My problem with Man of Steel: It’s not a Superhero movie!

I watched the eagerly awaited Man of Steel today, first day first show in the only 4K theatre in Bangalore that also has the best 3D and sound. Anyway, this blog was never really intended for movie reviews, but I got pretty frustrated by the movie, and thought this would be a good place to vent. Another thing worth mentioning is that I’ve been looking forward to this movie ever since they announced that Zack Snyder would be directing it and that it’d be written and produced by the people who brought you The Dark Knight (Nolan and Goyer obviously). So that’s about a wait of two years, although I’ve been playing down any expectations about the movie for the last couple of weeks to prevent myself from getting disappointed. I also made sure not to read any reviews or interviews or even the wiki article of the movie to prevent any spoilers, except watching the trailers obviously, so it was a fairly vanilla experience. So now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to it.  

My biggest problem with Man of Steel was that it really wasn’t a superhero movie. A superhero is somebody who saves people, and who has them on his side. The problem with this movie is that Superman doesn’t even come out into the open till Zod demands that he surrender. So in essence, Superman has never saved everyone before ( as Superman), has no image or public sympathy and is basically a complete stranger to the general public at this point. Then they fight and fight and fight and destroy everything possible in sight. Curiously enough, all the buildings that Superman breaks during these sequences are devoid of people. No citizen dies, nobody. The blurb on wikipedia reads that Superman saves earth from Zod. No, he doesn’t. He just has a very public fight with Zod on earth. How on earth (:-P) did nobody from the military stand up and say that this guy is just a liability because, clearly, he’s never really proved his usefulness (they don’t trust him initially, but later don’t seem to mind him at all, despite the wreckage that he creates). Every Superhero series (movie or cartoon) begins with the Superhero saving people, doing good things and building some sort of a reputation as the city’s lifesaver. A superhero isn’t a superhero if nobody’s heard of him. Ok, he is, but if you watch the movie you’ll get my point. Forgive me if I sound clichéd here, but how on earth am I supposed to stand up and cheer for this guy if I’m a citizen of Metropolis, and I had a normal life till today, and suddenly he wrecks everything, the city loses billions of dollars, I lose a bunch of loved ones all because of some random Alien who was living here. This movie is clearly based on Superman II, which has a similar storyline, and there’s a reason that’s part 2! By part 2, surely Superman is now popular enough that if a bunch of supervillain aliens come looking for him, he knows the city and the country are on his side. Nobody spends their first movie in anonymity! Batman saved Gotham, Iron Man saved Afghanistan and killed the bad guy, Spiderman saved a bunch of random citizens in NY. They all generally follow the same pattern, they are initially treated with distrust, but our heroes redeem themselves by saving a few people and doing good, thereby gaining a reputation and a following. Who gives a fuck for Superman if he doesn’t exist and hasn’t proved himself? I agree that what I’m asking for is a quite cliched rendition of a typical superhero, and perhaps Nolan and Snyder were trying something different, but this I thought was a gaping hole in the screenplay. Superman doesn’t become Superman till after the Villain comes, who’s here because of him in the first place. So, for all the people on earth, both of them are the bad guys for simply disrupting their peaceful lives and destroying all that stuff. Sure he saved them from getting blown up, but hey! If he lived on Mars instead, all this wouldn’t even have happened!

Apart from this, I also thought that the action was pretty mindless and boring but many people seemed to enjoy it. Either way, I haven’t been very clear in stating my frustration with the movie, but I hope somebody gets what I’m trying to say, and maybe even thinks the same way. It’s quite a pity that they messed it up like this, ‘cos for once Superman in a movie really was quite cool and mysterious, just like Batman in a movie. He just didn’t have a screenplay to back him up.

I forgot to mention though that the characters themselves are very well written. You really understand that it’s hard to be Superman, and he isn’t simply glorified blindly. A special note of the acting in the movie as well. Henry Cavill is really quite good as Superman, although he seems to have very flexible facial muscles. Though I think what really strenghtens the movie are the performances by the older folks,Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane. Crowe especially, steals the show in every scene that he’s in and is absolutely brilliant as Jor-El. The background score was as amazing as expected by the brilliant and dependable Hans Zimmer, who’s now a Nolan regular. The visual effects were as good as you can expect, but the way all the action was shot was disappointing- just loads of  broken glass and concrete, nothing very original.

A lot of thought and work has gone into this movie though, just that the story seemed to fail it completely in my opinion.

