I agree with Patnaik, whatever i put on my blog is coming true. just the other day i wanted to be a part of the Addam's Family. and it's coming true. went over for the weekend to my uncle's place (he has just come back from Mumbai) and was updated on my extended family's theatrics. i think i have enough matter here for a book and more. thinking of switching to a Royesque mode, start off writing a book and who knows if i do manage to scam and win a big prize for it, people might actually take me seriously for everything and anything that i opine on later. shit, i am beginning to sound like Vijay.

sreeji teaches u how to cherish life. i have learnt that there is nothing called a free ride. and with Sreeji u pay for it with almost your life.

well, i didn't write about the famous dinner that we broadcast students are priveleged to enjoy once we join the BBC course. As long as the ACJ faculty isn't crying foul Enjoy!! disappointingly, it wasn't one of those most happening evenings though. "Unforseen unavoidable circumstances" prevented Ms. Patanik from honouring me with her prized company and so i decided to go along with Lada. Apart from the dinner there is little to write about. we were also joined by the environment elective prof fro dinner. but the talented Mr. G String handled the situation in style. the conversations ranged from answers to innocent questions like "Sir, is the green belt of India actually disappearing?" to confessions of a poet diagnosed of existential angst, such as " Naomi, I would really like to dance in your house" and "It's so important to be in tune with yourself."
I am alive and ready to take on the world.

last evening was one of the few that i would like to remember in ACJ. sat with Shivani Kagti (yeah yeah the one from Kaziranga). made a pact to visit Assam and go on a long trip with her around the north east. we have kind of considered to include Patnik as long as she refrains from poking fun at indigeneous groups that we might come across or striking shady deals with them. knowing her past history i must say this is pretty generous a gesture by us.

This is really quite weird. i wish i had belonged to the Addams' family. Never before have I regretted the fact that my family is conformist. No one in my family both immediate and extended has had a history of breaking norms. but today i realised the importance of belonging to a non- conformist set up. ignorance is bliss. i so think that is true, coz once u start learning things about ur own decisions and what they were governed by in the past, u feel like a moron.
and that's how i felt after krishna Ananth's class yesterday. we are a bunch of loser kids. that's what we are. just swallow everything that is given to us without any questioning at all. and u feel even more moronic to realise that u don't even know how u are falling for illusions that are built up for u. and all the time u are actually walking right into their trap. willingly. mutely. while we go on ra- ra-ing about the information revolution we quietly accept distorted information. this is what is dumbing down, distorting information such that u actually feed people with dumbness. dumbing down isn's about ruby bhatia or mandira bedi hosting cricket.
we are so scared of breaking rules, that non conformists are comfortably branded as being loony and attention seekers. its only in our generation, that doing the usual thing is actually seen as earth shattering. so u have a Narayanamurthy and Infosys praised to the hilt . not because he is doing what is supposed to be done, but dared to do it when everyone else is not doing it. that is the level of distortion and dumbness we have reached.

it was a quiet Sunday. A cousin in Mumbai got married. What else can I say but that another one bites the dust.
As for me I spent the day with a distant cousin. A day well spent.
Watched some debate on NDTV's Big Fight on whether India should have supported the US in its invasion of Iraq. went to the beach for a walk. missed a friend who had come to Chennai for a day all because yesterday happened to be the first Sunday that i decide not to come to college and relax instead. which results in me not checking my mail and hence not getting her contact number. Talk about timing. I have stopped analysing these things anyways.
parents called up after a week. maybe they think i have grown up after all and do not need as much attention as before. Wrong timing again.
Rajath thinks his life is exciting coz he can get his blogspot to change colours. that's the kind of people the world at ACJ is made up of.

today was a total washout of a meeting in terms of theatrics. the students were all geared up to argue vehemently. but Sashi Kumar calmly announced for the sanctions to be lifted. so that was what i would call an unsensational end to what was beginning to assume the character of an Agatha Christie story. so many unfulfilled dreams of being detectives washed away in one stroke. he also made another revelation, the course is apparently subsidised.

many more bubbles bust today. many more illusions broken. Vijay grew up all this while happily believing that petrol bunks were directly linked to oil wells by pipe lines. he was visibly disillusioned. i am responsible for shattering his belief system though. he looked like this kid who had just been told that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.i feel like this big bad adult who can't let kids live in their imaginary world. (of course not). but what added to his trauma was the fact that even Lada knew the "secret" about petrol bunks.
manasi has returned. ACJ is not secular. today is good friday and we do not have a holiday.

