Wokay!

I haven’t been writing for more than two weeks now. Here are the reasons why.

While I’m at college there’s nothing to write about. For probably the first time ever, I’m following a routine. I get up at seven, attend classes from eight to five, come back to hostel and study coursework from five to seven (or, as today, come out and surf), have dinner, and then do my CAT prep from ten to midnight.

Is this boring? Does this routine fail to provide me with adventure and excitement and really wild things? Yes. Will it increase my chances of getting into an IIM, thus allowing me to have an awesome amount of adventure and excitement and really wild things? I hope so.

The weekends, though, are a separate matter. They’re filled with so much excitement and adventure and really wild things that there’s no time to write it down. Until today. So here goes.

In the past two weeks, I’ve met Baldy, Shiven, Dolan, Machhi, Ishaan, and Rishi. Baldy after six months, Machhi after a year, and Dolan after two years. That’s been fun. More so, because even after going through stuff like Europe-hopping, graduating, and two years away for home, people really haven’t changed. Sure, Dolan’s gone from being tweet-tweet in the head to being tweet-tweet-tweet, but what’s one tweet more or less? Baldy, despite tapping hitherto undiscovered wellsprings of maturity is still Baldy at heart- photographing me and Machhi as we attempt Bharatnatyam movements, and wearing an earstud. I just might get me one of those, the day I have both money and spontaneity enough. Right now, both are in short supply.

Oh, and my preparatory test series for the CAT started this Sunday. I seem to have got 105 out of 170 on the first test. Cool. I need to work to about 90 to a 100 on the actual CAT to make up for my CGPA. I’m getting there.

Things change. The Best Bookshop I Have Ever Seen is no longer Midlands.

The Best Bookshop I Have Ever Seen is now in Patiala. It’s called Biblio, and it’s right here in Patiala. It started while I was home for the holidays.

Biblio is located halfway between Gopal Sweets and Chawla’s Chic-Inn. To get there, you have to climb up a flight of very high, very awkward stairs. It’s worth it when you get in.

It’s just started, so the selection isn’t extensive yet, but what they do have is pretty neat. In addition to the new stuff like Sue Townsend’s The Queen and I that I haven’t seen even in Delhi, there are things like the complete set of RK Narayan, including A Writer’s Nightmare, a collection of essays that I used to have and lost. Whee.

Oh, and it matches Midlands with a 10% discount on everything. More whee.

But what really makes it the Best Bookshop I Have Ever Seen is its membership scheme.

For a hundred and twenty rupees down, and two hundred rupees a month, you get eight hours of Net time, twelve hours with their CD ROM collection, and you can come in and read any time between nine am and nine pm. Wow. Nobody in Delhi does that.

OK, final year started two weeks ago, but I haven’t had any free time until now to write about it. When I have had free time, I’ve slept it away. I’m awake now, and able to afford the money, if not necesarily the time to drop in at the cybercafe. So here goes.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

This sem, the decent instructors are taking the piddu, 3.5 credit courses. In the more important (where grades are concerned) courses, I’m stuck with instructors who infuse the subject with all the life of a zebra carcass on the Serengeti that’s been picked clean by the vultures several times over.

On a separate note, I wish that being shiny and happy could also make me come up with colourful analogies.

Right. Back to final year.

Every now and then, a state of ennui hits me. It’s similar to the frustrated feeling you get four months into the sem, when almost the whole course is done, and you’re just hanging around for the quizzes and the endsems, and you wish that the three weeks that’re left would just get over with quickly so you can go home and do important stuff like meeting long lost friends.

Well, the ennui I’ve got right now is pretty much the same. It’s the feeling that I’ve finished three years of the course, and would the final year please pass by quickly so I can get a job or an M. Tech or an MBA or whatever. Please?

Sigh. 200 working days in final year, more or less. Let’s just take them one at a time. And yes, some of the courses are interesting- Theory of Computation, Microprocessors, Economics. So I can make a go of it. Yeah. I can. Let’s go out with a bang.

OK, so there’s one aspect of final year which has been cool and froody right since it began, and that’s my new hostel.

I’m on the first floor of the PG hostel. It’s my fourth hostel in four years, and this one is definitely nice. It’s the newest hostel, all the electrical fixtures and plumbing work, and the mess is superior. Yes, indeed.