Do leave your comments below. Thanks!

Passion fruit or fruits of passion?

So this article comes after a really long time. The theme of this blog will be a bit different from what it was earlier, with mostly more of a focus on technology, but in any case, I’ll try my best to keep it diverse.

I recently read this book called So good they can’t ignore you by Cal Newport. It’s a really good book, that for once addresses certain issues in the right way. The author himself is very young, barely 27 I think, and he’s just finished his Ph.D and talks about an issue that’s been plaguing him and so many other people of his age. The book addresses the crucial and oft-mishandled topic of career advice in a nuanced and practical manner, without the usual baseless rants of motivation that most career counsellors resort to. The author talks about how, in recent times, there’s been an obsession with the concept of passion. Everyone ranging from Steve Jobs to your neighbour gives you advice that typically sounds like this- “Follow your passion! That’s what will make you rich and happy!”. For someone like me, who at 21, still felt like he had no real clue about what he was passionate about, this was worrisome advice. What if I don’t know what I’m passionate about? Clearly, everyone seemed to know where their passions lay, and what they were going to do about them. This idea has been abused so much that it really has entered pop culture, and has become standard, boiler-plate career advice. And this is where we go wrong.

Newport goes on to dismantle the passion hypothesis as he calls it, with considerable ease. He says that people who are truly passionate and successful in their careers, are people who didn’t entirely know what they were doing when they started off. They became passionate about their own jobs because of the effort that they put into it. Passion wasn’t some obvious inner compass that pointed you to where you should go, it’s where you choose to put in sustained effort. This made perfect sense in my case, since there were a few things that I was really interested in, but had no idea of how to turn them into a career (nor did I want to). More importantly, most people in their teens/tweens haven’t been exposed to enough things to decide on something as their passion. I agree that there are some people who are prodigies in music or art, but for most other average people, there’s nothing that they’re so good or so experienced at that they’d like to spend their entire lives doing it. This is where it gets really confusing for most people, since on joining college at around 17 or 18, you hear so much advice about following your passion that you’re scared you haven’t found anything yet. Also, I don’t believe most people are born with an inherent passion in say, something like VLSI design or Digital Signal Processing. This is the kind of stuff that you study in college and it requires a considerable amount of time and effort to master these courses, and there’s a good chance that you won’t immediately take to these fields because of the initial difficulty involved. Only towards at the end of the semester, when you really start understanding the fundamentals and getting good at them do you consider studying further. And that too requires a lot of effort. Fact remains that if all of us followed popular advice at the age of 18 and “followed our passions”, we’d all probably simply quit college and become writers and painters and musicians. Passion comes from getting really good at something, something that the author calls “Career Capital”.

This is only the basic premise of the book. After this, Newport goes on to give more practical advice on what to do based on his debunking of the passion hypothesis. I don’t think I’d do justice to the book if I tried summarising all of it, but the passion bit is what I really wanted to discuss.

I think it’d be good to mention here that I felt that the book was highly derivative. Most of the other ideas in the book, apart from the passion hypothesis, are concepts that have been around for quite some time, and this becomes quite obvious when so many of his references are other well-known non-fiction that deal with similar themes. However, the author does an amazing job in really stitching all of this together to specifically tackle the cluelessness that most people of my generation face while trying to decide their career.

So, the point is that even if you’re not sure about what you want to do, it’s fine to take a job and put in some real effort with the intention of getting better. That’s when you’ll really get passionate about it. I’m sure there are many of you who’re going to disagree with this simply because the idea of following your passion is now so ingrained in all of us. But think about it, even with the things that you’d consider to be your inherent passions, there’s a good chance you didn’t start off being the best at them, and only when you started getting better did you consider going all in. You’re probably now at a stage where you don’t remember how you started off and think you were born to do this. But that’s not the case with most people. Life is really long and slogging away at something to master it really does seem worth it.

 Do leave your comments down here if you liked the article. Cheers!

Time to pretend…

I was watching this movie called The Bicentennial Man yesterday. It’s about this robot who lives with humans and starts developing feelings and emotions that he’s not programmed to have. However, he does retain enough of his robotic self that he simply can’t lie or say something nice if he doesn’t like something. He’s brutally honest. In one scene, he’s confused about why humans are so complex and irrational, and he’s told that they’re never rational and simple. Anyway, the point being that we, as humans never tend to be ourselves, and that the robot who’s been programmed otherwise, brings out this rather inherent characteristic.

