Wokay!

As I mentioned in W-Fillet #54: The Joy of X, I realised something the other day about coffee bars.

Of the three coffee bar chains in Delhi- Barista, Cafe Coffee Day, and Qwiky’s- all my coffee bar memories seem to be centered around Barista. I’ve been to Cafe Coffee Day and Qwiky’s, but never on a momentous or significant occasion. For those, it’s always been Barista.

Some of the most important times I’ve been in a Barista?

• The Basant Lok one, after Founder’s Day 2000. With Ishaan and Rishi and Madhav and kMac and the Big E, feeling as if I’d been run over by a rusty road roller. Drowning my sorrows in chocolate excess.
• Just before second year started, saying my goodbyes to Mansha at the IIT Gate one. Then, three days later, going there again with my folks and seeing that the dog Nidhi had made out of orange Post-It notes was still up there.
• Meeting Anahat after almost two years at Basant Lok on the day of Fete 2001. And yeah, Pooja and Aruna were there too- only two of the three musketeers, with Dolan away in Iowa. And yes, that was the night Vik came up with ‘Tabhi toh yeh itna patla hai’. I remember now feeling strangely melancholy about the effort everybody there was making to talk to everyone else.
• The summer after that had a much happier Barista outing. Me, Baldy, Tusi, Machhi, and Chutney landed up at the IIT Gate one and I kicked arse in Pictionary. What was much more fun was running into Mriduben and Adi out there.
• Last winter, trying the new flavours with Shiven and Manasvini at the really tiny one in Ansal Plaza, discovering how delightful the Latte Bianco is, and discussing the projects I would be taking up the next semester.

There’ve been no Barista moments in these vacations. Soon, though.

Another one from the backlog.

The day Ishaan reached Delhi, I received an urgent call from him. He urged me to come over and save him from Zubin, who was intent on violating his modesty (such as it is).

I reached Ishaan’s hosue, and persuaded Zubin to cease and desist, after which Ishaan asked me to help with another problem- a mysterious virus that had afflicted his desktop PC.

Ishaan was trying to cancel his MSN (ISP, not Messenger) service. However, whenever he opened the homepage, the virus would begin to fill the username textbox with random words, preventing him from doing anything worthwhile.

I got down to work.

First, we checked the list of startup programs in msconfig. There were three programs that looked suspicious. We surfed over to Google to check up on them.

Then, the Google search box started filling up with random words.

Damn. Damn damn.

We tried again. This time, deft mousework, and skillful use of the delete key assured that we were able to submit a coherent search query.

All the three programs checked out as harmless, though.

Hmm.

Then, we hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and scanned the process list for suspicious running programs (this was WinXP). Again, there were three or four suspicious programs.

We Googled the first three, and they checked out clean.

Then we Googled the last- sapisvr.exe- and that checked out clean too. Perplexing.

But wait. The fourth search result caught my eye. I followed the link.

Guess what?

sapisvr.exe is the Windows XP speech recognition server. Ishaan’s mic was on, and sapisvr was running. And given that Ishaan talks at 500 words per minute, and at a volume exceeded only by combat aircraft taking off, sapisvr obligingly filled up all texboxes it could find with, well, text.

After that, it was a simple matter to disable sapisvr, and Ishaan was eventually able to unsubscribe.

The search result, by the way- available over here, is quite interesting. It’s from a Phillipines magazine. Catholicism and Windows XP are both widespread in the Phillipines. As a result, people there who suffer from the same problem, rather than blaming a virus, fear that their PC has been possessed by the devil.

Which, actually, is not that far from the truth. After all, WinXP is a Microsoft product.

I had joined ILUG (India Linux Users Group) Delhi last year. This has finally paid off with a hard, show-me-the-money type of benefit.

This placement agency found my profile listed on the ILUG-Del website and gave me a call. They wanted me to go to Bangalore and take up a job in storage area network architecture. Alas, I had to disillusion them and inform them that I’m still a year away from completing my bachelors, have no industry experience to speak of, and have only the faintest inkling of what storage area networks are. At least I can console myself that I know that SANs exist, while most of my batch doesn’t.

