The Days Of Our Lives

I've seen Fight Club atleast 11 times already. Infact I was just about to watch it again when I realised that it just wouldn't be fair if I didn't give it some space on my blog. Those familiar with the movie would have already realised by now, that the present layout of my blog is highly influenced by it. So here it goes - an ode to Fight Club.

I had seen some really amazing movies before watching the Fight Club, but it definitely took the cake. The story, the characters, the ending; everything just blew me away. It was one of those attitute movies - "In your face" kinda.

If you haven't seen the movie, here is a short summary - The story revolves around a bored, insomiac narrator who meets this anti-Christ personality called Tyler Durden. Things go topsy-turvy from there. These guys like to fight each other for fun, which leads to the formation of "The Fight Club", a club where people come to relieve their frustration in life, by beating each other mercilessly to pulp. The club gains massive popularity and before long Tyler becomes a cult leader and starts this crazy shit called Project Mayhem. As the name would suggest, its all about causing mayhem. Towards the ending, the narrator regains his moral self and goes up against Tyler's personal army, finding out the dark secret that is Tyler Durden.

If you have already seen the movie, you would know by now that the no words can describe the movie. Its pure art. The story is actually based on a novel by some freaky dude called Chuck Palahniuk (or something like that) and this one is actually one of his cleaner works. I'd read up a story by him called "Guts" available on the internet somewhere (Warning : not for the weak of heart. Also the reason why I'm not putting up the link here), and I could not sleep properly for the next few days. (If you still do look it up, mind you, you have been warned!)

The dialogues of Fight Club are geniously crafted. They just keep getting better and better with each viewing. The role of Tyler is played by Brad Pitt, whose movies I completely love, be it Se7en, Ocean's Eleven, The Mexican, etc.; the role of the narrator is played by Edward Norton, an amazing actor himself. The psycho music playing in the background is also highly addictive. All these factors make the movie a masterpiece in the true sense of the word.

Another thing that I really liked, was the fact that the mass popularity of the movie did not spawn a sequel - something that happens every-so-often ruining the air surrounding the original title, because the sequels usually suck - major time.

So as I go watch it right now, I would encourage you to do so too. Get a DVD and experience this modern-age epic. You can come back and thank me later. :)

I hail thee, Tyler Durden.

Just found out that my last exam, which I thought was at 9:30 in the morning, is actually at 2:30 in the afternoon. Yayyyyy! That gives me 5 hours of off-time.

Actually, this time around, more than the exam itself, I was more worried about getting up before 9:30. I haven't done that in ages now. I usually get up at 2 in the afti and am forced to order lunch from outside. So the moment I found out that the exam is in the afternoon, I called up my mom who wakes me up before every exam, which she's been doing ever since I missed one because I was fast asleep.

I received a postcard today - from France.

No wonder Onkar and I could not find Fluffy. The kidnapper (who we now know was Kedia), had taken him across the globe. Come to think of it, Kedia always did look a little French to me.

Just seeing that look of fear on Fluffy's face and Kedia's sadistic smile makes me want to do things to Kedia which are inappropriate to be mentioned here. One can only imagine the kind of tortures that poor, defenseless alligator has been subjected to.

Enough said; its time for action now. Onkar is already on a flight to Paris as I write this. Stay tuned for more updates.

You know you still have a long time to go before you are all grown up when you can still enjoy a game of air-hockey without a care in the world.

Tonight, I had a nice dinner with friends, after which we were offered a coupon for a free token at a nearby video-game arcade. One of my friends and I actually ran to the arcade to redeem the coupon and a minute later we were happily playing a game of air-hockey with little kids looking on and cheering. It sure was difficult not to swear in front of kids but we managed somehow. Half-an-hour later and 40 bucks poorer, I emerged the champion having beaten 3 of my friends at the game. Its nice to be a child all over again without a care in the world - sometimes.

P.S.: The child in that pic is not me. I'm much cuter. :P

Yesterday, I spent my entire day watching this great American drama 'Prison Break'. As the title would suggest, the show is about prison inmates who are desperate to break out of prison.

What is really interesting about the show is the fact that the lead character, Michael, a successful architect (I think), tries to rob a bank in broad daylight - to get himself thrown in prison. His reason for doing this is later revealed - his brother, Lincoln, is serving time in the same prison on charges of murder, which he supposedly did not commit, and is about to be executed in a month's time. So Michael hatches up this flawless scheme to break his brother out of prison for which he first has to enter the prison walls.