Let’s face it. As we grow up, we seem to learn the tricks of the trade. We mask emotions, we tend to be diplomatic, we rarely give honest opinions, we hide a lot of things. It’s something that seems to happen only as you grow into an adult. As a kid, there’s nothing stopping you from being yourself. (You might point out at this stage that there’s nothing stopping us either but- Get Real. Don’t tell me you’ve never suppressed some part of yourself). It seems as if, as we grow up, we seem to think more… politically. We tend to behave in a manner that would please the other person, unless we absolutely hate them  of course. We tend to suck up to people, simply because it might prove to be useful to us in some way, even if we lack any iota of respect for them otherwise. When asked for opinions, we seem to take both sides just so that we don’t offend anyone. We seem to become more selfish and cunning as we grow up, and as a result, the person that most people know us to be is rarely the same as the real “ME”. Obviously this happens most in case of our politicians. Sometimes I wonder, what a sad life it must be to keep cooking up stuff to say just to gain some sort of political advantage. Everything they do is done for political mileage. I think politicians have lost every bit of themselves, and that is pitiable.

Another thing that we tend to do is mask our emotions. It’s almost as if showing emotions is a sign of weakness, and hence we tend to act all “happy-happy”, even if we’re down in the dumps. You might say that no one has a right to know about your problems, and that it’s entirely personal. But I think it finally gets to you when you can’t pretend to be happy any longer.

Somehow I feel that we’re reaching a stage where it’s harder to trust people, ‘cos people tend to act nice anyway, but always have their own interests at heart. And it varies from person to person, but I think all of us have some part of ourselves hidden away in our pockets that we won’t let out. We’re raised by society to be fake. No matter to what degree, society converts us all into real fakes.

Like Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players:”. He wasn’t exactly referring to this, but it seems to fit.

This article is dedicated to Chinshit, for being the most original and sincere person I know. I hope he stays that way.

I agree this is a very pessimistic way to restart, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to say. Most of you probably disagree with me, but that’s ok. Leave your thoughts and disagreements with the article down here. I’m so depressed after writing this that I don’t even feel like saying cheers. Sigh, anyway, Cheers!

I’m back!!

And I’m back!! After more than 6 months since my last article, I’m finally writing another one. I promise to be more regular from now on. Anyway, let’s get into the thick of things. And thanks a lot if you came to read this one.

Jab We Met…

I once watched this movie called Never Been Kissed starring Drew Barrymore (It’s a trash chic-flick- I did not watch it out of choice!). Anyway, there’s this scene in the movie where the English teacher who teaches Barrymore discusses the importance of disguise in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He says, in the movie, that the importance of disguise lies in the fact that it liberates us. This part is significant to the movie because, in it, Drew Barrymore, is a 25 year-old undercover reporter who’s posing as a 17 year-old high school student. And when she was in high school, she was a super-nerd who never got a chance to do anything but study. But now, when she’s 25, and back in school, she’s hot property, and guys are behind her and stuff like that. Evidently, she’s able to do all of that because she is undercover, and none of the students know her true identity. The point of all this is that the theme of disguise applies to something very integral in our lives- Social Networking.

Social Networking has been a revolution. It’s brought millions of people together, irrespective of the time that separated them. It’s made communication and keeping in touch very convenient. But there is a major drawback to social networking. I think that rather than improving our people skills, the social networking revolution has led to its deterioration in a big way. I mean, think about it. How many friends do you have on FB, who you’ve never spoken to in real life? How often do we see that people chat with us online, but ignore us entirely in real life, not because of a lack of respect, but simply because their social skills are not the best at hand? It’s not just social networking. It includes all forms of “blind” communication. Like messaging. I know loads of people from my class who keep messaging me, but have never spoken to me in class. ( Sure, it’s my fault too that I don’t talk to them. But I wasn’t the one messaging!). Simple face-to-face communication has taken a beating big time because of the rather more convenient “blind” communication.

