The Canadian Experience

It's been almost seven weeks since my arrival on this part of the world. 11,993 km away from home, it does feel a totally different world altogether. Some of my observations...

(1) 13°C is summer. It is hot!

The day I landed in Quebec, I realized that summer means something very different here. Summer is the time to enjoy, to go out on the streets, have vacations and enjoy the world! The first day I was out on the streets of Quebec,happily covered in woolens, I was surprised to see people walking around in shorts and t-shirts! All I can say about the girls is that Shiv Sena would be really upset if girls in India wore such clothes ;)

(2) As I walked on the main arterial roads, I was aware that something is really different here. But to my utter dismay, I could not pinpoint what it was. No, I am not talking about the driving on the right (wrong?) side.There were fewer people on the roads, people followed traffic rules, the cars were all different... but it was something else, which was irking me.

I tried to visualize myself standing at the crossroads at Dharmatala, trying to figure out what it was. And then it hit me! The silence! No one was honking their head off trying to win the street race. The buses made no noise, almost as if they were electric buses. The trucks glided on the roads like well oiled machinery. Well, I am not exaggerating the silence, it is something which I found the strangest, in the land of the whites!

(3) The cars and the bikes!

The Americans and the Canadians like big cars! The SUVs and the pick-ups are huge, our Scorpios and Safaris would be dwarfed by the Ford F150s and the Dodge RAMs. Most people don't care much about fuel prices. Petrol, strangely, costs almost the same (135 cents to a liter), while the overall cost of living is many times higher. Let me give you an idea... I buy a bread loaf for 2.89$. At the same price, I can get more than 2 liters of petrol. So, it would be equivalent to getting 2l of petrol in 20Rs!

Most of the cars here are automatic cars. Driving them is like driving a go-kart. Though its easy to drive in stop-and-go traffic in the city, I would prefer a manual car anyday. The automatics drink a lot of 'gas'. It's still a mystery why the very liquidy petrol is called gas here!

(4) People here think less about food than we do. Lunch is a most often a quick sandwich, not the elaborate three course lunch we have. Dinner? People start planning their meal when they feel hungry, and dinner is ready in less than 15 minutes. Back home, I guess it takes a couple of hours to prepare lunch or dinner on an average.

(5) The people, at-least in Quebec, are overtly polite. People would smile at you for no reason, use thank-you, excuse-me and sorry with such abandon that you start to think whether something is wrong here. Which shopkeeper in India would say thank you because you entered his shop, wasted fifteen minutes of his time and didn't even buy anything?

(6) People have a very warped image about India. Most of them have seen Slumdog Millionaire, and believe that's what India is. I am often at pains to explain that Slumdog portrays only a tiny fraction of what India is really like, but it's tough competing with an oscar winning movie. Some conversations:

Me: Damn the bugs! (getting annoyed at the mosquitoes and the bugs up north)

Friend: Hey man! These mosquitoes are harmless! You got big fucking tigers everywhere in India!!

Hey.. do you still play Polo on elephants in India?

*my favourite*

Is it true that there are 1 billion people in India?

Well, its more like 1.2 billion.

Oh-my-Fu**ing-god !!! Where do all the people live?

me: Hi.. My name is Rajarshi

Friend: err sorry, I didn't get your name!

me: Raj-ar-shi. You can call me Raj.

Friend: Oh Raj! Like Raj Koothrapalli from Big Bang Theory?

*rolling eyes*

Some facts which I found interesting:

The population of West Bengal is 2.64 times the population of Canada and the population density of Kolkata is 7112 times that of Canada! (wiki)

The Web

This was written by me and Priyanka, my junior during a lit-club event at IISER Kolkata. It was a team writing event, where each one of us had to write a sentence, and then the other had to write the next sentence. And yes, we could not communicate with each other. The event was called Compatibility-meter. The first sentence was given to us.

The Web

Alice had strong views on social networking and she felt that one cannot make a billion friends without a few enemies. Not a day passed without her spending a couple of hours on the popular networking site, Facebook. That day too she was clicking-on-the-go when her eyes got stuck. The guy on the screen was strangely attractive, while at the same time unearthly. His sharp face was framed by jet-black hair falling onto his forehead and his eyes were deep and piercing. She took an impulsive decision to add him to her online friend’s list, never knowing that it would change her life forever. As she waited for the request to be accepted, a strange feeling of anticipation and excitement coursed through her. The request was accepted in a matter of seconds. And they began chatting in a flurry!

