Durga Pujo

Today is just another day.

Another day, I keep on telling myself as I restlessly open one random window after the other, looking for that ultimate distraction which will calm me down. I end up with opened sixteen tabs and a blank Notepad page.

Its Durga Pujo back home. Aren’t you back home, a friend asks me from Delhi. Naah, I reply, quickly quipping an excuse about college work before changing the topic.

I remember a certain day a couple of years back. Back in Pilani, Pujo was a bit of a different thing. Back in Kolkata, it was more different still, a small mind in my head tells me. It’s a vague indistinct memory in some ways, but I agree with it.

My mother has decided to get some homework done on her Facebooking skills. Even as I sit in office, trying to concentrate on circuits that suddenly seem to make sense in these desperate times, she calls me thrice. How do I tag my photo? How I make it my profile pic? WTF have you uploaded in that profile of yours.

Just another day, I say.

In line 673, a random delete debugs a week’s worth of work. Two more deletes later, there’s actually scribbling grey compilations on the screen, followed by a few flashing LEDs on the circuit boards. The computer creaks, in disbelief perhaps.

I report the update to the Manager, and earn an absent-minded approval and a new assignment. Where do you catch those BIA buses to the airport, he asks. Bloody flight’s in 4 hours.

The Pujo in FD block is 52 feet tall. Just like the Shravanabelegola statue, my mother mentions, perhaps drawing parallels for better understanding by my three-month-South-Indianized brain.

Another day, like any other.

A letter from the placements division asks the students to send in their resumes for McKinsey. Write how you have changed the course of the endeavors you have been a part of. Lead to something better. I call up Sunjaydottir, the only other person I know who has ever tried for Mackinsey. Can you think of anything special I have done? Sure, she says, weren’t you editor of your club and stuff?

Oh yea, that.

I miss writing editorials. Three juniors at 3AM. Walks to ANC and half-baked rants.

Messages from Pilani. No one cried this time, performance went off well. Sad smiley. No dramatics. Tomake pandel e miss kora hochche. Happy smiley. Ebar dhaki ache janish, sotyikarer.  Are you guys going and poking him to check if he’s real? Confidential XD. Old memories.

Who’s telling the ghost stories this time? I used to tell the ghost stories. Pilani ghost stories, I would call ‘em. Derivatives of urban legends and stories I had heard from seniors. The broken loudspeakers playing the Dhaak would stop; the night would get a bit chillier. I would play raconteur, as people huddled together for conversation and limericks. 1 AM. The Gandhi ghost. Thank you for not switching on the lights. MB story.

The voice would quiver, and I would imagine a shiver run down a few spines.

I will miss those days. A phone stares back at me. Facebook photos and friends in three shades. Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

Sixteen open tabs and a Notepad page.

I choose the Notepad page.

Today is just another day.

Final editorial- Editorial 7 ( First English Press Club Coloured Issue)

It’s a rather exhilarating experience to give your last lab exam. You come out from it with a smile, notwithstanding the fact that you might have messed it up wonderfully. It’s a sense of victory, relief at the fact that you never have to go back there again, or as a friend put it, a survivor’s pride.

You could see the strain in her eyes. She was actually lifting it, the mountain of Mandaranchal on her shoulders, with the Gods and Asuras of yore by her side. The Mizhavu drums kept a wavering beat in the background, keeping tempo, even as she tried, and failed, tried and failed again.

I sat down to write this editorial with something of a similar mindset. It has been a year that I have been venting my CDC related frustration in sporadic rants in the cover-page of our largely (un)read newsletters. The year has been spent trying our best to cover most of the events happening in this campus of ours, and hoping that they are read. I find myself sitting down now, handing over the same job to the next generation hoping that they will be more successful at it.

The Audi was mostly empty. It was a Kudiyattam performance, a 2000 year old Sanskrit theatre form of Kerala. A handful of enthusiasts were sitting on a makeshift semi-stage in front of the main stage. The main performer, danseuse Kapila Venu, was enacting the first part of the Samudra Manthan story. In that part, the Devas and the Asuras were lifting the Mount Mandaranchal to make it the churning tool for the samudra manthan. The dance was of their struggle.