Why is this happening? This is where Hamlet theory kicks in. Social networking gives us the most important that people require in communication- disguise. While talking to someone, face-to-face, we tend to be so conscious of ourselves, that we’re far too shy to talk to people. Disguise in the form of social networking liberates us. It gives us a chance to make ourselves seem who we’re not. It gives us a false sense of self-esteem. It gives us the impression that we’re good with people, when we may be absolutely terrible at it. The root cause of this is probably the fact that our lives are dictated by judgement- and the fear of it. We’re always judging people- how they look, how they sound, what kind of personality do they have. And we fear the same. We keep thinking about what others might think of us and the kind of impression they have of us. Something like social networking gives us a chance to control this. You’re not worried about how you look or how you’re dressed or how the other person’s gonna evaluate you. It’s a blind conversation, or rather, a disguised conversation, one with masks on. If we don’t have the skill to communicate with people, FB is the last place where you should be looking for it. It’ll only give you a false sense of self-esteem, which will most likely crumble at the first instance of you trying to talk to someone new.

I’m not saying that I’m immune to this kinda thing. Or that any of us are. Every one of us has varying degrees of people skills, and at various points of time, we’ve required and appreciated the use of disguise. Not being able to talk to people is not a bad thing. It only means that you need to improve your social skills. And perhaps the simplest way to do that, is to be yourself. We tend to be nervous while approaching new people because of the fear of judgement, and the simplest way to tackle this, is to perhaps release this fear and be yourself. Let the other person draw their conclusions about the true you, rather than you trying to project an image of a better you. ‘Cos there probably is no better or worse. There is only You. Maybe we don’t need disguise after all. We just need to find ourselves.

This article is dedicated to Lillian Myra, for the sole reason that she has been pestering me very diligently, for the last 8 days, everyday, to write. LM made me feel guilty 3 times a day for not putting virtual pen to virtual paper. After a severe case of writer’s block, here is the article, Finally!!

If you have anything to say about this article, leave it down here. Cheers!

P.S.: I’m in no way against social networking. I spend as much as time on FB as anyone else. I just think that we ought meet more people in real life rather than virtually.

Woh Pehli Baar…

Recently, I found this book on Zen Buddhism in my house. I started reading it, not with any intention of following its principles or anything, but more out of curiosity. At the start of the book, the author gives an introduction to Zen Buddhism, where he says that the basic principle is to live life as if every time is a first time. I didn’t read too much after the intro, but the first time portion kinda made sense.

I started imagining the first time that something happened. If you look back, there is something truly different about the first time. Think of someone you know very well, and go back to the time that you saw them the first time. They probably looked somewhat different the very first time. And it’s a funnily nice feeling ‘cos they look very different from the person you know now, even if they haven’t changed one bit in physical appearance. The reason for this is probably that with familiarity comes a certain bias, when you perceive people. But when you see someone the very first time, when you’ve never heard of them before, it is an entirely unbiased view of that person. And that first time ought to be cherished. If you can relive that first time every time you see that person, life would definitely seem a lot more blissful. And the fact is that there are many firsts. The first time you talk to someone, the first time you played with them, the first time you stayed with them( I’m thinking of a hostel life, btw). It’s like there is a new frontier of unfamiliarity to be breached, and the key is to rebuild that frontier every single time. (Ironically enough, before I started to type this article, I was watching HIMYM, and there was this episode where Marshal and Lily talk about the joy of ‘firsts’ in a relationships, and how they’re running out of them. Weird, eh?).

There was this really nice story in that book regarding this. A newly married couple are walking along the seashore, and there’s a sharp rock in the way. So the husband carries his wife over it. Then, when they’re middle-aged, they’re walking along the beach again, and they come across the same rock again. This time the husband gently tells her to be careful, and helps her walk around the rock. Then, when they’re an ageing couple, they walk along the seashore again, and this time, when they come across the rock, the husband shouts at his wife, “How many times do I have to tell you to be careful about that rock?!”. As they go along in their relationship, things become more routine. And to prevent that is perhaps the secret to a great relationship. To live every moment as if it were a first. That is not to say that we don’t learn from our mistakes and our past experiences, but just that we ought to experience the pure, unadulterated joy of a ‘first’ more often.

It’s the same with everything that we do. There’s always a first time to everything. The first time you  played a sport, the first time you picked up a particular instrument, the first time you ate pizza( believe me… that is a very nice memory!). The moment you get used to something, it becomes boring, and the joy that is associated with that particular activity gets diminished, for no good reason. So, try this as an activity. Every time you do something or meet someone, imagine the feelings that were running through you the very first time you did that, or met that person. It’s an odd feeling, and gives you a sense of happiness that is unmatched in some ways. Try it sometime.