Months passed, and the friendship between Alice and Dibya turned into obsession. It was as if words unspoken had been understood for ages and they had known each other since eternity. Alice could never understand the mystery behind the pale enigmatic face of her online friend. He was always asking her questions she found impossible to avoid while she knew very little about him. She lost interest in everything, except Dibya. His words seemed ethereally hanging about her, even in her sleep.

Months turned into years, and Alice was deep in love with her online friend, without ever meeting him. It was their third anniversary Alice felt that she was into Dibya more than ever before. That day was a Friday, when certain thoughts started troubling her. She had got a friend request on Facebook from a girl and the only mutual friend they had was Dibya. She was troubled by the fact that Dibya was reluctant to talk about Ananya, and that he had never once mentioned her name in the last three years. Alice resolved to know more of Dibya from Ananya and she spent hours chatting with her which turned into a sort of passion with Ananya even appearing in her dreams.

One night, Ananya asked Alice to meet her urgently. She asked Alice just to move out, and she would inform of their meeting place by message. She wondered what could be so important that Alice couldn’t wait till the next day. As she hailed a taxi, Alice’s cell phone beeped and there came a message “Hare Lane, near the 10^th house”. Alice had never heard of this place, even the Taxi driver seemed reluctant to go there – claiming that the place was very desolate. As the Taxi sped by the lights of the city, Alice had thought of Dibya running in her mind and that of what Ananya would reveal about the love of her life. As she tiptoed into the alleyway, the anticipation turned into nervous panic. She saw the silhouette of a figure standing below a dim street light and felt the air about her turn chilly. Suddenly the street lights turned off and darkness engulfed her. Even her indomitable curiosity about Dibya could not keep her from meeting Ananya and she turned back and started to run.

Life was never the same again for Alice. She was reduced to a nervous wreck after that night, to a shadow of her former self, even as the people around her wondered about what had become of the sprightly, socializing girl. As she cut herself off from the rest of the world, she could not keep herself far from the enigmatic Dibya. The intensity of their relationship reached a zenith and Alice decided to spring a surprise on him who made up her life, and resolved to meet him. She used all her resources to find his address, but failed. Alice could bear no more, and sent one last message to Ananya with whom she had stopped all correspondence since that night. She miraculously got the elusive address from Ananya. Finally she was ready for the meeting of the life, and she set out right then.

As she approached the driveway of Dibya’s house, a strange sense of foreboding ensconced her. A knock on the door later, she heard shuffling footsteps dragging towards the door and Alice stood with her heart in her mouth. An old lady opened the door. She asked to an amazed Alice “Who are you?” “Hi! I am Alice; I am a friend of Dibya”. On hearing this, the countenance of the old lady underwent a drastic change. The lady broke down on hearing Dibya’s name. And then Alice heard the longest story of her life till her shock and tears outdid each other. The newspaper cutting she was holding in her hands was wet with her tears.

SERIAL KILLER HANGED TILL DEATH

17^th March 2007 – Dibya Chakravorty, the serial killer was hanged till death yesterday in the Central Jail. He was charged and convicted as guilty of murdering 17 girls aged between 18 and 26. Dibya had tortured and gouged out the eyes of his victims before slitting their throats, which categorized his case under the rarest-of-rare crimes. The parents of Ananya Sen, his last victim said “We are euphoric that finally justice has been done”. Dibya was known to befriend his victims on Facebook, the popular social networking website. The judge announced his sentence by saying that one cannot make a billion enemies without making a few friends.

Controlling her tears, her eyes roved back to the date- 17^th March 2007 – the day she had sent Dibya the friend request. Feeling confused and drained of her very soul, she returned home and started Facebook, the elixir of what had once been her life. A window popped up announcing a new message from Dibya – “I love you!” Alice clicked on the reply box and picked up the knife…

** THE END **

The Journey

PROLOGUE

I was alive. I am dead.

