{"id":81,"date":"2003-11-28T11:40:18","date_gmt":"2003-11-28T06:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wokay.in\/?p=552"},"modified":"2003-11-28T11:40:18","modified_gmt":"2003-11-28T06:10:18","slug":"times-of-twilight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/2003\/11\/28\/times-of-twilight\/","title":{"rendered":"Times of Twilight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s horrifying what a university education does to you.<\/p>\n<p>Last night, I was watching <em>The X-Factor<\/em> on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ndtv.com\">NDTV 24&#215;7<\/a>. The topic of discussion in the first segment was, well, yes, the CAT leak scandal. NDTV had invited Bakul Dholakia, the IIM-A director, and Murli Manohar Joshi, the minister of the ridiculously-named human resource development ministry. The aam junta was represented by two people who had given the CAT- some bloke whose name I forget, and Sakshi Sharda.<\/p>\n<p>I had last seen Sakshi Sharda a little over four years ago, when she had represented <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vasantvalley.org\">Vasant Valley School<\/a> at MSVV&#8217;s biology symposium, LifeBeat. Back in 1999, she had been one of the fixed stars in my firmament of hot women.<\/p>\n<p>So much so, that one of the reasons I&#8217;m so unenthusiastic about college is that the DOSA (Dean of Student Affairs), HB Sharda, just didn&#8217;t live up to my expectations of what a Sharda should be. On registration day, I found out that he was a gent named Sharda. Exposed until then to a very high standard in Shardas, I expected a graceful and distinguished professor, who possessed an inherent nobility. Two days later, I discovered that he was a pompous, puffed-up, and portly popinjay. I never really recovered from the disappointment. Had I know back then that Patiala possessed a Canal, I would have unreservedly leapt into it, seeking to end it all in a watery grave. Well, I wouldn&#8217;t. But I was looking for an opportunity to use that phrase.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why I felt like weeping when I saw Sakshi Sharda last night. Far from being the vibrant damsel of years past, she looked like a toad beneath the harrow. Her eyes looked like dark pits. Add a couple of pendulums, and you would be wondering why she was on a news channel, rather than in an Edgar Allen Poe short story. Her face was sallow and drawn, as if she had been through some terrible experience. And though giving a CAT in all seriousness only to find out that you&#8217;ve got to do it again is disappointing, it&#8217;s not <em>that<\/em> bad.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why I repeat my starting line. It&#8217;s horrible what a university education does to you. Or if not a university education, the passage of time at any rate. Not only has it stolen my own boyish good loooks (though, I confess, the depredations I have suffered are in no small part also due to my orthodontist and the constant company of sardars), but Sakshi Sharda&#8217;s too (though her good looks, of course, were not boyish). Nobody is safe.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway. I&#8217;m returning to Patiala now, so this is probably it for this spurt of writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s horrifying what a university education does to you. Last night, I was watching The X-Factor on NDTV 24&#215;7. The topic of discussion in the first segment was, well, yes, the CAT leak scandal. NDTV had invited Bakul Dholakia, the IIM-A director, and Murli Manohar Joshi, the minister of the ridiculously-named human resource development ministry. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-w-fillets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7AOU2-1j","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aadisht.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}