“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” - William Shakespeare, from Twelfth Night.
"Some are born humble, some achieve humility, and some have humility thrust upon them." - Prashanth Sriram, who always gains his wisdom too late.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Vignettes
Life at Penn State has its ups and downs but is quite colourful.
I took a cab back to my apartment from the airport, and the driver struck up a conversation with me. He said he was considering applying for a degree in EE at Penn State, then went off tangentially on how Professors tend to mentally classify their students as smart, not-so-smart, and dumb (the phrase "good, bad, ugly" came to mind!). He said that he felt work ethic was more important than innate intelligence. I told him about IITians getting flak from the rest of India, with people saying that there is nothing special about IITians, and just because they got good scores in JEE it doesn't mean they are super-intelligent humans and etc. Of course, they conveniently forget that we IITians never claimed to be super-intelligent and being an IITian is as much about hard work as it is about intelligence.
As soon as I stepped into my apartment it became crystal clear to me why it is an excellent decision to move out. It was the most disgusting, dirtiest place I have ever set foot on. Apparently my roommates had to rush to other states on internships soon after their exams and in their hurry they didn't even bother to clean the dishes - or even transfer them from the living room table to the sink. Moving is hard work and shopping for a new apartment is vexing work but I couldn't be happier doing it. My new apartment isn't perfect - the kitchen in particular is lacking a few amenities I am used to taking for granted, like a gas stove rather than an electric stove - but it is clean and spacious and has free cable TV :)
Dropping by at my friend's apartment carrying edible goodies from home, I was witness to a poor american girl backing up her car and going smack into a parked car behind her in the parking lot. There was a sizeable dent in the other car and she broke the taillights on hers. She seemed like a young undergrad not used to such stuff and seemed extremely nervous about what she had done, and appeared to have no idea what to do about the situation. So I stopped for a minute and told her what needed to be done - having been at both ends of similar incidents in the past myself. One time, a driver skid on the icy driveway and smashed into the rear of my car. Another time, I was backing out of Starbucks and grazed the rear bumper of a brand new BMW. It was only a paint smudge, so I settled things with him and we kept my insurance company out of it, lest my premium go up - but that was the first time I had caused any kind of damage to any other vehicle, and was quite nervous myself. Full sympathies to that girl!
A cup of coffee at Starbucks costs three times as much as coffee at any other place, but it also tastes three times better so I often choose the slightly longer walk and the extra two dollars to get that perfect cup of morning coffee. Coffee in hand, I was passed by a Pakistani woman and her little girl, who stopped at the pedestrian crossing and pressed the button. Seeing no car in sight, I started crossing the road without waiting for the walk signal, and the woman with her daughter started crossing with me, and said "Thanks!". I asked her why she was thanking me, and she said it was easier to break a traffic rule when you are doing it with some other person :)
What can I say, it feels good to be back in State College.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
I took a cab back to my apartment from the airport, and the driver struck up a conversation with me. He said he was considering applying for a degree in EE at Penn State, then went off tangentially on how Professors tend to mentally classify their students as smart, not-so-smart, and dumb (the phrase "good, bad, ugly" came to mind!). He said that he felt work ethic was more important than innate intelligence. I told him about IITians getting flak from the rest of India, with people saying that there is nothing special about IITians, and just because they got good scores in JEE it doesn't mean they are super-intelligent humans and etc. Of course, they conveniently forget that we IITians never claimed to be super-intelligent and being an IITian is as much about hard work as it is about intelligence.
As soon as I stepped into my apartment it became crystal clear to me why it is an excellent decision to move out. It was the most disgusting, dirtiest place I have ever set foot on. Apparently my roommates had to rush to other states on internships soon after their exams and in their hurry they didn't even bother to clean the dishes - or even transfer them from the living room table to the sink. Moving is hard work and shopping for a new apartment is vexing work but I couldn't be happier doing it. My new apartment isn't perfect - the kitchen in particular is lacking a few amenities I am used to taking for granted, like a gas stove rather than an electric stove - but it is clean and spacious and has free cable TV :)
Dropping by at my friend's apartment carrying edible goodies from home, I was witness to a poor american girl backing up her car and going smack into a parked car behind her in the parking lot. There was a sizeable dent in the other car and she broke the taillights on hers. She seemed like a young undergrad not used to such stuff and seemed extremely nervous about what she had done, and appeared to have no idea what to do about the situation. So I stopped for a minute and told her what needed to be done - having been at both ends of similar incidents in the past myself. One time, a driver skid on the icy driveway and smashed into the rear of my car. Another time, I was backing out of Starbucks and grazed the rear bumper of a brand new BMW. It was only a paint smudge, so I settled things with him and we kept my insurance company out of it, lest my premium go up - but that was the first time I had caused any kind of damage to any other vehicle, and was quite nervous myself. Full sympathies to that girl!
