A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems - concluded.

This phase of my life is called monkeying - monkeying around with code. In a world surrounded with yet more false starts and then serious trouble (strike three, four and five) I decided to lavish a bulk of my affections on women on screens, instead.

And in walked in three women - one of them from the past, as if to rightfully stake her place in my head and in my pantheon. Three women whom I have seen in device drivers and manuals, and in kernel source code - much like Neo. No, Deepika Padukone is not on that list. She can go watch horse races and cricket match with that Mallya kid. Bah!

Priyanka Chopra shimmied her way into my thoughts in a silver sari one Thursday night after a day full of meetings in Dostana. Hell, yeah, she was my Desi Girl. And hell, yeah again, in Miami. I have infinitely listened to that song on my iPod and everytime I see silver shimmer somewhere in my vision. She probably has a techie job and then parties on the weekend like crazy - but she is still a good girl and a sweet girl. At 22-23, I was in a techie-job but I never did find my Desi Girl at work - not even when I spent nights there hoping she'd be on the night-shift. I wanted to dance with her. That move looked terribly simple even for a two-left-foot-muscular-miscordinated-movement type of person. I wanted to party. I wanted to dance. I did neither in reality. Still haven't, not yet. I don't know, but my heart know if she were there, then I'd be alright.

But that year, the woman I know want to marry even though she is taller that I am, walked into my life. But I'd like to end with her, so I'll keep that for the end and skip just a little over and skip back here again.

Malaika did make a comeback into my life with "Munni Badnam". I still hum it or listen to it when I am feeling particularly frustrated. The lyrics have me in spilts and Malika reminds me of old days. After kids and a long marriage she still manages to do what actresses half her age struggle to do. That song was all over the place and I first heard it while waiting for a flight in pelting rain on my last trip to Surathkal. I went back and checked that song out on Youtube and it was mountains and steam engines all over. Raw country lyrics, popular references and slugs and 500-million-thousand joules of heat - courtesy Munni. She'd be anything you'd want her to be - atom/item bomb, cinema hall, mango and mostly importantly, dishonourable as well. I saw the movie just to watch that one song one more time again.

But just for a little while, till the lady walks in again - just to tell me that she's there. Katrina knows how to make her presence felt. Brit-accent is the second most hottest language a woman can speak, the first being French. Since, I don't understand French, the Brit-accent is the best. Any woman that can speak English with a Brit-accent has my undivided attention, but if that woman can also speak Hindi with a Brit-accent and look what Aphrodite/Venus/Helen and all those mythical beauties you can think of rolled into one - please please - pick me, pick me.

I like my camera and dabble a little in photography. One place that I really want to go take pictures of are the pyramids in Egypt. Well, that is my most desirable place now on the must-go-someday-list. In came Singh is Kingg and my desired woman was put on my most desired thing to photograph is a stunning black saree with a red-border in a lovely lovely song. I told my sister this was the woman I wanted to marry. She pointed out that Katrina was significantly taller than I am. I said I'd wear heels, stilts, anything. Irrelevant. And I wanted to go to...guess...yeah, Egypt for my honeymoon with her - Egypt - check, Camera - check, Katrina - check, Honeymoon - check, reality - check, #fml. I hate pink - only chewing gums that are pink make sense. Because, chewing gum is usually pink. Pink anything is unbearable. Except strawberry ice-cream. And 1st-standard painting with pink mountains. And, on Katrina. Pink saree, pink lipstick and pink earning are epic wins. On everyone else, epic fails. This isn't even an item number. It is a lovely romantic song with no innuendo and what not. And it is my favorite Bollywood song videos in the past 15 years. I can play the entire video in my head at will. "Sheila ki jawani was hot", baby, but you stole hearts with "Teri ore".

Katrina Kaif, I write code, do research, used to do data mining, I can cook Italian food and I truly madly and deeply love you. Will you please marry me???

A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems - contd.

As, unfortunately, we never got around to discussing the actual item numbers I shall dive right into that topic without fanfare.

My earliest favorite was undoubtedly the epic "Chaiyya Chaiyya" (or "Thaiyya Thaiyya", depending on your language preference). Malaika, glimpses of a seductively hot woman during furtive flipping of channels to catch late night love-advice shows, was the best thing that could have happened to the top of the Nilgiri railways. That was the kind of woman you'd want to meet of top of the Nilgiri railways if they let you on top of it. It got my heart racing and brain was flooded with every neurotransmitter than ever was, and I suspect will be. I positively prayed while watching or listening to music channel for that song. On the radio, I would just close my eyes are picture it in my head. The dance was, no doubt, a raw seductive passion that you read about in words - that was probably what the author was imagining while writing. The only reason I was adamant on taking a trip on that train - in the fond memory of that song - much later in life when I visited Ooty a different person from that teenaged boy that, along with most of the nation, fell for Malika. It is a pitty that Sharukh got so much of his face in that video - a completely unnecessary presence. If I had to pick a moment it would have to be when the train enters the tunnel and Malaika is briefly lit by flashes of red-light with the distraction of SRK in the lower right corner. And then continues on to a windmill-head-bang-meets-forceful bust thrusts.

But, then a moment's reflection and my previous post tells me that Khalnayak and "Choli ke peche" is what started the Rajasthani costume trend. I am, also, in no small measure reminded of this fact by Jammy. Colored sequined elaborate dresses, arms in white bangles, the head covered and black dots on the face - beauty preserving evil-eye warding marks. Considered explicit lyrics in its time, it was a song that was played by people to publicly demonstrate their marginal progressive thinking. It was an acknowledgement of the sexual overtones that a song and the associated dance could convey. It created images in the head of the mass populace - a mental programming technique that was extracted by both Mani Ratnam and Rajkumar Santoshi in the same year.

Ratnam's Chaiyya Chaiyya (also Sukhwinder Singh's big break with AR Rahaman and a source of a controversy in itself) was one, the other was "Chamma Chamma" from Santoshi's China Gate. Yet another Kurosawa-Shinchino-Samurai-inspired offering with a dash of Sholay added for good measure, it saw Urmila Matondkar in the Rajasthani siren avatar. While it did not have the heady appeal of the mountains and a train, it probably was a portent of the setting of the item-numbers that would follow. It was the same Urmila who was generally ignored at the start of her career as the girl next-door with no future, who had shocked filmdom with her antics in RGV Rangeela. Tanha Tanha was a treat on the visual and auditory senses. There was the out-of-bed clothes, flowing satin and flowery skirts and blouses that made the midriff even more desirable that other geography close-by and summer dresses and sarongs and what not. It was an explosion in a apparel shop that kept landing on Urmila and she carried each one of them to perfection. Jackie Shroff's contribution being that of a constipation of a mannequin's face and roughly about the same amount of movement expected of a mannequin. But, I still don't hold it against him - because he gave the world "Amma dekh a dekh" - fair deal. She was the girlfriend that I dreamed at age 10 I would have at age 16-17. My first love and so on. Watching that song after years and the pouted painted lips still reminds of the rains in Mumbai (I lived there at that point of time).

After that, there is a period of confusion that I cannot quite clear up. Flashes of songs come to the mind but nothing sticks as a writable memory. Partially because I moved to Bangalore and life was fairly complicated as such. The buildup to class 10 board exams, and then the harried JEE prep through first and second PUC culminating in Surathkal and my first failed attempt at love. In retrospect, right now, if I'd only raised my eyes in Jain college from in the context of altitude my life would have possibly been simpler and happier. Sigh...makes me wish I'd attended college more than chasing the flimsy JEE dream.

The only reasonably clearly memory that sticks is of Sonali Bendre in "Jo haal dil ka" from Sarfarosh. An excellent movie in itself with stellar performances from Aamir and Nasseruddin Shah with the classis Jagit Singh (RIP) "Hosh walon ko kya". That pinched the deal again with the homely simple girl who turned into a work of art draped in wet sarees in primary color. The same girl who pranced around in chic summer dresses in the Nirma sabun advert. Even after her fall from grace with reality TV shows (which I watched just to see her) I am still in love with her. I think I saw a little bit of Sonali in the first girl I fell for - which is why I probably did. Sonali, Goldie Behl? Seriously? I can understand the money, but my first name is not what you'd call your doll and my second name isn't roadside India-snack. I'll still buy that diamond ring and go down on one knee for you.

