Kauwagiri 101

August 24^th will be declared a global holiday soon. Apart from the fact that it would be super cool to have your birthday on such an auspicious date, I am particularly happy that that being my birthday was the precise reason that led upto the invention, nay, discovery of the concept of “Kauwagiri”. I say ‘discovery’ because Kauwagiri is something that has waited to be discovered since time immemorial. Take the Freudian slip for example, being a phenomenon relevant to the innermost traits of a human, we are pretty sure that some Egyptian pharaoh must have mistakenly called his wife Nephri teri maa ki instead of Nephritiri right? But the phenomenon wasn’t noticed until Mr. Freud came along and decided, in an act of staggeringly high narcissism, to name the process after himself. The same goes for a ‘kauwa’ and the derived verb ‘kauwagiri’. An example of a historic kauwa that immediately comes to mind is our very own Chunky Pandey during his heydays of wearing orange pants with yellow shirts, the fashion still being followed today by a particular batch-mate. RESTECPA!

In this case the act of discovery took place while on a trip to Chandigarh when the bus was stuck in the middle of a traffic jam. As posterity will tell generations to come, the symbol of the city of Chandigarh went on to become the official ‘kauwa salute’ (the way to greet a fellow kauwa). As I have already given you a sneak peek as to how a kauwa ought to look, I now will tell you what you ought to do in today’s world to be treated, respected and if you are worthy enough, worshipped as a kauwa.

The Dress Code- Introduced to much fanfare on 1^st November, 2009 during Thomso, the official kauwa fest of the world, it includes the following items: A baseball cap facing sideways (Preferable colours: Red, Fluorescent Green), a simple black sweatshirt with a catchy tagline, three-fourths trousers lose enough, shoes without socks.

Accessories- A metallic wristwatch, sunglasses (Frame color strictly red), wristband.

The demeanour- Nothing surprises you, none of the things said or done around you makes you come up with an emotional response.

The talk- Be short and subtle. Phrases to be used repetitively are “Peace man!” and “Chill!”. Remember the thumb rule, crows don’t talk loudly they are supposed to be the epitome of kewl.

Peace out guys! And remember, as is the rule to have everything represented by an emoticon, kauwagiri offers two different emoticons for use. Use either _m/ or \m_ depending on which hand you use for the kauwa salute.

Gimme Shelter

The other day when making another one of those oft made journeys back to Jawahar, I noticed a couple of sophomores I was acquainted with having an animated discussion about something. Thought the topic of conversation was something that would arouse a passerby’s curiosity, but fourth yearites are immune to such stuff. The only thing I could think of was going back to my room and then bug the hell out of them once I got hold of them online. (Ala Murtha style).

This begs the following question: Why would anyone like myself, who has to contend with so much work on his hands ; namely: Following Man Utd, Surfing Chickipedia, Folowing Man Utd, Surfing Chickipedia and so on and so forth, bother to take time of his busy schedule on the comp and talk to people?

The answer is that a fourth year is added to the curriculum for precisely for this reason. All the jackasses who you haven’t caught upon are talked to with renewed vigour and you have insane amount of time to yourself. Since the first three years go in teaching you that any free time is to be used as uselessly as possible, you cannot expect any fruitful activity can you?

Cutting to the chase I will add that surfing Chickipedia is probably one of the better uses I have seen. You will see why in the following paras. The batch of Mechanical 2010 had taken upon itself the seemingly lightweight task of getting a T-shirt printed for themselves. That’s a combination of 56 brains plus myself who have a combined IQ in double digits (including my own this time.). And this is where the story to be recounted in this post begins. Allow me some time as I go into the depths of my Trash folder and get all the mails on that thread out.

Faltu Fact: The previous sentence was typed out in this fashion because I was reading The White Tiger yesterday.

Now that I have done that, let me present to you some quotes from the threads, verbatim, so that the you get the real taste of the scoop and the fiasco that is the batch of Mechanical Engineers 2010.

The thread was started with much fanfare after being preluded in the class with discussions not less entertaining themselves.

Message 1: I Suggest we should have a jersey printed for everyone with thier
names on thier bak. It wud be slightly costly but then i think wud b
gud!

After a couple of messages people realised that T-shirts look better if they have some awesome tagline. You know the types of: “Fck ths sht: This is the IIT Attitutde”. So 54 brains now started thinking of coming up with something equally legen-wait for it-….

