Nothing... Seriously nothing!

Nothing... Of all the good words, not-so-good words and not-at-all-good words in English, I had to select nothing to title my blog? So, what am I gonna write here after titling it nothing? Is there anything left for me to say about nothing? Why are you still reading when you know this is about nothing? Why is the page full of text even though it is nothing? What exactly do I mean by nothing? What do you understand about nothing? Why am I talking so much about nothing? Am I obsessed with nothing? What the hell is happening to me? Ah, nothing!

When I searched dictionary for nothing, the first result that came was 'no thing'. Big deal, it just inserted a space in my search string! I tried asking some of my friends what does nothing mean. After some brain whacking thinking, few of them came up with an ingenious answer. They said '....nothing'. It is true that we use so many words in our daily life that we get used to them and they pop out more like an involuntary response than like an outcome of thought. We seldom contemplate what exactly these words mean or how deep that meaning goes. At times, we know these words so much that their profound meaning means to us, but nothing! Since I had nothing to do, I decided to do exactly this. I decided to think about one word, its meaning, how it is perceived, the way it is understood and all such things and... I chose nothing. To put it in a nutshell, I am going to dig deep into nothing and find out something about nothing.

Nothing, as I see it, is a sense of emptiness. It cannot be defined. It is just the absense of everything. Just as Albert Einstein said, cold is the absense of heat, dark is the absense of light, nothing is the absense of everything. It is a void. Though nothing is actually nothing, it may take everything to acheive it. Try filling a room with absolutely nothing. Try thinking about nothing except nothing. All day long, try doing nothing... It is so difficult to acheive, though it is nothing. But in our daily lives we choose to think nothing as the absense of not everything but something and that something is so commonplace that we regard it as nothing. Think of it, how many times do we use nothing when we actually mean nothing and how many times otherwise? We also try to use nothing as an excuse when information security is needed. I don't know how many thousands of times I've heard this conversation: What are you doing? Nothing! Many a times the answer given, nothing, itself is sufficient to convey to the person that you were doing something. The human brain, on an intuitive level itself, seems to know that we can't do nothing. Well, I end my odyssey into nothing here as I have nothing else to say. May be next time I will talk about something...

P.S: I made you read so much about nothing and I hope, for the first time in your life, you don't regret it!

P.P.S: Time could be usefully spent on nothing too, after all!

P.P.P.S: Hmmm... Nothing!

From Kalyan to Kanjurmarg in a 0615 local!

Preface:

Bombay, the maximum city... The city of innumerable dreams, immense possibilities, unlimited growth and an uncountable population! The same city that on one side gives space for numerous dreams to unfold, on the other side becomes more congested than ever. There is only one way left for Bombay to grow - skywards, that is! So what keeps this unimaginably huge city moving? It is its famed local trains. Here is a small episode from that never ending journey of wheels, a small dedication from me to the lifeline of Bombay...

Prologue:

This blog will strike a chord in a hearts of few and terror in the hearts of few others! Yup, traveling in Bombay by the local train (henceforth referred as local) is a very nighmarish nightmare. Discovery channel says the train coaches in India are designed to carry 1500 people at a time. Although, during peak hours Bombay locals carry more than 4000 in a single coach! Hold on, this is not some optimization concept or fail safe testing but a helpless situation. If you have to come to send off someone, you better stay as far away as possible from the tracks. Otherwise you will be ushered into the train by the enthusiastic(!) junta. If unfortunately two trains come simultaneouly on both sides of the platform, its a high probability that you will find yourself on one of those trains. We recommend carrying an extra minimum travel ticket. Just in case. You also have the option of standing on the foot bridge itself and waving to your dear ones. Just to be safe. But neither will you know where they are nor will they know who is waving to them! But that is a different issue altogether, and let us not get in to it. So much said, now get ready to take an exciting ride from Kalyan to Kanjurmarg in a 0615 local!