Surathkal happened. And, yeah, Yana. And "Babuji Zara Dheere Chalo". A Eastern-European model married to an Indian painter - this was love and quizzing trivia in one neat awesome package. Quizzes had to have one question to which the answer was Yana Gupta and fests had to have one something set to that tune. DDFC made it the norm and the first item-anthem of my university life was born. The rustic aura that Chaiyya Chaiyya transplanted from the north to the south, was being played out much stronger in its most potent form - Bihari. And complete with, what has to be, the world's most luckiest buffalo. It was forays into lurid steamy depiction of a dance who very purpose was that - lurid steamy scenes. A feeling that toed the line at a more Western flavor of pole-dancing and strip-teasing - it was that but with clothes on. Or excuses and handkerchiefs that passed off as clothes. It was what started the leather-latex trend. The first half in "traditional nautch" (with amazingly corny steps - one of which incorporates the Egyptian-hieroglyphic motif for the lesser skilled) and the second in black. Oh, did that baby come back in black or what. Here bang and legal was the first three minutes of a blue-film (yes, ironically or not, that part of the song is blue lit) with some severely nasty foot-fixations. Dum and Vivek Oberoi stopped mattering - you were quite willing to do all that was humanly possible to make sure Yana got into NITK - your year, your branch, your class and on the bench next to you. You promised not to touch - just watch from behind that glass partition. Yana, later in life, did many other things including losing the painter-husband and her panties. And, she tweeted about it. No, not the husband.

In between several flashes in the pan happened. None of which I choose to remember besides the rare moment when the jingling song plays in the background or word triggers associations. I can't even bother to check my time frame for these creatures - Meghna Naidu (an unfortunate attendance of a live performance because Parikrama was playing right after that - the sensation of a beer barrel on stage moving) in "Kaliyon ka chaman" which was cheesily nice number, Rakhee Sawant and Mallika Sherawat (both of which hung around more for their controversy generating skills and silicone rather than for any oomph). That was a hazy year for me - I discovered Floyd, and Zero, and Steve Vai and their dimensions. I fell under the spell of "The Blood and Tears" by Vai at a fashion-show at a college fest. I attended my first rock concert by Parikrama and was somewhere in between the failed second attempt.

When that haze lifted and the monsoons still made the South Canara coast look like heaven despite the dump we lived in came two songs that went head-on against each other. They tore my dreams apart with "double the action, double the excitement" ala Pablo Franceso. My off-and-on crush Aishwarya took the Bangali by the horns - when "Kajra re" faced-off with "Beedi jalile". While "Beedi" came from the more polished and appreciated Omkara and had had a massive fan-following - both of the discerning taste and of the taste of, well, beedis, "Kajra re" came via Bunty and Bubbly. B&B was a canned offering of "Bonnie and Clyde" slathered in overly sweet cream-frosting, frozen and served as desert. The only interesting part was the song - like the flambe sauce the restaurant used to prop the waning interest of the diner by desert time.

Oh, I'd light a beedi/cigaretter/my stove from Bips' heart any day, and every day, Ash shattered all the chains of plasticity with that one song. But, Bips must be given her due in my fantasies before my affair with Ash.

Bips was sultry and she was dusky and had eyes to die for. They could be happy, smoky, inviting, seductive, coy - set in that face that I wanted to be stuck on every available surface. I just googled her name to see her face again - it's the kind that you know you love, but just slips out of your head sometime and you need a glimpse again. Having lived for a fair amount of time in Calcutta and being able to speak (currently degrading quality) Bengali, anything that came out of West Bengal held my attention. Just as Dada did on the pitch and how I cringed when he took his shirt off. Bipasha in the traditional white Bengali saree with red borders, kumkum and kajal was the Bengali bride that everyone in that marriageable age in Bhest Bhengaal and elsewhere across India wanted to wake up to every morning. Her voice was another thing in itself. How I wanted (maybe want to still) bring her home in that dress and tell my dad - "Baba, bou esheche". But, then again, what can I do when Little Johnny want to play...

Ash was on-and-off. I was smitten by her in "Jeans", wondered what the hell was happening in "Josh" and dreamed about her falling in "Mohabatein". But now, I wanted to be there - right there, with a red-towel and with enough rum inside me - up against her husband and father in law. Lucknow - the nawabs and the questionable mujra - and when mushaira met mujra; when sharyari met thumka. Lurid lighting and the raucous pieces of the dehath glossed over in beauty by that one single woman on screen. God made her on a Sunday - he had all time and patience (though, some would say the cosmetologist, but I pass). Hips that were poetry in motion. The innocence girl that was there one moment only to be replaced by that trained tawaif - I cannot find the words to describe that. The song reminds me vaguely of express bus ride between Mangalore and Surthkal - the interiors of these buses were lit like the song. And when, it played once in a thus-lit bus on a return trip back from Liquid Lounge, I could almost imagine and smell the perfume that wafted from that hair when she flipped it around for that signature move - jasmine and attar. The wind played that night strange sensations of soft silk hair blowing into my face. "Dilli mein agar, shayad, hum hote."

Somewhere then Kareena did her thing with a remake of Don. She was and is not among my favorites and could not hold against Helen Jairag Richardson. And, I will leave it at that. Not a big fan - period.

Around that time, I graduated with a Bachelor's degree, torn-and-taped cardiac muscles and four years of training in life at a time in a person's most impressionable period. And, then I entered the real world - and failed miserably.

Uno

Most people he knew feared death. They feared it because no one had a clue what lay beyond it. Sure, there were books - several of them centuries old - that claimed different versions of it, but none of it was really certain - simply because no one had come back from the dead to tell what really lay there. What heaven or hell or the 'world beyond' looked like. Was it really that 'Great gig in the sky'?

He did not fear death. Maybe, he was a little afraid or apprehensive about the last few moments or the process leading up to the moment of death, but, beyond that moment it wasn't of any concern to him. Not at least, right now. It was, probably, because he'd had the chance to look death in the eye - come close enough to be certain of that one inescapable event of life - and then have the moment pass by. Albeit, temporarily. It had happened on railway track - a bridge between two mountains - that came out of a tunnel and went into another over a chasm.

He paused to reflect on those few seconds from a long ago for a moment, and then continued sipping his drink. The light in the dimly-lit bar cast his shadow on the grimy wall. Vague enough to be confused for one of those several wet patches on the peeling plaster, yet, a second look would confirm the hazy outline of a human profile. He put his glass down a little too hard on the table spilling a few drops of the whiskey. The drunk at the next table snored on - waiters would rudely slap him awake at closing time like every day and he would stagger out and collapse at the same spot on the pavement.

He turned to look for a waiter. Maybe, to ask for another drink or another packet of cigarettes. The ash-tray in front of him was piled high with butts. The light caught his face and I looked again. It was an unremarkable face - there wasn't anything that you would remember later. Brown skin which was slightly moist from the humidity. A large forehead made distinct by a receding hairline, dry black hair with a few strands of white, an uninteresting nose and mouth with lips darkened by smoke. He had a stubble which was probably a couple of days old that suggested weariness and possible stress. He was dressed in the clothes that one would expect a techie to wear - blue faded jeans, sneakers and a black t-shirt. His black-and-red backpack lay on the chair next to him. "Damn!", he said to me, "These waiters never show up when you need to ask for something, and then when you haven't left enough for the tip, the fuckers will give you a dirty look." I nodded quietly knowing what exactly he meant.

I'd turned up at this bar after work to get a beer. It had been a boring week at work and I was looking forward to a quiet weekend reading books. On my way to catch the bus, I contemplated on getting a beer and walked in into the first bar I could spot. As expected, it was crowded on a Friday night. It wasn't one of those upscale places where they made you fork out a fortune for a beer, nor was it one of those seedy joints. It wasn't entirely respectable - bars in India are not respectable per se, but it stood a rung above being a place where you would not want your manager to see you walk out of. I drank a beer out of a bottle and figured it would be safe since I did not particularly want to eat anything there. Not finding an empty table to myself, I'd settled for the next best option - a table with one other person on it. It was a choice between the techie and the drunk, and I figured if not anything I could at least have a conversation. I'd asked him if it was alright to sit across him and he'd just nodded his head. I slipped into the chair and ordered my beer.

Without warning, quite suddenly, he'd told me about his lack of fear of death and about the drunk at the next table. He spoke in a clear measured tone and used words that were clearly the effect of a solid respectable education. I sip my beer slowly, and I had only finished half my pint-bottle, by which time he'd finished three whiskeys, was on his fourth and wanting a fifth. But, the alcohol never showed - neither on his face or in his speech. It was the impassive face and tone that you'd expect when he was explaining how the operating system booted - a statement of facts that could be verified by looking at code.

"Have you been in love?" That question took me aback and he saw that on my face. "Actually, don't answer that. I'm sorry, it's none of my business and most certainly not something I should ask a stranger".

We'd not bothered with the formalities of identities and names - some meetings, like this, are best anonymous. One never knows what comes out under the influence of alcohol and it's just easier to forget a nameless face that heard it than to have a name associated with the momentary lapse of reason.