I am officially dead on this planet. Just moments earlier, I had been contemplating my own death. And now that I was really dead, this was hard to accept.

The guy in the black tuxedo… was he dead? Why did he have to go to Delhi so urgently? Why did he choose me? Was the whole thing a figment of my imagination? Or was it destiny? Was I dreaming? Or maybe I was dead. All these were a blur in my mind as I went numb in shock. Suddenly I was brought back to reality by a sharp voice.

“Would you like to have another coffee?”

I saw the waiter look at me with earnest eyes. Is he dead too? Is this what you call as afterlife? I realized that they have Café Coffee Day in heaven too. I stared at him. He looked quite normal, I could not see any angelic halo around his head nor did he wear any of those fancy dresses which we often associate with the concept of heaven…

“Sir, Would you like to have another coffee? Or a cup of tea?”

“Uh… Can I get a glass of water please? And please get the bill.”

The glass of chilled water calmed me down. I was still sitting at the Café in the airport. All around me people were crowding around the large LCD TV on the wall dishing out the breaking news.

The news of death.

“Latest news comes in from Kolkata about the crash of PAN India Flight Number 73 flying from Kolkata to Delhi. All 103 on board the ill fated aircraft are believed to be dead. Unconfirmed reports say that among the dead is the son of noted industrialist Aditya Gupta… ”

The news of my death.

"If we did not die, if our existence did not unravel in the endless darkness of death, would life be quite so precious, so extraordinary, so moving?", asked Andre Comte-Sponville.

To be continued.

Book Review: Oh Shit.. Not Again!

I love reading books but this is the first time I am reviewing a book. And what a start!

'Oh shit Not Again' is a book not to be missed! And yeah, I seriously mean it.

OSNA is a debut book by Mandar Kokate. The cover says "Mandar kokate is Civil engineer and has graduated from Pravara Rural engineering college, Loni. He is also a diploma holder from Sou. Venutai Chavan poly.Pune. He has done his schooling from Seth Dagduram Katariya High school, Pune. Now he is a full time writer"

As you must have guessed, it is another book from the many wannabe Chetan Bhagats. But in this case, the author really missed the mark, by a wide wide margin! Mandar tries hard to be an author, often by using unnecessarily big words. I often wondered if he was really preparing hard for GRE vocab while writing the book! The writing is crass, with no sentence logic. He starts describing the uninteresting plot in the most mundane way. The jokes (which seemed to be the highlight of the book from the back cover) have been killed by the insipid writing.

Sample these:

Five table are aligned, and mounted with steel glasses. They are to be knocked down with these five artificial balls.

Artificial balls ??? Now I know only 1 type of 'natural' balls !! lol :D :D

All five aunties were forcing the curved white fruit into their mouth.

ughhhh!!!!

"What if someone impedes me from taking them? "

"I was going to come in quest of you! "

Now who talks like this?

the dusty room was transformed into a beautiful leaving.

beautiful leaving?

A fan was running at a high speed, dispersing the large volume of carbon dioxide that was emerging out of the lungs resting behind the fat tummies of the policemen.

How imaginative !!!

Each time she bowed down to pick up an onion, an extremely beautiful, abyssal, thin valley sandwiched between her soft mountains pleased my eyes.

Crass!

Mandar tries hard to spice up the story by filling it with sexual innuendoes. Big boobs aunties, sexy gals, lecherous uncles, horny guys, you find them all. At times, it felt that I was going through some cheap erotic novel. The publication thought it wise not to edit the book in any way. It is full of spelling and grammatical mistakes (yeah!)

Have you ever heard the usage of "teeths"?? lol

To conclude, this is the worst fiction I have read. Think of this book as the "Shaitani Dracula" of the literary world. (If you are wondering what that is, youtube it!)

I suggest you read the book atleast once. Do not buy the book, convince your friend to buy it ;)

And then see the fireworks when he reads it.

P.S - A post after a really really long time.

P.S - I am seriously considering writing a book. If Mandar Kokate can do it, so can I !

Beauty Pixelated

My Date (1)

This is a sequel to my earlier blog on my strange illness.

Read it here.

All names/places are fictitious and bear no resemblance to any thing remotely real.

Kolkata, some Saturday in March 2009, after the mid semester exams

Behka Main Behka, Woh Behki Hawa Si Aai..