For those of you who are interested in this, or know somebody else who might be, here are the details.

The openings are at Network Appliances, Aarohi Communications, EMC, and Network Associates. All the openings involve storage technology, and they’re all based in Bangalore.

If you’re interested, contact the placement firm (GARRISON India) at garrisonindia at yahoo dot com, or garrisonindia at hotmail dot com. Their phone numbers are Delhi- two_two_four_zero_one_five_three_zero, and Delhi- nine_eight_one_eight_three_five_three_nine_three_seven.

This guy called Sauvik Chakraverti used to have a regular column in the Economic Times a couple of years ago. He was quite refreshing- his suggestions had a touch of insanity- the sort that might actually work, and you’d like to see it tried out. Right now, the only bloke the ET has who makes suggestions as radical as Sauvik Chakraverti is Abheek Barman, who wants income tax to be abolished so that we can concentrate on the more important things of life- which according to him are watching the Powerpuff Girls defend the Earth from giant mutant broccoli from outer space. I’m serious. He wrote that in his column. But anyway, coming back to Sauvik Chakraverti.

Apart from regularly roasting all Indian governments, whether Central, state, or municipal for building houses instead of roads, he would frequently suggest putting zero customs duty on secondhand cars, so that autorickshawalas could drive cheap taxicabs instead of autorickshaws. This way, you’d create wealth for the cabbies, and make Indian traffic less messy and more productive.

The good news is that Sauvik was back, if only in a cameo. Today’s lead editorial in the Times Of India was by him. Here’s the link.

Quite a thoughtful and well-written article. Do read it.

This is a bit overdue. My apologies, I don’t seem to be able to write on time these days. There’s a pileup of Fillets now, so I’ll try to be regular.

Anyway, I saw X2 with Shiven last Saturday.

Getting the X2 tickets was an experience in itself. As I mentioned in an earlier Fillet, I had tried for tickets at Priya, but found that they weren’t playing X2. The next day I went to PVR-Anupam.

Or rather, I tried to go to Anupam. I caught a Saket bus, but alas, it was one of those Saket buses which don’t pass PVR, but zip by it in a parallel lane. I was feeling slightly tired, so I didn’t really notice this until I reached Dr. Ambedkar Nagar, where I disembarked in some haste.

So. I thought I would walk to PVR. After all, how far could it be? It was a simple matter of walking about two kilometres across Pushp Vihar.

Actually, it wasn’t suite so simple.

See, Pushp Vihar is one of those government colonies that’s divided up into sectors and flats, all of which look exactly alike. This gives it a certain fractal nature. And like other fractals, Pushp Vihar also seems to have the property that though it has a finite and bounded area, any path through that area will turn out to be infinite.

I walked and walked and walked, and Pushp Vihar seemed never to end. Fortunately, there was no blazing sunshine that particular day, but it was hot. Quite hot. And eventually, Pushp Vihar did come to an end, and I broke on to the Saket Road at long last.

After that, it was a much more pleasant walk underneath shadier trees through Saket, and I reached Anupam eventually. Once there, I immediately headed for Nirula’s and free water. After getting water inside me, I got the tickets, and then proceeded to hang. With myself. Yes, that’s pathetic. Thank you. I’m waiting for y’all to give me a call so we can go out together.

Cafe Coffee Day, in conjunction with Levi’s has introduced this coffee called 6 inches below. It looks very interesting- it’s got the works, all arranged in layers, and is supposed to be a culinary expression of a tank top, a navel, and low rise jeans (ahem). Alas, I couldn’t afford it, so I settled for the Frozen Eskimo.

Speaking of coffee bars, I’ve realised something that should be saved for another Fillet. Remind me to write about it sometime.

Coming on to the whole point of the fillet- the movie- me and Shiven both reached Anupam the next day without any bothersome diversions. Shiven, I was pleased to note, is even skinnier than I am right now.

And the movie? Sorry, I’ll come to that.

