Of a Sitcom and an Addiction

The theme music has played on my computer at least a thousand times. Non-watchers of this show have been driven to madness listening over and over and over again to the same music, the same words being looped every 23 minutes as we incessantly shuttle from one episode to the other.

We're feeling young today. Like it's 1995. Twelve years old. Season 2.

My CD pack is neatly stacked and labeled with a diligence that I have shown nowhere else, and to no one else. Flipping through the rack I finally find myself... Season 2, CD #1. The episode selection is random. Both of us don't care. We never did. Everything's been enqueued on Winamp anyways.

Shuffle.

Episode 2-06 starts. The One With the Baby on the Bus.

The outside world's gone. We're lost now.

...

Chandler: Please tell me you know which one is our baby.
Joey: Well, well that one has ducks on his t-shirt, and this one has clowns. And Ben was definitely wearing ducks.
Chandler: OK.
Joey: Or clowns. Oh, oh wait. That one's definitely Ben. Remember, he had that cute little mole by his mouth.
Chandler: Yeah?
Joey: Yeah.
Chandler: Hey, Ben, remember us? OK, the mole came off.
Joey: Ahh!
Chandler: What're we gonna do? What're we gonna do?
Joey: Uh, uh, we'll flip for it. Ducks or clowns.
Chandler: Oh, we're gonna flip for the baby?
Joey: You got a better idea?
Chandler: All right, call it in the air.
Joey: Heads.
Chandler: Heads it is.
Joey: Yes! Whew!
Chandler: We have to assign heads to something.
Joey: Right. OK, OK, uh, ducks is heads, because ducks have heads.
Chandler: What kind of scary-ass clowns came to your birthday?

Laughter. Disastrous. Uncontrollable. Infectious. Clutching each other. Holding our stomachs. Tears in our eyes.

Cynics smirk. Like we care.

Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion. That's why when someone says "Dude, how can you watch that show, the humor is so retarded!", all we say in reply is "So are we!" The way these six characters have influenced lives and our humor sense is out there for everyone to see. Not that we disrespect these varied opinions. There're no "This is the best show EVER!" or "HOW can anyone not like it!" lines that you'll hear from us. But if we have a bunch of these CDs and a couple of hours to kill, we won't have to think twice about what to do. :)

Just caught this video on YouTube... nothing great about it, but if you've followed every season with as much devotion and emotion as we have, then the sentiment will not be out of place...



For us, it's changed life in the perfect way... made every day a little happier... kept away every sorrow a little longer.

Ten years. If it's lasted us that long, it will last us forever.

Heeeeere, Kitty Kitty Kitty!

Try this with any feline that walks on four legs. But never try this with the CAT... there's no way you can get away with it. This is one kitty you can never tame. With every passing year this national test has made a habit of throwing a surprise in every test that not one of those coaching centers can think about. And these dudes (the guys who frame the paper HAVE to be called that!) are throwing the challenge wide open.

Think, junta! Think your brains out! Speculate. Take tests. Practice all you want. But on that fateful third Sunday of November, it's going to be anything but easy. We're going to give you something that will require you to keep your mind wide, WIDE open. And we're gonna make sure that's the only way you get into India's best B-Schools.

Every year the CAT has thrown in the most unexpected of surprises, ones that would make the most prepared of candidates marvel at the way these test setters never seem to be short of ways to open the gift wrapper. That's why it's still the most marvelled-at admission tests of the times.

CAT 2003: "Each question carries one mark. In distributing your time across the various sections, you are required to demonstrate your competancy across each of these sections."

Coacher line: "Whatever the case, each question carries the same marks. Scan the paper and do the ones you think are easiest..."

CAT 2004: "Questions x1-x2 carry half a mark each. Questions x3-x4 carry one mark each. Questions x5-x6 carry two marks each."

Coacher line: "Umm... Two mark questions. Best scoring. Make sure you attempt as many as possible. But the two markers are gonna be few. Make sure you get loads of them one markers, they're the ones high on the numbers! Half markers... do them in the end..."

CAT 2005: "In all there are 90 questions. Each section has 10 questions of one mark each, the remaining 20 questions are worth two marks each."

Coacher line: "Err... So, we hope you attempted all of those two markers..."

CAT 2006 bulletin: "... The test will be of 150 minutes duration..."

Coacher line: "Join us. We prepare you for anything that's in store!"

It's anyone's guess how much they can prepare you for! Everything just comes back to the same thing. The way, year after year, how the paper makes you go "Man!!"
You guys sitting there and framing the question paper, I bow to thee! :)

Home.

