"no yaar. i m not goin to call her again... she hasnt picked even a single call of mine in last two months !!! chutya hu kya main jo call karta rahu usko...!!!"
that frustrated voice of richin was boosted even more in that silent wing of agate hostel, also known as first year hostel. i was kinda new to this guy, or rather, this guy was kinda new to me. it was a bit hard to understand him. i didnt try actually. i was always jealous of this pretty charming looking guy with fair gujju-rajasthaani looks, given i had all geeky bhojpuri rapist like looks in that first year. but, i tried to chill down that new friend of mine, in my own way obviously.
"cool hai yaar. kal dekh lenge. it's too late. we have to hit the class at 8:30 in morning." - i showed him that idiotic clock tower peeping from main admin block onto all over the campus n tried my best to avoid sem-end-short-attendance-fine.
"ghanta dekh lenge. i've been mailing her everyday. no reply at all. i call her every now n then... no answer at all !!! itna bhi kya bhaav kha rahi hai."
"i bet she is calling u in 24 hours. lagi 13 rupye ki shart ???" - i still dont understand why i love that figure of 13 !!!
"what u'll do to make her call me in 24 hours!!!!! u dont even know her. naam bhi nahi pata tujhe uska..." - richin was still unaware that he's also on the list whose passwords i had hacked by that time.
"u dont worry... i'll do something. woh sab mujhe pe chhod de."
n we ended that day there. instead of room, i headed to octa. i entered the netlab n opened yahoo mail. i searched for richin's password in my top secret database, where there were other n at least 5999 yahoo IDs n password, sneaked by one automated smart n simple but excellent script written by me. i logged in richin's mailbox n composed a love letter on behalf of my friend richin (ya, he wasnt that close to be called a friend at that time). i had gained really good experience in writting fake request letters for leave in school days, but love letter was kinda new stuff. i gave my best shot.
Hi Sweetheart (if that sweetness hasnt dissolved by now),
listen, let's talk straight. we havent talked since a long time for no reason. i mean, there has to be some reason and i dont know that. so just for the sake of letting me know, do call me once. by the way, i m sure u r fine. i guess, u would definitely ask me the same question. I M NOT AT ALL FINE !!! thank god that this campus has evergreen grass available at anytime, unlimited. that helps in killing time without u. rest will talk in call. hope, will get to talk to u soon.
n i typed her email address n clicked on send. it was 6 in the morning by that time. after a long time, i got to see rising sun. i smiled n went to my room. the 6:30 alarms were ringing there, i banged on one of them, plugged in girly rock Linkin Park CD in my ears n jumped in my bed. after some infinite seconds, i felt highly charged kicks on my ass. i suddenly woke up n saw the clock. it was 4 in the afternoon.
"dijjay uth saale !!!" - that was richin who kicked my ass several times to wake me up. he looked happier than 100% attendance holder !!!
"shit man !!! 7 classes bunk ho gayi aaj ki... fuck !!!"
"abey maa chudaaye class... just now i got call from her !!!!"
"sahi !!! see, i told ya... 24 hours !!! fall in my feet !!! my 13 bucks !!!???" - that was a great achievement after a lazy sleep which had just costed me 7 classes.
"woh sab baad main... she said come online, i want to talk to u. cant talk over the phone right now."
"cool hai fir... u go. dont want to be kabaab main haddi. n anyway, i m hungry... catch ya later." - i hated sharing those aalo bhujiya with anybody in those days, specially with new but familiar faces like richin.
after having that pet pooja, n saving water which i could have used to bath, i headed to net lab of octa. i was very much curious bout what they're going to talk. will she mention bout the mail i sent as richin? though, i had already deleted it from richin's sent box. i knew richin's password so it was easy to track his chat history. i logged in into the chatroom n started monitoring their chat from another corner of net lab.
she - hi
he - hi
she - listen, i have something to tell u. watever u r doin there; smokin, drinkin or anythin. i dont care a damn bout it.