There are many movies/serials/books about guys going out of their way for their girlfriends/wives/etc (and vice-versa) but this was probably the first show I've seen which focused on such strong sibling-bonding. I mean the guy gets himself thrown in prison to save his brother. Wow!! I sure found that something. Don't know how many people would do something so drastic and throw their lives away for saving their siblings. Many a times you hear these cases of people completely breaking relationship bonds based on a person's wrong-doings. I mean I had read up somewhere that a family disowned a kid 'coz he was taking up drugs or something like that. And I'm sure that happens quite a few times.

In "Prison Break" all that Lincoln needed, to convince his brother that he didn't commit the murder, was to just tell him that. Thats some trust, and thats what I completely loved about the show. I keep remembering my brother while watching it and wondering whether I would ever go to such an extent for him.

I have an exam today afternoon. Strange how my approach to exams has changed over the years!

In school, for my board exams I used to slog for days to no end. Then I came to IIT!

The first year had me all jittery for stupid 5% quizzes. Slowly and gradually, I grew up. For my (yet to happen) today's end-semester examination, I had been given 5 days preparatory leave. Thats quite a lot considering IIT exam standards. First 3 days I did nothing! Tuesday, when I wanted to start studying, a simple "I'm bored" on chat resulted in spending 4 hours at a nearby mall trying to see if a new bookstore had opened. That suffices to say that I didn't do a single minute of studying that day.

Finally opened my books on Wednesday afternoon, after leisurely getting up at noon. Haven't slept entire night; haven't been studying the entire time either. Its about 6 am right now and fortunately my course will get over in about an hour, giving me a couple of hours of sleep before I rush to the exam hall. But the thing is, I have no regret, no guilt for wasting my earlier 4 days and slogging at last moment after a night-out. It has its own thrill; its own charm. And, in fact, I just love it.

Found this great song yesterday. I think its from some old kannada (a south-Indian language) movie starring the great veteran actor Rajkumar (or so I was told).

What makes this song amazing is the fact that it has English lyrics, and such creative ones at that. The video can be picked up here. (Right click and select save-as to download video and make sure to rename the extension to ".wmv" if it is saved with some other extension). Its a 5 mb download but definitely worth the effort.

And if you happened to see the video for the first time through my blog, please do comment on the same. :)

“Dead as dead can be,” my doctor tells me
But I just can’t believe him, ever the optimistic one
I’m sure of your ability to become my perfect enemy
Wake up and face me, don’t play dead cause maybe
Someday I will walk away and say, “You disappoint me,”
Maybe you’re better off this way

Leaning over you here, cold and catatonic
I catch a brief reflection of what you could and might have been
It's your right and your ability
To become…my perfect enemy…

Wake up and face me ,
Don’t play dead
Cause maybe
Someday I’ll walk away and say, “You disappoint me,”
Maybe you’re better off this way

Its about 4 early morning and I just finished watching the movie "Man on the Moon" - a biopic on the late Andy Kaufman, a "different" American entertainer. And Oh My God, what a movie it turned out to be!

There would be people who would disagree with me on this, and I know that for a fact since I was watching it with 2 friends whose reactions were "This movie is so pakau (mind-numbing/boring)"; but at the end of it, I gave it a standing ovation and walked out appreciating the eccentric mind.

The movie projects an image of Andy Kaufman, brilliantly played by Jim Carrey, being this bizarre person whose only thoughts revolved around self-humour. And by self-humour I mean incidents which other people may or may not find humourous, but which provoke one's own funny bone. Andy started out doing bad imitations on stage with a queer foreign accent but later revealing it to be fake, leaving the audience entertained. Thoughout his career he played practical jokes on people for the purpose of self-humour, without caring whether the audience found it funny or not. His demise came at the age of 35 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, but as a result of "crying wolf", people, to this-very-day, wonder whether he actually died, or staged his own death, a thought carefully captured in the last frames on the movie.

I'd earlier seen a similar biopic on "Ed Wood" the "crazy" director from the 1950s-60s whose taste in movies didn't go down too well with the audience; as was the case with Andy's "comedy". I had liked that movie as well. In my opinion, both Ed Wood and Andy Kaufman were completely eccentric and many a times, the people did not agree with their ideas giving them either an obscure or a negative public image. But what is missed altogether is the fact that they followed their dreams - which is what really matters in the end!

A shocking incident occurred tonight. I was in my room when I heard a strange noise outside, at about 1 at night. Peeping out of my room, all scared, this is the sight that I witnessed.

It seems that a (not-so) silent intruder had crept into Onkar's room and kidnapped Fluffy - right from under our noses. As can be seen, Fluffy was petrified. Attempts to free him were met with hostile (and oh-so hurtful) ninja-chops. The assailant, then, escaped with Fluffy still captive.