A cup of coffee at Starbucks costs three times as much as coffee at any other place, but it also tastes three times better so I often choose the slightly longer walk and the extra two dollars to get that perfect cup of morning coffee. Coffee in hand, I was passed by a Pakistani woman and her little girl, who stopped at the pedestrian crossing and pressed the button. Seeing no car in sight, I started crossing the road without waiting for the walk signal, and the woman with her daughter started crossing with me, and said "Thanks!". I asked her why she was thanking me, and she said it was easier to break a traffic rule when you are doing it with some other person :)
What can I say, it feels good to be back in State College.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Snap out of it
Note to Self:
This has been a nice vacation, getting away from grad life and reconnecting with Chennai and everything that goes with it. Yes, IIT Madras junta are superb company and you always have fun with them. Yes, you will never get that atmosphere at Penn State - that easy banter, talking about familiar things, be it the introduction of a Cafe Coffee Day in the campus or how you made that slam hand at Bridge by a "squeeze" play on your left hand opponent. It is also nice to eat your Mom's cooking everyday and not have to worry about taking that stain out of your t-shirt or how much chilli powder to put in your dish. It is fun to go to the Landmark quiz with old friends and to boss around your younger cousins.
SNAP OUT OF IT.
In twenty four hours you will be on a flight back to the USA and you will have to worry not only about your courses and your research, but about moving to a new apartment, money matters, insurance, cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping and about a million more things. Your friends there may not quite be on your wavelength but they care about you nonetheless. You have enjoyed your few months of happy nostalgia, now face it - you have left that life behind. Better get adjusted to your new one.
(Gives self a mental shake and a light slap)
This has been a nice vacation, getting away from grad life and reconnecting with Chennai and everything that goes with it. Yes, IIT Madras junta are superb company and you always have fun with them. Yes, you will never get that atmosphere at Penn State - that easy banter, talking about familiar things, be it the introduction of a Cafe Coffee Day in the campus or how you made that slam hand at Bridge by a "squeeze" play on your left hand opponent. It is also nice to eat your Mom's cooking everyday and not have to worry about taking that stain out of your t-shirt or how much chilli powder to put in your dish. It is fun to go to the Landmark quiz with old friends and to boss around your younger cousins.
SNAP OUT OF IT.
In twenty four hours you will be on a flight back to the USA and you will have to worry not only about your courses and your research, but about moving to a new apartment, money matters, insurance, cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping and about a million more things. Your friends there may not quite be on your wavelength but they care about you nonetheless. You have enjoyed your few months of happy nostalgia, now face it - you have left that life behind. Better get adjusted to your new one.
(Gives self a mental shake and a light slap)
Friday, August 10, 2007
Butterfingers
As a consequence of having some free time on my hands, I have been watching cricket - India's tour of Bangladesh and now England. It is a little strange because I stopped following cricket once I finished high school, barring a brief period during the 2003 World Cup. Some of my old enthusiasm for the game has returned, though no doubt it will disappear again once I return to the US, and it has also brought back memories of a time when I did play a bit of gully cricket myself.
Like all normal people, I used to play a bit of cricket in backyards and gullies. Even though I was never good at it, us Indians are so cricket crazy that you cannot avoid living without playing cricket. And so, by the time I neared high school, we were playing cricket in community sports grounds. I quickly developed a reputation for needing a by-runner within a few minutes at the crease - I'm not the athletic type and get tired quickly! And an even bigger reputation for having butterfingers. I was decent at catching flat balls... but whenever the batsman skied the ball, it would pop out of my hands when I tried to catch it. After that there is a 50% probability of me getting hands on it again before it hits the ground... and if I do, there is a 50% chance of it popping out again, and so on! Go ahead, picture it and laugh. I don't mind :)
In my whole five years of college in Chennai I only played cricket once, choosing instead the simpler sports of volleyball and roller skating. But that one time I played, I executed a couple of stylish cover drives that earned me a comment from the bowler, "Looks like we have a regular Rahul Dravid on our hands." Was that genuine or sarcastic, you ask? Well, you see, we were short of space as well as players, so we were playing with only an on-side. Five feet from the stumps on the off-side was the wall that collected all my cover drives!