he - wat???
she - n one more thing. there's nothing between u n me like it used to be when u were here in baroda. u r too different now.
he - but we had a great time together. wait, are u breaking up with me?
she - it's over. i've got better company here n i guess, now it'd be good for both of us if we forget each other.
he - but...
she - there's no point in talkin anymore
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
he - but we're still friends right?
she - i guess no. we better never talk again.
n there they logged out. i was so lucky that in that one and half hour long chat, nowhere she mentioned about that blasting email from richin (rather me)... i walked towards him, n scrolled thru the chat history on his computer just to make sure that he doesnt realise that i already knew it. i held his shoulder n asked him to come back to room. i had just witnessed one live break up of this guy about whom i hardly knew much. i couldnt see his dull face. that guilty feeling running in my veins made me confess my crime. that ended up with my first and last fight in that campus. i didnt fight at all from my side, though, we ran into some very serious arguments over that chick. the last lines were,
richin - u should have asked me at least once before writting that bullshit...!!! i have never lied to her in my life !!! i never thought being a friend u'd do something like this.
me - dude !!! i did the best i could. if that chick doesnt like u anymore, i cant help.
richin - fuck u dijjay... go to hell.
n then, though we were roommates, we never spoke to each other for another 15-20 days. by that time, i had her password as well. just for the curiosity n my kameena blood group, i was browsing thru her mailbox. i read some mails which were sent-received in duration of last one year n the suspense revealed. she was fooling him since a long time !!! that mail of mine was not the culprit at all !!! it was just a jackpot opportunity for her to break up with him officially. this gave me a nice excuse to screw those guilty feelings. i just forwarded her password to richin n asked him to check some mails in her account.
i was waiting for him in my room. he took much much longer than i expected. he entered inside but didnt say anything. neither i said sorry, nor he said thanks. we both were looking for a start to talk. suddenly soumik, who had just entered after richin, asked - i heard u guys had fight. wat happened?
i said - ye chutya 13 rupye ki shart haar gaya aur ab mere 13 rupye nahi de raha. saala gareeb kahi ka... aukaat hai nahi aur aa jaate hai shart lagaane.
that last line made me n richin burst into a drastic laughter that soumik could never understood. all he understood is that me-richin-fight thing was just another rumour in hostel. but that laughter of us, witnessed some really bold, beautiful & delicate moments of friendship in coming years which were far far more unrealistic than actual rumours.
so, i have been trying vista since my 6th sem, that was mid 2005, initially BETA n now ALPHA, but so far, my opinion about vista hasnt change. n that is, vista sucks !!! n answers to ur why are here:
1) That son of a bitch Bill thinks that all vista users r dumb idiots like american blonds. most irritating thing bout vista is it asks for confirmation every now n then. "R u sure?" or "Do you really want to do this???!!!" good that they have implemented something called UAC (User Access Control) to avoid this irritating security check.
2) n it doesnt ask for confirmation when u accidently click on shut down !!!
3) it has lot of issues with detecting other vista/xp systems on LAN. it gives troubles to Internet Connection Sharing also.
4) it's pretty easy to crack desktop user's password in vista. (dont ask me how, i m not gonna tell that !!!)
5) it doesnt integrate gtalk service with talk link displayed in orkut.
6) it doesnt remember cookies from lot of websites. in simple terms, "Remember Me" will not work for lot of websites, including blogger n gmail et al.
7) it does lot of things in background without notifying the user, n most of them r useless.
8) it doesnt give transparent account of hard disk space. u'll find a lot of GBs from ur hard drive missing !!!
9) most irritating thing bout vista is it doesnt spare even a single MB from RAM for back up. that means, if an application is frozen, u have to wait until it is invoked back. u cant even launch task manager to kill that process !!!
10) boot time is too much (around 180 seconds) even on 1 GB RAM CPU !!!