This article is most sincerely dedicated to my Agony Aunt ( This is my favourite dedication!!), firstly of course, for being so into Zen Buddhism, that once in a while I get a chance to nick articles like this! I’ve learnt a lot about Zen, and find it deeply inspiring. More importantly, a big Thank You!! for listening to me rant all my life,  and for listening in true Buddhist monk fashion, with utmost patience and love. I owe you my life!!

If you found this article interesting, or thought it plain boring, leave it all down here. Cheers!

Happy go Lucky…

I don’t know if it has to do with the fact that we’re in college, or the whole “we’re adults now”/hormones and stuff, but I noticed that in NITK, I became a little more mature, emotionally. EQ- that’s a term that I’ve heard a lot, of late. All of us kinda just started thinking a lot more. Sure, we were more immature than ever in the hostel, but we also started thinking a lot more emotionally.

A result of all this emotional thinking and various other factors is that I started getting depressed a lot more often( the various reasons- Halli Boy, Gentle Giant and Lillian Myra would know better). It’s funny how you don’t realize it, but you start having mood swings more often, and things like that. This happened till probably the middle of the semester or so, till I finally realized that I was being stupid. The thing that actually changed it was when I imagined myself back in 11th, sitting in class with Super Brain, when I would randomly break into song, and he would stare at me, with that super weird expression of his! And then I would argue with him that it was a free country, and I was allowed to do what I want! It struck me that we were a lot more chilled out in high school, and college changed it all rather suddenly. And maybe, it’s not a good thing. I agree that we all need to grow up sometime, but at the same time, there is no greater joy than being yourself all your life. Being yourself doesn’t mean that you have to remain unchanged but it only means that you have to be happy with who you are. You know it when you’ve changed too drastically, ‘cos that’s when you won’t be happy any more. Case in point. It took me almost three months for that fact to dawn upon me! I did say earlier that we started being more mature emotionally, but that doesn’t mean that you become depressed and boring, and screw your life! Maturity happens gradually, but otherwise stay who you are. Be mature when you have to. The rest of the time- Relax! Life’s a party!

Another thing that I noticed is that the most profound thoughts come only when you’re depressed. Correction- the most profound thoughts come only during the extremest of emotions. That probably explains why most great authors, artists and thinkers either committed suicide or worked only when they were high. If you live a life that is fairly neutral, that you would always describe as “OK” or “so so”, then you seriously need to consider doing something( I still say “OK” and “so so” when people ask me “How’s life?”- you can’t always practise what you preach! But I’m working on it…). So, obviously, the two options before you are to live a depressing life, produce a great piece of art, and then commit suicide like Nikolai Gogol. Or you live a happy life, that leaves you at peace with yourself. I agree you need to constantly strive for success and stuff, but that doesn’t mean you have to be unhappy. You need to happy with your achievements, but maybe not entirely content, in order to make constant progress. You can never take life too seriously, ‘cos it’ll probably laugh right in your face anyway. All said and done, life is about living it to its fullest extent. And the only way to do that is by being happy!

This article is very very sincerely dedicated to Halli Boy, who constantly shows me that life is simple and you ought to just live it that way. Never a point in thinking too much about it and getting depressed. You’ve been there a long time, dude, and I owe you a lot. Thank You for always being there!

In case, you came to read this article, then I owe you a lot too! Leave your thoughts about it down here. Cheers!

Miss Congeniality…

In the first sem, we had this thing called “Mr. and Miss NITK” during Crrescendo. It was this weird little contest to judge the guy and girl with the best “personality”. They actually forced the hundreds of us to appear for an interview( which in true leatherhead fashion, I messed up by acting my cocky best.), and they selected eight guys and eight girls. Or I think it was ten and ten. Or whatever. My point is: how do they judge someone’s personality?

This is what those guys did. They asked you stuff like “innovative uses of a cucumber” (we know what everyone, including the organisers were thinking… you just had to avoid talking about it I suppose!), and whether a zip is better than a button. Oh… and they had to dance to some terrible old Govinda numbers along the way. What struck me was this. How the hell do we even define the “best” personality?

Perhaps we should just accept the fact that everyone is different, and there is no definition of the “best” personality. ‘Cos it’s something that’s very subjective. The way you judge someone else is also the way you are. When you judge a person, you’re probably just looking for traits that you like or traits that you have. So, someone who seems like a total jerk to you, may actually seem like a great, fun guy to someone else. And let’s face it. Do we really analyse the other guy’s personality when we make new friends or new relationships? Sure, we do evaluate their personality in a way but very subtly. We tend to accept that person with an acceptable set of flaws. You like someone for various reasons, but you don’t rate them on various facets of their personality. You just like them for a few characteristics that they possess.