As of now, all attempts are being made to track down the poor creature. Any information, regarding the same, would be heavily rewarded. Stay tuned for updates.

Pacman is my favourite game.

For the uninitiated, Pacman started out as an arcade games in the 1980s and went on to become one of the most famous games of all time. It features a yellow spherical creature with a big mouth - called Pacman (you could see that coming, couldn't you?) - constantly running from these monsters who keep him from his ultimate happiness in life - eating dots placed of the floor (talk about unhygienic!) The actual fun part comes when he turns the tables and gobbles the monsters instead, on chomping down his special "power" dot.

Pacman is my idol, for obvious reasons. Not only does he (yes, I assume that 'he' is a 'he') tactfully evade plaguing danger when he has to, he is also only too happy to devour his nemesis when required. And he is in constant pursuit of the love of his life - eating.

On a lighter note, check out this line a friend of mine mailed me a couple of days ago - When asked about wearing a Pac-Man T-shirt throughout a Slayer-tour, bassist/singer Tom Araya was quoted saying that he wore the shirt because he considers Pac-Man the most violent game ever, since there's no other game where you have to eat your enemies.

...an exam which left you wondering whether you were at some other examination centre, giving the wrong exam?

Today was my first such experience (and hopefully my last one at that.) Today's paper was something out of the Twilight Zone - eerie music and all - seriously. The first thing I did, after going through the questions, was look around to make sure that I was in the right classroom. The second thing I did was look at the header of the exam paper, wishing to God that the professor goofed up his exam paper with that of some other course. Unfortunately, it just wasn't my day today.

One good thing about being in the final year is that it makes one care very little about these things. I was hardy panicking, even though I should have been. Instead, I kicked off my shoes and sat there - even humming a little tune to myself. Lately I've realised that life is more than just sitting in some dark and dingy room, all tensed, writing an exam. Thats why these days I make it a point to sit at the very end of the classroom - near the window - so that I'm never far from escaping to my own reality.

This is how I found Fluffy today upon returning to my room after my exam.I guess Fluffy got all nostalgic and was missing his home dearly (And by "home" I don't mean the IIT girls' hostel).

Come to think of it, Fluffy is an alligator after all. I mean he belongs in a swamp or someplace similar. I guess I'll ponder upon that for a while and see what can be done.

This is Piyush Kedia.

Kedia lives in the wing below mine and is one of my favourite torture-targets when I get bugged up with life. (You might find it interesting to note, that at the time of this posting, I'm in the middle of my exams!)

Today I decided to psyche him out, just for fun, ofcourse. So, I calmly went to his room downstairs, took a photograph of him (the same one above) and, showing the same calmness, came back; all without saying a single word.

After 5 minutes, Kedia comes to my room all confused, asking for explanation for what I just did. At that time, I acted surprised and completely denied anything like that ever happening - "But Kedia, I've been in my room for almost an hour now!".

Its about 7 hours, now, since that happened. Kedia has made innumerous visits to my room searching for answers but finding none. It think he may be finally going crazy.

Plan successful I believe!! >:-)

I'm back to blogging after a gap of one day (if you could call that a gap).

Anyway, lately I've been too involved in acads which made me a realize a few things about my life. See the thing is, all little boys and girls wanted to be either doctors or astronauts; except me. I always wanted to be a comic-book artist. As weird as it may seem, that was my aim in life - to draw my own comics.

As I grew up, I made the same mistakes which most unfortunate people make - I went with the flow. Everybody wants to take up Science stream in class; I did that. Everybody has to give the IIT exam coming out of school; I did that too. IITians have to study hard and get good grades, I'm (almost) doing that. Now its time for placements - I'll go for the same job that everybody is hoping to get. I'll probably also do an MBA to make more money than I would be making at some future point of my life.

But you see here lies the twist in the tale. Imagine if, your entire life, you keep doing what "other" people do and throw those little things in your life away. You slog 15 hours a day and earn big bucks. One day you die and hope for an after-life, where all you do is just lie around and do those little things which you really wanted to do in your life, but just didn't have the time to do so. Perfect line of thinking right? But, what if God says "You fool, there is no afterlife. What more are you expecting from me you idiot? I gave you a good 100 years to enjoy your life didn't I? Who told you to do whatever you did just because other people are doing that? I gave you that life to enjoy yourself - to do things which you wanted to do!"

Well, that would be what I would call - "getting screwed"!!