Logue:

The scene is set when I was returning to NITIE from home after vacations. My train had 3 stops in Mumbai - Kalyan, Dadar and CST, in that order. To reach NITIE from any of those stations I had 2 options. 1. Take  a local to the nearest station and travel by auto for the remaining part 2. Take an auto all the way. Part of my biography reads four glorious years at Chennai. So local trains are not at all novel to me and I decided to take option 1. Moreover only option 1 does justice to what I call myself, an explorer. Both my engineering and managerial brains agreed that I have to get down at Kalyan. Thats because Kalyan is a terminus I can easily get a seat on a train. Also I will have to come back along the same track if I go to Dadar. So I got down at Kalyan and waited for the train that will take me to Kanjurmarg, the nearest station to NITIE. FYI the time was 6.00 am.

And slowly came an empty train. But, how the hell? Before I could pick my luggage all the seats were occupied and by the time I got on to a compartment, it was full. I had to make myself comfortable(!) near the doors of the compartment. That was the only empty space available :(  It was an early morning train and it had to be free. So I asked a fellow passenger, 'is it always this crowded?' He replied, 'ya, this train will mostly be this free' OMG... :O All I could do was utter under my breath, WTF! Yeah, there I was standing in a train, at the starting station, at 6 am, so crowded that I couldn't even move properly! Can it get any better? Actually it did. I had already worked out when Kanjur will come(Thanks to Google!) and so I was a little bit happy. Some time later my fellow passenger asked me where I need to get down. When he heard Kanjur he said, 'Kanjur is just 2 stations away. You got luggage, you better start moving. Or you won't be able to get down.' Are you kidding me? I am 22 years old. How long is it going to take me to move from one end of the compartment to another, huh? Unfortunately he was right and fortunately I could get down at Kanjur with all my luggage intact and laptop in single piece. They say an experience is worth a hundred lessons. The lesson for me that day? Read epilogue  :)

Epilogue:

Traveling in Mumbai, especially by local trains, is neither a science nor an art. Its a war! And you, learn from my mistake!

Post epilogue:

Of all the 24 hours available in a day I chose to write this blog at 4 am. Yeah my biological clock has gone haywire. Nowadays it seldom shows sleep. I am not just another insomniac. I have become an insomaniac! More about insomania in the next post. Stay tuned... 

Its me signing off, ladies and gentlemen. Good night. Or should I say good morning? Whatever... :)

The Journey Home...

This post is dedicated to all those who live away from home...

"The journey home is never too long

Your heart arrives before the train

The journey home is never too long

Some yesterdays always remain"

Simple, but meaningful lines from A.R.Rahman's Bombay dreams. It is a strange feeling. I don't know how to express it in words. I am handicapped by the sheer incapacity of any human language to accurately describe complex feelings arising deep inside our hearts. All I can say is, it just happens as those lines say. The simple thought that you are going to be at home in some time make your heart feel that it actually is at home. The rushing memories, the forlorn feeling, the gushing happiness, the aimed-at-nowhere smiles, the ethereal sensation... Hmmm. I felt it most recently stronger than anytime before.

The stage was set 3.5 weeks (am an engineer :P) back! Though I had been home just about 2 months back, there began this strange desire to get home. And for things like these, obstacles on the way enhance the effect! We could not have had a better fuel for our fire... Yes, the bad old exams were back!! :) If you want to know how big an ordeal exams have become to me nowadays check out a blog article a few 'page-downs' away. Again the same old story, 5 days and a lot many exams! Add to this, absolutely no mood to study :D If you have 2 things to look forward, one so-good (read going home the coming weekend) and other not-so-bad (read exam next day), which one will you choose? For us the choice was so simple :) Oh yeah, it was us not just me!! The whole campus was feeling it the same way. Nobody was even bothered about exams. The questions asked in the corridors changed from 'Did you study this chapter?' to 'When are you leaving home?', mess conversations shifted from 'subject 1 or subject 2?' to 'bhai train or flight?'. They say, Do as Romans do in Rome. The whole NITIE was not studying, so didn't I! If I was half the reason for my not studying, my room mate was the other half. This is what happens when you get a roomie with a great frequency match. Your frequencies match and.... what else, resonate! (engineering brain, I can't help it!!) Adi, I don't know how many more modules we are going to end up screwing and still smiling! But not many left! We had fun alright. The useless chats in between study breaks, the long slide gazings that usually end up in 'mama nothing went inside', the screw-this-i-wanna-go-home outbursts, the nescafe coffee breaks which usually last longer than our single-stretch-study-time, the going home discussions regardless of what exam it was... dude, we had a great time at 422! Thanks for being with me and supporting me through the testing(!!) times :D We will face the next storm together!

