War and Sleaze
After over seven months of dog-earing and shifting my book-mark between the yellowed pages of a Penguin Classics 1984 edition of a fourteen hundred and fifty paged book titled "War and Peace", I finally closed the book for the last time with a grim feeling of dissatisfaction at the dissipated state of changed times. While this epic (written in the late 1860s) by Count Leo Tolstoy still mirrors human spirit and mourns the futility of wars, you can't help but ruminate upon the different state of affairs that invading/invaded countries now find themselves after the horrors of a war. What should normally be termed
'peace' (if ever there was), now occupies newspaper and tabloid front-pages as
'sleaze'. However, I don't consider myself qualified to decry decisions that those in
power deem insurmountable or to deplore the hero-worshipping of those who
strategise the mass butchering of a body of the army, the victory or loss of which represents the triumph or humiliation of the people of the nation that they had chosen to represent.
I had intially ventured upon writing (or rather, typing) my interpretation of this HUGE book that I read intermittently between periods of frenetic activity (read: last minute photo-copying of notes before semester exams) and blissful idleness (read: the last few weeks). So here I go...
The sole aspect of reading a Russian book which narrates the circumstances that Russian life was, in the early 1800s, is the
names - yeah, proper nouns!! While I struggled to disentangle myself from the webs of Bezuhovs, Rostovs, Drubetskoys, Bolkonskys, Kuragins, Alexeyivichs and Vereshchagins; I tried to hold on desperately to the triflings at the battles of Borodino, Smolensk and God-only-remembers-where-else. Despite the despair that seizes you, when Tolstoy slips into Books, Parts and Chapters of trying to unravel those skeins of thought that each of the priciple characters inevitably draw themselves into; there's a well arranged train of logic and an artfully contrived jigsaw of colourful cameos that throw you into contemplation. You could have convulsions of grief/joy/wonder/awe/boredom through the pages in which he (Tolstoy) rails at French 'historians' who deify the quite
ordinary Napoleon Bonaparte as a 'genius' and Russian writers who claim that Alexander I was a monarch of the subtlest virtues and the paradigm of magnanimity (while he seemed to me like a puffed-up schmuck of the first order). The minute inspection of lives and circumstances is justified by the idea that a macro phenomenon like a war between nations is an
integral of the infinitesimals (which are the unconscious actions of individuals who are otherwise termed inconsequential). The famous Epilogue is like a homily, pages of 'Freewill Vs Necessity'!! And, I must admit, I was more occupied with the odd mosquito buzzing at my ear and the discoloured lizard that seemed ready to leap from the ceiling, when I forced myself to undergo the agony of savouring all those
grande ideas.
I did find some similarities though, between this one and my OTHER favourite book (Gone With The Wind) - copious explanations about the movements of the left flank of 'our' army and the ruination that would await the middle column, or the burning of cities and entire towns and the impoverishment of wealthy, but squandering families. The most striking one, however, is that not-so-rare state of uncertainty that most stories make their (so far) patient readers suffer in. While Scarlett announces that "Tomorrow is another day"; the young, impressionable and orphaned Nikolai Bolkonsky decides to do whatever his beloved uncle Pierre considered right (which suggests his involvement in the formation of a secret, anarchist organisation) at the fag-end of this wonderful story when you thought a Sleeping Beauty - style '...And they live happily ever after' ending would leave you in raptures of joy. It leaves you with that disconcerting sense of intrigue that tears your mind apart, while you mull over it for days after.
Acing the GRE - Part 1
If you're a confused, about-to-graduate (
about=86,400 x
365 seconds) good-for-nothing... (and I just happen to be a paragon of that very virtue), and have your fingers stuck in too many pies(metaphorically, ok??); then I can bet my boots(not designer, nah!) on you getting ready to ace the GRE...
Generally Recondite Esoterica. And that's about as
General as it gets!!
