New times, new blog!

大家好！ Hello everyone. I do not know how many of you still visit this blog. Just in case you are here, please take a look at my profile for a 2000 US dollars scholarship here -

http://scholarship.cucas.edu.cn/candidateInfo.php?oid=703

Please take a moment to press the Vote button and help me win this.

Also, please visit me at my [yet another] new blog -

http://prateekshahastogotobeijing.wordpress.com/

 

B’day is coming! :->

Yes it is! :->

Want to do something different this time. Other than just going out with friends, having a lunch/catching up a movie and cut multiple cakes. We thought of paintball :/ but then with too many people having their CAT, that does not seem likely. Same with a day camp. :\

What to do what to do.

..

When do you know it’s the voices of the dead calling.. Or did they never become the past..

Friends, forever?

When we are young, friendships come and go. Reasons for falling apart could be anything: from calling her dog a name to taking a pick at your frilly frock, from disliking your favourite song to breaking his pencil lead, from not sharing tiffin to not showing homework.. The pretexts for making and breaking friendships are innumerable. But we are young. We are restless. We mourn the loss of a friend for a while and before we know, we are up and at it again.

Then as we grow into our teens, when the world seems to be against us and friends seem to be the only solace, when the friendships are never without a pinch of “romantic” tendencies, when we begin to complicate things ourselves.. We find heartbreak in friendships, and friends from a heartbreak.

In college, our friendships are based on how well we get along, or not; whether we are partners in crime, or chalk and cheese; same ambitious plans of having a start-up that will overtake Bill Gates’; cooking the same devious plans to hack the paper and make the farras.. We could become Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar over a girl we see in the mall, but kill the one who raises a finger at our friend..

And then comes a job. A spouse. A couple of kids. Responsibilities. Hectic schedules. And new people. People seeking friendships on basis of convenience and considerations. People who want to be friends with you because of what you are, instead of who you are..

And in the end, it all comes down to who’s by your side..

Ask yourself. Who will be by yours?

A Scanner Darkly

Intense. Confusing. Engaging. A Scanner Darkly.

The movie starts with confusion. For the first 10 minutes, you might have a little tough time in figuring out what’s going on. I was left wondering for a little longer than that. But even in all that while, the movie is gripping enough to fuel your interest to keep you going.

Our protagonist is Bob Archter aka Fred [Keanu Reeves] who is a secret narcotics officer-cum-drug addict himself. The movie is a mumbo-jumbo of his screwed up life, his screwed up friends and his screwed up head. How he constantly battles between his own two minds and finally gets beaten at the hands of, I’ll let you find out for yourself, is the entire story.

It’s about drug addiction. A take on a druggie’s inside world. His mind, to be precise. And that’s where the movie scores. I haven’t seen many drug addiction movies. Last I remember were some glimpses of addiction in Boys Don’t Cry [which I never watched till the end, it is a tardy movie]. But A Scanner Darkly rips apart an addict’s world to expose how drugs play with your life and your little brain, after the euphoria fades away.

This is my 4th animation movie in the last 3 weeks, courtesy Mr. Amjad Khan. I swear I’d have never watched an animated movie myself. Let’s see what I’m upto further.

A Scanner Darkly. Will leave you wondering. Darkly, or Clearly?

PS: The movie relives the classic comic book charm. Worth a watch!

The world I live in..

I live in a world where..

The face should be milk white, but the hair jet black

The abs should shrink, but the bosom must swell

Size should be zero, but the pizza with extra cheese

Vacation is a must, but not without BlackBerry and Canon

Where we scamper to find peace in religion,

Yet kill in the name of God.

Was it always so.. Or is ignorance the garb for our bliss?

Rainy day blues

Just come naturally with even the mildest of downpours in Delhi. Even though rains remain an eternal darling of the masses, the aftermath is just too nasty to be dealt with. Water-logged roads, serpentine traffic jams and lo, deaths by electrocution! As much as the kids, lovers and home-bound people might enjoy the shower, half of the city’s population bears the brunt on roads, railway stations and offices.

The Commonwealth Games are less than 90 days away. The sadist in me is wondering what will happen if a B-I-G rain shower makes up its mind to drench Delhi in those 12 days between October 3rd and 14th. Yes, the entire Delhi and India will be put to shame if such a situation, which is obvious and inevitable in case of a heavy downpour, but do we see any solution to this problem of water-logging which hounds Delhi year after year, every monsoon?

7th sem calling

But who wants to go?

From the hearsay, this semester and the fourth year in general is a relaxed one. The kids are given ample time and space to prepare their projects, training reports and prepare for the biggie: placements. What did the university know that a placement to a NIEC kid is what a goal is to Lionel Messi. First, many companies do not pick kids from our college. When they do, they do not come to our campus. And most of them well, are the small fry who offer standard packages of 8-10k for a coding job.

Like any of it matters, really.

Anyway, the current fresco is over choosing electives for the 7th semester. Again, the word is that ECE students don’t get to pick subjects for themselves. Again, as if it matters. For someone who’s bound to open books in November end for end sems in December, it’s all the same. All the same.

Then, the teachers in college are clueless as to when companies will start coming. The Training And Placement in charge left the college, so we are basically headed nowhere, that is, if we were already not headed to nowhere in the first place.

Like any of it matters. Sigh.

Between shame and duty..

We all have relationships to maintain. Promises and commitments to fulfill. Many a times, we don’t have an option, but to do the needed, whether we really want to do it or not.

Sometimes, we willingly take such responsibilities. When we make bonds with people not of our blood. When we fight it out with someone when we could be easily sitting cozy in our little, comfortable life.

But what do you do when you are torn between shame and duty? When that something inside you tells you to do something for that one person, towards whom you have no obligation but just a word? And when you know you have your own interests to look after too?

Is there something to like about engineering?

Yes of course! That I don’t really have to study, after all! Although the case remains more or less the same with all the engineering students, it is all the better in my college.

For people like myself, who believe in smart work 8) rather than hard work, NIEC is the best place to be. No need to slog your butts off for the minors. Just come up with an innovative story [no I/relative/parent/president of the country was will ones, please] to excuse for your pathetic [read <5 out of 30] score and voila, there you get a good 17 or 18 on 25!

For the practical examinations, I have practically walked in without even a pen with me. It makes no difference whether or not you write something on the answer sheet and/or utter a word in front of the examiner in viva. Unless you’ve killed the teacher’s dog or are REALLY hopeless or the teacher is simply bent on going by the rulebook, you won’t get anything below 70 on 100.

That’s what makes me, and believe me, a lot others like me survive the four years!