Not really much more to say. But at least I’m finally writing again.

This is the last Fillet that’s being sent by email. After a four-hour-long discussion with Ishaan and Rishi in which they’ve explained to me what is sensible and what is not, I’ve decided to stop forcing the Fillets down your throats.

However, I will continue to write the Fillets, not only because it’s a much better way of relaxing than watching TV but also because of the cool stuff that they lead to (British cartoonists seeking my advice on Punjabi swear words, for instance).

If you liked the W-Fillets, then, you can continue to read them at www.aadisht.net

I will communicate with you through personal emails now. It might be some time before I start doing this full blast, as I’m still settling in at Patiala right now, but I will. Promise.

There’ll also be a slight hiatus in the Fillets for the same reason. But I’m going to continue to blog. Have no fears on that account.

Oh, joy, joy, joy! Rapture!

After spending a couple of hours yesterday at Nehru Place to get some AutoCAD drawings made, I went to South Extension to meet my Nani. Meeting Nani is always a good thing, because she excels at guppebaazi, the cold coffee at her place is the best in the world, and a light snack over there runs into three courses.

But yesterday, it was a particularly good thing, because my American cousins are coming over to meet Nani in a couple of weeks, and she’d bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for them. So, keeping in mind that Ishan and Bumpy won’t be hear until the seventh, I borrowed it.

Yes! OotP! Hardcover! Worth at least six hundred and fifty rupees, depending where you buy it! And I got it for free!

Is anybody here repelled at the overuse of exclamation marks? I promise, that’s the last time. However, I’m thrilled to bits. Earlier, I was worrying about how I would avoid spoilers before the paperback came out. Now, I’m in a position to leak spoilers to everyone who hasn’t bought it yet, or who has a slower reading speed than mine. Which, I’m happy to say, is a lot of people. Heh heh heh. What evil shall I do today?

Anyway, this is how I read Order of the Phoenix.

I drove (yes, drove) to the market and bought four packets of Hide and Seek cookies.

I returned, and carried The Book, and the cookies, and candles and matchsticks upstairs.

I cleaned my room.

I cleansed myself. I had a bath, in which I soaped and shampooed, and then I mouthwashed and deoed. And then I changed into fresh clothes.

I turned the AC on, lit the candle, spread a clean bedcover over my bed, brought a bunch of pillows, and poured two packets of cookies into a bowl.

And then I created an XMMS playlist comprising all the Metallica and Iron Maiden I have. You haven’t truly experienced Harry Potter unless you’ve got The Clairvoyant or Master of Puppets playing in the background.

And then I settled down and actually read the book.

Yes, it’s a roundabout way of doing things, but I’m me, and I like making a ceremony out of things in the most mundane of circumstances. And for the publishing phenomenon of the year, you should get things right.

So. The book.

Without giving away any spoilers, let me say this- it’s wonderful. I read it non-stop (well, except for bathroom breaks) until a quarter past three in the morning, after which I was so happy that I stayed up until dawn and went for a few morning walks. It made me feel good about being a fifteen year old (I haven’t really grown up since Class XI). And, as a geek, I am particularly impressed with how well encapsulated the book is in comparison to Matrix Reloaded. It’s complete in itself. It maintains it’s own distinctive storyline and still manages to advance the storyline of the series, which MR couldn’t. Yes, it is a very, very wonderful book.

Bit of a spoiler coming up. Skip the next two paragraphs.

One of the subplots involves the Establishment replacing a popular though unorthodox Head of School with an incompetent, authoritarian middle aged woman who manages to piss off the entire school, including both students and faculty. This leads to the students becoming disgusted and restless, and to some respected and well-loved teachers leaving.

Does that sound familiar at all? I’m beginning to suspect JK Rowling spent the time she had writers block in Vasant Vihar, observing goings on. Then again, maybe she’s clairvoyant. Or the Oracle.

And I’m going to stop blithering now, and leave you to go and get the book yoruselves. And remember, listen to it with Metallica in the background. Especially Bleeding Me when you start the last chapter.

Backlog again. Sorry. I saw The Matrix Reloaded a week or more ago, but I’ve been to lazy to write about it until now.

Wellllllllllllll.