Yeah. The movie was very cool. If you hate the very idea of comic book movies, it’s not going to change your mind, but if you’re open to an arbit action movie with lots of action, great FX, and a storyline that doesn’t take itself to seriously, X2 is good, yes.

I’m an X-Men fan otherwise, and I loved how they treated the ensemble cast. Each of the mutants gets just enough treatment to develop his or her character, without any one character getting more or less attention. Even so, Nightcrawler was soooooooo cool. Arnab‘s right, though, the hairstyles are hideous.

And what is up with Jean Grey dying!

Oops. Sorry for the spoiler.

After what must be two months or so, I went to the gym again. Ishaan, who was enthused at the idea of me in a gym after reading the original I Am A Wussie took me jogging. After the jog, we went into a gym, where he subjected me to cruel and inhuman punishment.

On the other hand, Ishaan was definitely better than that so-called trainer Vinod at the India Tennis Centre gym, whose idea of fun seems to be making newbies jog on a treadmill, expel all air from their lungs, and then subject them to calisthenics. After that he makes them work on their legs. Since that regrettable experience I have been informed that ARMS COME FIRST!

Anyway, Ishaan put me through a much more balanced routine, involving weights, pull-ups, and other such. I woke up feeling uncomfortably numb in my left arm. I’m supposed to go again today, so by tomorrow the pain should have spread to the right arm too.

Does anybody else think I’m going to unreasonable lengths in my quest to not be a voosie?

The weather was decent today. Dust clouds hung between the ground and the sky, and blocked off sunlight. This made it cool enough for me to finally leave my home in the evening. Cool, of course is a relative term- it must still have been more than thirty-five Celsius. That’s significantly better than forty-two plus, though, so why quibble?

I went to Basant Lok to see if I could obtain tickets for a Saturday show of X2 at Priya. If Priya wasn’t running X2, well, I would go bookshopping.

It wasn’t till I got on the bus (oh, how I just love route number 56) that I realised that I had only three hundred rupees, and not five hundred as expected. Not only did this make the buying of tickets difficult, it also restricted my options in book purchases.

Priya was in point of fact NOT playing X2 next week. So that choice was resolved- go bookshopping.

To my delight, Om Book Shop is running a sale all through June. 10% to 90% off on everything. 10% minimum, that is, 20% on most paperbacks, and higher discounts on a lot of stuff (such as cookbooks, which nobody ever really uses much, but which have such pretty pictures of food).

The only problem with this rosy picture is that I get a 10% discount at all times at Midlands Book Shop (referred to in W-Fillet #27) anyway. And Midlands has a much better selection than Om Book Shop. Sure, Om Book Shop has a big selection, but it’s erratic. It doesn’t have the obscure stuff you’re looking for. Don’t get me started on the Om Book Shop in South Extension, which only has obscure stuff that you’ve never heard of, and don’t want to read now that you’ve found it. You know, the ugly books printed on horrible paper about how evolution is a fraud and how the Koran is the only true authority on the creation of the Universe. At least Erich von Daniken writes well and has his books printed on nice paper.

Anyway. Back to the topic. I then went to Fact and Fiction, five shops down. I was in even more delight. The last time I visited Fact and Fiction, my taste in books was oriented in a slightly different way. This time, though, their selection ran perfectly to my tastes.

They had Dave Barry. They had about five Terry Pratchett books that I haven’t read and Midlands doesn’t have. They had Anne McCaffrey, the complete short stories of Roald Dahl, the Roald Dahl cookbook, Phillip Pullman, Richard Dawkins, and lots of those other science books-but-not-textbooks-that-make-you-really-understand-the-subject that are so cool.

Unfortunately, Fact and Fiction never gives discounts under any circumstances- the owner seems to be a little crusty- and so the cool science books are a fat 400 rupees at least. So is the Roald Dahl collection, and so is the cookbook. The Pratchetts are at Rs. 260. I get them at Midlands for Rs. 220. I know 40 rupees isn’t much, but what can I say? Midlands has spoilt me.