Message 6: are ye danger waka tattoo kya folky hai bhai.mast lg riya hia.

Message 20: I go for “From screwing to manufacturing , we do it all.”

I realised this was getting out of hand and the time saver that I am I immediately gave them something to think upon, my message being:

Message 40: kela hoga kela! bada waala!

Needless to say, the trick backfired and the usual chaos resumed.

Message 50: Ppl..y do we need a tagline at all..wat i am thinkni of is..justa pic in the front...danger vaali..peeche mein mechanical enginner @ iit roorkee..with mechanical engineers wo blue vaali tee jaise font mein..aur iit roorkee written with things related to mechanical..jaise i mentioned earlier..O ke liye gears...I aur T ke liye Screws and nuts..

Some people meanwhile had heeded the penultimate message and unjoined the group. Having recently read a couple of Wodehouses, I wasn’t one of them and hence was privy to this:

Message 70: ladon aur ladon!!! end mein evrybody make u'r own design nd print u'r own tshirt.....

With some intellectuals chipping in as

Message 80: hello all. well i agree with maya's opinion. the thing is,how many t-shirts r there that u might have seen with a big/main design at the back side??(not much i s'pose).and also u all must have seen the branded t-shirts which have the main design at the front side only and don't have any tagline but still looks gr8. that's wat

The message actually did end with “that’s wat” and in no way has been censored. Meanwhile

Message 85: abe wo haddi wala sign to ana hi chahiye... wo nai hoga to mech engg kaise lagega...i mean gears wagera to sab bohot hi basic si cheezzien hoti hain mech ki t shirt pe us sign mien sab kuch hai....

Yours truly had had enough

Message 95:Kela hua kela!! sab aaj is khushi mein ek ek kela khaana!

The reply was prompt

Message 96: ABE YR " U have to risk it to get the Biscit" :P

Things were heating up and you could sense a climax when the resident bodybuilder pumped up his online image and

Message 117: The last post from ninja is d final design. This thread is no more open for discussion. Thank you all for your ideas and ass-istance.

The design “agreed” upon was the image you see on the top.

Epilogue.

Its 0100 hrs and there is someone knocking at my door. I get up and there enters the greatest of em’ all with the following line: Kya ch***** tha who sab? Hum Mech-D thode pehenenge. Abe you are supposed to be intelligent right? Tu kuch soch aur jo tu bolega wahi print hoga.

In the words of the batch of Electrical 2010: Mechanical, Hila ke rakh de!

Immortal Words

If there was one thing I would like to remember about my life at R, it would be, in one word, “awesomeness”. If Morpheus had it his way, awesomeness would have been like Matrix, being everywhere around us. We would eat it, breath it and even shit it! As the following verses will show, my 3 years at R haven’t failed to disappoint me in the verbal sector. Presenting to you the 10 most legendary lines that have been spoken. Lines that have and will stand the test of time:

1) “Skills Raa Re” –Senior Sunki. Although the real name of the speaker isn’t known, this statement makes it to the top on the basis of sheer orgasmic feeling the speaker went through when he saw Yayha Toure rounding a defender and slotting in a goal from an acute agle. Legen-wait for it-dary.

2) “Its Hard”- Sunki (The Bulk) revealing his naughty side on being questioned about girls thereby proving once and for all that he isn’t a complete asexual but perversion is his deepest innermost trait.

3) “C’mmon man! Wass going on man! You’re IIT man!”- An exasperated faculty having the most Rajasthani-fake-American accent possible on a student entering late in the class. True Story.

4) “No offence”-Mr. Jugga on being offended. For example: “Jugga you’re a jackass!” will be replied as: “No offence!”

5) “I agree with all my friends here”-Vikash ‘calamity’ Singh during a GD being verbose and displaying remarkable talent and agreeing with both sides of the point at the same time. Genius.

6) “I wonder if a hello is the best way to begin this”- Technically though not a verbatim but it was in said form when I came across it for the first time. MVRM being at his flirtatious best and writing a mail which was more of a guide to his blog mentioned here and here too.

7) “We do and we let it to do”- Udaykiran Edikoju giving a highly technical definition of the difference between Forced Convection and Free Convection. The statement in question brought him full marks whereas other mortals after giving random seemingly more technical phattas were politely asked to screw themselves.

8) “Deepak humaara neta hai, sabka munh mein leta hai!”- Campaign slogan for a guy named Deepak back in my first year makes this the oldest of the entries in this list. Ritu Bahuguna anyone?