Coming back to my story, the reason I mentioned all this was because even though I might be doing what other people are doing, I'm only doing it with the intention of earning enough money. I say enough because it should be just about adequate to last me the rest of my life after I leave my job. Because then I could pursue that (almost forgotten) ultimate aim of my life -

To draw my own comic-books. :)

Reading up papers for a report seems boring. After a long day of work I still had 2 more papers to read up. Thats when our little friend offered to help.

Could you believe it that he read up the entire book in about 16 1/2 minutes. Its another thing that he could not understand a single word - but its the thought that counts (isn't it) !!!

We left Fluffy in a room all alone for some time and on coming back, this is what we saw.Somehow Fluffy managed to start playing the Bollywood classic "Sholay" on the computer and was completely engrossed in the movie. Seems like he's enjoying his time with us.

My brother's name is Girish.

When I was a newly-born baby, there were these times when I would be lying peacefully in my cradle dreaming about the world when my, then, 3-year old brother would show up from nowhere and smash one of his toys against my face. (This was because he hated me stealing the spotlight from him when I was born). Anyway, I don't think I used to cry much when that used to happen; I used to stare at him as if 'WTF'.

My brother and I used to have similar hobbies - we used to buy 2 pieces of every GIJoe, buy hoards and hoards of comics (hoping that years down the line we could sell them to earn quick millions), watch enormous amounts of cartoons, blah blah.

As we grew up the toy smashing stopped and got replaced with the Sumo Slam. The Sumo Slam is when a 90 kg (roughly 200 pounds) guy sits on your back and refuses to get up unless you beg him to do so. Ofcourse, it actually much more difficult than it sounds, because one can hardly utter meaningful word when given a Sumo Slam (I could do no more that wheeze). My mom - my savior - would always get me out of those - THANK GOD!! (Note to self : Do an ode to parents also).

Although I was the whiz-kid in the family, my brother did us all proud by getting into IIM Lucknow after this engineering degree. My brother's IIM convocation was the most heart-touching gathering of students I've ever seen. After all of them got their degress, they started singing "Jaane kya hoga rama re" (meaning "God only knows what will happen next"). My brother now works at Bangalore and earns oodles of money. He's too busy to call or write mails or send money to little brother but he sends his pics, once in a while, when mom demands a little sibling interaction. O brother where did you go?

Yesterday, my neighbour - Onkar - and I stole a soft-toy alligator from the IIT girls' hostel. Here is a pic of Onkar taking a nap with our new friend.

P.S.: Onkar is 21 years old, although I doubt that myself sometimes.

1. There you are calmly walking by yourself in the Somalia desert.
2. All of a sudden, a truck appears out of nowhere and rams into you head on! BANG!
3. The truck driver calmly reverses, showing no remorse.
4. BANG!! Another head on collision!
5. Again, the reversal.
6. BANG!!!
... and so on and on and on ...

This is what I feel like when I'm having my run of bad days. And by bad days I don't mean my social life; I refer to those periods of time which every academic student faces at one point of his existence. The Higher Power keeps hitting you with this massive truck over and over again, and before you are able to wiggle your little toe (Aaah...Kill Bill!), the truck comes back and smashes into you again...and again...and again.

You survive only to realise that its too late - you are stuck in the middle of the Somalia desert, all battered and bruised and the truck-driver took your water away. Some survival, huh?!

My truck hitting has just begun! (EGADS!! The horror!!! The horror!!!!)

P.S.: Goodbye Cruel World.

On top of my monitor I keep a Scooby Doo figure which keeps itself busy by constantly bobbind its head. It was originally meant for the dashboard of my car, but since the interior of my car catches fungus more easily than Michael Jackson catches 8-year olds (apologies to all the MJ fans), it made more sense not to keep him there.

Having Scooby around makes taking decisions so easy; all I have to do is ask him and he decides for me.

The movie is set in the near future; about a little psychic girl who has been genetically enhanced to become the ultimate weapon. It seems "the alliance" (the ones who run the show in the future) are after her while her brother makes sure she keeps her distance from them by stashing her onboard "Serenity" - a space craft of renegades.

Although the movie is sci-fi, its laden with humour, making it an enjoyable experience. Coming from me - I absolutely HATE Star Trek - thats a real something.

Great movie. Must watch!!!

P.S.: I'm absolutely in love with Summer Glau, the actor playing the little psychic girl. Damn cute!!

I recently did a report for a course I am taking. Although in the final year of college, you hardly feel like doing anything (I find it hard to even get out of bed these days!!!), this was something which I thoroughly enjoyed doing; esp. because it was different from the kind of research I usually do.

BTW, its a report on comic books. I was totally inspired by Frank Miller's Sin City while creating the format of the report, as is quite evident I'm sure.