The exam timetable actually added icing to the cake. The exam on the last day 'Procurement and Materials management' was the ultimate paper. Nobody knew what to study and nobody seemed to do anything about it. NITIEians can vouch for it. It just got over. Somehow. And suddenly it was time to go home! I was smiling all the way from Mumbai to my home. The reactions of my fellow passengers made me smile more :) No dear world, MBA has not yet driven me mad... Hmmm, I went home. But what did I do? Eat, sleep, pick up and drop mom from and at office, watch movie and occasionally tv, do some grocery shopping, scold my sister, travel a little and WTF!! They said it was over. Those 15 days had just flown by even though I had nothing to do and was bored like hell. I was at home doing nothing useful and I am back here doing nothing useful again. Why did I even have to come? Can't I do that 'nothing useful' from there itself? Crazy world, just doesn't understand my profound thoughts! Hmmm... Its just more than 24 hours since I arrived here. I don't know when the next official holidays are. But I have started to think about my next trip home now itself! The journey home is never too long, your heart arrives before the train. But this time my heart chose to stay behind instead of travelling back and forth!! :)

And yeah, I have added a new feature called 'reactions' to my blog. You can find it right below the post. Use it!

The DREAM code

Dreams, a rather abstruse but fascinating dimension of the power of human brain, is a difficult topic to write upon. On any average day, I would say writing on dreams is not my cup of tea. But today I had a dream that has prompted me to do this piece of writing. I don't know if a person who reads through this can identify with the fascination that dream left me with. Nevertheless read through. This is an interesting journey into my brain. Everyone of us have wondered what causes those little movies to run through our mind when it is suppossed to be resting. It is another big surprise that we are not able to remember all of it. A colleague of mine gave an explanation to this. Dreams are a result of the subconcious brain. When we sleep only the conscious brain goes to sleep but subconcious keeps awake. This subsoncious fellow, a rather dumb one, tries to make sense of whatever info concious brain had processed. Since he is dumb he uses improper logic and creates senseless videos that get screened inside our skull theatre as dreams. Till yesterday I thought this could be true, but today I say this could be the most plausible explanation for dreams. Here is the dream I had and its signifance.

I am roaming in some place in Bombay where I meet Adi and Sambit. They are buying shoes. It is afternoon time and we decide to lunch together. But they both dump me and run away in a bike. I am worried about eating alone and lo there comes Sankara. We both go to lunch together but he chooses to have just a black currant ice cream. We then decide to take a walk. We keep on walking and suddenly reach a small pond. By now Sankara has disappeared and I have a group of friends with me. After exploring a bit, we find out the pond is an extension of huge lake and there is also a dam on the other side of the lake. My friends decide to get to the other side of the dam. But I don't go with them as the width of the dam is so small and I fear I may trip into the water. After some time I start walking alone. At the middle of the lake, I find the dam to be transferred into a railway track and a train is coming towards me. I cramp myself below the tracks to let the train pass. Suddenly I find Joey's leg is caught in some barbed wire and I help him out of it. Then everything goes black and soon after I woke up.

I got this dream at around 12 noon when I was both hungry and sleepy and not sure which one to handle first. All characters featured in this dream are real and I interact with them on a day to day basis. All the words in bold above are a direct reference to what is going on in my life now.