Ek Hi Nazar Mein Sab, Manzil Wanzil Paaye...

"Shut the phone up and LET ME SLEEP in peace! It's only 11 o' clock!!" shouted my room-mate from under the covers. I hit the snooze button before I had realized what time it was...

Behka Main Behka, Woh Behki ..

"Aarav !!! See the time dude !! What time is your date? " yelled my roomie again. This time I woke up. Date. Something clicked. I had a date at 12 pm! I glanced at my phone and saw that I was late, it was already 11:30 am !

At this point, I should make something clear. This was the first time I was going to meet her, the person who had changed me. She was the whiff of fresh air in my life - the girl whom you feel is just the one for you.

"Get out of bed idiot! Now rush or you will be late... I don't want you to be late again!!" It seemed that my roomie was more enthusiastic in this whole thing than me. I got out of my bed, rushed through the morning chores at a dastardly late hour (though it is quite common in a hostel to see someone brushing his teeth at 4 o' clock in the evening) and rushed out towards my long quest towards the city. And like a true conqueror, I set out for my prize with hope in my heart and enthusiasm in my gait. The date was at one of the malls of Kolkata - city center.

Tweet Tweet . My phone beeped.

"1 NEW MESSAGE"

Hey.. u coming na ??

I guessed it was more of a rhetorical question, she knew I would be there. However some furious thumbing later:-

"Please Recharge Your Account to Resume Services"

Oh shit! What if she decides not to come over when she doesn't receive my sms? Hell, I had to do something! Thankfully my over enthusiastic roomie had (some) balance, a rare instance, and I texted an affirmative. I reached CCD @ CC and started waiting... my past experience told me girls seldom turn up in time. After a Cappuccino and a Tropical Iceberg later, as my wallet steadily emptied itself, I started cursing my luck. And then I saw her...

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date."

Now I understood what Shakespeare must have felt when he penned those lines. She was the epitome of the Greek goddess, the muse of painters and poets. The sinuous tresses of her hair overflowed onto her shoulders nonchalantly, yet gracefully. Mere words cannot express the volumes spoken by her mysterious eyes. Someone had rightly said beauty is an experience, it is not a fixed pattern or arrangement of features. It is something which is felt, and I felt her beauty radiating all around me. I stood there speechless, my mind blank.

"Hey Aarav !! So finally we meet! I am so happyyyyy! "

*smiling like an angel*

Finally I managed to speak.

"I am even happier than you dear!!! So Eisha... how did you recognize me ??? "

An awkward silence for a second

"Eisha? Who Eisha? You don't even remember my name ???"

*sob*

"Aarav.. I never expected this from you. I am leaving. Please do not ever try to contact me or call me, ever again"