I remained silent and took another sip of my beer. He sipped a little more of the whiskey, caught the eye of a waiter hovering nearby and signaled for a repeat of his drink. He looked at me through his glasses and said, "Forgive me, but I need to let this out of my system. I know I have had a little too much to drink. Please feel to stop me if you don't want to listen. It's just that I've had these thoughts trouble me for too long and I am not sure if I can tell it to anyone I know. You don't have to react or say anything, I think I just need to know that someone is listening - that's it." I asked him to go ahead. I had no plans and a story like this would give me something to write about. The beer wasn't expensive and I was okay to drink another since I was anyway taking a bus back home.

"Go ahead...", I nodded and called for another beer...

A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems

This is meant to be what the title intends to convey - completely unauthoritative, personally biased and vaguely researched. It is not meant to reflect the opinions of a wide cross-section, but a very narrow clique that thoroughly abhors the masses and the opinions of the masses.

Over a period of time there have been several songs that the aforementioned clique saw being transformed from messy, lurid and suggestively raunchy numbers into anthems that defined the collective taste (or in some cases, the complete lack of any thereof) of the, also aforementioned, masses. Needless to say, but I still say it, - it is largely based on experiences accumulated over four years in an engineering college (though some of it comes from life outside of college as well).

The earliest I can remember are the Govinda-Karisma numbers that were centered around mundane plots like spice-levels in food, handkerchiefs being sexy and rural cots. The fact that beyond the controversy some stirred up ('sexy' was considered too forward and replaced with 'baby' for quite sometime), these probably exist mostly as a blur of lurid colors and jerky-synchronized pelvic thrusts. Govinda, despite all his comic-timing and talent for the inane, did not particularly fit well into the role of the turned-on-male half of the songs. It would be charitable to just say that Karisma was a Chinese-made Barbie doll ripoff dressed in outfits made out of fantasy musical backdrops from the thirties.

Though strictly not in the item number category, Juhi Chawla was one of the other women I wanted to marry. She possessed that bubbly charm of the girl next-door that was quite exhaustively extracted by directors and story writers in no small measure. You'd always wish that she lived in the house next-door and you'd be in a song sequence each time you saw her in the hallway. The ones that remain firmly etched in memory are songs like 'Ghoonghat ki aad' from 'Hum hain rahi pyaar ke', songs from 'Darr' and, surprisingly, 'Mere mehboob mere sanam' from the highly forgettable movie 'Duplicate'. I must make a little digression into this particular song - my personal smoking combination of two contrasting women - Sonali Bendre as the smoking hot girl that you chase interminably, and Juhi Chawla as the sweet docile girl with just the right amount of naughtiness that you'd want to marry. For some reason, I still listen to this particular song. Juhi also starred in a series of cult numbers in movies like 'Mr. & Mrs. Aflatoon', 'Yes Boss' and 'Ishq' to name a few.

What sticks out in this era in my memory is Madhuri Dixit. The woman exuded oomph and more oomph in every possible way. Somehow images of Madhuri in cult numbers like 'Dhak dhak karne laga', 'Choli ke peeche kya hai' (Duh...?) and 'Ek do teen' rarely fail to evoke memories of early crushes on the lady. Images of the highly sensuous dance sequence are most often spoiled by the appearance of Anil Kapoor's thick mustache - a facial embellishment that so defined him, that I was very surprised that Sonam did not sport one. It is still very hard for me to not attach that bushy swatch on the upper to Sonam.

A relatively unknown one was this song called 'Channe ke kheth' from the movie 'Anjaam' - one of the few movies where King Khan was the bad guy and did not hold out his arms open in the Alps. It also forms part of my goriest recollections of Bollywood movie moments where Madhuri bites off Tinoo Anand's ear. I have a theory that this was Tyson's inspiration for his epic attack on Holyfield that happened three years hence, in 1997.

In any case, Madhuri was one of those actress that an entire teenage and not-so-teenage generation fell in love with and possibly continues to be in love with. The fact that she is now married and has a very gratingly irritating American accent still does not take away from her charm. I, for one, till the time she got married, harbored faint hopes that I'd marry her one day. Sadly, I never got my break in Bollywood.

...to be continued

Personal blogs and newspaper articles

This article happened to pop-up on my feed on Facebook.

There might be millions of reasons to move back to the United States, but these reasons that the writer provides shows what he lacks more than what life in India lacks - namely, a 'pair'. Halfway through it switches from problems to his complete inability to cope with them, and that is what cheeses me off (more on this later). We are all guilty of one or more of those reactions - just as the writer was before he first moved to the US. The result of sensitization to such issues should ideally result in tackling them and attempting to sensitize others.

Each of his problems are centered around situations that software-professionals in India would not encounter in the Western world. Domestic help is almost unheard of, unless you are willing to part with half your salary. As is a driver. Here is an article that I googled - about $30,000 a year. While this article pegs the average salary of the software-professional at $90,000 - about three-times more than that of domestic help. In India, that number would be closer to maybe six- or seven- times.

There is a hell of a lot of 'redneck', 'black' and 'Hispanic' jokes in the US. 'Oh, so which part of town do you stay in' is most often an oblique enquiry into your 'social caste'. Oh, and you probably can't afford a maid, so there's no point of getting into 'how to keep her in her place'.

Po-ta-to or Po-tay-toe. Either way, it's still carbs.

Coming back to what cheeses me off - why is something that should be on a personal blog show up on the New York Times international pages. Is one man's personal tryst being unable to stop himself from being 'de-humanizing' and giving up worth the space and the attention? Is his shortcomings of being unable to be forgiving and tolerant and patient the best way to emphasize the Indian mentality?

Honestly, I'd love to write a piece on how it is uneconomical, non-eco-friendly and plain silly to use paper to clean up and watch a major Indian paper lap it up. Or a piece of how plunging necklines and rising hemlines in summers makes it quite impossible for the average Indian software-engineer to wear loose bottom-half clothing. Or the insanely irritating habit of randomly smiling and saying hello to complete strangers on the street. But, then again, that is what most of TOI seems to be anyway...sigh!

PS: The water is too cold in winter is not a valid excuse. In Europe everyone seems to have access to running hot-water (scalding even).

With all due respect...

... to women, rights-activists and everyone else in general. I've been seeing references to this new movement called the 'SlutWalk' protesting that dressing should not and does not instigate rape. I came across this article here. It is exactly the kind of article and written in the way you'd expect an article addressing such an issue would be. I am neither supporting or opposing or debating or arguing what women should wear and where they shouldn't go.

But what caught my attention was this one phrase "women are eyed like meat". While this might or might not be true (again, I am _not_ debating/supporting/opposing), it got me wondering on how men are eyed?

Are we all, in the end, just another ATM in the wall?

Judge Dred

Remember the movie Judge Dred - the ultra-confusemax movie with Sly. I knew that it was based on a comic series, but I just came on this song by the name of 'I am the law' by Anthrax that seems to be based on that very theme.

Listen to it here.

… or “How I derived the equation for a shattered heart”

Episode 1 is here.

Episode 2 is here.

Episode 3 is here.

Episode 4 is here.

We return to our meditations and study of the ATB after an unnaturally long break (the reader must bear in mind that any amount of time that is longer than the time to ferment batter for dosa is unusually long for the ATB – dosas and idilis being the very being of his existence and soul – apart from the acquired taste of OldMonk/SingleMaltScotch/StoutDarkBeer). The authors would like to apologize for this break and would also like to inform the readers that this break was for the pursuit of scientific theories regarding the ATB which shall be explained in further chapters. Also the authors were trying very hard to come to terms with living half-way across the world and the process of cooking food for oneself on a daily basis.

While the authors analyze and examine recently collected data, this chapter shall be devoted to some observations that are not completely proven, bordering on empirical and mostly conjectural. Though the authors understand that the readers of this series of articles are of the educated, informed and discerning bent of mind – the authors would like to humbly request the readers to bear with them. These observations are of a nature that is known to be difficult to rigorously prove mathematically using the various tools of calculus, trigonometry, geometry and complex numbers. Mostly, these pertain to that strange human emotion called love.

The readers would have no doubt read many famous treatises, quotes and stories about love and its side-effects (the more unfortunate ones would have witnessed a tragic waste of celluloid called ‘Pyaar ke side effects’ which in translated exactly into English means the ‘Side effects of love’ and loosely means ‘Please don’t watch unless you wish to end your life’). One particular quote comes to mind – “Le coeur a sais raison, que le raison ne’conne pas”. This is in French. And for those who do not understand French – the heart has its reason that reason does not know. While this may be applicable for most of the population worldwide including heroes and famous lovers in history – movies or otherwise ; this does not apply to the ATB – especially not the ones that will eventually become engineers (the ones that continue on to do an MBA usually become brain-dead and start behaving according to the French quote).