A friend once told me that BITS was like our own little kingdom, with its quaint customs and rules. Three years on, those dreams of a kingdom of my own has been long gone. I hand down those dreams and allusions to a new order, fresher in spirit. It’s a journey worth taking.

She rose, her whole body quivering under the weight of the mountain. Her eyes darted to and fro. She stood there, her movements slow, elegant even as her shoulders stooped under its weight. The beats of the Mizhavu were reaching a crescendo.

 A drop of sweat fell, glistening in the darkness.

 The audience broke into applause.

The real world beckons all too strongly. I have to but answer its call. This is me signing off for the last time as a denizen of my own kingdom, with a title that I shall fondly cherish.   

Ed.

P.S.- A big thank you to my club and all its members for this wonderful year. I might have cribbed, but guys were the best lot I could have asked for. Thanks again for making this journey so memorable.

Faith

She passed me by on that foggy December night, her white jacket shining in the diffused light of the streetlights. We were all walking in the darkness that day, the fog eclipsing the path ahead even as we stood despondently at the Patel Chowk.

I could not see her face then, and even as I think of this now years later, I can’t remember a face. But I do remember something about the way she walked. There was an amazing grace in her walk, a quiet confidence as she walked whistling into the fog, her red Tourister of memories trailing her path, crunching the complaining gravel in its way.

It was a rather sweet sound, the whistle. I can hear it now as I close my eyes. I followed her that night, followed her in a trance through my last walk of my student life. I could see her white jacket in the distance still, leading the path like a hazy beacon. She walked, and I followed.

I do not remember if I had looked back that night. I thought about the ones left behind, huddled together for comfort at Chowk. There were drawn faces, dried tears; a brittle human grasp on the past fast moving away. There were many of us that had started that journey. There were not so many of us left then. We had left people behind; the by-lanes of formality and unmeant promises marked with the remains of their memories. It had been a journey like no other, years in its length, chequered with happiness and pain. I had been blind to most of it, ignoring the ever so precious subtleties.

And I was still blind, as I walked further away from the dimly lit shadow of the Patel Chowk. The mellifluent haze of the streetlights had slowly disappeared, it was mostly darkness. I was still following the small smattering of white in the distance. The whistling tune echoed in the midnight sky, as the stars shone down with benevolence on lost travellers.

I could see the smoky fire lit by the Chowkis at the gate. And there they stood on the other side of the fire, the timeless guardians of this crypt of memories. They nodded sombrely as I passed. I nodded back.

“Ram Ram Bhaiyya. Stay well.”

“Ram Ram. Remember us.”

And there I stood at the gate. I had pictured this moment many a time in sleepless dreams. They said that there would be a stairway. I had imagined an answer. But I could see but a road.

I could not see her anymore.  But then again, my journey had ended. And it had just begun.

I stood there, wondering where she was. Memories came back to me, even as they come back to me now. I wondered who she was. I missed her.

As I walked towards the bus-stop, in the distance I could hear a familiar crunch of an over-weight suitcase on gravel. And even as the first rays of the sun lit up the far horizon, a melodious husky voice in the distance broke into a song that I still remember…

“Amazing grace, oh how sweet the sound
That saved a wreck like me
I once was lost, though now I'm found
I was blind, but now I see…”

Editorial Six- A small tribute to Waiting for Godot written in feverish haste

Sitting down to write this editorial reminds me for some weird reason of this line from "Waiting for Godot". I still remember the one line description given to describe this famous two act play by Samuel Beckett. "The play where nothing ever happens", it claimed. The two major characters in the play wait endlessly and in vain for someone called Godot to arrive. And that is where this little rant starts.

The place where nothing ever happens. I have been in this little desert town for the better part of three years now and I guess I still do not tire of describing this place by those words. Not that I am alone in that. I guess it is one of our pet grouses against this place.

And yet, even as I write this editorial I can think of a thousand things that have changed from my time as a first year to now. And I do not just talk about the white clock tower and the tin-shed rehdis when I say this. I am not talking of Southpark or the re-painted Bhawans either, much as they are also a change worth notice.

