Sunday, January 27, 2008

ATLAS SHRUGGED.....

"Aur Sushi jaa raha hai?"
"Haan!Usne mutthal ki cycle le li hai!"
Thus was the cacophony that woke me up the morning of the cycle race.Oh, the title of the blog is not a reference to John Galt(I still dont know who he is by the way!!),it is symbolic of a humungous problem that plagued me during whatever little stint I had as a bike racer........

The previous couple of days had gone by in a blurry with me hellbent on convincing a certain very "moody" personality to come to Delhi but in the end what transpired was total chaos......in a nutshell i might say that the sophomore LitSec guys took the world on their shoulders and finally all was quiet with even big daddy Matty decided to sleep through the biggest quiz of the year.

Call it Murphy's Law or whatever but incidentally the annual cycle race fell on the same day.I had arranged a cycle (or so I thought) in a record 2 hrs.There seemed to be a sudden shortage of cycles in a place which is otherwise teeming with them.The seemingly only problem with the cycle(apart from the fact that it was Mohit's) was that there was no air in the tyres.BAAM!A senior told me there would be a mechanic there on the starting line.......

So I took a chest number(it was 198 if anyone is interested)and waited with bated breath for the race to start.The organising team had other ideas though(I'm not sure what they were),so the race started a full 30 minutes late.As soon as the race started i knew something was wrong.Still I persisted and brought the unforgettable image of Lance Armstrong with his arms raised crossing the finish line at Le Tour de France.Alas!Even that wasnt enough to delay the inevitable.....my cycle completely broke down 3kms into the race and by completely i mean the type when you cant even sit on it!!!!

So I had to walk back 3 kms to the start line.Hoping someone might consider me first was a grave error.No soon had i started walking back that people began questioning(and by people i mean the 60 yr old folks who go the temple every morning)"Kya ho gaya?".So this was how one of the greatest mysteries of the Atlas shrugging(in my case the Atlas literally shook the earth off)was unravelled to me and somehow contrary to what I had stated earlier maybe I really do know who Galt is......

not giving the answer though.Try breaking down your cycle in front of the Ganga Canal and walk back if you want the answer!!!!

p.s.-my cycle's name was Atlas Speeder......

Monday, January 21, 2008

About da Knowseating Fest!

Twas 1300hrs (yeah , I AM a huge 1984 fan) when Sushi left his room for attending what was supposed to be a one of its kind thing, A LITERARY FEST. Now some people might commit suicide at the idea of having to sit through six quizzes (the attendance at the LitSec events suggests this) but Sushi,Lefty,Rapko, Dela and Kaka saw only one thing (well,apart from the fact that there were prizes worth 15 lacs to be won, I mean who doesnt notice that?), the plethora of knowledge on offer.
So we set out the Reservoir Dogs style although its rickshaw version.The trip started on a highly disturbing note-we were assaulted. Well to the normal public it might not be an assault but to us it was. We were pestered by the u know who of the clapping ilk.Lucky Dela was outside the compartment when he saw what was happening to us and instead of turning into a Maddu hero he was supposed to become , he turned into a road runner and ran for his life. The rest of the trip went by with our cabin taking the form of a Roorkee bakar house.
We reached the "Sangam nagri" at 7 the next morning, apparently the MNNIT folks believe in the funda "Atithi devo bhava!" and they had opened a hospitality counter on the platform itself. Although I was hoping to find a prettier face to welcome us (they had,on the contrary,made some 6ft 5inch a quintal weighing giant of a "boy" to sit on the desk.).By the by,what sent our spirits on cloud number nine was the fact that they told us to take the tempo to girls hostel.Dela looked as if a hundred Nicole Kidmans were rolling in front of him. The joy turned out to be short lived as were to be staying at their equivalent of the Jawahar Bhawan. We dumped our stuff where we were supposed to and set out exploring the campus when at the sight to two guys Rapko went beserk.On being asked "Why the sudden hormonal outburst?".Lefty replied(quote): These were the guys who raped us last thomso. Read: These were the guys who had streamrolled the LitSec last thomso in a particular quiz. So the lions of Roorkee encountered their first of the many to come enemies.
Then came the first quiz. Myself,Kaka and Dela found it more funny than informative. The quiz masters might as well have said :BEND OVER!!!!....We got around 8 out of 30 right and didnt even make it to the main round. Lefty and Rapko did though and finished third. The "rapists" finished the winners.
Next were the auto and the corporate quizzes which were our "weak"(read:pathetic) areas.We didnt even try making it to the finals there but in the meanwhile enjoyed the Saagar Ratna outlet that was opened.
The last quiz of the day was the Grand General Quiz.IIT Roorkee kicked some really hard when all of us made it to the final round and won over the hearts of many when yours truly answered to some questions answers like KamaSutra and cervix. So on a rather happy note we went to sleep.
Rapko took up the role of System Of A Down and shouted "WAKE UP!!!" at sharp eight the next morning. I gained one important lesson:Dela is DA reincarnation of Kumbhkaran.It took approximatly 42 minutes to wake him up.....that really says everything.
So we proceeded onto to participate in the entertainment quiz which was supposed to be about entertainment but in the end turned out to be about bong and Mithun as bond movies.Although we came fourth it was in this quiz that we proved that were the funniest geeks at the fest.The team had to nominate one of the members to play the superstar round.I was selected to be the sacrifice and the quizmaster asked me to become a celebrity and LO AND BEHOLD ,we decided to make me PAMELA ANDERSON. This brought the audience into splits.The "superstar" or in my case the pornstar was allowed to consult his or in my case "her" teammates.And i shouted into the microphone "I WOULD LIKE TO CONSULT MY TWIN ASSETS!!!!"At this everyone literally rolled on the floor and we walked away the "winners".
We found ,much to our dismay, that the Saagar Ratna outlet had been closed so we were left starving for much of the day.The last quiz was supposed to be our saviour:The sports quiz.
It turned to be a cricket encyclopedia. The quizmaster reckoned Wisden was as popular as Playboy and perhaps thought people actually followed squash and horse racing.We came third after a real nail biter when we won the tie breaker.They say that it was so tense that one of my many fans suffered a brainstroke and then found out that she had no brain.
We left as soon as possible for reasons likely to be fatal in such situations.WE that is to say myself,Kaka and Dela didnt have tickets for the return journey.After a lot of inquiring we got tickets but found that we would have to bunk the whole of next days classes. We had like 3 hours to kill on the platform so we decided to buy magazines.
The dickhead of a bookseller didnt have any novellas so ,much to our surprise, we found ourselves buying "RASBHARI KAHAANIYAAN:AWAIDH SAMBANDH VISHESHANK"(believe me ,it WAS called that),Outlook and India Today.The foremost proved to be a juice not worth the squeeze so we all reached Roorkee with memoirs of a fiesta firmly and funily etched in our "brains"!!!!