The life of 'me' and a digital cam

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Exams can be fun !!

Laboratories are fun. Especially during exams. Its the same every year. Practical exams - and I'm smiling. The smile is unusually prolonged. Exams aren't there to make you smile, but practicals are a totally different issue. You can get into the lab as a moron, and return with a coooool 80%.
The lecturers are all prepared, the students...ready for the usual instructions. The day starts off with the lecturers announcing the most probable experiment that we'll have to be performing...the probability is close to 100%.
All chemicals are pre-prepared. Every equipment is working at 100% efficiency. Test tubes are shiny new.
A biological sample is handed over to us, a lecturer pretends to be searching for something, and slowly whispers out the answer we were supposed to get. All students immediately write down the answer in a secretive place. I walk over towards the measuring balance. I cannot help notice a piece of paper near the equipment, which contains exact values of chemicals to be weiged. That makes my job even easier. My confidence is reaching greater heights.
Lecturers pay frequent visits to our place, ensuring we write perfect answers, plot perfect graphs, and perfom perfect calculations.
Time is running out. I still need to prepare a bacterial slide. I walk over to a nearby microscope. Lying in a not-so prominent position is an already prepared bacterial slide. I almost overlooked it. But our lecturers were there too. One of them bounced up his eyeballs, and gave a pointed look towards the slide and then at me. I got the message. The slide was beautifully made. The externals were impressed.
The final question was to prepare a solution of specific pH (don't bother about the technical aspects, pH is just a numerical value). 7.4 was what I required. As I dipped the electrode into the solution, it showed 7.3. I was impressed. Our lecturer was not. As usual, he came towards me searching for something (his wife probably). Putting his hand behind the equipment, he turned a screw, and the meter magically rolled over to 7.4. I look at our lecturer stunned. He smiles. I smile.
I've now done everything, except answering a few questions. I scratch my head with a pencil, and look around. The walls showed fungal growth. It needs paint. But what do I see here ?? Posters of Biotechnology containing whatever I'm supposed to write now. I turn back, and find my lecturer, with folded arms, winking. My answer sheet is full of answers. Its viva time now. The externals ask "Which is your favourite subject ?" I say "Biotechnology"... proudly. After a few routine questions, I'm done for the day. As I leave the room, our lecturer comes over and says "Suhas... you have scored 90%". How does he know ?? He says he sneaked behind the externals and found out everyone's marks. I'm shell-shocked. As I leave, the lecturer shouts out, "Suhas, come prepared for your next practicals". "Yeah, right, you too sir" I say and zoom off !!!

Phir Hera Pheri

The option was simple - watch Fanaa or watch Phir Hera Pheri...the choice...even more simpler. One had Aamir - the guy who can actually act, and another had a bunch of ugly-looking weirdos.
It had to be Phir Hera Pheri (PHP).
Who wants to watch a slow-moving boring movie like Fanaa (even though I had to sacrifice watching Kajol who looks stunning in it). PHP is 2.5 hrs of a story-less movie.
There isn't really any theme, the villians are made into comedians too (where the director fails miserably), a gorilla chasing a man is supposed to make you laugh, Bipasha Basu and Rimi Sen have no significant roles and they only make their presence felt in bits and pieces (thankfully!!), songs are infested with Himesh Reshammiya's nasal crooning, and you are often left with punctured ear drums, thanks to the constant uproar created in every scene.
But the positives are even more. Akshay and Sunil Shetty have given a good performance, Johnny Lever is as good as ever, Paresh Rawal is even better than in the prequel to this movie. His every move, every word he utters, every expression, brings life to the theatre-crowd, some dialogues though stolen from the last movie, still has the same effect. A complete timepass movie, atleast you can leave your handkerchiefs at home, and go back light-hearted. If you have nothing to do, and you want to just chill out and have fun - this movie is tailored to suit your needs. Ultimately its only Paresh Rawal who forces you into this movie, he's one heck of an amazing actor !! Like him or not, his last lines in the movie says it all - "Yeh Babu Rao ka style haiiiiii"

The Banana Story

I got a wonderful birthday gift this time. Of course I do know October is still further down in the calendar, but lets just say I got the fruits of my hard work...literally !!
This was somewhere during 2004; my birthday which falls on Naraka Chaturdashi or simply put - Deepavali, bestowed upon me what I thought was a horrible day. With mom not in Bangalore, and dad in no mood of fireworks, I was assigned the task of digging a deep trench to hold a tiny little banana plant. This arduous task was successfully accomplished not to mention the 'n' no. of times I grumbled about how special my friends' birthdays generally are.
Within a year, huge leaves arose, so huge that it could be used as a blanket, the very same idea we had planned on if there were any blanket-shortages during my brother's marriage. This year saw it flowering, and slowly tiny little bananas started opening their eyes. I was often found hugging the tree, like as though I had given birth to young ones (there was no labor pain involved though).
These tiny little bananas started becoming huge, so huge that it looked scary. It was a tissue cultured plant bought in one of the "Krishi Melas", and believe me, I was proud of it. Now who says we biotechnologists are only to mess things up. We weren't really sure when to break off the bananas (later we leant that the moment the flower dries up, its a signal to separate the bananas from the tree). It took 3 of us to get them down; and there were over 150 really huge bananas. The above picture was taken when it was still really small. It was what you call in Kannada as the "Pach Baale", it was pretty much sweet, but we could only eat half of it at a time, and it wouldn't even fit into our mouths. All these bananas now make a presence in most of our neigbourhood houses. The era of this plant is over, the legacy has passed on and a new plant has taken over. But this time, we guess its time for a new fruit. Any guesses what it'll be ???

