Ritu had tagged me some days ago. And yes, this is my first ever tag.

The idea here is to answer through pictures. Look at the question, and do an image search for the answers — and then use any one image from the first page. Pretty basic, you might add. But searching for pictures took me more than an hour!

Here we go:

1. The age you will be on your next birthday

2. A place I would like to visit (Mauritius)

3. My favorite place (My computer desk. )

4. Favorite food (Gajar ka halwa. Yummmmmmy!!)

5. Favorite Drink (Coke)

6. Favorite Pets (Cats)

7. Favorite Colour Combination (Red and White)

8. Favorite piece of clothing (Jeans)

9. All time favorite song (Kabhi Kabhie mere dil mein, khayaal aata hai)

10. Favorite TV Show (The Story of India)

11. Town in which I live (Delhi)

12. Screen Name

13. First Job (none, as yet!)

14. Dream Job (writing code!!)

15. Bad habit (Feeling guilty for absurd reasons)

16. The one thing you’d like to do before you die (Write a book)

17. The first thing I will buy if you get $1,000,000 (A ton of gadgets!!)

Hope you enjoyed!

I am not tagging anyone. If you happen to read this, and want to give this a shot, go ahead!!

I just don’t know what to call them. Pesky seems to be the apt-est adjective for them. And I am talking about people who flatter you when they stand to gain something from you, and ignore you otherwise. Call it my misfortune, but my class has been full of these kind of people lately. I’m not taking any names, but I ain’t sparing them either.

There is a group of these three guys who trot together. What binds them together I never know, coz they are calling each other names behind each other’s backs all the time. Anyways, that’s not the question. What I really want to talk about is the way they are bugging me these days so that I can give them an assignment of mine. And I am not amused!

I happen to be a good student of Computer System Architecture, and I usually understand each and every thing that is taught in the class. Now, the teacher gave us an assignment of the end of chapter problems of the book, and gave ample time to solve them (yeah, nearly a month!). Now, I have done that, and my fuckingly foolish mind gave away this fact to them. Now these guys are bootlicking me all the time to give them that assignment. I mean, they want my piece of work, which I have done painstakingly over fifteen days, just like that! No, I’m not gonna give that to them!!

And the buck doesn’t stop here… Prior to this assignment episode, the three of them approached me and asked me to ‘teach’ them CSA. I said alright, because I found no harm in doing that.. They were having their difficulties, wanted me to solve them. So we decided upon the time an place (and that was.. during the physics practical period, in the physics lab!). Anyways… It was pretty all right to me.

Inside the physics lab, the trio of them was flattering them as if I was SRK!! Bhai ko baithne ki jagah do. Bhai ke liye paani laao. Bhai ko pen do. Yeh karo, woh karo… and it went on like this. That got my radar blinking. I sensed something was wrong. These guys only wanted to use me to learn the subject, which I unfortunately came to realize later. 

Its not that I don’t want to help these guys. But their attitude really puts me off. Plus their constant backstabbing and things… I’m not sure of their actual intentions. I’m confused 

However, these days I have been acting smart with them! I’m helding up giving them the said assignment by making excuses after excuses! Until one of them got suspicious. So what he did, he came to me and asked, “Rajat bhai tu naaraaz hai kya mujhse?” I said, “aise kyu?” . to which he said,  “Nahi bas kuch dino se aisa lag raha hai mujhe…” 

“Nahi yaar, aisi toe koi baat nahi hai!” — and this is going to stay like that. If you can try to capitalize on me, I can stay off too!

These people will never get any assignment from me, nor will they get anything else… Yeah, not even my birthday treat! 

UPDATE (Sept 14, 2009): When I first wrote this post, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was an impulsive decision from my side to publish this, for I wanted *them* to have a piece of their own pie. However, now when I look back and see the crux of things, I realize that whatever I did at that time was wrong. Its not that I exaggerated on reporting the incidents or went overboard in any way, but I should at least have given it a proper thought before christening them as the villains. The people I’ve talked about are wonderful people, and selfless beings. We even talked it out and arrived at a truce in less than three days after I published the story and *they* read it. This post remains here for archival purposes only, and I don’t hold any grudges against the people mentioned in it anymore.

Hello everyone!

