar rahe ho?". Dang! I was out of the dream and back to reality. Phaphua was staring hard at me and the guys in the class giggling like sissies. Someone suggested I should go out and let the class continue. I nodded in agreement and walked out.

I don't remember my exact conversation with Ria but, in effect, she said that she wanted the prefect application form back. I was confused and I told her Parul's story. She giggled and said that was her form and she had asked Parul to give it to me. She blushed. She BLUSHED!! Damn it man! I had hit jackpot. But then maybe I had not. I turned back, brought the form, gave it to her and went sheepishly back to my seat amidst the catcalls from my friends. She gave a big smile and returned back to her section. That's the story. We never met again. She tried a few Hi's but then I was not sure how to respond. Then the trail ended. Cold.

Should I have asked for her number? Should I have asked her out for a date? I dunno man. Actually now that I look back, I think it was for best for my ass that I didn't. Later that year, one of my friends was beaten up black and blue by 30 other guys. And all the 30 claimed to be in love with her!!

The School City : 2

The first day I reached school I was shocked to see the skewed sex ratio in my class. So that's what they mean when they say the female to male ratio is screwed in India. Come to think of it, I was never a womaniser but still, six girls for 39 guys. You gotta be kidding me. The last class I was in had 20 girls and 25 guys. But that was how it was, and I had to live with it.

The lack of quantity was made up by the warmth which the girls welcomed us newcomers. As a matter of fact only a handful of people in the whole class welcomed us. The rest were busy either scorning us as the 'outsiders' or digging holes in their feet thick 'IIT Physics'. I was overwhelmed at witnessing this ritual of studying IIT- this or IIT-that in the class. Even the teachers didn't disturb the guys as if these bookworms had the proof of their intelligence hidden somewhere in the 1000 odd pages of the books.

One thing that stuck me was the duration of the morning assembly. For 60 solid minutes we were supposed to stand in the queue and listen to the 'harmunia-master' (our music teacher) belch out tunes after tunes with the school choir. After this long enough singing sessions came the bhashanbaji sessions of our esteemed school mates. Who the hell ever thought that oratory skills should be nurtured at school! At the end was the 15 minutes long speech about how to behave ourselves by the Princy. Though the content differed every time but the intent remained the same "Behave or we will throw you out". All this was made bearable only by the gorgeous prefects of our school. They roamed around giving us a chance to ogle at them. God bless the female species!

The teachers had a kind of khauf in the students which I had never seen before. Even the deadliest of all guys (later we found out he had murdered a 10 year old kid while he was in class Xth) was shit scared of the teachers. Coming from a convent school, I never knew what fear of a teacher is. In my previous school, we were always encouraged to behave with teachers as friends and we almost did. But here the case was different. The teachers were marshals in the reform centers and we were the condemned. When the guys from my class saw me talking to the teachers in the way I did, some of them were scandalised. Some even came to warn us about the school-children-devouring-monster' who came at night to cut our equipments one inch short every time we misbehaved (their concept of misbehaving was pretty skewed, I tell you) with a teacher.

There were some interesting characters in the class. Each one of them deserves a special post for them, and in some cases an obituary. You read right, an obituary. Two of my classmates are dead now and one among them was a very very dear friend. But more about them later. BTW, I think our section was jinxed. We started as a section of 45 students and passed out the school with only 43. One was murdered and the other murdered someone. One guy died a couple of years later.

They say the first impressions are the last impressions. That is absolutely true. I knew I would never fit in the school and I never did. I was always an outstanding student in DPS. I stood out of the classes, in front of the VP's office, in front of the Princy's office, in the defaulter's queue in the assemblies. I hope you get my point.

The School City : 1

"Wow! This is the school I always dreamt of studying in", this was NOT my reaction when I first entered DPS. In fact, I had never dreamt of studying in any school. My dreams were busier with riches I was about to discover in my future. IITs were the sure shot way of amassing the vast fortune of my dreams and DPS, Bokaro Steel City was the best possible way to get into IITs. So this was the mundane reason for which I decided I would study in DPS Bokaro(as the school is better known as).

The Interview

I still remember my interview with the grand jury of DPS. They had a huge oval desk, on which sat the then "acting" Princi, Hemlata Mohan, and the HODs of different departments. They had a way of instilling fear in you. Each one questioned me one by one and I answered them to the best of my capability, which was not that great, mind you. To the date, I am embarrassed about one answer which I gave to the Maths HOD. I'll replicate the conversation for you to better understand the situation:

Maths HOD: "What is the curved surface area of a cone?"
Me:"Pie*r*l, sir"
Maths HOD: "Hmmmm... what is 'l' here?"
Me:"The slant height sir"
Maths HOD: "Good, good..."

I thought that "Well that went fine". But could it be when the person in question was me. The Gods up there never liked me being easy and confident. They instigated the HOD that he should test me further .

Maths HOD: "Achcha.. tell me... how many slant heights are there in a cone."
Me:"1 sir"

One!! What the hell was I thinking about? The HOD looked devastated. It seemed he was more disappointed with himself for asking such a stupid question. The tension was quickly dissolved by me stuttering the right answer and he went again to be his tortoise self.

One more thing I remember about my interview was the English HOD. He was a self conscious man, to verge of being a dandy. I was impressed with this man. Little did I know that this man would be my mentor in life in the future. Well, not exactly a mentor but a huge influence, none the less.

Anyways, somehow I fended all the questions they had to put forth, and I am sure they had a great many, and came out pf the torture chamber. ( English is a very funny language. I have never understood why there are these two distinct words : interview and torture. They seem to mean pretty much the same to me.) Apart from the 'slant height' debacle, the interview went fine. Now the wait started for the results to come out.

Two weeks later I received the call. I was chosen for the PCM plus economics stream. Economics!! WTF! The first class I did for economics was the last one in my class 9th. I had hoped, literally prayed to God, I should never ever be forced into it again. But how could it be, remember the skewed relationship between me and the Gods.

However, what has to be done, has to be done. I joined DPS and was assigned to the C sections. Damn it! the school had 6 sections for each class. Last school I studied had only two. So you can understand my predicament. I was not ready to be a small fish in a big pond. I had always enjoyed being the Shark in the small pond.


Note :

Yesterday night after a long and unwieldy discussion with Appu, I told him about the story of my life in DPS. This reminded me of the fun I had had in those two years. This chain of posts is a dedication to all those people who made it possible. All these incidents written here and yet to be written are true to my knowledge and perception. Remember its one man's view point on a large landscape of different incidents.

I will only add some fiction to remove some of the gory details ;). Most of the names will also be changed to protect the privacy of my friends. Of course, they and the people related to the incidents will be able to find out the who's who but that's what there is to it. No names will be revealed by me. At any time, if anyone feels that this is going to mar their present, then please tell me. I will remove all the references to the person from my posts.

I will try to post one story daily, for as long as possible. I am not sure how long this will run but one thing is for sure it will be a hell lot of fun. At last, all I would say is enjoy the stories and relive your school days.