And then it happened

Today happened to be the practicals
was slightly better prepared than yesterday
got an easy program -"Queue Using Arrays" ,later one my academic advisers (whom i have recently recruited and whom i will call Mr.Jones)put it very straight that it was a program even his six year old cousin could write in five minutes-although it took me one whole period.
And having written down the coding, i confidently moved on to the typing part of it,
sadly that the computer was adamant in not bowing down to my programming expertise and i did not get an output till the end of the session(meanwhile i was singing various songs to pass the time), then the teacher who was mean,tall and even meaner came wrote in her slender handwriting-ERROR.
those five letters changed my life forever.
Left the computer lab way before my actual time finished.

then Mr.Jones who called me up when i reached home fighting the rains said that
"No Input-No Output, how foolish" i could picture Mr.Jones shaking his bald head in shame and disagreement

I hope to do better next time Mr.Jones
I really do.

And all that for nothing

My dislike includes so many things, not that it matters but it is important that I mention it. A very important item on that daily increasing list is the computer program.

It is like one of those unanswerable questions like ‘Why should nature choose earth for life?’- Why should you write c programs?
Nobody has given me an acceptable answer on both, the students and teacher mere claimed that it is important for me, so I accept it without much of a rebellion
As by faith, I believe in the word of the teacher and other over-ambitious but at the same time docile students.

Five days, the stipulated time for me to memorize the given programs for my university practical, and none of them I am quite familiar and comfortable with, so what I do call one of the class big shots (students who are in their third revision)
And ask them how on earth should I read these ‘things’. With the best of their ability, they explain to me what should be done and still nothing penetrates my titanium head.
Day one passes idly including one fruitless trip to college and one fruitful trip to a library where I have lot to choose; keeping in mood the Booker fever I pick up V.S.Naipaul’s In a free state the book which got India’s first man booker (I don’t think it was called man booker then. I still don’t know why it’s called that now), the book is immensely engrossing until now and I’m still reading.
I pick out other books, which includes fictional account on the life of James Bond, which apart from my academic interest in James Bond had a satisfying picture of a white bikini clad blonde (people at the counter claim that this is the only reason I picked it up and I agree shamefully)

In addition, was a movie, which I was waiting to watch for almost a year “All the President’s Men”, starring my all time favorite Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford- a write-up about the movie I am planning to write later.

Day two was spent at a symposium in SRM University, we attended a quiz we had no idea about but still managed to clinch the second place.
Day three and day four being Saturday and Sunday were spent how Saturday and Sunday should be spent.

Tuesday being the practical I decided that I should start by Monday to say the least and by evening I had read through some four programs and still had no clue how I would finish the remaining six or was it seven.
I keep trying to remember the void mains, the int, ptr and all other useless short forms in the C language. Believe me it was an honest attempt sometimes I even thought I understood.

Then comes the rain, we take the morning bus only to return early and facing no practical, it still gives me time to prepare but will I is a million dollar question; and so I have won this short war against the C language. For me it’s enough if a computer is available for writing and looking through the various websites that I usually do-programming is definitely not for me
And all that for nothing.






Satyeki

The Daily Alien#2

Bus rides terrify me, among other things I always have a feeling of riding on thin air especially after my exposure to the magnificent feats that my college bus performs; I would have been a happy and innocent audience to this specific spectacle only if I were not to be involved in it.

Usually they pass without any special moment, the same road-less path and the usual bit of gibberish one tends to overhear during these uninspiring travels. For a person who knows me in and out will recognize the in-born arrogance and intolerance involved in writing this piece. Traveling to college is like fighting in a hand to hand combat with German soldiers in the grip of world war two. We are not directly involved but still it’s a war.

Sometimes I wonder why should I travel this far for my studies; both of them provide me with very little to think about or to even know about, so I come up with this ingenious plan which might change the course of my life forever- reading.

Reading till date provides the only interest for me to attend this college of mine and of course there are other things like looking around, which proved futile. Reading still remains, as I sink into the brilliant characterizations by these great authors who have kept me company all through from K.K.Nagar to Saileonagar.(even though both of them are nagars they are as far as the sun and planet X)

It also serves as the perfect conversation stopper, nobody bothers the reading boy! And I do not wish to indulge in some of the most irritating and boring conversations at least not at this time of my life, I do not also wish to say that I am more wise than the chaps having conversation about the love life of an actress right in the morning (though it may be a very interesting topic later in the evening; nevertheless it is tiring to listen or contribute to film gossip).

Or it is the academics to which I have no clue or the inclination to discuss z-transformations in the rickety old bus of ours.

I came to conclusion that either it was not deserving to have a conversation or am not fit enough to fit into other people’s conversational places, maybe I was just a hot headed idiot I don’t care. Books provide the best distraction and I imagine all these scenes come alive, this is such a gift you can never get out from socializing; personally these are things that make reading so enjoyable. The other day I had the whole of shire before my eyes and the next day it was the old forest and the next it was an alleyway in busy Manhattan or the comfort of grandma’s lap in Malgudi, I could bring it all back to SaileoNagar.

Where would I search for amusement without all these people?

Not Saileonagar for sure

Satyeki

THE DAILY ALIEN#1

While leafing through the endless articles of Wikipedia I chanced upon something which might be of great importance to the people of Chennai or it might be discarded as another bit of useless amusement of the author but I have decided to write it down anyway complete with The Beatles playing through my ears.

As I was on the quest for the historical significance of the various districts and localities in and around Chennai which was once the Madras Presidency, to my amusement and to the common thinking which was wrong in all these years K.K.Nagar the locality which I happen to reside in was surprisingly one of the older localities and Wikipedia neutrally told me that Ashok Nagar was established in 1964 while K.K.Nagar came up in later in the seventies, all this while I had been thinking that I had been living in a locality which was more than 50 years old poor me, but then it hardly makes a difference, going by the other articles Vadapalani and Kodambakkam seem to have been here before the others arrived and Nungambakkam has been mention in the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. The things our localities can teach us cannot be significant as the kind of science fiction that I try and put down but definitely significant than the pictures of actresses one sees in the back page of Chennai Times which has nothing to with the city considering any minute possibility which I am not willing to do.

Some of the localities are not provided with their backgrounds which makes it difficult for to imagine the correct chronological order about how the city expanded, yes I know I have written as if this article should be taken very seriously, some urban historians might find things interesting. Ans yes they have mentioned Sivan Park as the major getaway, the gods must surely be crazy.

Satyeki