I’m not as disappointed as most of the other people on the ‘Net are, but I’m still disappointed. I didn’t find as much fault with it as Iambe did. She hated the soundtrack, and said that Reloaded abandoned the cool, anti-authoritarian message of The Matrix for a ‘You can’t understand anything because everything is beyond your control’ message.

I liked the soundtrack. And personally, the philosophy didn’t seem all that different.

What did disappoint me was the way the stories were mixed and matched. If they’d stuck with one plot element, the movie would have been much better. The renegade Agent Smiths and autonomous programs within the Matrix were a brilliant concept. I wish they’d been explored to the end instead of that diversion into the Architect and the iterations of the Matrix, instead of leaving two storylines to be tied up in Revolutions. Yes, Revolutions had better tie up the storylines properly, or I will be very upset. So, I suspect, will thousands of other geeks, who will all rampage on the streets, thirsty for the blood of the Wachowski brothers. It won’t be pretty.

Another disappointment was the lack of originality. The renegade programs were the one original idea in the movie, and like I said, they weren’t explored fully enough. As for style, it was good, but it just couldn’t live up to the first movie. Then again, what can live up to the promise of the first movie? 🙂 Still, the Zion docks looked like a plaigarisation of Star Trek’s Space Dock. More seriously, the entire movie somehow reminded me a lot of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. You haven’t read it? Shame on you.

Still, there was one thing about Reloaded that makes up for all the disappointment.

After seeing the Freeway scene, my mum now wants to learn to drive a motorcycle before she’s fifty. ’tis a consummation to be devoutly wished for.

My determination to wait for the paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is weakening as Pottermania is engulfing the city, yea, even the entire globe. There is the minor point that I don’t have the seven hundred rupees I need to buy the hardback edition, but it’s only a minor point. There are ways around it. I could mug somebody. Or rob a bank. After all, it’s only a matter of time before the ‘Net is overflowing with spoilers to OotP, and I doubt I can successfully avoid spoilers for six months.

What does this have to do with the title? Yes. Sorry. I’ve realised something this week.

The Harry Potter mythos and the X-Men mythos are very similar.

The background running through both of them is the same. Here is a group of people. They have powers granted to them. They use extremely cool technology- sufficiently advanced magic, to quote Terry Pratchett. Powers denied to normal people. Even so, everything’s not hunky dory.

The X-Men- mutants- have to hide and conceal their powers. The world isn’t ready for them, or ready to trust them. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they have to deal with people out to kill them, robots out to kill them, and enemies like themselves- other mutants.

Sound familiar? In the Harry Potter mythos, the witches and wizards have to hide themselves to prevent nonmagical people- Muggles- freaking out. They use very cool magical spells- sufficiently advanced technology, to quote Arthur C Clarke. They have magical powers that Muggles don’t, but everything’s not hunky-dory with them either. They also have to deal with enemies within their own ranks. Lord Voldemort, anybody?

The characters correspond, too. Remove all the hair, and Albus Dumbledore is Professor X. Hagrid is Beast. I fancy Professor McGonagall as Storm, and Sirius Black has shades of The Amazing Nightcrawler. Harry Potter himself, for some reason reminds me of Rogue.

Voldemort, though, doesn’t seem to me to be a Magneto. If one goes by the movie depictions, Magneto would correspond more closely to Severus Snape. Voldemort would be somebody a lot more obsessed and evil. Apocalypse or Bolivar Trask, maybe.

But there’s one more similarity. The most important one. The core theme, which coincidentally is also the core theme of Spider-man and a lot of the Terry Pratchett books. Choice.

It’s not fun being a mutant or a wizard. You’ve got powers, but what do you do with them. Serve evil? Fight evil? Be the good guy? Be the bad guy? You never asked for your powers, magical or mutant, but you’re responsible for them.

And in the end, it comes down to choice. When you’re on the crux, the saddle point, Do you use your powers or not? What are you going to use them for?

This is the question. And her’s yet another linkup.

It’s my question too. What use should I put my (albeit limited) powers- taking an interest in everything around me, seeing the connections between things, an imagination that works 24×7 and then puts in some overtime- to? Should I study like mad these next six months and get into an IIM? Should I come up with a CS project that’s brilliant and beautiful? Should I come up with an idea and dive into entrepreneurship? Should I just give up?

Oh, and here’s another linkup.

It’s not just my choice. It’s India’s too.