One must always constantly remember that the ATB has a reason to do everything – including love. Normal people and abnormal people (such as Bollywood script writers) would disagree, quoting the clichéd yet famous – “Love is blind” or “Pyaar andha hotha hai”. The authors would like to respond with a slightly jocular version – “Pyaar anda hotha hai – kabhi omlette toh kabhi aulaad”. But, the ATB, does not believe in such jest in most matters – most importantly love. An upbringing devoid of any opportunity for romance – except probably the passing interest in the female author of a textbook (more for her talent in illustrative examples and a separate volume 2 of the book with all the answers to exercise problems) ; the ATB approaches all matters of heart with extreme caution and lots of homework and background research.

Other researchers have shown, both theoretically and experimentally, that all women believe that men are attracted to women based on two characteristics alone – level of hotness and level of hotness. Subsequent studies showed that in the case of women the product of beauty and brains was constant from the perspective of men. Pressure from various women-liberation organizations and stark failure of the law (Aishwarya Rai, for instance) spurred further investigation and a third quantity was introduced which seems to apply reasonably well to most known cases. The third quantity is termed the availability – simply put, it is a measure of the probability of a given average male (note that this average male refers to the males in the middle of the normal distribution curve – which has been experimentally determined to be engineers –notably software engineers in potentially dead-ended jobs) being able to successfully woo a girl leading to marriage. Availability is calculated by taking into account the single status, the career-mindedness, the rationality, age of the woman into consideration. Factors such as the woman’s affinity to the Twilight series, Shahrukh Khan, Beyonce/Justin Beiber, SATC (positive affinity for these counts for 0) and Woodehouse, Tarantino, Metallica/Megadeth/Thelonious Monk and Transmetropolitan(positive affinity for this counts as 1) is accounted in the brains factor. Thus, the relation was later modified to the product of beauty, brains and availability is a constant. Surprisingly enough, this was popularized by a Bong(Bengali) with significant TamBram influences.

The ATB carefully applies this formula to any interest that he finds in girls of his college. He then builds complex stochastic simulation models using Matlab/C/C++ (mini-projects under the guise of graphic editors) to validate his calculations before initiating contact. Recall that the ATB by now has understood that club in colleges are the best medium of interaction with members of the opposite gender under the guise of organizing fests (the reader is referred to the sample conversation in the previous chapter). Very rarely (usually one out of a three hundred times – this is extrapolated and sampled over all engineering colleges since it is quite impossible to find three hundred girls in a single engineering college except if it were an all girls engineering college, which the authors were unable to find in India) the conversation takes a different turn when the girl answers to “Do you like Batman comics?” with a “Which series are you talking about – Hush or the Dark Knight? Personally, I wasn’t so impressed with the Dark Knight series, considering Sin City was epic.” Or, “Dude - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds – that is the order of awesomeness”. Or, “Top of the morning to you” – a classic Woodehousian opening. This is about the time when the ATB explodes into a million drops of testosterone [sic] and causes several segmentation faults in his brain.

With enough luck and no other amit_123s (refer to Krish Ashok’s blog for complete definition) competing, the ATB initiates outings in the form of a group meeting of the literary committee when most other members have classes. Venues in this case will shift from the classroom on the ground floor to the canteen or coffee shop. After several of these meetings, the ATB summons enough courage to ask the girl in question out for coffee, and then after several coffees for dinner and so on. It is of importance to note that the ATB does not broach the topic of relationships and the where-is-this-headed – he simply assumes that the girl will eventually figure out since in his universe all relations are nothing but a mathematical mapping from one set to another and mathematics never lie. This is invariably the most significantly incorrect assumption that the ATB makes despite knowing the axiom that women think with their hearts and not their heads. Invariably another competitor makes an entry – does all the things that the ATB did with a little more panache, all the while expressing his undying affection for the girl. By the time the ATB realizes this and hastens to express in clear chronological order his story of affection and love, he is met with the world’s most potent weapon – the LJBF or the Let’s-Just-Be-Friends. The weapon is so destructive and effective that most nations in the world have strict usage policy and non-proliferation acts in place – despite which women across nationalities, religion, color, race and sit-com preferences press the proverbial red-button with nonchalance.

Therapy for the ATB now consists of copious OMR, Dream Theater progressing to Megadeth progressing to Judas Priest progressing to Children of Bodom progressing to Katatonia progressing to Eternal Tears of Sorrow and then suddenly mellowing down to classic jazz and blues as he slowly accepts fate and starts preparing for the future. He slowly gets back to his old groove of reading graphic novels, spending nights trawling the Internet/LAN for offbeat music and cult-classic movies and conducting marathon quizzes with stage threes for the college quiz club. He begins to haunt empty classes in the night studying not just the notes and standard texts, but additional books to add to his knowledge. Some begin to mug up GRE wordlists and have been known to be able to recite them forwards, backwards, sidewards and occasionally in binary/ASCII/Klingon as well. He puts in efforts, pulls strings and gets himself a summer internship in a large company/research institute/HAL and vows (and successfully does) to finish the internship and learn something useful.

The ATB will use his blog as a form of catharsis and pour out all his pain and sorrow in the manner posts that range from side-spiltingly funny to long fictional series to short stories (these two seem like the lives of others, but most often reflect the ATB's own experiences) to depressed one liners to suicidal code (most commonly this takes the form of a small C program that tries to send itself Signal 9 as defined in on Linux systems).Mostly these are manifestions of heartbreak and sadness, but readers are directed to take extreme caution if they chance upon such blogs. They are requested to initiate contact with the ATB and try to ascertain his mental state and determine if he needs medical or emotional help. Close friends of the ATB are to be notified of the ATB's state and in extreme cases request emergency medical help.

While the ATB learns the meaning and usage of uncommonly pointless words such as prevaricate and lugubrious , the third year of college draws to end and we end our current installment here. The next chapter shall follow the ATB through his final year in college – which is one of the most important ones and the one that the ATB will remember with bittersweet memories for life. Readers are encouraged to search the internet for blogs of ATB engineers/techies that they know or have heard of for posts from the times of their engineering. These posts are poignant, deep, and sometimes depressing stuff woven in the form of short stories or C code that on compilation creates a 23.45MB binary which essentially just prints “Goodbye cruel world” and exits. What most people fail to notice is that by inserting a break-point just before the printf, and at that point taking a dump of the data-segment of the program produces the aforementioned short-story when converted to ASCII. Shahjahan might have built the Taj Mahal for his love out of marble, but the ATB painstakingly expresses his love in binary (the last known program to be written in binary was the first compiler that was ever written). This is not just the first of these instances of failure in love, we shall come across more as the ATB plods on through his existence and insects in mess-food.

Blah!

The clock ticks ever so slowly, pulling out every minute like a long unbroken strand of silk. Halfway across the world yesterday ends and halfway across the world a new one starts. And, I live in between.

And still...

...despite the being shown the door I am statistically still worse at applying for a Master's degree.

#FML

The Tuscan Toxness

It's been a while since I wrote anything coherent or sensible (code included) and somehow reading countless blogs of friends and other random people induces me to write this. Just to make sure that I am still capable of forming reasonable sentences of appreciable length. That, and the absolute boredom of being, which I shall get to soon.

It's been a little less than a month since landing up in Italy and one thing that keeps going around in my head with irritating regularity is 'stranger in a strange land'. The biggest shock that is still only very slowly fading off is that of language - everything is in ITALIAN. And, hardly anyone speaks English. So much so, that, at the local immigration office, where one goes to apply for the stay permit, the people cannot speak English. WTF? You expect foreigners to come there, but then again in Europe, unlike the rest of the world, English is not a language that you can get by with. Argh! Six languages on a box of chocolates and not one is English - there is Hungarian and Polish - but not even a sliver of English.

Well, one thing is for certain - Russel Peters wasn't wrong about the hand gesture. That one hand gesture is possibly the most frequently used - though it does not always mean 'WTF?'. What is actually means depends on a) the tone of the conversation (normal, heated, nuclear) and b) the force of execution. Italians cannot ever speak without using their hands. Tie an Italian's hand behind his back and ask him to speak and he will probably just spontaneous combust.

Eating outside is, as expected, a little bit of an issue for TamBrams. Even, if it is a non-conformist chicken-mutton eating TamBram. Pork, beef and the some seafood is what they eat here. Chicken and mutton, I guess, is too pedestrian. Pork, maybe I can manage, but a few thousand years of culture, religion and values hardwired and programmed into me refuses to give in to eating beef. You do get vegetarian food, but after a couple of weeks you run out of options. Not to mention the absolute blandness of food - I really fail to see the subtlety of taste and flavor, except the overpowering taste of cheese and cardboard. Last Friday, while eating lunch (risotto, funghi e formaggio - rice, mushroom and cheese) after one spoon of it, I went and doused the entire thing with about four or five spoons of pepper powder (which also isn't very spicy - God alone knows why). An Italian friend who was with me looks at the plate and asks me how I would be able to taste the vegetables and rice with so much spice. I could only shrug and say that without the pepper I couldn't taste anything. The Indian taste-centers of the brain have been designed to taste everything else after canceling out the spice.