9) “Reverse reverse, torque torque, very easy, very easy!”- Another enlightened faculty mocking us with his intelligence on being asked a question about ‘Reverse Torque’. The statement, later as he told us, was supposed to be the answer to the said question. Succinct.

10) “Ni amma”- The latest entry to this list. This is the haddu slang for derogating ‘your mom’. Qualities include being extremely sweet on the ears and if spoken to a haddu bringing a smile rather than a frown to his face!

Oh lord, we pray to thee! Let us be good enough that we may make it to the list sometime soon. Amen!

From The Dark Snows.....

One of the primary reasons I found myself in an unjolly mood throughout my intern was because United, after having a fairytale season lost in an inexplicable manner to Barcelona in the Champions League Final. After having watched that under a bout of the most terrible flu of my life, there definitely has to be some award on the lines of “Survival of the shittest” given to me. The do-all game, atleast for me and the performance had reminded me of the performance of ‘Aap Mujhe Acche Lagne Lage’ at the BO.

That was about three months ago, and yeah I forget to mention your misery has to continue when you find you lose your best player who happens to be the best in the world too and also discover that another player whom you thought to be the most committed was doing a Peter Pettigrew on you. Things certainly did look gloomy!

Crosstown rivals and competitors for the “Bastards of the Premier League” alongwith Chelsea FC, Citeh, meanwhile were scooping up players much like The Bulk. You know, when he sets his sight on something to eat, it usually ends up in his mouth. There isn’t much of an option with anyone.

On top of that you also realise that the hallowed No.7 jersey has been awarded to a player who scored more than two hundred goals for your greatest rivals. But like I said, that was three months ago!

I have just gotten over the complete annihilation of Valencia  CF and that’s saying so when I was just reading the blog version of its live coverage. Berbatov seems untouchable (as in the way nobody else can touch him, but ofcourse you get that!), Macheda with every game  screams, “Pick me gaffer!” and boy oh boy it has to be some day when you contemplate on how actually John O’ Shea is a brilliant asset for the team. Its around 10 days remaining to the start of the season and I have to admit the goosebumps haven’t been this spooky anytime during the past 10 years.

Bring it on Bitches!

Check it out this!

Your life in college, chronologically is much like your infatuation with movies. You start out with excitement and possibly anything that is thrown your way makes you ponder upon it. Then is the next stage wherein you tell yourself your priorities and don’t go universal. By the end of third stage you are practically a veteran and more or less have experience on your side to guide other people even if in your yonder years you had turned a nought yourself (Notice the alliteration). The current stage is what exactly would be called niche art. Precisely why that cinema is so boring, I get the hang of it now. That would pretty much describe an average fourth year in an engineering college.

Some (that would be me) would also say: Life in college, chronologically is like your taste in porn. Though it would be apt here to point out that though the argument is less politically correct, it is a more accurate analogy.

Not having a football season around too adds boredom and of course you start missing your seniors and realise that you really don’t know anyone in your own college apart from your classmates because apparently, for a junior, you are nothing more than a Basilisk. Only in this case he isn’t killed, rather propelled to the administration ready to cut your throat to return your stare. The other day I saw a fellow fourth year cajoled out of a Table Tennis table by a mere glare of “Bhaiya!”

Of course, the above droning, like most of my theories comes a cropper in real life. People here, even of you aren’t acquainted with them, remain as awesome as ever. With time running out, the official guide to awesomeness “100 Most Awesome People of the Insti You Must Meet”, is being prepared. Safe here to say that mah experiences play in important part in deciding who is worth your time and who isn’t. People into super-kewl blogging have just entered the race with one blogger claiming he has a crush on a professor (the professor in question is male and so is the blogger by the way) and the other claiming he wants to kill a batchmate whenever he sees her, that in turn because he loves her.

The faculty isn’t far behind either where candidate qualities include a heavily Rajasthani fake American accent mixed with the grammar of a dog, Parseltounge and getting yourself on the coverpage of Vogue. The mere thought of meeting such fantabulous, mind blasting personalities at one go could get Paris Hilton wet with anticipation (If you catch my drift!!).

And there you are again, you really aren’t bothered about the status quo, you get out of your room and enjoy these people and your ruminations regarding each day being your last calendar day in the insti takes a back seat. The 101^st seat, I must say.