Another thing. Maybe we evaluate people in the first split second that you meet them, and any opinion that you have of them in the future will be biased by this “first impression”(It’s called “thinslicing” writes Malcolm Gladwell in his brilliant book Blink). So, it really won’t help if you keep trying to figure someone’s personality out.

Anyway, trying to figure out someone’s personality is as futile as trying to figure out how to… I don’t know! It’s just a futile effort. Your brain kinda just decides whether it likes someone based on a huge set of factors, which enter your head on their own, very subtly( your head’s smarter than you think). People are what they are. Just accept them that way, and you’ll know whether you like someone or not.

This article is dedicated to a certain Little Miss Pinky who should’ve won the aforementioned contest( if it was ever actually based on personality!), but didn’t. She didn’t even have to take part to win it. She was just too good for it. Seriously.

If you have anything to say about this article, leave it down here. Cheers!

PS: I made it shorter than usual on request.

A streetcar named Desire…

There’s a drastic change in mindset that occurs when one enters college. I’m not talking about the “Drinking is cool/ I’m hep/ I’m old enough to make my own decisions” part. Quite apart from all of that, one does start thinking more independently. It happened rather soon after I entered Surathkal. It’s this desperation to achieve something. This burning desire to prove something to everyone else. And trust me, it hits you in college in a whole new way.

When I entered NITK, I started wondering about what I’ve done in life( if anything), and what I wanna do with it. And then it hits you. That perhaps you haven’t done anything worthwhile with your life. I admit this is a somewhat pessimistic take on life and our own achievements, but I have to admit, I still felt like a nobody. People like Mark Zuckerberg accentuated this line of thought. He’s the guy who started Facebook, and probably the reason for you being on this blog. Get this. The guy was 19. He started a website from his Harvard dorm, which moves into social networking a year or so later. This at a time when Orkut was at its zenith. And then he strikes gold! People flock to his site like wolves to a pack of sheep. And he’s rich! Mark Zuckerberg is now 25, and he’s a frigging billionaire!! Now, where do mere mortals like you and me who are of the same generation stand amidst all of this. What do we do with our lives? We go to college, do a few things, and if we’re jobless, we sit on FB( which gives that idiot tons of business you know… the guy’s a genius!). But then there are stories like this and they make you think. What do I wanna do with my life? What ‘s so different about this guy that he became a millionaire even before he got laid?!(Citation required.. I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m offending him. I respect the guy like no other.). Maybe it was this. He knew he wanted to kick ass! He had the flare in him to do something, something really big, and that is something that most of us lack. We’re never encouraged to try anything new, take risks, take over the world… it’s our default mindset. It’s the same with me too. I’m shit scared of taking risks. But I still wanna do something. And that’s what separates the wheat from the chaff. That killer instinct.

I think that though it’s just there in some people, it exists to varying degrees in others. Everyone wants to dare, achieve something big, but each person has varying levels of courage to try. But you won’t know the result till you actually jump into the ring. You have to have that burning desire, and you have to be stupid enough to be more brave than careful. But the recipe is pretty clear. You have to put in everything you have, every drop of blood. But don’t die for the result. Then you’re sure to win. Buddha’s talk of “no desire, all detachment” took a long while to make sense to me. When you want something really badly, you should want it badly enough to give it away at any point in time. And that’s the hardest thing to do. It’s easier to stay attached to it than actually release it all. I discovered that when, for the only time in my life, I gave everything I had, but didn’t even come close to winning (if u’ve met me, u probably know what I’m talking about). The realization came only much later.

And that I think is the X-factor. The flare is hard to find initially, but that alone is not enough I think. ‘Cos I think that you need to treat all of it with a certain degree of detachment to actually achieve it. You have to show that you’re above it all in some ways. ‘Cos with detachment comes a certain sense of… peace, and the knowledge that you’re going to win.

This article is dedicated to a certain Mr. Chiggius Copernicus, for the similarity we share in the desperation to do something with our lives. I don’t believe either of us has made any progress after a whole semester of college, but it’s good to know there’s someone else out there with the same frustrations as you!

If you have any disagreements with the above article, which I’m sure you do, leave it down here. Or  if you actually ended up liking it, put it down here anyway. Cheers!