The margherita pizza is stupendously amazing. It isn't close to anything I have has in India. In fact, the pizza here has no comparable equivalent in India. It's just brilliant. Especially, the Napoli pizza. And the gelato - the worst gelato here is better than the best I have eaten in Bangalore. You can get really surprising flavors like ginger and saffron and choose to mix it with something regular like chocolate or pistachio. It's creamy, cold, sweet and one of those things that is familiar and comforting. The gelato pricing when converted to Indian rupees is still in the same range - 1.5-2 euro (or 90-120) for two normal scoops. Everything else is expensive. I paid 1.5 euro for three garlic and I pay 33 cents for a large glass of plain drinking water in the canteen. Maybe by European standards it isn't too much, but heck, I am Indian currently living on euros purchased with rupees - of course, 20 rupees is too much.

Quite honestly, the Leaning Tower isn't that stupendously mind-numbingly spectacular. It's nice. Probably because I pass by it almost every day, the charm has worn off. But, even at first sight, it did not make an impression like Ankor Wat or the Taj Mahal or the Vittala Temple in Hampi. It was just about so, so.

This place is small enough to walk and get around. One end of the town to the other end should take approximately a little more than an hour - that is how small it is. And since it is a university town, it's mostly filled with university students. Weekend nights at Piazza Garibaldi are noisy. Tons of young cute women around - this post that I chanced upon probably best describes the situation here. The only problem is though they are of every imaginable size, shape, color and undress - they all pretty much look the same to me. Heavily made-up, tight (often plunging/enhanced necklines etc) and white. I just can't seem to tell them apart very well. And, they all speak mostly only Italian. Strike one, two and three. I'm out.

I have a ticket booked back to go to India in September. Do you think I should buy myself a fancy Android smartphone at the Dubai duty free - or drink a glass of champagne? It's not quite often that an ATB gets his annual dose of a few more grey hairs (or in my case, another centimeter of receding hairline) over the Persian Gulf or maybe over Iraq? Of course, the scariest part of the trip home is the Dubai - Bangalore leg where you fly just off the coast of our dear neighbour (yes, the very same one who was whacked in the semi-finals). I think the entire aircraft including the atheists start praying.

PS: Episode Five - very soon. Written, but as soon as I figure out where I stopped Episode Four.

Trains are catching fire (but, thankfully, people are more or less safe(?)), the Great Indian Democracy performs yet another circus show with the anti-corruption act while the government bans child labor in circuses. The politicians are trying to make as much graft as they can before the laws change. There is enough mud from the slinging to make yet another great Gangetic plain. The economy - well, it goes up and down like a bloody yo-yo.

And, I sit here, halfway across the world in a place where I cannot understand most of what is being said (to me or otherwise), where I cannot speak without miming and have to eat mostly leaves and vegetables to avoid the extensive beef that is all around. And worrying about where life is headed and whether coming here was a big mistake.

Ugh...my head functions is terribly small world.

The Lull...

...before the total depression. Damn! Damn! Damn!

The Average TamBram - Episode Four - The Woman in Red

...or "How I did not meet your mother"


Episode 1 is here.
Episode 2 is here.
Episode 3 is here.


We last left the ATB in the sweltering heat of the coast, sweating in his room and staring at a stationary fan suspended from the ceiling coated with the dust and grime of a whole semester (maybe more) cursing the lack of electricity. The reader is bound to say, at this juncture, "Is this not an engineering college? Why haven't the engineers built alternate sources of electricity? Aren't they the ones who will go out into the real world three years hence to work on cutting edge technology?" We shall briefly examine these questions and put to rest doubts in the reader's mind - shortly.

A small detour is in order to explain the title of this chapter - 'The Woman in Red' - two important reasons. Firstly, this is yet another example of the references to popular culture that the ATB will constantly drop in conversations, blogs and other forms of media that he will generate. They are usually disguised as innocent phrases or words undetectable to most but, for the ones who do understand it provides a deep insight into the layers of thought that the ATB posseses. The current phrase, is for the uninitiated, a reference to a particular scene in the movie Matrix where Neo(aka Keanu Reeves) is being trained to spot agents and is momentarily distracted by a gorgeous woman dressed in red who could in fact be part of the Matrix. That in turn, is a reference to the fact that in most movies scenes that the ATB was not allowed to watch at home usually start with a woman dressed in red. Thus, in one simple phrase, the ATB displays the recall of fleeting moments in cinema, while at the same time bringing to surface his anguish and sadness of having missed out on that particular scene that three girls in his class discussed on Monday - he could not contribute to that conversation, depriving him of a chance of interacting with the opposite gender. The second reason is quite trivial - the authors have just purchased for themselves a nice large red suitcase for the purpose of travel and look to the readers for some positive encouragement on their knowledge of color having progressed beyond black (and the occassional blue).

Returning to the questions posed in the opening paragraph, the authors provide the following answers (in order of the questions):

1. Yes, this is an engineering college. Also, Mysore bondas are not always made in Mysore, nor contain a bit of Mysore in them - they are bondas and are, as such, meant to be accorded only so much thought. Just like how hamburgers neither contain ham nor are made in Hamburg - but then the ATB will rarely use such examples, since it involves beef.

2. They should have. But, quite honestly, they couldn't care less. And, their professors care lesser. There are much more important things to be done like watching all of Quentin Tarantino's & Daron Aronofsky's cinematic offerings and downloading the '500 Best Metal/Rock/Jazz Songs of All Time'. Though, all these activities require electricity, any engineer will tell you that one should focus on one's core competency and assume that the other things will be taken care of by other people - that's the way to build a great product. Did Bill Gates ever worry about the grammar of the message on the blue screen of death? No, he focussed on telling...no...fooling people into thinking how great Windows was. (It was later found out that it was an ATB who wrote all the text, which was again peppered with references to the Apocalypse, Metallica and ended with a directive to reboot and visit the nearest temple as instructed by his parents)

3. No. They will attempt to make lots of money, get a green-card, get married, buy a house and a fancy car. Some will successfully do all of them by getting themselves an MBA. The others, we hear, are still attempting - to get an MBA.

The ATB is programmed from childhood, thanks to his conservative upbringing, to treat women with respect and hold them in high regard. Readers might provide a rebuttal to this by citing the large number of chronicled and documented cases of domestic violence. The authors have, rest assured, examined this closely and have come to conclusion which is as follows - even though the woman is considered the weaker gender, one must bear in mind that in a traditional TamBram household the woman is the one who cooks all meals. This leads us to the theory that a slight slip of hand while adding chilli powder to the pickle or 'mistakenly' adding salt to the coffee instead of sugar are methods that are commonly employed to counter any misbehavior by the man. A more direct approach is the use of the rolling pin or the 'belan' (immortalized by countless Bollywood movies and television soaps). Thus, we strongly believe that a woman has the power to break free of the shackles and take control. Also, the authors assume that their future better-halves might be reading this and any attempt at unwarranted chauvinism would effectively make them remain the lousy half all their lives.

Girls are a rare species in engineering colleges and rarer still in government engineering colleges located on the shores of the Arabian sea (though it seems quite surprising given the strong association of women and beaches built by various television series such as Baywatch, Baywatch - Hawaii etc). The ATB, having done his homework determines that college would be the right time to attempt to find his life-partner. He reaches this conclusion by use of complicated probability theory, census data from the past, distribution data of candidates attempting competitve engineering entrance exams and the market trends during Valentine's day. While the others in his class stare at women during breaks between class, the ATB goes into stealth mode blending into the benches and the walls, but silently listening to information that might prove useful - favorite Bollywood actor, favorite fashion label, favorite rock band (MLTR, Greenday - argh! How can you call that trash rock?) and favorite color. Some might say that this is eavesdropping, and they are correct in saying so, but as it has been established without doubt all is fair in love, war and Quake. Slowly and steadily, the ATB builds a huge database of information on all girls in his college across branches and batches over the first year. He still does not make a move - which might look stupid because one must swoop in quickly or else the target is taken out by the opposing team. He bides his time, plotting his master stroke, that will at once be daring, yet elegant and subtle. That, and his absolute incapability of approaching any girl and saying a complete sentence like "Hello, I am so and so, which class are you in?"

The ATB takes heart in the fact that his fellow ATBs are just as good or bad as he is and will very frequently hold deep discussions about the subject of girls. Popular topics during the course of these conversations are (not exhaustive, but only indicative) the North Indian classmates who openly flirt with women, who is rumored to date who, breakups and PDFs that outline the art of seducing the fairer sex. But these conversations tend to invariably shift to quantum physics and neuro-lingustic programming techniques since the most common way that an ATB explains any phenomenon is by turning to science and mathematics and breaking the problem into a simple set of equations that can be solved. This is, probably, his biggest shortcoming and his complete ignorance of the most important axiom of the universe - women do not like equations; they like flowers and chocolates and candle-lit dinners and long drives. He will learn it the hard way and then post the learning experience will turn over new leaf.