*sob*

I always had trouble remembering names. :(

~~~~~

P.S :- Aarav is the name of the main character in all my blogs from now on. I got some really nasty feeback from my last post in which I had used my own name, which I had to delete.

P.S :- This is totally fictitious.

P.S :- Or is it?

P.S :- Really missing iiser

P.S :- She still won't talk with me. :( :(

P.S :- The doodle is from www.themattefinish.com

Smileys

Smileys

People are using a lot of smileys these days... and I think that the excessive use of smileys stems from seeing too much of Ekta Kapoors's soaps. I think I have made my point clear.. don't you think so ? Nowhere else apart from the gross sets of ekta's soaps do you find people emoting so much!!! People are becoming irrational while using smileys, often rendering the whole point of using them insane. For example, I was chatting with one of my friends who had f*cked up his results this semester.

Me: Aur bhai !! Results kaisa raha ?

(By the way, I already knew it)

He: Yaar.. bahut gandi hai.. *expletives* :) :( :) :( :D :D

wtf !! He wants to smile, grin and be sad , all at the same time ?

More :

Me: Hii! wassup ? how r u ?

(trying to be cool by saying wassup.. does it make me cool ?)

She: I am fine!! :D :D :D :P

Now what is so funny in being fine ? Pointless usage of smileys! :D:D:P:(:(

***

PS - I am going to add PS after every post from now onwards. Sad for you !

PS - The credit for the idea goes to Himanshu -> Check out his blog here! He writes really awesome!

PS - I am stuck with a very boring project on the fluoride contamination of ground water. bah!

PS - I really screwed up my last semester. I am finally a 7-pointer.

PS - The girl I like (or rather love...) refuses to talk with me. why ?

Getting Committed

Recently I have been afflicted with a strange illness. Let's call it "i-don’t-want-to-remain-single-anymore-get-me-a-girlfriend-quick" syndrome.

I want to change my status in Social Networking sites to "committed"! But for that, I first need to get committed to a girl. I am calling it a sickness, because this is just a temporary phase, and this miserable feeling of being single would go away soon, I am sure! Right now, all I want is someone whom I would be able to call my girlfriend!

 

Now studying at a college with a negligible female population, what sources do I have to get committed? Now in India, the game of 'Have-You-Met-Ted' will not work, and I am not smart enough to just walk upto any girl and say ‘Hi! Have we met before?’ Practically speaking, it is impossible to talk to any girl out there on the street. We always hear of stories like - "You heard of X? He just found his love at the mall! And now they are dating ..." These fantastic stories only take place in people's fantasies... I have never heard anyone finding their love in a mall! Also, I don’t want to get into a long-distance-relationship, so all ex-schoolmates are removed from the potential list.

So now I am at an alien city, and I have to find the girl of my dreams among the thousands of girls in the city. To start with, I turn to our faithful friend Orkut. I start trawling Orkut for potential matches... but hit roadblocks at every corner. I can't understand why the hell girls can't put up their own pic, atleast in their display photo!!! Girls... please understand, no one is going to morph your tiny display pic into the next big sex scandal of the country! Now the next roadblock - age. Why the hell cant girls put up their age? Next checkpoint - which year in college. Now I have a rule - I will only get into a relationship with a girl, who is in the same year of college as I am. Again, I can never understand why girls can’t just fill out these details in the professional section. But this is taken care of pretty easily... by just going through their communities, it can be found out. Not if they are member of some few odd hundreds of communities!!!

So after spending some time and going through about hundred profiles, I am able to find one or two profiles, which match all the criteria. Now the next big question - What reason do I have to send them a friend request? And how do I make my friend request different from the tens of requests they must be recieving everyday? The answer is nothing can be done. :( 

So eating all shame, and reaching the lowly depths of desperatism (being a desperado) in orkut, keeping no difference between me and the other LoverBoys of Orkut (No, seriously, there is a whole community of these guys out there whose only motive is to send 1000 fraandship requsts to every girl in orkut), I finally send you the friend request! Now I pray I don’t get swept like all those Loverboys of Orkut, and you can see the genuineness of my friend request ! 

More often than not, I get accepted. Now I start chatting, or rather scrapping. It usually goes something like this:

Me: Hi!!! Thanks for accepting my frnd request! How are you?  :)

(wOw !! She is totally into me now!!! This is the girl for me!! Thank you goD!!! )

You: Hi ! me fyn. 

(oh shit. Another moron who want frandsheep)

Me: Oh great :) So what do you do ?

(I already know all about you from your communities.. just answer fast and let us move on ... )

You: 2nd year, blah blah branch, glug-glag college. What do you do ?

(Seriously, one more stupid question and I get this moron out of my list)

Me: I am a 2nd year student of geophysics at IISER Kolkata. 

(smiling)

You: Ohh gr88.. so a scientist eh ?

(Ha.. Moron claims to be a scientist ! )

Me: Yeah, sort of .. Let me tell you one thing.. You look really beautiful in that pic of yours.

(I am totally in love with you dear!!! I think I am going to propose to you in the next few scraps)

You:   :-)

(What a jerk !!!)

Now you have sent the classic conversation stopper, the smiley. Now what the hell do I reply to that? More smileyes?? "lols" ?? ":D :D :D" ?? Or another question and make the whole conversation look like an interview ? 

This is usually how things progress at my end. However, there have been exceptions, where I could chat upto 2-3 days with the same girl. A few times I have even got to the point of calling them up and chatting on the phone. In even rarer cases, I have met with them. But every time, I have made blunders, which have been totally successful in keeping me blissfully single till date! 

More on that later. 

"The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned" - Somerset Maugham