11) Windows Media Center is the worst product from microsoft. it is not able to play most common file formats.
12) there is no option to hibernate in vista powered laptops. instead, they have given sleep which doesnt sleep properly. it keeps the power LEDs blinking even when laptop is closed !!!
13) when u r playing any video file, the so called Aero Theme is disabled. that means, if u dont play movies using windows media player, u wont get live previews in taskbar.
14) doesnt matter how much microsoft fights, they cant beat UI effects of Macintosh.
15) most of the hardware resources r sucked by vista, nothing is left for games, who really deserve hardware.
16) without Aero Theme, vista looks like hand-drawing by 2nd grade kid !!!
17) vista is not able to run most of the types of games. so hardcore gamers, vista is not for u...
18) vista is fucking costly !!! u can buy a full fleged CPU if u avoid buying vista ultimate edition.
19) only the newer versions of Norton AntiVirus are compatible with vista. so if u have bought norton in days of xp, u will have to pay once again.
20) microsoft will never be able to find out whether the copy of vista u r using is genuine or not :D
21) xp looks better than vista when we install vista theme !!! u can see ur self... just do urself a favour of downloading the full size full resolution photo from right panel when the album page opens.
22) the last reason, watch this video !!!!
Orkut !!! the most popular social networking portal on the internet. Orkut was rolled out for public on 22nd January of 2004. Orkut Buyukkokten created orkut and he created the very first community on orkut,Stanford University . he invited ppl from his close circle to join the network and then, there started a chain of invitations among universities. from india, IITs were the first to catch that fire, so the NITs were.
i joined orkut in feb 2004, the mid days of 3rd semester. Those days, hardly anybody had heard of orkut n most important, orkut was the least important thing on the internet. today also, its kinda interesting in checking the very first scrap from last in someone's scrapbook to see when he/she joined orkut. i was among those three idiots from my campus who recieved orkut invitation from three different sources. when i joined orkut, among the asians, most of the users were from Pakistan. n ya, brazilians were in a large number in those days too, they r in large number today also. due to low capcity of orkut server, there was a concept called Jail. If u do too much of activities in a single day like sending too many scraps, adding too many friends etc, they suspend ur account temporarily and ur profile pic will turn into a pic of jail. it would take some three four days to come back to normal. coz of this jail-hell, i had to recreate my account three times, n that too, it was hard to manage an invite for orkut. Just like Gmail. (ya, i m proud to say i was among first three users from college who got gmail invitation in May 2004, right after a month when gmail was launched :D) in those days, there were websites who were selling gmail and orkut invites !!! ppl were trying their best to find someone who can do a meherbaani to them by inviting them to this google world.
Google had taken the referral marketing approach to publicise these two products of them. nobody can get into orkut from outside. one is supposed to be invited by existing user. that means, the one who invites a new user will definitely pass on the information about how great orkut/gmail is. and hence, google itself doesnt have to advertisement for orkut/gmail, but the users themselves do that. and not only that, existing user will not pass the invite to anybody just like that, he will invite only those ppl who are needy, and who deserve to be on orkut. that spares google from looking for customers individually. The existing customers were doing that job. and as a result, today almost entire teen generation is on orkut. orkut has become an inseparable part of indian youth. orkut profile is more imporatant than ID card today !!! no other social network has gained popularity like this. Due to its simple, slick and sexy looking theme, orkut was not at all harmful for eyes. Moreover, its not at all complex to be used.