A significant result that emerges from the research that the ATB has done points to the fact that playing basketball and/or being in the various clubs (excluding the literary/quiz clubs) provides a natural means to initiate contact with women. He understands that conversations to elicit important information about her views on nanotechnology, food and Shah Rukh may be disguised as questions that are necessary to organize an event for the several fests that these clubs hold. A sample conversation is presented below as an illustrative aid:

ATB: "Hi, so we have to do this DumbCharades for the fest. Any ideas for some new rounds?"
Girl: "Oh yeah! I was thinking of having something related to ex-couple of Bollywood."
ATB: "Nice idea, but what about technology? What are your views on nanotechnology?"
Girl: "Yeah sure...we can have a round about small Indian cars as well."
ATB: "Whatever...but for your round, did Shah Rukh date someone else before Gauri?"
Girl: "Shah Rukh is the best, he is better than Aamir and Salman put together. Have you seen Om Shanti Om?"
ATB: "No...not yet, I don't understand Hindi that well, will you translate for me? Do you like cappucino with chocolate ice-cream?"*
Girl: "Yeah, I had it last evening in that coffee place."
ATB: "The new one...? How's it? Who all came with you?"**
Girl: "Oh...a friend..."***
ATB: "Ok...see, you try to make some posters for the event - the colorful types. I'll go work on the other stuff"
Girl: "But, what do I write on it?"
ATB: "Something. Or else change the date on the poster from last time and re-use it. It'll save time." ****

*The subtle attempt at asking a girl out.
**Information extraction to determine single status.
***Confusion to answer, and yet not answer the question.
****"I don't care anymore. Whatever..."

The reader must be amazed by the ATBs talent at conversing with a girl to understand her better, but at the same time it is evident that the ATB gets frusrated quite easily by failed attempts. This has known to be a problem with the species and research is underway to determine a cure for this condition. Scientists have been trying to locate the exact protein pair in the human DNA that leads to frusration with flirting - the last update from the group, led by Dr.RST Parthasarthy, three years ago hinted at them switching to other research - namely crossbreeding coffee bean and chicory for the perfectly optimized filter coffee blend. At this point, the reader must be warned that, the ATB has not yet given up completely. He immediately uses his large network of contacts and find out who the friend is. If it is a female friend, then the ATB plans a course of action to gain the confidence of the female friend and then use that route to reach his object of desire. If it is a male friend, the ATB will write a very arcane satire about dates and coffees and coffee shops and post it on his blog. He then proceeds to log on the IMDB to make a list of movies that star Tom Hanks.

We have only just scratched the surface of the interactions of ATBs and women and this theme shall be a recurring one in episodes to come. We shall examine another interaction of the ATB with the girl in the following episode and attempt to understand why the ATB must improve and expand upon his vast knowledge of the useless (like physics, Linux, economics, graphic novels and the technology used in the Star Wars series) to useful things like mobile phones, bikes, Bollywood gossip/movies/songs and chick-lit (Twilight, Dan Brow and Chetan Bhagat). The reader is directed to obtain and study carefully copies of Stardust and the authors/series reffered to, and in the event of them not having committed suicide by the time they have finished ten pages, to take copious notes. These notes will prove extremely useful in breaking uncomfortable silences during coffee:

ATB: "So where do you think this is heading to?"
Girl: "Well...see it's like this...."
(silence)
ATB(30 seconds later): "So is it really true that Ash and Kareena had a dirty fight at the awards function rehersal?"
Girl: "Yes da...some dirty things and all they said about each other. Ash made some underhand references about Kareena giving laser tattoo removal do ctors lots of business..."

Please click...

...and don't be turned off by those random ads that you are seeing. I signed up for Ad-sense on my blog to earn money to supplement my income which shall be very soon see a significant decline due to change in location.

Please also note that part of the proceeds will be donated to several TamBram self-help groups that are rehabilitating US-return burger-burping TamBrams to their roots with free sambar-rasam-thayir-saadam therapy along with filter-kaapi-conditioning. Classes are also conducted for roadside vegetable shopping and bargaining, along with veshti-tying-and-holding-up-one-corner-while-walking and TempleVisiting-101.

Lots of thanks. Please click.

EDIT: As nangafakir has kindly pointed out that I sold out, I shall accept that - guilt as charged.

The Average Tam-Bram - Episode Three - The Crumbling Cookie and other assorted condiments

...or "How I learnt to ignore the water shortage"

Episode Two here.

Episode One here.

We continue our story from where we left the ATB grinning at the board on the side of the highway dreaming of decadent debauched trips to Goa. Thirty seconds later (this is the average day-dream duration of the ATB), the ATB comes back to reality and hefts all his luggage thanking his stars that his foot-putting-down on no table fan was worth the complete silence and cold looks he got the previous night. The ATB trudges to the hostel office to pick up keys for his room and do the paper work. The line at the hostel office on days like this is infinitely long for various reasons - prime one being that anyone paying fees in 500 or 1000 rupee notes is required to list down the numbers on the notes to prevent the hostel office being cheated (quite unlike the manner in which they cheat everyone else by procuring only rotting vegetables and sacks of grains that are home to maggots).

The paperwork to get enrolled and be marked existent in college records is a complicated process that require knowledge of advanced Fourier transforms, multi-dimensional non-linear mathematics and the ability to live through extreme boredom. Having learn the first two during his coaching the ATB manages this task pretty well by substituting cribbing with other ATBs in while waiting. Most often the ATB will crib about the lack of women - preferably the single and looking types, failing which he will simply crib. The crib must not be taken as an idication of misogynism, but just as an indication of lack of other things to worry about - like world-economy, the next album 'A Perfect Circle' promises to cut, the food/water situation in the hostels or lack of clean underwear. Either he knows the answers to this ('Obama','Soon','Terrible' and 'Flip' are the answers in that order, in case the reader is interested) or he just couldn't care less (any question that contains 'Britney Spears' without 'Madonna' or 'kissing' falls into this category).

The ATB's cloistered upbringing usually tends to make him wary of strangers and this is best reflected in his interactions with his room-mates and hostel mates. What the reader needs to understand is that the initial hostility is but a defence mechansim - much like the initial gagging over the first sip of Old Monk and cola. Very soon, one learns to appreciate the apparently vile cough-syrup tasting concoction and looks to it for solace. A reservation that an ATB maintains is that of eating etiquette - one does not touch other utensils with the hand that one uses for eating (typically the right), while the specimen from the north of the Vindhyas believes that the right is for the top end of the ailmentary canal while the left is for the other end. Both perspectives are, of course, reasonable and eventually using the spoon or understanding that soap cleanses resolves contention (at least, temporarily, but breaks when there is roti and dal to eat). The authors will not elaborate on this and this is left as an exercise to the reader to understand his perambulations into the psychology of the ATB and/or the North Indian.

These initial differences slowly begin to fade away, usually over a few months and generous helpings of potable ethanol which may be sourced from the nearest watering hole. The watering holes near colleges are most often exactly that - waterlogged and absolute shady holes - frequented by truck drivers and construction workers. A typical bar of this kind will have various animals chained outside to poles, including poultry and dogs. Upon being informed that the food menu consists of chicken 65, chicken kabab and chicken soup and mutton biriyan, mutton 65 and mutton kabab (and the sudden disappearance of the aforementioned chained animals), one must exercise caution and stick to peanuts which have lesser probability of being tampered with.

If the reader wonders why the authors venture into the realm of meat and alcohol, which by ancient rules, are taboo to the ATB, the reader must realize the fact that such rules come lower in the list of priorities compared to survival. One must then question 'Why? Doesn't the mess serve wholesome edible vegetarian food?". At this point, after two semesters of pain, the ATB will (with characteristic display of elegant wordplay) tell the reader that the question is incorrectly framed. One question mark and one capital D are redundant and the question should, in fact be, "Why doesn't the mess serve wholesome edible vegetarian food?" And to this question, by means of logical reasoning, the ATB has, as expected, an answer. "Fresh vegetables cost more than rotten vegetables and rotten vegetables are breeding ground for various vermin including cockroaches. Hence rotten vegetable cooked into food are non-vegetarian by this axiom and any place that is called 'mess' cannot be, by definition, a place to eat." It is most often this that leads an ATB to take up eating meat considering that number of people who relish cockroaches is vastly outnumbered by the number of people who relish eating chicken - thus, chicken must be safer. To be further sure, he will down some Old Monk since alchol is used as a disinfectant in Dr. Parthasarathy's clinic.