• Adi & Sambit - Two of my best friends at NITIE and with whom I interact the most. Adi is my roommate and Sambit is my neighbour + team mate
  
• Lunch - It was 12 noon and I was really hungry when I got this dream
  
• Bike - I miss my bike so much and I think everyday of how to bring it in here
  
• Sankara - He is coming to India on Jan 1st and I am drawing plans to meet him
  
• Black currant ice cream - They gave us black currant ice cream in the mess instead of the traditional vanilla
  
• Small pond - Obvious reference to the NITIE pond
  
• Group of friends - I remember everyons's face. It is the same group with whom I play MAFIA every night
  
• Joey - Nowadays I have started watching a lot of FRIENDS
  

This is too much to be true. Direct references to all that is happening in my life right now! Yes there are some bits that don't fit into the jigsaw puzzle. But they could be a deja vu. OMG! Are our brains recording all that we do? Some sort of a log file! If so how big is it and is there a way to find what all is recorded in that till now? I used to advice people I know to develop thinking capability. But people, think twice before you decide what to think. Your brain is recording all of it. I am absolutely enthralled after this experience! Dear Sigmund Freud, I have really started to feel the power of human brain. It now seems, after all, those super computers are no match for the human brain. But there is a obvious question that crops up in my mind. Why us? Oh god, why did you make the human brain so powerful? Is it because humans would achieve unprecedented levels of advancement in science  and technology or is it because at some point of time these so called advancements would wipe out human race from the face of earth? Was it given as a means for unravelling all the mysteries around us or a means for effecting self destruction? If I ever get a chance to meet god and ask him this question, he would perhaps say, "BOTH!!".

Ups and Downs of life...

The say life is full of ups and downs. Hmmm... for the last few couple of weeks it really was so. Stress - up, sleep - down. Tension - up, rest - down. Work - up, energy - down... and it all ended it Temperature - up, B.P - down  :(  yeah it was an experience to be cherished(!?!) for life time. Btw any takes as to what caused all this? No chocolates for guessing right... It is the EXAMS. But what is the probelm? Have I never heard of exams before or have I never taken exams before? Why did they cause so much trouble this time? I finally discovered I am now grown up. Hey world, I am 22 years old, how do you expect me to take exams at this matured age?

Discoveries aside, my purpose of writing this blog is different. I just want to know the person who invented the concept of 3 hour written exams.Newspaper ads and TV commercials are beond my affordability. So I decided to place a blog ad for this  ;)  Friends, I appeal to you, in case you find the person who invented the concept of 3 hour written exams, just pass on his details to me. I have some issues to set straight with him.  I have had enough from this guy's invention. Its a pain... really!! Till some time back, I had thought I cant get any worse. But actually, IT GOT MUCH WORSE. They keep saying you need to improve in life. But this is not the kind of improvement you would wish for even in the stupidest of your dreams. From an exam a day, we had improved to 8 exams in 5 days. The timetable read 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. At first thought I wanted to run away. But then as I have already written in m previous blog a few lines below, I am gifted with never say ___ attitude. So once again I fought with valour on and on and... (8 ons in all) and got low BP. But the worst part of exams is that you go through the pain once in the exam hall and you go through the pain once again when you get your marks. Do we care? Not at all...  :)

Midnight masala....

Let me start this blog with a question. What do you do at midnight? Tell me what all can you do in the middle of the night? I give you 10 lines to think.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10. Time up....
Know what I am doing at near midnight for the last week? I am attending interviews... :( Can you believe it? But yes, thats life in a B school. NITIE is the only b school that is mostly run by students (proud to be a NITIEian). This place has got committees and secretaries for literally everything, right from who decides which company I will get placed to who decides who will cut the grass in the football field....! Committees are the life line of NITIE. No commitee means no NITIE. Needless to say, you would have undestood by now that I have been attending interviews for these committees. Arey yaar, kya baat hai? Hamara colege mein bee commitees hotha hain. Usko bee selections hotha hain, hain na? Nahin. NITIE commitee selection process is on par with CAT selection process...! We submit our CVs to various commitees we wish to join. After that they conduct 2 rounds of interviews to select the best out of the best talent. The worst part is that they conduct interviews at off business hours.. Oops.. off college hours. :) The interviews start at around 7 in the evening and go on and on. Again comes the same old story. My name entitles me only few of the last slots in any lexicological queue. Dad and Mom, why did you name me Vasanth? Can I cut off that V? Asanth would seem wierd, but at least it will bring me on top of the attendance register. Hmmm thats my headache anyway, let me go on with my story. As I was saying, my name would always crop in the end. Some of the slots I recieved were 12.30 am, 2.20 am and the best one 3.15 am. In any event there are bound to be operational delays and that meant by slots would get pushed by at least another half an hour :( How do these people expect me to attend an interview at these unearthly hours? The time I spend yawning will be more than the time I spend speaking... Given the fact that I am a professional sleeper and I have seen sunrise only a handful of times in my 22 year life span, things become the most horrendous for me. Thank God, I had applied only for 3 committees. Can you imagine my plight if I had applied for all 9? What I wrote in my previous blog would have come true. I would have gone mad. But as the world knows, Vasu has been gifted with a never say die (oops i said die..!) attitude. I went to the battle field armed with full hand buttoned, tucked in shirt and formal leather shoes (at 3.15 am) and tasted victory in all the 3 battles. Now its time for the second round of interviews (oh god, not again) The same story repeats again - 12.30am, 1.30am and 2.00 am. The last 2 being on the same day, today....! As you know, I am gifted with the never say ___ (:P) attitude. So here I leave, to the battle field, to fight with valour, to defend the questions and to come back with victory....