In the beginning, orkut had very few features like scrapping, message, bookmark, communities etc. it was fun in checking out how u r connected to someone coz there very few ppl on orkut in those days. now, its too hard to find the connection !!! not only that, if u go to "my friends", the arrangement of friends will have specific color code in the background depending upon how close u r. now, that feature has been removed i guess. over the years, lots and lots features have been added to orkut and only those ppl realise it who are using orkut from the time it was born. the latest feature happens to be Friend's Map, which i guess, is not available to all users currently. Friends Map are targeted for locating friends on the earth easily. u can click on any city and it will let u know how many of ur friends are there. Chill guys, it will take some time to be available to u. I have heard they r planning for mobile version of orkut useful for ppl who suck their GPRS like anything. seems like one complete generation is changing on orkut. Those, who joined orkut in college days r not in college anymore. Lot of ppl in in my frnlist have changed their status to married/committed from single !!! ppl, who were just flirting on orkut with opposite sex profile are using orkut for contact maintenance only. orkut has spreaded out of teen generation and has started taking over the older generation as well. not only that, since the day media ppl like journalists, actors/artists have started getting invite for orkut, this network has taken onto a political stand. ppl really think that orkut is being used to offence someone politically/religiously. come on folks !!! orkut is still a way to kill time... why the hell ppl take it so seriously !!! ppl blamed orkut when a girl was murdered by her boyfrn. this is the same orkut who helped to crack down one rave party in Pune. Indian youth is taking political decisions on orkut. This is too much !!! before loggin into orkut, one should never forget orkut is just for fun. it should be used carefully. the worst thing is trusting someone blindly on orkut. ppl fall in love with someone whom he has never met !!! dude, get real !!! u cant marry an orkut profile !!! orkut is just a good start to get in touch with someone, may be, to explore him/her a bit more. but after that, have to move ur ass from in front of pc n get into the real world.
remember: be a part of orkut, dont let orkut be a part of urs !!!
I READ THIS ARTICLE ON JAM-MAG. SCREW THE COPYRIGHTS, I M PASTING IT HERE !!!
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"Clandestine" applies to the lovers, not to the guide, in case you thought otherwise.
If you and your clandestine louw partner are the twin towers of romance, the city of Chennai is the metaphorical plane (or plain) that is likely to crash into both of you. The city's conservatism is mostly harmless, but when it comes to matters of amour, it almost forces lovers to say "So long and thanks for all the fish" and escape to the restaurant at the end of the universe.
It's almost as if most of the maamaas in Chennai are like Zaphod Beeblebrox, one head solving the Hindu newspaper crossword while the other is busy scanning beaches and parks for any public displays of affection with an extremely critical eye. In Chennai, the presence of an unmarried girl and unmarried boy within a distance of 10 metres from each other is considered to be a public display of affection.
Of course I am exaggerating a bit. Quite a bit actually. In reality, the place has changed quite a lot over the years. I mean, 15 years ago, if you had 2 X chromosomes, you wouldn't be allowed out of your house after 6 pm. Today, you probably will be.
The real irony is that the puritanical maamas and maamis of yore are slowly getting used to the fact that there exists this sane middle ground between the extremes of Satyabhama University boy-girl rules on the one hand and teenage pregnancies on the other. But with almost every engineering college doing practically everything short of neutering male students before admission, Chennai is entering this new weird era where young boys have no clue how to talk to a girl, let alone ask her out.
But if you are the rare breed that has gone beyond staring at your college girls' profile photos on Orkut (because any real world contact is punishable by medieval torture and slow painful death), and actually want to go out with a girl and not get into trouble with Chennai's Beeblebroxian-second-head, this guide is for you.
The Beaches
Where to go:
Central section of Marina Beach, opposite the Ice House. For some reason, this is the de-facto lovers zone, and you will find couples seated at strategically discreet distances from each other. The presence of several pairs generally discourages roving bands of shady guys.
The Northern side of Besant Nagar beach - closer to the Orur Alcott fisherman's village.
Where not to go:
Any other part of Marina Beach. Not a good idea.
The Southern side of Elliots beach - There is a police checkpost and the cops play cards and lay bets based on the number of couples they break up on a daily basis. I am serious, but kidding.
Any other beach, especially on East Coast Road: very dangerous. Quite a few kidnappings/molestations have happened there in the recent past.