Konichiwah

More than half the people who come to visit India, probably come here just to see the majestic Taj Mahal. Ofcourse they don’t realize that something more majestic happened here on 24th August,1988 but then someone did wisely ask “Khaega Kela?”
The holidays couldn’t have taken a more blissful turn ever since I landed in Agra with a movie every other day. The reviews in short:
New York- Surprisingly, after listening to people go “PATHETIC!”, I found it reasonable and actually a well thought out movie.
Kambakht Ishq- Decent comedy. Kareena looks smok-wait for it-hot-wait for it-hotter. There aren’t more reasons to watch the movie for a time.
Terminator 4- Not Bad. Though I was strangely reminded of Brisingr asin the plot went forward about a couple of inches.
Kal Kissne Dekha- 200 bucks Inox ticket. Out in 20 minutes. So the movie was beyond awessome!
Those were the reviews about which, I am sure, all you people give two and a half hoots.
Coming back to my stay in Agra, the stay has been made even better by my loving aunts, one of whom is a master chef and the other one’s husband is a hotshot civil servant. So with all the innumerable contacts that have sprung in the city, I have comfortably visited places. A special no holds barred cocktail contest with a friend in the bar of “The Mughal Sheraton” must be thrown light upon. I was, of course, the loser. But you, my dear reader, are the real loser now!
The vacations have had their worse moments vis a vis me leaving my lappy charger in the train and then sitting on the remainder of the partnership thereby obliterating its screen. This reminds me, I have to get it fixed. Also, leaving my whole book collection in M’s extremely unreliable hands could prove to be dangerous.
Apart from this, I really don’t think that “catching up on me” would really do a world of good. But writing about it seemingly does me exactly that for I have to quell that insatiable thirst for writing the like of which Rowling, Woodhouse, Tolkein and Stinson all have complained about.
P.S. Strange style of writing due to, like I said earlier, not typing on my own comp.

Guptaji de do......

It feels weird to type out your blog on someone else’s comp. Having not written anything for the past one month has taken its toll on me. So Jamshedpur it is for now and I have absolutely no idea how long it is going to be. The intern is phasing not in an unexpected manner though I can safely say it would be the most non-farzi part of my curriculum, past or future.

I only recently had a chance after a long time to devour on friends' blogs. The admin here sucks bigtime and they have blocked “blogspot” as a domain. So anywhoo, I found that Dela and Kaka, true to themselves haven’t made an effort, luckier though they are than me in terms of access to internet. Lefty typically wrote a classy one which said all about his emotions towards R. Rapu tried to do something on similar lines, then found he was a robot. Murtha for a change was quite unperky (To Murtha: Welcome to the club dude!!).

So much so for a detour, getting things back to me, life here has sprung some surprises. Not always the pessimist, I choose to move on leaving the fact that some of my batchees have been given probably every comfort known to man (spacetravel included) whereas I, well to simply put it, haven’t. Though I do plan to make my time here worth by visiting all the adjoining areas. Puri, it is for the upcoming weekend.

Having M here for company is an added advantage because there are always those “GREATEST QUOTE OF ALL TIME” moments. One particular incident comes to mind when I made an extremely,well, unchauvinistic observation on a lady being examined for her heartbeat. So I told M about our equivalent when we are examined for hernia and hydrosil. M, not being remotely surprised asked whether SHE was being examined for hernia. My laughter, though having a high decibel count was instantly quietened when in a fit of joy, I hit my hand on the ceiling fan.

Wow, I am really at a loss here for words. I had thought of many things to write, but a month is a long time and frankly, United sucked in the final. That has dampened my mood a lot. I always thought going with one striker hasn’t been our strength, but Fergie is God and you trust him. Didn’t work out unfortunately, though unlike the scouse bastards, I always think the talk of “next year” never dies down for United and maybe we’ll usurp them. Knock them of their effing perch, we will.

I also wanted to write a senti blog on bidding goodbyes to all the seniors, though obviously, I am way beyond that but just as a message “You all will be remembered!”.

I put an end here for the timebeing probably knowing that it will be another long period before my portal is again lit up by my, exquisite anyone?, writing. Plans to meet Lefty in Cal still give joy and then last but not least, insti would never have seemed as welcoming as it would when I get there about 45 days from now. 

Arrideverci!

P.S.-The title will be elaborated only on personal queries. Just to clear thingsup, it has nothing to do with me dwelling here.