Yellow…

One great thing about Surathkal is that the sky is generally very clear, if it isn’t raining of course. The best part about this is that the night sky is astoundingly clear. So, you’ll see a brilliant starry carpet if you look up on a happy day. You never see even half the number of stars in Bangalore. It’s probably all the pollution in Bangalore. Anyway, with all those lovely stars in Surathkal, I began stargazing every night. Gazing at the stars set me thinking. There is a lot that can be learnt from even the smallest of things that we do, and it’s the same case here.

When you keep staring at the stars, you wonder at how tiny they look, and how far they must be, and how big they actually must be. Then you start thinking about planets and galaxies, and how impossibly huge the universe must be to fit all this in. And the earth, in all of this, must be an incredibly inconspicuous speck in the middle of nowhere, or rather, in the solar system of a midsized star, in a spiral galaxy or whatever. And then you come down to us, the incredible inhabitants of our planet, and how small we are compared to the vastness of the earth. Don’t you wonder, what an incredibly pointless fraction of the universe we must be? That perhaps, it wouldn’t even make a difference to the universe whether we lived, died or never existed at all. This kinda puts things into perspective for me. And there are a few things that I conclude from all of this.

Firstly, being such a tiny speck in this ginormous universe ought to motivate us to work harder and try more sincerely to make an impression on the world around us. ‘Cos every time you think you’re too good for all of this, look up, and you’ll hear the cosmos laughing at you. We can only strive harder to make a difference to the world and its people, ‘cos that’s the best we can do to perhaps improve our contribution to this place.

Secondly, all the problems that we crib about, all the things that we worry about, are microscopic in comparison to the universe. No problem that’s affecting you right now is big enough or hard enough that it can’t be solved. It just needs time, patience and more than anything, hope and the belief that it can be solved.

Thirdly, perhaps it also tells us that we should value our lives and all that’s in it, a lot more, rather than take it for granted as we normally do. A lot of times, we hardly value what we have. But put it in perspective with the universe, and with the fact that it may never have existed, and is so tiny in comparison to the cosmos, that it may be vanish any second. That ought to help in living better lives. At least I think it would.

So, just look at it. The universe is a frigging huge place, and it’s very humbling to know that we are but almost non-existent specks in this huge matrix. Almost non-existent. Let’s do the best we can with that tiny little speck that belongs to us.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the title, it’s a song by Coldplay.

A special Thank You goes out to a certain MMG for inspiring the second point up there. She was the one who pointed that part out.

Another big Thank You goes out to everyone who read my first article and commented. Thanks a lot! It’s very encouraging…

So, if you liked this one too, or didn’t like it, just leave your comments down here. Cheers!

Life and death of the first semester…

First sem’s actually over! It’s very hard to believe, especially since it seems only like yesterday that we were slogging away for all those entrances. And then we landed up in NITK Surathkal. Thank God! Believe it or not, I actually considered going to NIT Trichy. I later discovered that the place is like jail compared to ours. NITK’s a brilliant place with an unprecedented amount of freedom.( I apologise if I offended any girls- they have block timings of 7:30 pm!).

So there we were on the day before orientation, with all our bags and suitcases. My room mates were already decided. Four of us turned up together during counselling, and made sure we got the same room. Sure this goes against the concept of meeting someone new people and stuff like that, but this is simpler when you’re new and scared of ragging and things like that. So we met a few new people. The good part was that there were a lot of people from my own school, so that made matters simpler. It’s kinda funny how people connect or disconnect the very first time they meet. At the very first meeting you know whether this guy’s ok, or you wanna stay away from him. This process of meeting new people went on for a couple of weeks. And then you kinda know your group, and it pretty much stops there.

Then, of course, classes began. I have to admit, this was the big disappointment. When you come to  study engineering and you hear all the big names of those subjects, you’re pretty impressed. In practice though, they don’t come close. EG sucked the life blood out of most of us. The rest were kinda ok, but not terribly interesting. And then, once you got into the groove, you start bunking classes . Though you need to be careful, because NITK has a minimum attendance rule of 75%! Of course, this hardly matters in subjects like trical with cases like Sierra Nevada, who took attendance twice in the whole sem. And one of them was mock attendance I think! Classes were a bit of a drag in the first semester, quite akin to what our seniors warned us.