Welcome back Suhas !!

Feels good to be back, although I wouldn't expect the same feelings from you. The exam went good, I have practicals and a project yet to accomplish, so its a bye-bye to holidays. My only entertainment would be to watch a movie with my cousin Bharath (somehow I always end up watching idiotic movies with him; not that I blame him for anything). No updates from my blog meant no food for you these many days, so here I am with a grand banquet. Enjoy !!

A warning !!

"Chikungunya", a form of viral fever spread from mosquito bites has become a cause of concern for most parts of rural South India, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Its not considered to be fatal, with symptoms including rash, headaches and arthritis like symptoms (which includes joint pains). There is no specific treatment, and analgesics are generally used.
Stagnation of water provides a breeding ground to the mosquitoes, and therefore should be prevented. Although the cases of the disease are gradually declining, yet re-lapses are a common occurrence. Travel to affected places should be generally avoided.

Football crazzzy !!

The first round is already coming to a close...the pre-quarter finals promises some really tough fights.
Germany are clear winners of Group A with 9 points. They are indeed making the home crowd happy. Wayne Rooney, England's star is yet to play to his fullest potential, but its clear England shall move on further. Think of Group C and think of Argentina - they destroyed Serbia (6-0) and they are on full throttle.
Mexico and Portugal seem favorites from Group D. Group E matches are of great interest as Ghana had the Czechs shocked with a 2-0 victory. Group F Brazil still hasn't been living upto everyone expectations. Their struggle over Croatia a clear example. Group G sees much fighting between Korea, France and Switzerland for a berth for the next round. Spain has coasted comfortably and we are sure to seem some tough fight ahead.
July 9th is the "Grand Finale", astrologers predict a surprise for everyone on that day owing to planetary movements; I'm not too sure of that, but what we have watched until now is just a start when the minnows get eaten up. Once the 1st round is up, and the survivors lick their wounds, we are in for a world war. Fasten your seat belts, now the going gets even tougher !!

Lets celebrate

Found this in the archive of my mailbox.

How much does it cost to celebrate ?

Maggi noodles
A hostel room
4.25 a.m

A winter evening
Four friends
One barsaat
Four glasses of chai

Hundred bucks of gas
A rusty old bike
And an open road

3 old friends
3 separate cities
3 coffee mugs
1 internet messenger

Rain on a hot tin roof
Pakoras deep-frying
Neighbours dropping in
A party

You and mom
A summer night
A bottle of coconut oil
A head massage
Gossiping about absent family members

You can spend hundreds on birthdays, thousands on festivals, lakhs on weddings, but to celebrate all you have to spend is your 'Time'.

It doesn't take much after all ...

Onida the great

It was just like any other day...mom clutching the remote hard !! It was just like any other day...the rest of us sitting like zombies watching the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law lashing out against each other !! It was just like any other day...only the Onida guys had other ideas.

A routine TV repair turned into a disaster - a blackout of all channels !! For a moment we were plunged into doom, not knowing what to do...it was like losing a dear member of the family...everyone sat helpless for the next 30 minutes.

I slowly started crawling like a dying tortoise towards the room...probably this was the right time to update my dying blog !! Mom decided to finally watch Munnabhai MBBS on a VCD (she once said she'll finish kitchen work and then come over to watch the movie, the kitchen work has continued since these many years). Dad was ecstatic, he roamed around R.T.Nagar searching for drains that overflowed, and garbage that garlanded the streets so that he could assign a few jobs to his welfare association guys. Brother and sister-in-law too joined in watching Munnabhai and Circuit sending everyone into a journey of laughter. Everyone seemed more cheerful, chirpy, lively.

We did not cry because a certain "Bhavana" in a mega-serial was being tortured by her husband's girlfriend. We did not worry because some guy in a stupid serial was being kidnapped for the nth time. We did not have to watch dad's spectacles reflecting the image of the TV screen showing the rise and fall of stock markets. Of course the Onida guys are coming tomorrow to make us into couch potatoes again. I wouldn't want to be too unhappy; but a day without T.V seemed so refreshing. Perhaps we should have a TVless day every year, or maybe we have it already. This post...i owe it to the Onida guy...thank you da !!