Well, a break of two and a half months again. And not without a reason.
Home, sweet home, could never have been more appropriate as it has been in the past ten weeks. So you have all the time in the world. So why don't you mail everyone you know, talk to everyone you would like to, and blog everyday and let the world know about what is happening in your life? Well, frankly, I couldn't care less! Who cares what you have (or don't have) to do at home! It's the best place on earth, no matter whatever you may think at any point in your life. Two months at home at a stretch, at this age... I won't say I haven't been irritated with the constant postponement of my joining dates on my job, but I keep telling myself: "When can you DREAM next of another two months like this?"
And I know the answer to that. At least not soon. Definitely.
Years later, when you get back from the places you are, things would have changed. People would have changed. Lives would have changed. But Home remains. Somehow it's the perpetual non-changing entity... something that lasts forever.
You have to leave home, but someday you'll to get back to it. That's when we all realize there's no place... like home.

Paradise Lost

Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute,
May overlook your Track

…

Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate

Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live

The "Life that is" will then have been
A thing I never knew
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you

The "Life that is to be", to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer's Face
I recognize your own

Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of everything but He

…

If "All is possible" with Him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods.

- from Emily Dickinson's

Because That You Are Going

Smile! :)

Ever felt how a smile means so much? How much you can make every worry fade away. How much it can make you not want to care. Every felt the way it speaks everything by saying nothing? Sounds clichéd? It did, to me too. But when you experience that which you thought was repeated and told a million times only by the author of a book who had to keep it, because there was no better way to describe it, then you begin to think… hasn’t the line become clichéd because people have felt it a million times, maybe more? Because the truth has been told the same million times and now everyone’s saying it? But someday you will realize how much of a reach these seven muscles really have.
Spread your joy. Drown your sorrow. Soften your anger. Ease the pressure. Hold hands. Walk down the road. Sit. Think random. Think nothing. Think everything. Stare. Laugh. Cry. Scream. Sleep. Dream. Every emotion, so beautiful, you would like to keep it forever.
If someday you feel it, let me know. :)

Afterthought: If this post hasn’t made much sense to you, you probably haven’t seen her smile. :)

Everyday...

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Repeat this a coupla hundred times, and my day is made... :)
Interesting life, don't you think? :D

Acceptance?

Remember the old school days?
Remember the time when you used to pen down in slam books “Friends Forever”?
Remember the times when you felt things would always be the same?
Remember how u thought you'd never realized that couldn't really hold?
Remember when you came to Pilani?
Remember when you thought “Soon I’ll be out of this place” and smiled?
Remember when you thought four years would make no difference to life?
Remember when things changed?
Remember how you met the people who did make a difference to your life?
Remember how the place meant more to you than any other?
Remember how the bonds with people just kept getting stronger and stronger?
Remember the precious few who you realized you’d have a tough time without?
Remember how four years passed like four weeks?
Remember when you thought “Soon I’ll be out of this place” and cried?
Remember the times when you felt things would never be the same?
Remember how you told yourself “It’ll be OK” without believing it?
Remember when you told others “It’ll be OK” wanting them to believe it?
Remember how you knew nothing would be?
Remember how you hoped everything would be?
Remember how you realized “the best days of my life” was an understatement?
Remember life as we knew it?
Remember?

And then Winamp plays this for me:

There’s so many different worlds

So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

-Brothers in Arms, Dire Straits

Music… and a lot more…

Today morning I was sitting at my desk trying (as usual) to make sense out of the hexadecimals spread across the screen. The minimum interest I show in it is due to the fact that dear faithful Winamp runs constantly in the background. Nothing better than hitting the shuffle button and letting the songs play one after the other, not caring which comes next and letting randomness rule! And this is what has made me listen to songs on my playlist which probably never hit the top of the charts, but nevertheless, ones which you can relate to so much. Three weeks ago I heard this:

All that you reason
All that you care
You've got to leave it behind
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much but you have to
Walk on…

- Walk On, U2

Maybe it was because I was in such a “phase” then, but it really struck a chord. And that made me listen to more songs of the band. First there are bands and singers who sing volumes about love and the things it has done for them. And I have also been an admirer of most of them. I’ve happily sung MLTR, Bryan Adams, Boyzone and lots more… and I still do. Definitely the softest and strongest emotion on earth demands so much attention! :) And then there is Metallica, GNR, Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd who have defined my rock music.
And then U2, who dares to experiment like no one ever has. Each song I listen to makes me realize how different all their songs are, and how much they have worked towards that difference. It hadn’t taken me long to sing along with With or Without You (thanks: Soundz@BITS, Pilani!), and I don’t suppose many could ignore that song. But now there are many more that I cannot ignore… One, The Sweetest Thing, All I Want is You, Walk On… the list has plenty. In fact, this made me listen to entire albums The Joshua Tree (’87) and Achtung Baby (’91). (For the beginners, let me suggest you listen to U2: The Best of 1980-1990) Awesome music, but what made me even more of a fan was the lyrics. Awesome, again. Over the last three weeks, Bono and U2 have become very much a part of my daily “cubed” life... time to tell Ojas, my wingie-U2-die-hard: “Now I know what you see in them!” :)

Fresher no more?