The authors shall not delve deep into the academic activities of the ATB since academics is a well-explored theme and to be honest, extremely mundane boring and pointless. Interested readers are directed to consult various textbooks on subjects of their choice, with the minimum requirements being that the textbook be at least 300 pages or thicker. Or, alternatively, the reader may proceed to bang his head violently against the nearest concrete wall. Both are known to produce the same effects.

The reader must have observed some radical changes in the behavior of the ATB compared to his behavior at home in more conservative and puritan surroundings. This is just the beginning and the reader shall gradually see much more marked changes - for the better or for the worse is left to the reader to fathom. Also, the reader must bear in mind that the ATB is chameleon and will change back to the old ATB while at home during vacations.

We bid a temporary goodbye to the ATB while his wallows in the humidity of the coast worsened by the lack of electricity. We shall, on returning explore a very important topic - girls. The reader must note that this shall be a recurrent theme and an area of concern for the ATB through all his life. We end Episode Three here with the ATB considering the relative advantages of taking a bath once every two days as opposed to the once (or twice) a day rule followed at home. The primary advantages that the ATB determines are more time to sleep and lesser expenditure on soap etc. (which translates to an extra OMR every weekend) - reason enough to skip the walk to the bathroom and continue dreaming about eating 'thayir saadam' with Trisha while reading aloud sections from The Hindu's book reviews (the three important T's of an ATB - thayir saadam, Trisha and The Hindu).

The Average Tam-Bram - Episode Two - The First Journey

...or "Durgamba 2+1 semi-sleeper".

Episode One is here.

In this episode we present, as promised, an insightful insight (is there any other reasonable way?) into the psyche of the ATB. And, to this end, we propose to address (no, there is no DMA or indirection involved) a small, but significant part of this by way of examining his thoughts over the journey to his second home for the next four years. Yet again, the authors' make the assumption based on their first-hand experience as well as deep examination of experiences of slightly different situations that their first-hand experience, without loss of information, motive or generality, provides a succinct treatment of the ATB's thoughts. The authors choose a bus trip to a engineering institute located on the shore of the Arabian Sea - touted to be the only other college in the world that boasts of a private beach (the other one being in California, which if the reader remembers is an adapted habitat of the ATB). Further, for reasons of simplifying the discussion, we assume that the bus ride begins from Bangalore (another stronghold of the ATB) and approximately lasts eight hours - 2300hrs to 0700hrs the following day.

At this point we must present to the reader a very important trait of the ATB - a trait that shall be evident in the ATB's behaviour throughout life and to a large extent determines the ATB's course. To sum up in a single line - 'Always do your homework'. This is programmed into the ATB since playschool, where homework consisted of scrawling a few lines through school and high-school and coaching classes where homework usually consisted of solving a JEE question paper in half the allotted time while eating dinner. Academics apart, the ATB always does a background check and gathers as much information as he can before embarking on any significant task - right from buying pirated music CDs from National Market or selecting a college for his engineering degree. Like how his parents grilled all and sundry about the educational avenues, the ATB, too, diligently asks questions about which shops are to be avoided and how many pairs of underwear are needed for a semester of study (for the curious reader, we have done a survey and determined that 4 pairs are sufficient for a week assuming the subject is not averse and understands the concept reversing - much like audio tapes). The ATB goes one step further - he uses the awesome power of the Internet to gather arcane and seemingly pertinent but usually irrelevant information. He trawls the deep regions of the Internet reading forums on EduRite, WhichCollege, SantaBanta and NextDoorCollegeGirls (for 'pertinent' visual representations of certain facts).

The bus ride to his future college is no less important than getting the best deal on all ten seasons of 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' (DVD-rips...mind you) and the ATB collates all the information that he has gathered from seniors who are already at the same college or at similar colleges. At this juncture, we present the checklist (reproduced with permission) below and direct the reader to either mentally note down the same, or jot it down (one never know how useful it might be for oneself).

1. Always get a seat in the front of the bus.

2. Always book a seat in a bus that goes to the next college.

3. Turn up early at the departure point and look around.

4. Make friends with your co-passengers (wink, wink).

5. Do not wear that yellow T-Shirt from the 'Rajajinagar Bhajan Samaj' which says 'Volunteer' at the back.

The first thing the ATB does, after replying to the SMS ('I am fine. Will call when I reach.') is take stock of the co-passengers. All female co-passengers are marked mentally on the seat-map and then the ATB proceeds to compare notes with his other friends who are traveling on other buses. A typical conversation would read something like this:

ATB: Macha, six in mine. Yours?

Another ATB(AATB): Dude, sad life. Only two. One with mother.

ATB: Chance only da. Put fight and impress the mom.

AATB: Yeah right! Put message when you hit Kamath. Will catch up if we can.

ATB: Yo!

The reader must, at this point, be wondering about something being different about the conversation presented above. A closer examination, followed by a second reading will reveal that in fact, it is in proper English with complete words. This is another trait of the ATB - using T9 to generate full words is faster and at the same time more refined, besides inculcating in the ATB the habit of expressing ideas lucidly without excessive verbosity. Undeniably, this is quite necessary for scoring high percentiles in exams like the GRE/GMAT/TOEFL which the ATB will one day write.

At this point, most people on the bus are asleep and the ATB uses this opportunity to stretch his legs and takes a walk up and down the aisle. But, that alone is not the motive - he slows down ever so imperceptibly when he passes a seat occupied by a girl and quickly evaluates whether the person next to her is her best-friend/sister/cousin/mother (if female) or friend/boy-friend/boy-toy/father/brother (if male). Any conversation in which any of the aforementioned women are involved is eavesdropped upon but, with no malicious intent - most ATBs only think about thing long term. And at any rate, this particular exercise is undertaken to determine how many of the women are going to be batchmates/seniors/assistant-lecturers. The interaction with current and former students of the college gives the ATB a sketchy knowledge of the terms and lingo that is used and he looks for these keywords.

God forbid, if any of the women make eye-contact, for at this time the ATB has still not learnt the necessary skills to interact with women. Even a passing glance causes the ATB to conspicuously pretend to look at the floor in deep thought as if trying to solve a particularly hard programming problem - with vague hand gestures and head-scratching thrown in for effect. After the lights in the bus are switched off (the ATB usually hides under the cover of his blanket/shawl/jacket hood when the lights are on and shares intelligence with other ATBs on the other buses), the ATB slowly emerges from under the cover and surreptiously looks around at the women. Most of them are sleeping, and the ATB imprints their faces in his peta-byte capacity internal database for future reference. With this done the ATB mutters his nightly prayers and tries to sleep.

As soon as the night halt for coffee arrives, the ATB unlike others does not run to the door to be the first out. The ATB will wait, mostly for the women to get off and then will himself slip out of his seat and try to alight. This behaviour is for two reasons - one is quite obviously to avoid any form of contact - visual or otherwise - and the other is out of sheer chivalry. This is often misunderstood by the women as a negative trait of staring and almost the entire scientific community is bamboozled by this. There has been only one attempt to substantiate this behaviour by a group of questionable researchers who tried to prove using Freudian theories that this was infact a latent and hitherto unknown ATB fetish. The rest of the scientific community labeled this as an attempt to garner publicity by use of fraud assumptions - in fact there were several other papers published in response to this that proved beyond doubt that this rabble of so-called-researchers were infact mentally unstable uncivilized uncultured 'jungles'.

The first thing that the ATB does after alighting is to relieve himself in the restroom. This too, is a scientific response - having relieved himself once, he can afford to consume enough liquids and still have time to make another visit before the bus leaves. After locating his fellow tribe members (most often on the way in or out of the loo), the group proceeds to exchange notes. By this time, surprisingly enough, code-names have been assigned to the various women based on mannerisms or college. The method of determining these names is separately examined in another study. The other major agenda that the ATBs discuss is when the bus will reach and what rooms each one has been assigned in the hostels. Several crib about the heavy influx of North-Indians. This is primarily because of the physical attributes of North-Indians (tall, fair, good-looking) and other miscellaneous attributes such as knowledge of Bollywood, the ability to speak Hindi and having names (Raj, Rahul etc etc.) that fit into most application forms (a massive study on this topic has be done by Sidin Vadukut and may be found on his blog). This is, of course, just a defence mechanism against insecurity (another defence mechanism includes listening to unheard of metal bands, good old classic rock, reading off-beat but popular cult literature, gathering obscure trivia and in general being a nerd). Little does the ATB know that a few months in a hostel does wonders and the ATB will be eating sambar-rice with his North-Indian neighbour while watching "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai". We shall deal with this as we proceed further in our study.