These days of course, the only "sport" that occupies me is bridge... and perhaps a bit of ice skating. I will be flying back this week so my blog may be a little quiet for a while. But I promise to use my flying time to think of a new short story for the blog!
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Like all normal people, I used to play a bit of cricket in backyards and gullies. Even though I was never good at it, us Indians are so cricket crazy that you cannot avoid living without playing cricket. And so, by the time I neared high school, we were playing cricket in community sports grounds. I quickly developed a reputation for needing a by-runner within a few minutes at the crease - I'm not the athletic type and get tired quickly! And an even bigger reputation for having butterfingers. I was decent at catching flat balls... but whenever the batsman skied the ball, it would pop out of my hands when I tried to catch it. After that there is a 50% probability of me getting hands on it again before it hits the ground... and if I do, there is a 50% chance of it popping out again, and so on! Go ahead, picture it and laugh. I don't mind :)
In my whole five years of college in Chennai I only played cricket once, choosing instead the simpler sports of volleyball and roller skating. But that one time I played, I executed a couple of stylish cover drives that earned me a comment from the bowler, "Looks like we have a regular Rahul Dravid on our hands." Was that genuine or sarcastic, you ask? Well, you see, we were short of space as well as players, so we were playing with only an on-side. Five feet from the stumps on the off-side was the wall that collected all my cover drives!
These days of course, the only "sport" that occupies me is bridge... and perhaps a bit of ice skating. I will be flying back this week so my blog may be a little quiet for a while. But I promise to use my flying time to think of a new short story for the blog!
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Moment of the week
This week my cousin came over from Salem. Now, there are a few standard things we do whenever he comes. One is to go watch the latest English movie, as only the Tamil dubbed versions generally get released there (I once unwittingly went to watch Spiderman when I was there and found out after the movie started that it was in Tamil!). Another is food - you can't get a decent pan pizza or an authentic chaat anywhere in that town! So, this time, he said, "Let's go to that place and have a chaat."
Now, that place is one of the few places in Chennai that you can have a real chaat, and is conveniently situated close to my house. Countless are the times I've been there with my brother or a cousin or a friend and ordered a Dahi Puri for myself and whatever for the other person. Yes, I always order Dahi Puri there. It's just tooooo gooood.
With an awfully familiar feeling we drive there and I order two Dahi Puris, handing over three ten-rupee notes. This time, though, the cashier peers at me and says, "Sixty one rupees saab."
With a slightly stunned expression I ferret some more cash out of my wallet and say that the price was fifteen rupees when I used to come here, four years ago. The cashier informs me gently, "Fifteen rupees for a Dahi Puri? That would be eight years ago, saab."
He was right, of course. And to think, I regard some people as old-fashioned, and even tell some people to their faces that they are old-fashioned. Here I am, twenty four years old and as ancient-minded as any of them. Gah! Truly, that was my WTF moment of the week.
Please, make me feel better. Tell me your WTF moment of the week.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
Now, that place is one of the few places in Chennai that you can have a real chaat, and is conveniently situated close to my house. Countless are the times I've been there with my brother or a cousin or a friend and ordered a Dahi Puri for myself and whatever for the other person. Yes, I always order Dahi Puri there. It's just tooooo gooood.
With an awfully familiar feeling we drive there and I order two Dahi Puris, handing over three ten-rupee notes. This time, though, the cashier peers at me and says, "Sixty one rupees saab."
With a slightly stunned expression I ferret some more cash out of my wallet and say that the price was fifteen rupees when I used to come here, four years ago. The cashier informs me gently, "Fifteen rupees for a Dahi Puri? That would be eight years ago, saab."
He was right, of course. And to think, I regard some people as old-fashioned, and even tell some people to their faces that they are old-fashioned. Here I am, twenty four years old and as ancient-minded as any of them. Gah! Truly, that was my WTF moment of the week.
Please, make me feel better. Tell me your WTF moment of the week.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
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