The best gift that you can be given is to get used to the changes that happen around you. From the studious and focused student up till 10th, the drastic school-hostel split personality in 11th and the 12th, the hater of tests in Pilani, to the city corporate here in Bangalore, that is where learning to live life shows itself to me as the most important thing around you.

But how easy is it to get used to changes? “Why is it even a problem?” would have been my quickfire question back three or four years ago. Now it’s not so easy to ask such a question or give a similar discarding answer. And it took me four years in a place with a temperature range of over 50 degrees to realize that. 333031 has changed me in more ways than I thought could be possible. It is now the life of yesteryear, but it stays with me today, and surely will for many a distant tomorrow.

And then the corporate started, and it was, to say the least, promising. Two months into work I lost the “fresher” feeling. Two more months later this was how life was to take its course. Come December 2005, and the change was starting to sink in again. Two weeks later everything had changed. A new job came up, and there was now a tough choice to make. Is it that life doesn’t let you settle for the easier choices? Or is it that after you’ve made them, the other seems to have been the easier choice? I try not to think too much about that. But as I see things now, change is around the corner again. One month later I will no longer be sitting in my comfortable blue-and-grey cube typing out code and verifying their outputs (didn’t I say that was extremely boring sometime earlier? I still choose not to change my mind, but heaven knows what awaits me next!), and what I will be doing is tomorrow I have no idea about.

And the people around you? How will you get used to never seeing them again, get used to the fact that you’ll be having an old beginning over and over again? But let me save that for later… :)

Getting used to change: life’s best gift.
Change: definitely not anywhere close.
Fresher: a word you'll use a million times in life.

The Bridge…

My solitary post completes nine months of its existence tomorrow. Surely, the blogger in me is not very much of an active person! But now there’s a need to get this back up and running. Have thought of why I even need to have a blog in the first place… I don’t discuss burning issues and give my two cents on anything even if it’s an issue I personally feel strong against. It’s not that my life is exactly what can be described as “hot and happening”. And personal opinions, are, surely, meant to be just that: “personal”? The more I think, the less I think I need a blogspot. But things change and so do thoughts, is the excuse I always give for changing my mind. Now I see this space as the best to dump the madness of thoughts that I prefer not to keep within… and let me now bridge the time separated by the two hundred and seventy days, and welcome myself back! :)

"We the Corporate"

Welcome to the world of the corporate! How rosy a picture of this life can we paint... The company loves you, and of course, how happily we return the favor! And quite rightly too. Where else would you receive the abundant luxury of those hissing coffee machines that look all the more inviting with every drink it gives you; the huge 25" monitors that seem to say that a computer should be nothing less, of course with the broadband ligament that comes along with it; the buffets that are laid out every afternoon inviting you to have your stomach's fill; well well, so who wants home, sweet home anymore!

A week later, I'm rethinking all that I just wrote above. A rosy WHAT? The luxury of coffee machines? Surely I must have been out of my mind when I wrote that. And it seems to getting worse with every sentence. Broadband superspeed? Now who needs that anyway? Ah, those wonderful times at home when I could just click on a link and see how it got loaded frame by frame, with every image and every icon fitting so neatly into their space... but of course, now the page opens even before you click on the link! And why don't those buffets seem so tempting anymore? So they've got three varieties of rice and three kinds of your favourite vegetables and sweets you otherwise pay an easy ten bucks for per piece, SO???

Well, surely this is a case of the grass being greener on the other side yet again, but it upsets me when I wonder if I will ever see the other side again. Will I, or will I just sit in front of my (wonderful and massive) 25" monitor looking at codes and comparing their outputs all day? (Which I must say is an awfully drawn out and booooooring job!) Or will I, someday be able to sit at my desk, looking at my screen and finding it filled with words and terms that make some sense to me? When will my freedom from those hexadecimals come! Oh sweet Satan of Numbers, fly thee at once to my wicked aid!

So FF23 EA78 5B6C 9912 and D7EF 2CD6 AA31 665B, before I end this formally!