So, to fulfill dreams of minting $$$$ (
ahem!! don't get greedy and demand for more $s); you'll want to give this 'un your BEST shot. Here's one, from someone who's fresh from the battle-field and has seen it all, and done it all.. :P
First of all.. you have to know WHAT the GRE consists of. I've laid out the pattern here for you:
Section I: Analytical Writing Assessment (75 mins)Task 1: Present your perspective on the following issue. (45 mins)
"Nosology is an essential study that contributes towards society's development. It must be included as an essential part of under-graduate curriculum."Note: Puhleeez make sure you understand the topic before venturing upon writing, a coherent essay.
Task 2: Criticize the following argument:
"By deductive syllogism, it can be proved that Man (even as we discuss this) has active nerve endings where he once had a prehensile tail. Through millenia of constant metamorphosis, the human form precluded redundant forms of biological adaptations. It has been found in a survey, that nine out of ten people all over the world, experience increased stress on activating the aforementioned nerves. Also, the effect has been found to be more in times of greater dorsal inactivity."
Note: You're telling me you didnt figure that out, neither can I.. unless of course you
rise to my
lowly thinking.. LOL!!
Section II: Verbal (30 questions - 30 mins)
This section typically comprises three kinds of questions: Reading Comprehension, Sentence Completion and Analogy questions.
Reading Comprehension:
Females of most animal species have been found to have greater privilege in terms of choice of mates, and the area that will be susbsequently marked as their "realm". Apart from this, some females are also found to have greater physical strength than their male counterparts. This biological inclination, is evident in the results of biological study performed on wild as well as domestic animals, especially on the spiders in the forest areas of Colorado, USA and elephant seals along the Arctic coast. Questions have been raised, and hypotheses proposed to explain this phenomena. However, it can be gathered that as is the case with other species, human females have a more stimulative cortex; and hence enjoy greater freedom of choice where dominating males do not suppress female individuality.
Questions:
Note: You may find that more than one answer is correct, however only ONE choice is allowed. Be prudent.
Sentence Completion:
Rowan Atkinson is undoubtably the most _______ actor of all time, his _______ prowess is manifest in the potrayal of one of the greatest comic characters: Mr. Bean.
(a) awful ... awesome
(b) extravagant ... artless
(c) zesty ... sanguine
(d) versatile ... indisputably marvellous acting
Analogy:
Dyspepsia::E-coli
(a) Malaria::Anopheles
(b) Meningitis::Beckham
(c) Aphasia::The Waffle Iron
(d) Acacia::Germination
Section III: Quantitative (28 questions - 45 mins)
Note: Now, Math is what warriors of my ilk don't even consider worth fretting about. So, if you're reading this, you had better be a number-wizard, an algebra-expert and a geometry-pro.. Hee hee.... that just means to tell you, that I'm not covering this section.
Love Story
LOVE - The religion of Erich Segal's Oliver, the mush that M&Bs are made of, the poison that killed Juliet, the 'virtue' that drives Bollywood heroes, the antidote for all evil and... (what makes me give the larger half of the chocolate bar to my adorable li'l niece)
Such was the love that had sprung on the verdant campus of NITW; in the late August of 2002. The damp sidewalks and the puddles on the road to the Admin Block were just beginning to dry, and umbrellas were being put away until the next year. Tardy sloths of the second, third and final year were settling in with the quagmire of lab reports and class assignments; and wide-eyed, untouched first years were streaming into the hostels & learning to cringe when they met the peremptory glare of a second year or were beckoned by a nasty-looking final year.
In walked the HERO of our little story:
Gah-wind, clad in pink leather, he was in what can be described to have attained the dizzying heights of haute couture in those happy times. Chewing a wad of gum (then advertised as Wriggly's Nick-o-teen), toting his luggage-bag (he was panting with the effort, but he bravely refused to betray any signs of cholestrol-induced weakness); our hero traipsed down the beaten road to the Hostel Office. Gah-wind whistled
gay-ly and spat out the Nick-o-teen juice... then he went.. "Gah!!"