After boarding the bus, the ATB sit and spends next few hours alternating between thoughts of his future and resisting the urge to throw up last night's dinner. Eventually, the ATB tires out, fantasizes about Trisha/Asin/JenniferKotwal and drifts off to sleep with one of them dancing to either Sheela/Munni in Tamil with English sub-titles. The next morning the ATB wakes up before everyone else, panics for a moment about his surrounding and then starts noting down which woman gets off at which point - not to stalk, but to just verify if his theory and his classification from last night was right. It is soon time for the ATB to get off himself and the bus vomits him and his 6 pieces of luggage including mattress on to the shoulder of National Highway-17 right beside a board that reads "Goa 351KM". That more than makes up for the lousy ride, the smell of rotting fish, the clammy salty air (all things he will soon learn to love) and a smile appears on his face - a sly trip to the land of sunshine, sand and bikini-clad women - reason enough to stay the four years here.

To be continued...

The Average Tam-Bram - Episode One - The Early Years

... or "How I got to college"

Disclaimer: This is not entirely imagination - it is partly inspired and shaped by real stories experienced or seen. Again, not always factually correct, this is intended to be taken with a pinch of salt, some paruppu podi and ghee followed by a large glass of buttermilk. It's meant to be funny and harbors no intention to cast anyone/anything in unfavorable light (except maybe the girl who avoided you and the mess food ).

The average Tam-Bram (henceforth, referred to as ATB) is a species that is found in large numbers in the following geographies - South India, Bangalore, Mumbai are the major strongholds in the Indian sub-continent. Scattered populations are also to be found in Delhi and Calcutta, but these populations exhibit subtle character differences such as being ambivalent towards North Indian khana and over time moving away from the A2Bs (Adayar Ananda Bhavan, for the uninitiated) and South-Indian joints. Dense thriving populations are also to be found on the West Coast of the United states - especially in the state California - in and around San Francisco, San Jose and Sunnyvale. This population of late has shown a small decline. Smaller but adapting populations are found in Chicago (these are the ones that are the subject of statements propounded by madisaar-wearing Mylapore maamis - "Aamam, yenga son-vandu Chickaago'l irrukan!"). It must be noted that most of the population in the North American continent has the unique ability to speak Tamil with an American accent - most evident in the pronunciation of 'thanni' (meaning 'water' or in slang any kind of alcohol) is pronounced as 'than-eee' with the last syllable being drawn out for about three seconds too long.

Having reasonably established the global distribution of this species, it is only normal to be curious about what causes such varied migration patterns and adaptations. And, this necessitates a not-so-small deviation in to the life-story of this species. Attempt shall be made to keep it brief and provide suitable analogies to help the reader identify and relate to the subject of discussion. Clarifications maybe gotten from your nearest Tam-Bram colleague (which if you are reading this might not at all be in short supply - stand up and yell "Macha, degree kaapi, anyone?" and the Tam-Bram will raise his hand up).

The birth of a male child in an average educated Tam-Bram family is reason for celebration. Apart from the usual religious functions, long discussions about his education are initiated in the family. Parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, neighbours and maami from the yellow house two streets away best know for her prying-nature get involved. The end-goal is quite simple - engineer, doctor or investment-banker(a recent entrant but, of late a lost a little ground owing to the sub-prime crisis - this fact you did not know). Cousins (and possibly friends of cousins and friends of friends of cousins and their respective parents) are throughly grilled upon the subject of education, schools, coaching classes, colleges, entrance exams, brand of bag/pen/shoes and water-bottle color. All of this information is carefully arranged and filed in triplicate along with a master copy that is bound and kept in the safe-deposit locker beside the silver sandhyavandham utensils and jewelery.

After about a year of doting, as part of the toddler's first birth ceremony he embarks on his arduous and daunting journey through life. He is brought up on a carefully controlled diet of idli, dosai, pongal and the rare conrflakes for breakfast, sambar, rasam and curd-rice (the world-famous 'thayyir saadam') for lunch and a combination of the breakfast and lunch menu for dinner. Regular daily intake of Complan/Bournvita/Maltova/Horlicks coupled with morning prayers, evening prayers and general knowledge books ensure and build his physical, spiritual and intellectual growth. His mother's greatest worry for the son is whether his wife will be able to regulate and provide the strict regimen that the ATB needs for proper functioning and this is knowledge is imparted to every daughter in the family (apart from how to buy vegetable, bargain, cook, Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam and read star-charts to determine auspicious days for all activities including sneezing).

Once he starts his schooling he is constantly under the scanner of both father and mother for consistent top performance (at least 18 standard deviations above the class average and at all times better than his friends who will be constantly used as an example to encourage). Play times are strictly supervised and activities exclude all games that can potentially cause injuries - which leaves the poor boy with very limited choice. The drill gets more intense as he proceeds further along - post his poonal (aka Upanayanam aka scared-threading - not to be confused with the beauty parlor procedure for women) he is required to perform all his studies with renewed vigour with the added sandhyavandhanam (starts with thrice a day, peters down to twice and then stabilizes at once every morning before eventually being performed once a year when the thread is changed).

Three exams are extremely important in any ATB's career - 10th standard board (Kapil Sibal has caused furore among parents of many ATB's with his reforms leading to the formation of a 'Mothers against Sibal" group), 12th standard board and the entrance exam for Engineering/Medical seats. Given the authors' profession and life-directions we shall explore the Engineer ATB's progress - almost all of what is presented further maybe applied to a Doctor ATB without any loss of generality.

The build up to the exams is an elaborate process consisting of visits to temples, promises of sweets/coconuts/shaved-head to the various deities and umpteen cups of milk/filter-coffee. Relatives are banned from paying social visits and the rest of the family stops watching TV to prevent any form of distraction to the ATB. Girlfriends being a strict no-no at all phases of life, during this pre-exam and exam period even magazines that have pictures of members of the female species (including J.Jayalalitha are stuffed away out of sight in the attic). Eating outside is strictly forbidden to prevent illness and all sources of cold drafts in the house are sealed.

During the exam the pencil-box lid and the obverse side of the writing pad will carry the picture of Goddess Saraswati (for knowledge and wisdom) and Lord Ganesha (the remover of all obstacles) to combat peeping cheating examinees and nasty examiners. The admission ticket is preserved carefully in a transparent plastic pouch and placed in front of pictures of gods so that they may be able to memorize his roll number and bestow their benevolence in the form of marks. Prayers are mandated before leaving for the hall (with a generous smearing of holy-ash on the forehead) as well as before answering the examination.

The two years post class ten are red-letter years (so red, that even a color-blind, for that matter even a blind, bull gets excited). Two important life-changing life-deciding examinations are space in a matter of two or so months - 12th standard board and the IIT-JEE(and/or)AIEEE(and/or)CET(or its equivalent). Along with regular school, grueling coaching classes are attended. Popular choices are Brilliant's (Chennai) and BASE (Bangalore) in addition to correspondence courses from either Brilliant's or FIIT-JEE. Irodovs, Morrision Boyd and Loney are studied, re-studied, revised and re-revised till the pages being to tear. ATBs have been known to weak up in cold-sweat from a nightmare muttering complex integration formulae - but these are rare cases, because most ATBs never sleep for these two years.

Once the exams are over another round of temple-visiting and praying starts to make sure that the results are as expected. 95% plus in the boards and a top-100 rank in JEE/AIEEE which will get the ATB into Electronics/ComputerScience in IIT-Madras/IIT-Bombay/NIT-Surathkal/NIT-Trichy/NIT-Calicut/NIT-Warrangal - ATBs at that tender stage are extremely apprehensive of crossing the Vindhyas - even IIT-Bombay is a hard choice but the strong migrant population (which invariably consists of at least one relative, however distant) in Matunga/Sion/Chembur comforts the parents about their fledging progeny flying the coop. He will be bundled off with various podis - paruppu(lenti), kothamalli (curry leaves) and thengai(coconut) to be eaten with rice and pickle (lemon/mango) when the mess food is inedible. He is given strict instructions to stay away from bad company, parties in the night, trips with friends to Goa and most importantly girls. The last is drilled into him umpteen number of times for the simple reason that any girl that has not been found and verified by the maami-network is pure recipe for disaster ("Shiva...shiva...edo ponnu-pa!"). A week before the day of departure luggage is checked, packed, re-checked and re-packed. Odds and ends such as Co-optex towels, Medimix soap and vibhuti are purchased in quantities to last an army of ATBs a year. A trip to the family deity's shrine is made.

On the D-Day, the ATB is showered with love and hugs and favorite food. The entire family and extended family and neighbours and the nosy-mami come to see him off. He gets on the bus/train and till the train/bus is out of sight everyone is waving. Thirty seconds later he gets a call on his new mobile phone (only Rs1299 with color screen and polyphonic ringtones and lifetime incoming free) to make sure he is ok. And an SMS, about thirty seconds hence.

The reader must have noticed that we have only examined the factors - people and situations - external to the ATB, but have not delved into the psyche of the ATB himself - of what he is thinking and what runs in his head. This shall now play a central theme of the following episodes.