India the nation is also on the crux. It’s on a million of them, actually. It’s got powers- educated people, people with a talent for making money. Oh, and as India Today pointed out, it’s got jugaad- the ability to do things and make stuff work better and cheaper than anywhere else in the world.

So, what will India do? Use it’s powers? Give up? Another rhetorical question like the ones above. Let time tell.

Still backlogging. Two days behind now. Yes, this is about Tuesday.

All right. It rained, as I said earlier, and made driving a pleasure. After my lesson, I come back and have my bath. While I’m doing that, Ishaan, TK, and Vijay bang on the bathroom door, and tell me I’m going to India Habitat Centre for lunch.

Lunch was fantastic. Beautiful weather at IHC, and there were lots of people there. Ishaan, kMac, TK, Vijay, Adi, Sabina, Naomi, Gursimran, Nez, Mrinalini, and some dames from the commerce section whose names, alas, I no longer recall. As was to be expected, the conversation sparkled, and this week, several more people will become Dubyaphiles.

It was fun, yeah.

After meeting my junior batch, I was inspired to take up a similar project for my own batch. So I reached home, and called up about thirty people, and suggested that we meet at the Basant Lok Barista between half past five and half past eight. Everybody agreed that it was a wonderful idea.

There was only one problem, though. Nobody actually showed up. Well, Ankur did, but he came to the new one instead of the old one, and when he eventually did come to the old one he didn’t recognise me.

So that’s the situation. I spent two hours waiting for people to show up, but they didn’t. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that I am inexperienced with social situations, and am unable to convince people that meeting me and each other is a good thing. And it is a good thing- people like Surbhi and Goofy do it properly- I just need practice at it.

The second is that I have taken Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s advice about living in the moment to extremes. I assume that because I am spontaneous enough to go to IHC for lunch at five minute’s notice, other people will be spontaneous enough to come to Barista at half an hour’s notice. Unfortunately, this is not actually the case.

So, I now have to teach myself social graces, and teach the people around me how to be spontaneous.

That evening wasn’t a total washout, though. I didn’t meet any of the people from my batch whom I had called. But I did meet Shruti Chauhan, who I hadn’t called. She was there on her own accord. After spotting each other, making a few observation passes, and goggling; we realised that we were, in fact, Aadisht and ShrutiC, and I managed to get in some catching up after all. So that was also fun.

Thus finishes the Fillet.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

It rained!

Today (okay, yesterday) at nine in the morning, Delhi was graced with a pre-monsoonal shower.

I like pre-monsoonal showers. It’s the sort of rain that behaves itself. It does its work within half an hour or an hour at most, brings out the smell of the wet earth, makes the leaves all shiny, and then packs up an leaves, having performed service.

After a sweltering Tuesday, the rain brought in good weather. There was this wonderful cool breeze in the morning, I didn’t sweat a bit when I went for my final driving lesson, and the weather at lunchtime was delightful. A bit humid as the day wore on, but those are the breaks.

This Fillet’s a little short, so I’ll include an update of my mental status- I’ve just read the Vasant Parag, I’m senti, and I’ve just listened to Yaaron to amplify my sentiapa. I’m now playing Duur, and I’ve loaded a playlist that I created especially for times like this. The weird thing, though, is that Turn the Page is also running through my head.

Yaaron’s a song about what you had. Turn the Page would be about how to deal with losing it. Or getting it back.

I’m rambling and blathering. I ought to sleep.

Finally, but finally, I bought my shoes yesterday. Strictly speaking, two days ago.

I am now the proud possessor of a pair of bright blue Adidas sneakers, which I bought at the Basant Lok outlet for no more than 1199 rupees. I am very happy now. Adidas makes cheaper and more comfortable sneakers than everyone else, and the pampering I received at the outlet was amazing. The people there groveled at my feet, urged me to make myself comfortable, showered me with advice, ran around and tripped over themselves fetching shoes, and even tied my shoelaces. They didn’t peel me grapes, but you can’t have everything, and you really can’t have grapes in this sort of weather.

Anyway, I no longer need to wear floaters in the summer, so the disconcerting blotches on my feet should disappear now. And this particular pair is half a size big, so there’s no fear of it pinching any time soon.

You must be asking yourself- do shoes deserve a Fillet all to themselves? Yes, they do. They make me happy.