As I was compiling this issue, it struck me how absurd and meaningless it would have been to me if I had read these very articles 2 years ago. In this same period, we have seen the shaky rise of a fourth fest, albeit in  the form of a rejuvenated rebirth of a pre-existing one. Our technical festival is nearly equal, if not bigger than our social one, laying to rest many questions about the enthusiasm about  technical activities in the campus. Even in matters nearer home (or ones that should be nearer home at any rate), academic regulations and the like have been showing a quantum shift as many procedures that we used to take for granted- be it with regard to counselling, feedback or benchmarking the curricula against the best institutes in the world. Performances in GRE, CAT and the like have shown remarkable improvements, even as a mostly student-controlled Placement System scales new heights.

And continuing in the same vein of retrospection, (Third year-ites on Saturday evenings are the most retrospective creatures after 80 year olds, so you can stop rolling your eyes now.) and looking at our own lives over the last two years, I think the most significant change to have occurred is the mercurial change from Pro-Evolution Soccer to FIFA -2011. And the ID Card system at ANC. Definitely the ID Card system at ANC.

But then again, its three AM in the morning and I am digressing from one fever-induced rant to another. So, I'll just close this with what I intended to begin with, a quote by Samuel Beckett.

"To-morrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of to-day?"

Editorial Five

 There are just so many ways that you envision staring an even semester. The New Year's resoluions are sill but a week old, and the guilt factor is exponenially amplified by the fresh receipt of the CG card. Hurried promises are made, and first week of classes religiously attended. And so starts the BITSian life all over again.

For me, this semester had a rather unique start. Hours after registration, two buses full of us trudged along towards Delhi for the BITSAA Global Meet. It was a rather unique journey, interrupted by fog, a broken axle and a chicken coop in the middle of the road (seriously!). We got to Delhi after some 11 hours, in the wee hours of the morning with just about enough time to dress up and go to the BGM.

We were standing there in our rags at the souvenir stall selling Cactus Flowers (the BITS Annual Magazine for the uninformed) to the alumnus and cursing our aching backs when this old lady walked up to the stall. Her age was more than evident, but there was sill a certain dignified gait that made you stand up with respect. She picked up a Cactus Flower lying on the table flipping through the pages. A moment or so later, I decided to start off with the patent line I was telling everyone who visited the stall.

“Maam, this is Cactus Flower, the Annual BITS Literary magazine that is...”

“Young man, I know what this is. I started it.”

Silence.

“I am CR Mitra's wife.”

CR Mitra was the Director of BITS from 1969-1989. Known as the Dynamo Diro, he was famous as as an institution builder and innovator in higher education. All our fests started in his tenure, as did Cactus Flower. He passed away in 2008.
 
“I was there when it started. APOGEE started someime then. I remember helping bring out the first one.”

Silence again.

“ Well, I have to get going now...”

“Would you like to have a complementary copy mam?”

She stood there for a moment, hesitant, looking at the Cactus Flower in her hand. After a few moments,
she nodded.

“No. I'm moving to the US in a week to stay with my daughter. No place, no place...”

She walked away slowly, into a crowd of people just out from a lecture in the adjacent hall.

Good Bye, Cactus Flower.

Editorial Four

When the singer's gone,

Let the song go on.

But the ending always comes at last

Endings always come too fast.

It was a rather different night. Even as I walked into the auditorium alone, the very difference with the time I had done this at the very beginning of the semester struck me at every step. The energy that marks the Music Nights was just not there in the students that filled the seats till the very end of the Audi. Tired haggard faces greeted me, some with a smile, some just with an exhausted wave. We had had 3 tests in the last three days and had, by the looks of it, managed to zuc most of them. Strands of conversations all around me still centered around the week gone past, with greetings mostly murmurs on ghoting and irritated denials.

I was fashionably late by more than half an hour, which meant I reached just in time for the start of the night. Even as I settled to a rather lonely seat behind the Soundz booth, a stream of 1981 batch people streamed into the Audi. For a moment or so, the Audi seemed to come to life. They were everywhere, taking pictures, talking to the BITSAA volunteers, dancing, singing. A special request was sent out to play “Munni Badnaam” with 50 year olds dancing enthusiastically to it.

