Another little something...

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Insomniac.


Heavy eyes, drooping shoulders, shabbily clad, I pass the morning hours like a ghost. Counting each hour as it passes by, I wait impatiently for the night, every minute hoping that tonight would be ‘the’ night that I finally realise that wondrous moment when I finally fall into the blissful state of complete relaxation and ignorance, of heavenly joy, of sleep.

I am an insomniac. Every night for as many as I can remember, I have been teetering on the edge of euphoric semi-consciousness only to be prematurely awakened from the dream by a cold sweat. Every night I squirm around in my bed trying to shake off the skeletons in my head, disturbing my peace. But before all this, this evil kaleidoscope of misery, there was a time, like the little ray of hope in Pandora’s Box, when I could rest, sleep when I was tired, and wake up when I was refreshed. Those days are long gone, but the light in them percolates through the dark cobwebs of my consciousness, showering a little joy and hope into an otherwise futile existence.

We all take sleep for granted. The clichéd “nights before the exams”, the inevitable nights wasted away trying to copy down the multitudes of pages of an assignment that helps “develop interest” in the subject, have all made humungous contributions towards making me and a lot of other people living dead that we are now. And the future does not hold a lot of promise for our lot.

There is absolutely no escaping it. Let’s face it, assignments have to be submitted, tests have to be written. We cannot revolt against the system, which many believe to be very sound. All we can do is wait for the messiah to come and sing an irresistible lullaby to us and put us to a long awaited and extremely well deserved repose.

Till then I remain a figment of Enrique Iglesias’s imagination. I remain an insomniac.

Losing my Festiginity

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(The cumulative effort of the lowly second years of Writers' Circle of NIT, Trichy. This may have been our big break!)

I wake up. I brush. I eat. I sleep. Then i go home during Festember. I was just some arbit frustoo who went to Bamboos once a month and had five square parathas and a PBM. But everything changed this time. The darn train reservation wasn't confirment and i was stuck here, just me and the other frustoos without rail reservations. Ofcourse, we found a better way to describe our position. We thought we're really smarter ones since staying here was rebelling against the fickle minded flock that flew north every winter, autmn rather. So we called ourselves the pirates. We went to Chatram to get eye patches but they'd run out of them, so we grew our hair long enough to cover our eyes. We rented an air conditioned old vessel where we took an oath of secrecy through the ip messenger and called ourselves the Writers Circle/ Media Team. And so I lost my Festiginity.

So here it was, Festember '07. Now you'd imagine what mood has been associated with that statement. Do i sound excited? Or nonchalant? Well i haven't the faintest idea, partly because i read last year's newsletter brought out by the WC. That's what this society (read: evil brotherhood) does to you, it takes all the fun out of life. Reading artciles like wake me after Festember ends' don't exactly gear you up for the Fest you're supposed to remember. Frankly speaking, this Festember wasn't very different from the image portrayed by those who had the courage to brave it to the last time around. Definitely, a few events like Power Cut and ChoreoNite were worth watching, but a large portion of the crowd was rather interested in the food stalls. So was I. When i was not devouring the pizzas, i was locked up in Cad lad preparing reports and articles for pirate radio.

I gained a lot, mind you. Three days of fun, frolic, festivity and Iced Eskimos. And it was fulfilling. Am i getting obsessed with the F? But in its varied meanings and diverse views, the F met the K, not one mind you, but two. And that really enthralled the enraptured audience. Yup, the memories of Festember will remain ingrained in my mind forever, or atleast as long as the flavors of the Triple Bar Sundae and the Cool Blue of CCD do. As i look back down the road of drifting memories, conflicting emotions and suppressed nausea, the vivid images of my screaming, red and grey coloured hair, my white painted face, the voices of the radio- jockey- from -Bangaluru- who- assures- that- radio- is no- match- for- TV (which ofcourse is no match to print), the magic of the creative fire lit by the arts exhibition, the lits events which got our rusting grey cells working, our never- quenching thirst for more and more of DT numbers, stays on. Phew! And thus i move on experiencing over and over again the epitome of joy, entwined in a swirl of creativity... and waiting for the next fest to arrive...


By- The Triumphant Perv with an Ulti Khopdi who has a Beautiful Mind that spurts Lava.

Now Walk the Walk…

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(A little something I wrote for the college magazine.)

“Dude, this sem I’m going to study regularly and become a nine pointer”, proclaims our hero, all of a sudden, on a warm night, up on the hostel roof. “What’s up with you, man? You aren’t even high! All of a sudden, this?” Our hero has a little smile on his lips and an enlightened illumination in his eyes. “No dude, I’m serious. I’m perfectly capable of getting even a ten if I study hard enough. Speaking of which, I’ve got to go and study for next week’s cycle tests now. Catch up later.”
Ten minutes later, the friend finds our hero in his room, all lights out except for a table lamp, Floyd playing out loud, asleep peacefully, dribbling all over his textbook. This classic ambience inspires the friend, and he suddenly walks out of the room as if struck by lightning, with a brilliant idea in his foggy, alcohol soaked brain.

Now the friend, our new hero, can strum a few chords on his guitar. So he goes to his room, grabs his guitar and sets off to find another of his friends who has a beautiful singing voice (self proclaimed, of course). He finds him lying face down on the floor of his room, which was reeking of cigarette smoke and cheap vodka. He wakes him up. “Dude, dude, get up. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Wha..”
“I can play six Floyd songs, a Metallica solo, and two Green Day songs. That’s nine songs. You can sing along. We can start a two man band; make videos, even concerts on the roof…”
The high friend, wide awake by now, laps it all up.
“Great idea dude, we can post the videos on YouTube… dude, we’ll become famous.”
“I’ll make all the arrangements and we’ll meet up tomorrow to practice. Later.”

Our high friend wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a very empty stomach. He finds his way to the mess, only to find that it had run out of food. He grabs a cup of tea and finds an empty seat next to a guy whom he vaguely recognised from somewhere.
“Hi”, says the vaguely familiar guy.
“Hey…”
“So, don’t see you in class too often.”
“Yeah.”
“You know you’re low on attendance, right?”
“Yeah.”
They go on like this through till his cup of tea runs dry, with our alcoholic friend replying in monosyllables. Then just before they part ways, the vaguely familiar guy says, “Hey, you heard about the totally cool techfest that’s happening next month? I’m planning to make a robot for it. It’s tough, but I’ll manage it. See you later.”
As soon as our man hears ‘Robot’, his brain does a backflip. If that nerd guy could make a robot so could he. It’d be really awesome, him and his robot, winning, and more importantly, becoming famous.
So he picks up his pen drive, goes to the internet lab and downloads a dozen e-books on making robots. He’s about to leave when someone suggests a few quick rounds of counter-strike.
Twelve hours later, its terrorists-541, counter-terrorists-540, with enough intensity in the game to last for twelve more. So much for the robot…

This cycle, of planning great things and achieving close to nothing, repeats itself. It has been clichéd that nothing turns out the way it was planned. Whatever groundbreaking feats we dream of realising, we remain nothing more than fickle minded college students, acting on pure instinct. If things don’t work out, always remember Pink Floyd-
“The grass was greener,
The light was brighter…”