Seniors- how can I forget? Since the day we came, there was this continuous, unwarranted fear of ragging, despite the administration saying that NITK is totally free of ragging. That part is a bit farcical I admit, but ragging here is very mild and almost non-existent, at least for the guys from Bangalore. We did get ragged in fact. By the seniors from our school, and actually it was kinda fun. They just made us sing and dance, and do a few stupid things that I won’t talk about, but it was a great way to know your seniors, and they’re pretty helpful when you need them.

NITK seriously rocks because of the number of extracurricular activities that we have. We have four tech clubs- IEEE, IE, CSI and ISTE, and a bunch of other clubs. These guys are always organising something or the other. So in the evening, when you think college ends, that’s when it actually begins. And for someone who just needs something to do other than studying, this place is like a goldmine. I remember, at the start of the year, we had two of these “treasure hunts” across campus. They were great fun, all the running around and all that. But I think the reason they organise these treasure hunts in the very first month is that they probably know that first years would probably never fall for it again, even by the second month. At the start, you don’t know the campus too well, and you’re actually willing to sweat it out and run around the campus under the frigging noon day sun. Trust me, no one falls for it thrice. Though everyone did fall for it twice. But  it was actually great fun, and it’s something every fresher should take part in. Oh, and by the way, do take part in a lot of extracurriculars. There are a lot of fringe benefits. 😉

The highlights of the first semester included “Crrescendo”, our intra-collegiate cultural fest, and “Engineer”, our inter-collegiate tech fest. Both these events were great to take part in, and watch. And of course, these were places where you could really show what you were capable of.

Crrescendo was an inter-year fest meant to showcase your talents, and bilge like that. But it was actually more of a platform to get thrashed by seniors at whatever it is that you thought you were good at( read Quizzing). But it is a good thing, because you actually work to raise your standards in at least a vain attempt to equal them. It is very discouraging at first, but it’s probably something that every first year goes through when he lands up at Surathkal, or any other college.

Engineer was a different story, since it was a tech fest and we saw some seriously brilliant stuff on exhibition. Geek paradise- that was Engineer. True, they all say that it isn’t even a tenth of the IIT fests, but what the hell! It was a very impressive and inspiring exhibition to a fresher who’s just out of school. Engi actually inspires you to try something, use your head, actually engineer something. ‘Cos engineering isn’t about doing math and getting grades. Its about actually doing something. And this is where it all begins.

The  somewhat annoying part about the academics is the continuous evaluation. You never know when they might pop up with some random surprise test from nowhere. And believe me, it actually does affect your grade in the end. Of course, you do have mid-semester exams and end-semester exams, at the end of which I’m actually starting this blog. About those, the lesser said, the better.

How the hell did I forget about life on campus itself?! Life rocks in a hostel! Even with the pathetic food and living conditions, and the rest of the crap that we have to live with, there is some joy in living in a hostel. One thing it teaches you is responsibility. Some things that you always took for granted at home- clothes that magically wash themselves, bottles of water that magically refill themselves, toilets that magically clean themselves, taps that magically churn out an endless supply of water just don’t exist in this darned place. Call me nutty but that’s probably the joy of it. At the end of a sem, when you’re back enjoying the luxuries of home, in hindsight, you just laugh at it all. Though I’m sure we’ll go back to cribbing once we’re back! But all said and done, it’s brilliant living with all your friends in the same building. Though it can get annoying at exam time, but small discomfort that is. Hostel life rocks beyond description, and I don’t know how we’ll all take it after 8 sems, if one sem got over so quickly.

So, there it is for you. One whole semester in NITK. The very first semester. A roller-coaster ride it was, which got over even before you could blink. 8 sems are gonna get over even before we realize it, and that’s one day that I don’t wanna see. Campus lives, it thrives, literally, and to leave it, is like watching it die. That is one day I don’t want to see.

If you liked my first article, do leave your comments down here, and please do come back for the next article which will be posted tomorrow. Cheers!

My first post!!

Hi! welcome to my blog. This is something I started because I felt like talking. So, if you don’t like people who talk too much, then I’m not too sure if you’ll like this blog, though I sincerely hope you end up liking it. This blog wil have lots of rambling but I hope you’ll tolerate me for that.

I’m from NITK Surathkal, and that’s a place I’m very proud and happy to be at. Most of my present life is spent there as I’m a hostelier, and I thought it’d be fitting for my first main article to be about my first semester in my college. So, have fun reading it. Hope you like it. Do come back tomorrow if you like the article. Cheers!