Sallam Bombay, Salaam Bombay.....

Ha ha ha... Mein bee ek B school student ban gaya... :)
Yes. Now I am sitting in a B school, NITIE to be more accurate. But then from where did I get enuf time to write this blog? That secret is published later in the blog :)

June 18 2008: 6 pm : Bombay Santa cruz airport
I landed with great enthu and glitter in my eyes. The Bombay traffic made it null and void. It took me 2.5 hours to get to NITIE :( I walked up the 94 steps on the first day with gr8 excitement. Just 1 hour later, they said my admission formalities were over and I could leave. Arey c'mon, it was Thursday 10 am and my classes were beginning on Monday morning. Wat was I suppossed to do till then? They could have asked me to come on Saturday right? Wrong. Those 3 days became the most eventfull days @ NITIE till date.

Our seniors wanted us to meet them at 6 pm at the Bady court. Dont imagine things linking bady and court. We mean badminton court. It was a fun filled evening when we introduced ourselves and everyone was pulling each other's leg. Midnight striked, so did terror in our hearts. Seniors gave us a case study to do and the deadline was jsut 12 hours away. Boy, that was terrific I should say. Sitting in a group untill 4 am with everyone struggling to keep awake :) Somehow we managed to submit it. And do I have to say that we did not get selected? hee hee.... :D

The next morning happened to be my biggest exploration trek in my life... We went on a NITIE campus tour :D I should say the view from the top of MDP hostel was breath taking....! I am so worked up here that I dont remember what happened after that. The only thing I remember is that we again slept very late.

I dont remember exactly when, but one day we played football. Floor against floor. Most of you guys would have seen our team photoshoot on my orkut. Anyways participation is more important than winning right? Now I leave it to you to guess result of that match. Hmmm slowly, very slowly time dragged on. Still 1 more day was left in the induction (heck...) The assignment senior's had for us that day was we were supposed to design a mutual fund. They were benevolent enough to say that we could make any assumptions we needed and did not lay any constraints. But it makes no difference to a guy who does not know the a,b,cs of finance. A large storm cloud loomed over my head. Oh God, a third consecutive night out. :( The only good I got out of that night out was that I learnt something abt mutual funds. I think the seniors have something against me. Yes, they did not select our mutual fund too :)

It all got so heavy that most of us bunked Sunday's treaure hunt and ended up paying a huge fine for that... Aha, see I completely forgot. There was a quiz too. Know what? Our team came up third in that. Hey god promise yaar. Believe that... :)

We have now reached the end of our induction program. After so much work for the last 4 days, all 4 being night outs, we finally got a chance to enjoy ourselves. There was a bon fire that evening... After a break of 1 year, Vasu came back to form. We danced, danced and kept on dancing. Pics already uploaded on orkut. Before we went to get some sleep before our classes began, we asked our seniors why did they have to make the induction this tough. Everyone had the same answer. "You have to expect the same for the next 2 years." Thats it. My heart shattered. My dear friends, if by any chance I go mad by the end of my MBA, you guys have to take care of me..... OK?

Cheers

P.S: I wrote this blog at 2 am :(