IMDB was having a contest where people pitched in their original movie ideas with self-composed posters of the same.

This was the winner. (Ooh, its such a laugh riot!)

A dangerous enemy of the grasshopper is the shoe. The shoe comes in various shapes and sizes, but all are equally dangerous to the grasshopper. Just ask any grasshopper that has been stepped on by one!

- Grasshopper Facts

I found this card on the internet. It was posted on this site called PostSecret where people post their secrets in the form of custom post cards. A little editing to remove some unwanted text, and presto - a beautiful Valentine's Day card. What captured my attention was the whole feel of the image especially, the 2 innocently cute geese sitting on the see-saw.

They say that a picture is worth a 1000 words, so I'm not even gonna try and describe it anymore.

Have you ever gone through the experience of having dogs run after your car and bark loudly, causing you trauma and sometimes even loss of hearing? I had - more than a million times. Then I realised what I was doing wrong.

Being a good samaritan that I am (and a dog lover), I always used to sincerely drive around the dog standing on the middle of the road. Then that same dog would start running behind my car. It has led to a few embarassing sitautions where by habit, I halt the car and start abusing the dog. Sure, the dog would stop in its tracks but then continue its fascination with the vehicle as soon as it started again. (Just a thought - why do dogs run behind cars? It is just a way to get over the boredom - "Look Frankie, its a car; a car, I tell you!"?)

Now here comes the trick. To avoid this situation, here is what I did - instead of going around the dog, I went straight at it. A game of chicken if you will. Now the dog is all confused - "Oh dude, this is not supposed to happen!", "OMG, which one of us is the car?", and it silently moves away. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it moves away. No more dog. Try it out yourself. Its worked EVERY TIME for me.

You see the real trick is thinking from a dog's perspective - which reminds me, I need to go find a car tyre, I feel the bowels filling!

P.S.: You might notice how I've carefully left out the entire part about the dog not moving away. Lets just leave that for another day.

Today was Diwali, an Indian festival (or should I say a Hindu festival). Anyway, moving on from my last post, and onto a nicer, more friendlier mood, which I hope to stick to for quite some time, here is a recap of today.

BTW, the reason why I'm here at a hostel and not at my home can be attributed to a lot of things; lets cut it short and just blame "destiny" for it. "It was all destiny's fault!" (I feel so much better now). Usually, when at home, my Diwali time is either spent indoors with parents, with friends/relatives visiting; or driving around Delhi visiting those friends/relatives who haven't visited us. A few sweets here, a few sweets there - "Whatever!" (Note to myself : I am 21; probably I would hardly ever get to experience that kind of festivities at home again.)

Moving on, today evening was spent visiting a friend who lived in Mumbai. He was courteous enough to invite a few of us over and we were only too happy to oblige. Home-made food and TV - just what I've been missing for such a long time!

On returning from his place I remembered that another friend was leaving for Hong Kong at night. As the saying goes - "The night is still young!" So off we went - me, Salim - the dude who was lucky enough to actually go to Hong Kong, Torka - an acquintance who later became a dude friend, Mota - untidy, unkept but funny all the way and a guy who I knew only as Chaubey. (The introduction was unnecessary but I've decided to add a more personal touch to the whole blog thing from now on.)

So off we went! (The repetition is for the laying stress only) Went to international airport, laughed about histerically for about an hour and a half; then dropped off Salim, and decided to go off to Bandra to wish Ms. Aishwaraya Rai a very happy b'day. (Don't even try to understand the latter part of the last line - just go along with the flow!) On way to Bandra, we noticed that the car had very little fuel so somehow found a running petrol pump at 2:00 am at night. All of a sudden, Chaubey - who was the only one of us with money, decided that beer was more important than fuel. The Bandra plan was ditched and home all of a sudden seemed farther than ever. Another result of that devious Chaubey mindgame - for the first time in my life I had to go through the trauma of asking the attendant to fill petrol worth ONLY twenty-five bucks. (Thats Indian currency mind you - it would roughly translate to about $0.50) The attendant gave us that "Dude, I have more money in my wallet than that" look, which we probably deserved. From then on it was a roller-coaster ride - literally - turn the car off during down-slope, avoid the up-slopes and drive as fast as possible without shutting the damn thing off to save the petrol. Sometimes that resulted in shouting at people to get off the road but hey, it was for their own safety.

Managed to get home safe (Yes, hostel is my home!). Thanks for the applause.

P.P.S.: If you happen to one of those innocent souls who got honked at for no reason during the adventure - "I am sorry!"