There was this female in there who was trying to interview the owner about Harry Potter V, and what he expected it to do for him. I’m unclear what capacity she was doing this in- whether she was a journalist or associated with a publisher or anything. The point is, the owner’s crustiness made it quite difficult for her to get a very good interview. The owner finally took pity on her, and called up his son and made her speak to him. The son was much less reticent, and the dame got her material. After that, the dame, the owner, and me all had a nice chat about how Harry Potter was encouraging people to experiment with other fantasy/ SF writers. I think I’ve mentioned before that I love to strike up conversations with strangers in bookshops. There’s something in the air. The happy result of this was that the owner promised to try and obtain some HP Lovecraft for me. So that’s good.

So, lots of stuff from the F&F shelves has now been added to my wishlist. Nice stuff. Books that I can really enjoy, appreciate, and assimilate (not necessarily in that order) over the next few years. But, alas, I don’t have much money to do it with.

I now have 4.6 kilorupees in hand. Of this, about 1 to 1.5 will be taken up by driving lessons, another 1 by movie tickets and transportation through the holidays (Did somebody mention Matrix Reloaded?), which leaves just about 2 for books. So. Time to prioritise.

Maybe I should start a wishlist on the site so you guys know what to get me for Unbirthday presents.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, no I didn’t actually buy anything today. It was just a scout and recon operation. 🙂

It’s hot. I’m wilting. I’m melting. Gaaaaaaaaah. I’ve never been affected by heat this badly before.

My daily activity consists of cowering inside my house in an airconditioned room. For variety, I take showers every now and then. My higher brain functions are shutting down to prevent my neurocortex from overheating. This prevents me from writing, or doing any other good stuff. I can’t watch any movie that has a plot, so it’s Mortal Kombat and K-serials for me.

The good news is that NDTV 24×7 has reported that the monsoon has finally reached Kerala, so I should get a reprieve of sorts in about two weeks. After that, it’s time to stop calling people and get on with actually meeting them.

Nothing more in this Fillet. It’s too damned hot to write.

Today, I googled for “Yin! Tan! Tetra!” on a whim, and landed up here- the Annotated Pratchett File. I’ve spent a happy five hours or so browsing through it, and other documents on lspace.org.

In case you don’t already know, I’ve been hooked to Terry Pratchett ever since I first received The Truth as a birthday present two years ago. Since then, I’ve read twelve of the Discworld novels, with sixteen more to go. I plug them unashamedly (and no, I’m not getting any money for this).

I’m quite pleased to find out that I’d already spotted most of the references in the books (which, by the way, are parodys of a high order). What I’m blushing about is not spotting most of the references made in Soul Music, the book that I’ve found the funniest ever yet.

Soul Music is a delightful parody on rock n’ roll. Though most of the references in it are to Blues Brothers and Meatloaf, which I’m not really informed about, there were lots of others that were about songs or bands that I knew. I’m kicking myself for not seeing ‘in a coat that he borrowed from James Dean’. Urrgh.

I realise that most of you will not understand a word of what I’m saying. The solution to this is simple. Go buy the book and read it. Once you’re done, make a small altar and place it there. Worship it daily.

On the other hand, just read the synposis at the site. If you really want to do the wimpy thing.

The air conditioner in this room has kicked in, and I’ve finished my Career Launcher exercise. I am now ready to write again. Delight. Joy. Let’s get on with it, shall we?

I’ve been talking to even more people since I came back. What with this heat, talking over the phone is all I can do- going out and meeting them is infeasible. It’s still all good. This Fillet is about the deeper cosmic significance of the nostalgia attacks I’ve been suffering.

The first flutterings of nostalgia were triggered this February. It started with a guy from Final Year Mech. called C. Seshagiri. For obvious reasons, he’s called C-Dot.

What C-Dot did in February was this: he took a committee of the IEE student chapter called the Survey team and did lots through it. He started French classes on campus on his own initiative. He started a publicity team to market TIET to corporates for research projects and placements. He even tried to organise an inter-university techfest, and would have done so successfully, only the Director pulled the plug at the last minute.