As for me, I settled down to enjoy the music that had started by now. I woke up one and a half hours later, with Shounak's brilliant growling in Sanatorium revebrating in a mostly empty Auditorium. There were still a few energetic Alumni nodding along with it. I walked to the front. The songs changed for a softer note, and I could see psenti-semites dancing along at the left side of the Audi. It seemed like they were stuck in a time warp, for even as the songs changed those few timeless steps never did.

I walked into Neeti after a rather unsuccessful tryst at dancing with a friend. “I am going to Hyderabad for an interview,” she said. “I will send in my article once I am there.” A quick hug and she was gone in the melee of camera flashes. And surprisingly it was all around me, those little attempts to keep the soon-to-be-forgotten memories in transient ties of Facebook albums and Gtalk requests.

What is it that makes us BITSians? Is it the fact that a part of us will remain forever in those long night time strolls to ANC, shivering in the dense fog? This is the part that we will leave behind, our legacy, scratched in the all-remembering sands of Rajasthan. And love it or hate it, one day I guess we will come back to it, if only to revel in the music of a generation 25 years younger, and feel young once again. I guess we never really do say goodbye.

Rithesh had just finished singing Say Goodbye when I made my way out of the Auditorium. People were on stage packing up, when one of the Music Clubbers started playing Sheila on the guitar. And for the first time in the evening, or in days perhaps, I felt like smiling.

Life goes on I guess.

Editorial Three

My third issue thankfully comes equipped with more information about the date. 8th October, I am informed by the bold tiny letters below the header. The hiatus since the last one can be explained by BOSM and Electrical and Electronics Engineering Compulsory Disciplinary Courses. The hiatus hence can be explained by OASIS and Electrical and Electronics Engineering Compulsory Disciplinary Courses. There has been one EPC issue brought out after this that was solely for creating hype about Oasis and thereby did not have an editorial. So here goes.


Third year has a weird way of putting things back into perspective. I had meant to write this editorial with a strong punch of CDC-induced cynicism and talk about the more important things in life. But then again, there are just so many scenarios in which a  bunch of smiling second year-ites (and a first year-ite) walk into your room at 3 AM in the morning, wake you up for your editorial and ask you about tooth fairies. And even  after a severely exhausting day goneby and a similar one yet to come- such random act cannot but bring a hint of a smile on your face.

Welcome to Pilani, the Neverland of half-baked technocrats and shikanji addicts. There are weird times when you feel like you are stuck between two non-happening panels of a boring comic book. I guess it is this Garfield like existence that often forces us to look at things with a bit of drama forced in them. So, yes, we have book fairs in the single floor of a book shop, we have 'dates' in the Oyster Labs, we have 'trips' to a mela at a ten minute walking distance from the campus and so on.

A good friend of mine gave a lecture this Sunday on Higher Studies and the way to get to Grad Schools and the like. And in between the very intense questions asked (" Aur Soumyadeep, weekend kaisa raha?") there were a lot of important points that were raised by the Speaker and the audience alike. During the course of the lecture, while explaining the priority order of the way Grad Schools evaluate applications, he was asked the importance of extra-curricular‟s in that order.  "Somewhere about the sixth in the list I think..." he said. I am guessing that's somewhere near the place where you mention your achievement points in FIFA or your striking likeness to Frankenstein.

It makes you think, statements like that. Here I am typing away at the sixth priority while the first and the second languish for attention at the back of my dusty shelf. And even as we walked out of the lecture at around 11, thoughts of the future were kind of a heavy shadow that all of us carried. There is solace in company they say, as a group of us low CG guys launched into a tirade on the CDCs and our sad lives in general. And even as I took our dejected little path back to my hostel, my ancient phone hummed with the arrival of a new message.

"Meeting about Oasis at 12."

Ah well, sixth aint so bad. After all, its also somewhere near the position where Laxman  comes out to bat.


If anyone is jobless enough to have a look at the issues, they can be downloaded from the 'Read Our Issues Online' section in http://epcbitspilani.wordpress.com/ .

P.S. - Special Word of thanks to Angad and my formatting team who took the pains of keeping me awake and even helping out with the last sentence when I finally did sleep off.