To give you a wind of the reason why Gah-wind went "Gah", we'll have to swerve our camera around, one hundred and eighty degrees, and train the lens on the sight that had struck Gah-wind. There!! What do we see? The very nimble
Pretty-V!! The wind that had set the sails of our picaresque Gah-wind. Now, to the short-sighted, the nimbleness of our... uh-huh.. hmm...
heroine may not be so evident. But, Gah-wind's heart had at that fateful moment started to beat only for Pretty-V, his throat was dry and there was the familiar feeling of weakness in the knees.. (the only OTHER time he had gone weak in the knees was when he'd seen Clark Gable in 'Gone with the Wind' turn on his heel at the Wilkes' and walk out of the library, leaving Scarlett mortified at the discovery of her little talk with Ashley).
However, unlike the subjects of most melodramatic love stories (including the one in which our hero's 'object of weakness', played Rhett Butler), we shall not let our hero's love remain unrequited. Unbeknownst to Gah-wind, Pretty-V too had, at that very fortuitous moment, fallen for our dauntless man. Years of chewing Nick-o-teen had given Gah-wind a jut-jaw and a rubbery tongue. He drawled for his vowels and drooled for his consonants, sputtered when in doubt and would now slur, when in love. This did not further his cause, for Pretty-V suffered from an acute case of aphasia and was congenitally dyslexic.
Despite the aforementioned impediments, Gah-wind and Pretty-V fought all odds and exemplified LOVE. Their tale is heart-rending. Even today, when I see Pretty-V nod despairingly when Gah-wind slurs and stutters agonisingly and hear Gah-wind go "Gah" at Pretty-V's inability to say "eeYyyess" to his plans; it warms the very cockles of my heart. Even the chill of winter winds and the heat of the Warangal sun won't serve to stultify the amazing power that binds these two. While they walk into the sun-set, holding each other's hands, Pretty-V pulls out a pack of Wriggly's from
his pocket, Gah-wind giggles nervously as he fingers his Four-Square.
How I 'almost' got employed
If there's anything that I've been procrastinating for too long, I think it's filling-in this space. Technically(ain't that the word for it?), I haven't found enough time to step out of our GREEN campus and foray into the wilderness beyond and find a cyber cafe.. (Well, there are PLENTY of them around, alright.. but ones that have semi-battered keyboards, dysfunctional mice, low resolution monitors, cramped cubicles and an obscenely SLOOOOW connection!!)But, more non-technically... there hasn't been much I've had to write about; until NOW!!
It's that time of the year in every NITWian's life.. when the Training 'n Placement Section swarms with impeccably clad job aspirants (yeah.. those ubiquitous ties, and folders held in clammy palms... mornings without breakfast.. and bleary-eyed midnight vigils for the day's interview results) The time of the year, when the corridors of the TnP are ruled by self-important student co-ordinators.. that.. ahem.. includes ME!! :D
If there's anything in life, that's the most heartening thing to witness, it's the JOY on the faces of the 'lucky' ones... The suffusion that's near contagious... and I thought it wouldnt be long until it was my turn.. well, it sure did... only.. "ALMOST"!!
If there ever was a case-study done on the most moronic gaffes committed in ONE HR interview, mine would take the cake. Despite clearing my hour-long tech, and a near successful HR.. I had to do what I shouldn't! And well.. the rest wasn't so surprising after all!!
Hyderabad.. Most Beautiful!!
Now, I do know that I'm treading on a land-mine... there'll be ferocious arguments about the validity of the title of this post of mine. But, say what you will, Hyderabad in my eyes (and in those of my fortunate fellow-denizens) IS Beautiful. Despite all the trappings that come with a city like this.. read: the terrible traffic, pot-hole ridden roads and burly, baton wielding traffic-cops, who can contort their faces into the most menacing scowls!! ** shudder ** .... No city can match the grandeur!!