That C-Dot did this at all is quite remarkable, and shows him in a very good light. He’d got brilliant grades, he’d been placed in Maruti, and it was final semester. He didn’t need to do anything for the college, especially since our college doesn’t really do a lot for us, but he did it anyway.

By now, you must be asking yourself what all this has to do with nostalgia.

Well, here it is. Even though they had very different motives, this flurry of activity on C-Dot’s part reminded me of the one initiated by Maya [She still talks like the TGV moves- Baldy (Quotes 16:44)] Jain back when I was in Class 12.

That was what triggered it. The resemblance is trivial, but nevertheless it affected me at the time.

After that, of course, I started the W-Fillets, and started getting replies from people whom I had classified as long lost- Ankur, Dolan, et cetera. Nostalgia piled up a little more.

Another trigger was Rishi getting his exchange programme, which reminded me of his earlier exchange programme, my own trips abroad, and brought back a little more memories.

So now we go into the whole cosmic and spiritual significance bit.

I think it isn’t just nostalgia. I’m beginning to believe that my life these days is actually beginning to take on facets of what it used to be like five to three years ago.

Here are the resemblances:

• My co-curricular life- quizzes, programming, et cetera is on an upswing. I’m quizzing after three years, and coaching (well, trying to coach) after the same duration. The quizzing isn’t a lot, either, but at least it’s there.
• Rishi’s off on an exchange program again, just as he was four years ago. Similarly, Baldy is once again globetrotting to attend global conclaves.
• Many people are once again either just entering a new educational program or about to leave it. I know that’s something pretty obvious given that a Bachelor’s degree is only so long, but it’s a resemblance nonetheless.
• On a psychological level, also, people seem to be what they were in those days. Shiven, for instance, who was quite depressed for almost a year is now back to his old areskicking, determined self. Madhav, too, has started using bad words after a long period of abstinence.
• You want coincidence? How’s this for coincidence? Two Sundays ago, at my Career Launcher MBA coaching class (where I’m being coached, not doing the coaching, please don’t get confused with the earlier point), who should walk in but The Person Formerly Known As The Q? Unexpected and unannounced.
• Most importantly, perhaps, is that my love life is hopeless once again. Since Class 12, I was always trying in one direction or the other, hopeful that something would work out in the face of all obstacles. Nowadays, though, I’m resigned to being cast in the mould of Bertie Wooster. Class 11 again.

There are other coincidences, too. Like the first question of the first exercise of the English Usage book from Career Launcher being about Preity Zinta. Or the ratio of N/(N+1) being discussed out there. Or Mansha being propositioned by a lesbian. Or many other things. Chances are, if I’ve written about something in a W-File, a W-Fillet, or Quotes List, it’s popped up in some other context somehow. And I realise that I’m not explaining it very well, but it’s something so nebulous that even I don’t know exactly what point it is that I’m trying to make.

But let’s summarise.

Over the past few months, there have been a series of remarkable coincidences in my life, which seem to link all its different facets together, and which have also sparked off a nostalgia wave. When I act upon the nostalgia wave, and call my old friends up, I discover even more connections.

So, there are two conclusions that can be drawn. The first is that I’m beginning to see what Dirk Gently, aka Svlad Cjelli calls ‘the fundamental interconnectedness of the universe’.

The second is that there is no fundamental interconnectedness in the universe, and these visions of connections are merely a symptom of schizhophrenia, which happens to run in the family.

If it’s the first, though, then the implication is this- that for an unknown period of time, I’m not driving my life so much as surfing it on a wave of fate. Setting a route isn’t relevant any more, it’s foreseeing and navigating the obstacles on the way that’ll be important. That is my current fatalistic frame of mind.

Do let me know what you think. Particularly you, PP, I want to know whether your initial reaction was ‘How DUMB!’ or something more on the lines of ‘Classic sci-fi, fitted into all the characters we know so well’.

It’s taken me almost two hours to write this Fillet. I’m going to sleep now. Fin.