ok , i must admit that the vandal in college (for first timers, the one who goes about ripping notice boards) has put the college management at their wits end. they somehow believe that shutting down college by 5:30 p.m. will help prevent further damage although most of the damage has occurred precisely before the aforementioned time. but then who said journalists are logical. they only claim to be so.
the students meet that followed after the decision had been announced by the management proved tobe one where upcoming journalists tried to don the role of trade union leaders, by occasionally crying "Conspiracy" and "We've been had!!" (like u didn't know u ninnies we've been had a long time ago when we agreed to pay through our teeth for this damn course). Sreeji did his tribe proud by shouting "Strike" every now and then.
back home (an euphemism for hostel) i cooked macaroni alongwith siddharth and it was quite a scrumptious meal. watched NDTV 24x7 for the first time. and i think they are a lot better than the trash that is going around branded as news. but they are getting hopelessly gimmicky at times.

well, took a long break from blogging and now i am back at it. to be honest it was partly lack of access to a cybercafe and of course laziness that prevented me from blogging. hmmm..apart from two days of uninterrupted sleep and good food, it was also an opportune time to earn some money. today being the Keralite New Year i was gifted money by way of blessings from my aunt and uncle. also got to taste the season's first mangoes..so looks like i did manage to beat my roomie who is relaxing in mumbai to it after all.

went out on the streets of chennai to do a vox pop (topic: do u think cricket overshadows other sports in India and Why?) tried to get the gender equity bit straight, but had to give up soon. the women were rambling. One of them even got philosophcal about it and decided that cricket should be followed as the prime sport in all earnesty and that alone would help us Indians progress. should have gone to a women's college , but didn't have the time. also realised that no matter how short u cut ur hair it isnt short enough for Chennai. even bald aint good enough.

Amit Chaudhri is good. simple to read, but sometimes drifts. hope to finish the book today.

oops, didn't know a harmless case of hacking into someone's blog would have led to such dramatic exhibition of emotions. nevertheless, it has led to some brilliant exchanges with commendable literary content. so i guess, all's well that ends well.
haven't been doing too much myself to write about, except for staying up with Manasi who fell ill. i must agree that a little bit of homesickness finally did get to me, now that manasi is in good ol' mumbai. have been reading three books at the same time to get over it tho. Bipin Chandra's Freedom Struggle of India, Anita Desai's Games at Twilight and Amit Chaudhri's New World. Freedom Struggle is quite like a novel itself.
Politics class rocks. but i am paying the price of being a complacent mumbaiiite...coz the discussions are so taken over by Biharis with Krishna Ananth secretly enjoying the rising voices and tempers.

well, God must have loved stupid people, He has made so many of them...conned another poor unsuspecting soul to join this blogging thingy...also goes by the name of Lada G String(affectionately called Lada G Singh ).

ok priti is finally off to home sweet home in hyderabad, with a lot of 'Josh' i must say, has bid her tearful goodbyes, ..of course not, knowing priti she is probably already scheming to trade off Anima for a plate of hyderabadi biryani on her way...i have also conned Vijay to join the blogging bandwagon...well it wasn't too difficult...knowing Vijay, (he is a shrink's occupational hazard) he asks every Bhutanese he meets if they know Jigme Singye Wangchuk and every Mumbaiite if they know Bobby. well his traumatic childhood is finally showing...Vijay also starts his blogspot with "I sat on Sanasi's cake" who cares...he spends his spare time editing his blogspot trying to make the sentences shorter and less unweildy (unweidly, maligned = vijay's favourite words)..well ACJ has found their student of the year...

ok, that voice culture dude, he thinks we can learn voice culture from penguins. maybe we should set him up against Jayaraman, the science guy. ACJ has been quite a breeding ground for weirdos. Quote of the day: 'Philosophy is the stunt of the self confessed intellectual'- Ms. Patnaik. and i got my Zonkboard by learning something that is close to Zonkha- its called HTML.

testing again

TESTING

Hello

I stand vindicated in my criticism of The Hindu. in their enthusiasm to sound "holier than thou" they end up looking like nothing but moronic names droppers. in an edit on the restructuring of the Iraq, they talk of the need to guard against the imperial strategies of George Bush, whichc according to an Oxford Historian would take us back to the law of the jungle. Really, how much IQ would i need to know that without assisstance from an Oxford Historian?