What to do if caught by a cop:
1. Wear rings on the ring finger of the left hand before going to the beach. Claim to be recently married and act a little offended (just a little) at cop's invasion of privacy, but commiserate with his overall crusade/struggle against the heinous crime of sitting next to each other on sand without wearing rings/thalis/toerings etc.
2. Additionally create a contact on your mobile phone (preferably girl's) named "Appa" that actually connects to a close friend who can confirm your "married" status. Don't use this unless absolutely necessary. Sometimes, just acting as if one is dialing that number and handing the phone to the cop is enough to convince him that you are not the typical frowned upon lover case.
The Parks:
Ever since Chennai maamas and maamis have started wearing NRI-children-gifted New Balance sneakers and become health freaks, most parks have become way too crowded for couples.
But one safe haven remains - the Adyar Banyan Tree, in the Theosophical Society. That place has ridiculous timings - open only for about 2-3 hours a day, only in the afternoons, and is closed on Sunday. But the place is quiet, uncrowded, filled with tall, beautiful trees and offers any sensible couple an hour (at most) of solitude and togetherness. Advice to guys - go easy on the PDAs. The security guards there are mostly old, myopic men but don't push your luck.
Highly recommended comes the descriptively named UI Colony Anna Circular Walker's park near Liberty Theatre, where evenings are particularly free of disapproving maamas and other moral policemen.We must also add that the Guindy Snake park is a nice place to hang out, as long as it's not a school-picnic day when there is likely to be an army of kids enquiring "Akka akka,
loving-aa???".
The Discs:
Chennai discs are usually filled with large groups of single men who come to get drunk and look out for the occasional, rare (and bold) couple who happen to visit. As a guy, you might not notice anything, but your girl will feel extremely uncomfortable at all that open-mouthed attention. And one other thing - Chennai discs play only English dubchick and Hindi dance music. If you are the types that considers that to be "music", then I am sorry. No cure has been found yet.
The Restaurants:
Mocha, in Nungambakkam is one of the few coffee shops with reasonably dim lighting and secluded alcoves. I am not aware of any other non-5-star place with a similar ambience. The Shansi Kerala Tandoori Chinese Restaurant does have extremely dim lighting (to hide the unwashed and stained tablecloths) but is probably not a good place for couples because the waiters don't tolerate any hangy-pangy while serving gobi menjoorian.
Overall, Chennai is not an unmarried-couple-friendly place. But unlike some other cities in India, you are not likely to get killed. So be smart, and have fun.
lucky me !!! it's not with me this time. This is a true incident which took place around four years back. in those days, we were new to 2nd year, new to diamond hostel, new to freedom. Given everyone was a dumb junior till first year, we took this freedom very seriously (n gave up seriousness from everything else including GPA...) and started exploring all possible ways of having fun. One them was reaching any hillstation on weekends. only good thing about the location of NITT campus is it's very near to every possible hill station out there. Fridays were half-t for all the departments (if we dont have classes after lunch, we called that day a half-t and same way, if no classes at all, it's called full-t) and then following two weekends were quite tempting for outing. u dont need to plan anything if u want to visit any of the hill station. it's like two three ppl get together at gate after 9:20 class (and bunking the rest of them) for a fag n think of goin somewhere, the rumour spreads everywhere n whoever wants to join, will join. the crowd will reach the central bus stand n then will decide where to go !!! any hill station takes 9-10 hours from there. so ur weekend will be great in chilled woods n u will back by sunday evening. me n some of my friends thought of giving a try to a hill station called Munnar (the pics r here & here) and liked it a lot... i went there for around 4 times in those four years. anyway, so that day when we returned back to hostel, we heard another group of my friends also visited the same place n this time, they were the target of a concept called shit !!! it's here exactly how i heard it.
