Synapse

we are having our annual festival. This time we are doing it differently in the sense that we have organised cultural as well as technical festivals together in these 3 days. But till now, the festival, though it bears the name of our technical festival - "Synapse", reminds us more of our Cultural festival "Blitz". All the crowd has been seen only in the cultural events. However, we do not mind this till there is a festive atmosphere in the institute and outsiders leave with pleasent memories and high regard for this place. As of now, I think this has been achieved.

I reached the finals of an event called "Forage". It is basically the "Junkyard Wars" event. However, our team did miserably. We ended up being last.

As I am writing this, there is some noisy English music being played quite loudly in the food court area. Everything in our festivals is always Western. English songs, English movies, Rock concerts, fashion show etc. But now, I have started liking this way of life. I even enjoyed the rock show yesterday. Even I now hate Hindi movies and enjoy English songs more. I do not think there is anything wrong in immitating the wetern culture. I feel a bit uncomfortable only because these things are unrealistic. Outside college, in professional life, things are very different. And living a western life in the college years - listening to noisy music, growing long hairs, fagging, boozing, flirting, wearing cool clothes, hardly prepare us for the harsh realities of life. Having lived such a life, supported by their dads, the bright youngsters will definitely find it difficult to adjust when they are out in the open after 4 years and have to live on their own. But by this I do not imply that we should behave completely as professionals in our college years. These are the best years of one's life. SO do whatever you want- even go and screw choicest of lovelies if you feel like doing tha, till you have an eye on your final goal and are working for it. Everyone, when in his college should enjpy himself as much as possible. Once we are done with the student life, the responsibilities of life will hardly leave any time (and bucks) to enjoy. Now, my friends who might be reading this would ask me to first practise and then preach. But then, I am a loner. How do they know whether I am enjoying myself or not? Whatever external picture I may portray, I have been enjoying my youth and will continue to do that. Life is cool here. Any my coolness quotient, though quite low is good enough for me that I would no repent in my later years of good days spent "under utilised".

Death

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Ok. Impressive!

But why am I quoting this "quotable" poem? Because I am reading on death these days. Na na, it is not preparation towards my exit from this world. I am not going to give up so easily, however difficult life might be because I have a long way to go and a lot more to achieve. But the topic of death has always interested me a lot. This started when I was in primary school and one of my friends met with a sudden death. This had a great impact on my tender mind. For days together, I was thinking about that friend - thought like where he would be now, would he be happy away from his mother, would he have all powers to do whatever he wishes to as it is shown in movies, what if he comes some day to meet me, what if I die and all such things.

My curiosity was served well by a column in the newspaper we used to subscribed then. It talked about near-death experiences and other stuff related to spirits and rebirth. I was fascinated. All these past years, I never missed an opportunity to read about death ,though I did avoid the heavy philosphical works. After all, I am not that old to dabble into the philosophy of a topic as serious as death. I was more interested in reading about strange experiences people have undergone. Though I have forgotten most of them, I have enough of information on such matters and I feel I should share some of them with my colleagues. I, therefore grabbed the opportunity of making a class presentation on the topic of death. And I have got a decent enough material, the above quote is a part of which.

By the way, I also had a close brush with death once; twice if my mother's description of an incident of my childhood is to be believed.

The first incident, as told to me by my mom, took place when I was in first standard. I was suffering from jaundice and one night, all my activities suddenly stopped. I lied on the bed, motionless, with my eyes wide open, not responding to frantic calls from my mother and perhaps not even breathing. But within minutes, I was automatically restored to normalcy. I do not remember any thing of this incident. How could I? I was "dead" then. :)!

The second incident is still as fresh in my mind as if it happened just yesterday. I was in 8th and was visiting a place called Jhamwala with my parents. The place is famous for a waterfall and we were all getting wet at the mouth of the waterfall. The place was strewn with big rocks all of which were quite slippery due to being continuously under water. I was standing on one of them and jumped on to another. In doing this, I slipped and fell into the water. Not that I am healthy now, but I was quite light then and the flow of the water at the mouth of the fall was too much for me. The wate started dragging me. Fortunately, my father was close by. He jumped into the water and managed to get hold of my hand. Otherwise, I would have, after being dragged by the water for some distance, fallen from a height on to large rocks and would have in all probabilites died. My mom had almost fainted then. Seeing my father jump into the water to save me, she thought she had lost both of us :)!

It would be a great experience to die but I wouldn't be alive then to cherish the experience. How ironic!

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Hey people, Isn't this a wonderful poem?

I first read this sometimes in my primary school. Today, after so many years, one of our humanities professor made us read it. Nostalgia and Motivation combined, I was elated.

PC...

Hey, I got a comp yesterday. A p4 2.4 Ghz with 533 Mhz system bus and 845GV chipset, 80 Gb HD and 256 MB RAM. Though not a killer, the config is decent enough to serve me well for the next 4 years ( after which I will get a lappie for myself :-) )

Sadly, I do not have LAN connection yet and so at the best the comp will serve me only as a jukebox, at least for some days if not months. But once I get LAN, hopefully I will use it for purposes better than surfing and music. However, at least now the excessive-sleep-syndrome that had gripped me since the beginning of this semester will definitely disappear. And yes, the comp will be of a great utility in satiating my nostalgic pursuits.

Decission of getting the comp was based on several assumptions: That I will work hard on CMOS and SEN projects, that I will maintain an inquisitive and explorative outlook and learn a lot of hardware and software stuff, that I will be in DA-IICT for my B.Tech project because I will need to prepare for GD/ PIs ( which implies that I will have cracked CAT :-), indeed a biiig assumption, Ahem) and that I will get selected in a good MBA college that has LAN connection in hostels.

Now, if these assumptions turn out to be pipe dreams than I will repent the decision of purchasing the comp and making my dad poorer by a quarter of a lakh ( sound big this way, na?). If I do my B.Tech project in the fortunate firm where I, out of generosity, decide to take a job in the placement sessions and if I screw up CAT and need to continue with the job on hand, my PC will be useful to me for only 10 more months. Of those 10 months 4-5 will be devoted to CAT during which I will not be pursuing any ambitious project. And so PC will be used only for browsing and music. So the real utilisation will be done only in the next 4 months which is again based on the way our SEN and CMOS projects progress and the extent of hardwork I decide to put in for them.

So, you see. I played a gamble. And I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Anyway, I came across these nice lines in yesterday's ET:

ANd london is a city of men
There is power in the air
And paris is a city of girls
With flowers in their hair
And it is nice to dream in venice
And great to roam in rome
But when it comes to living
There is no better place than home.

keviv