well..seven months and fifteen days at a journalism school, and guess what we just spent two days of BBC class learning What is News, ahem, welcome to ACJ.
and we also finally saw a piece of balanced reporting on BBC.
and Shreeji, for the umpteenth time, "embedded" is not the same as "in bed with".
Quote of the day, (in the context of journalists accepting freebies) "i think its better to divorce the stomach from the conscience". by none other than the Enlightened Shreeji.
i think i am overdoing this blogging thing..is there something called Blogging fatigue?

well, i was just reading the Freedom Struggle of India by Bipan Chandra..(obviously inspired by Krishna Ananth to read a history book)...and guess what there is history beyond Shivaji..thanks to Maharashtra State Syllabus we grew up in school believeing that Shivaji was the best thing to happen to India. well Manasi still thinks so. Jai Maharashtra just for her.

eeeks....checked out Headlines Today, a desperate attempt of Aaj Tak at English news. the anchor to begin with looked like a sleazeball. and the accent was suicidal. some loser who failed to make it big in theatre. obviously their idea of competiotion is Channel V and Mtv. Another look at Star News and ACJ productions seems like heaven. wha??did I just say that?

got a good story on how SARS is affecting the travel industry in India. apparently, it is down by 25% as compared to last year and April happens to be the peak season.

more on that tulloch guy, now that i spelt his name right...well, we indians will never improve, one look at white skin and we get all charged up to ask questions, to get some inconsequential quotes and get noticed. the most inane of questions were asked yesterday...for instance, "don't you think the war coverage by BBC and CNN are biased, and that is a tabloidisation of a new kind?" ya, whatever...

this blogging thing is fun, but i so badly want all those fancy thingies called gadgets that abhimanyu has on his blog...not that this acknowledgement is going too make much of an improvement on the condescending attitude that he struts around with...grr..

well, i really wish i could nuke some people out of existence right now..but never mind...
went for a happening anti- war protest meet yesterday...happening...it was nice to see some people with their families...the way journalists were conducting themselves makes me squirm about my career...it was quite a gathering and a strong one too...well we did have our share of spoilt sports who said that attending such meetings is a waste of time, coz u can't stop the war, but hey, its my way of registering my protest and who knows people power may actually work...well, like krishna ananth says, never stop dreaming of the perfect world...
speaking of krishna ananth, hmmm....havent met anyone with so much of passion for his ideology in a long time...definitely would like to keep in touch with him forever...he is one reason why i have been inspired to read all my history books once again...he is also a reason why a mumbaiite like me has developed such a keen interest in politics in India and actually find it absorbing...its quite a difference coz i have always been told in school and at home that politics is a dirty game...
its really quite easy to be mediocre in life, easier being mediocre and rich, but much more satisfying to do a thorough job..and having the satisfaction that ur work is flawless, even though people may not have the depth to understand it...
that Talak guy fom Westminster...well nothing too great...i guess its just an overdose of tabloidisation...and not to mention dumbing down...thanks to ACJ, we can all do our PHDs in dumbing down...i really dont see the fuss all these high flying editors are creating...to being with newspapers are about people...they are for people...so you can't afford to be intellectual about everything that you are talkign about...for christs sake, get off your high pedestal, and write for the people...The Hindu is the most dreary paper ever...pretentious about almost everything ....so much so that you begin to doubt the intentions of the paper...love the Indian Express...very junta types...sometimes has crap, but hey, nobody is perfect...

could someone pass a law against Sreejiraj and anyone who sends me another anti- war petition. my inbox is cluttered with junk. how about physically participating in a rally? hmph..grrr..

well as long as we are all 'lada bashing', i might as well be an opportunist..well, on second thoughts, ACJ has also made me tolerant of people like Rajath.

well this is for priti..in case u are still struggling with German, how about ACHTUNG!! thast like the only german i know..but better than knowing nothing at all...i guess...
well, weekend was brilliant...did nothing at all except watch tv...got up today with such a feeling of guilt for not having thought about my dissertation as yet...not even remotely...well, so much for selecting some hep topic like the downward tend in Maharashtra's HDI...when will I learn...
god if i relax any more i will start growing fungus around me...
saw somethign about the Tamil Nadu government planning to demolish Queen Mary's College...well i personally think ACJ would be a wiser and a healthier choice, healthier at least for the students...actually going by the hollow wooden walls here, i don't think it will last too long anyways.

well, finally i did it, made my own blog spot and that too without ur help, pompous abhimanyu. cheers!!