These friends of mine didnt take up a room in hotel. They thought of getting a cottage or something and finally ended up with taking a room next to the cable operator's control room. This room was also owned by the cable operator guy. he didnt give the room only, but gave access to the control room also (god knows why). Now, these ppl, who were roaming around till late in morning and came back to the room at around 5. One of them was having a hardcore pondy disc and was so despo to watch it. so were the others. all they needed is a VCD player and a tv. one nice social fellow gave and idea of using the tv and the VCD player available in the control room.
Now, let me tell u something. Munnar is a very small hill station. So this cable operator was kinda one and only cable operator on the hill. All his customers were either the Resorts/Hotels around or the local ppl. These ppl are very religious and everyone gets up by 6 for Pooja etc. Most of them turn on their TVs to listen/watch the devotional songs aired by the local cable operator.
now, back to the track. So this bunch of pondy-despo ppl entered the room and looked around for a VCD player. given that control room was too complex with lots of cables fixed here and there, they thought of watching it right there. Just not to disturb any set up, they straight away replaced the disc from one of the VCD player which was already turned on and already connected to the TV (and unfortunately to the main outgoing line of video broadcasting). The show was on, and everyone was so happy to see some action on screen !
on the other side, it was around 6 in morning and it was sunday too. Lot of ppl had got up by now, and as i said, they had turned their TVs on for some religious stuff to watch but, as these friends had set the VCD player on fire, the flames had reached to almost all the TVs in munnar...! we never collect those data that how many of munnar citizens really liked it and how many didnt coz one of the awakened and shocked citizen called the local police to lodge an complain against the cable operator for airing un-social, un-civilized and un-censored stuff on that sunday morning !!!
The cable operator also got a call from some other houses to stop that show as there were families and there were elders and there were kids watching them !!! the cable guy reached the control room to see what is happening and found these bunch of ppl enjoying the action totally unaware of the free service they provided right in the morning to a huge crowd !!!
rest is well understood that the cable guy kicked all of them out before the police was there. Just to take no more panga, this friends took the very first possible bus and reached back the hostel...
This reminded me one other incident i heard from seniors. A year before we joined the college, when my dada's batch was in 2nd year, they encountered similar kind of pondy-panga.
What happened was they planned to arrange a mass show of pondy movie in diamond TV room with 10000 KW speaker system which is quite capable setup to make even an ant's sneeze sound reach every corner of that 900 acres of campus. it was around 3 in the night, the show was goin on, and the tempting reflexes of that porn actress were reaching everywhere, including faculty residence area in that pin drop silence of mid-night. one pissed of professor whose dreams were disturbed by this hottest noise drove his car n came to diamond hostel. he straight away walked into the TV room and locked the door from inside. he was definitely not pleased by the stuff painted on the TV screen at that time. After noticing him in the TV room, first thing ppl did was turn off the TV n stop the VCD player. now, everyone was silent and surely, there was no explanation to give. everyone was in suspence what will be the action by this professor. will it be Rs 1000 fine from everyone? another suppli in his subject? two-three assignments in a single week?
one smart ass who was sitting near the switch board had an idea flashed in his grey cells. before the professor could start identifying the faces and collecting their ID cards, he just raised his hand and turned off every tube light in the room. now, it was complete dark in the room and none was visible, niether the professor, nor the students. next everyone heard was a sound of slap, another slap, another slap and then lots and lots of slaps... someone heard a sound of opening door... after a while, everyone was out of the room except one person that was the professor himself !!! he himself located the switchboard once again in that dark with just one hand coz another hand was too busy in rubbing his cheeks. he didnt find even a single student in the room, neither he found the VCD player and the CD...
He asked the warden to search everyone's room for the pondy CDs on very next day, but he couldnt find any. in upcoming days, he smashed a fine of Rs. 500 to evey inmate of diamond hostel after that and raided almost all the hostels multiple times for pondy but never got any. That duration of around 3 months is very famous in NITT campus as PONDY-CRISIS.