You might have noticed that I am not blogging these days. Yeah, I AM NOT blogging. Because I can’t seem to think much, these days. I have ideas, I have inspirations, but I am struggling to put them into words…

Plus these exams! Although they are a month away, but they are already getting me worried!! So much to study, so little time!

However, I am active on Twitter and Facebook — more so because I can update them using my cellphone. About when my next post will come, only time can tell. Stay tuned, though! I’ll try to resume blogging ASAP.

Keep track of me — @rajatarora , Facebook .

Thank you for your time and patience! 

When I wrote Letter, Ritu quipped, “You are a true romantic.…” Now lets take that romanticism forward!

Ever since I can remember, I have been obsessed with hindi songs, all of which started from the hit song of Hum Aapke Hain Koun, ‘Didi Tera Devar Deewana’. I must have been barely five years old at that time, and this was the first movie I ever saw in a theatre. At that time, I didn’t know who is a devar and what is meant by deewana - but the song caught my imagination somehow, and you saw me singing it at every conceivable place — in the bathroom, at the dining table, in the school bus, in front of relatives.… Being an innocent child, I used to think that it was fun! 

During the days of All India Radio, there wasn’t much to listen on FM, isn’t it? However, when the private channels like Radio City came along, the scene almost changed! It was 2003 I think, with me being in Class IX. Suddenly, there was a lot more to listen and enjoy! As soon as I’d get up in the morning, I’d switch on the Radio. As soon as I’d return from school, I’d switch on the radio. After I returned from tuitions? You know what I did! For somebody like me, who was obsessed with bollywood music, this was nothing short of Heaven!

***

Cut to 2006. I am in Class XII. The leadership camp is approaching, and I need something to go with it. Perhaps, a pocket radio? Will I be able to afford one? Perhaps yes! I get enough of pocket money OK, so what do I do? I bunk my tuition class for a day, go to an electronics shop in Jail Road, and purchase a pocket FM radio for Rs. 175. Batteries cost another Rs. 20, and I have a pocket FM Radio that looks like a MP3 player! Have a look:

***

Can I say that purchasing a pocket radio was the turning point of my life? That would be a bit too exagerated, huh? However, when that radio accompanied me everywhere I went, I discovered music (Yeah.. even that too is an exageration!!) in a weird sort of way. At that time, there were around 7–8 radio stations present in Delhi, and they all used to play the same genre of music — Popular Bollywood. So there were a few which caught my attention. Even today, whenever I listen to them, I get reminded of the olden days :

Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai — This song, from Woh Lamhe, was frequent on the radio those days. Radio One, which was just launched back then, used to keep playing this one over and over again. I became affectionate of that, particularly to the remix version. None of my friends used to like that one, and it was fun being different 

Tere Bin — Do I have to tell the origins? This Bas Ek Pal melody by Atif Aslam was the show stopper. Guys used to croon, Girls used to listen to them lovingly! One particular guy in my class had even earned himself the nickname of ‘Tere Bin’! Can you imagine? As far as I am concerned, I wasn’t so very fond of it, but the girl I used to have a crush on, was! 

Dil Keh Raha Hai — During the days when this song used to be ‘hot’, I never managed to find out its origins. Which movie? Who’s the actor? And like that. But I used to like that. I remember that this was the song playing on Radio City at 3 in the morning, when I was sitting in my school’s basketball court, alone, writing down my first ever short story (the one I never managed to complete!), with Meeta Ma’am stopping over and watching me write! 

Chak De Phatte — This one from Khosla Ka Ghosla had an uncanny habit of playing itself on the radio whenever I was on my way to the physics tuition. Always! And I’m still wondering how! Too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?

Sun Re Sajania — Awww No! Shreiks!!! I don’t know what the guys at various radio stations used to think when they played it over and over. This Ali Zafar song is bad!! Very Bad!! Though it did ued to do me a favour everytime… When my Board Exams were on the anvil, listening to radio all the time wasn’t a very good habit. Whenever this song used to play, I was encouraged to switch off the radio and start studying!!

Kuch Iss Tarah — It is utterly romantic, I must say. At first, I used to dislike this song; but after listening to it a couple of times, and as the melody gre upon me, it left me mesmerized. Agreed, that it has an element of sadness, but once you finish listening to it, you feel refreshed.. you feel good! Till date, I regard it as the best Atif song ever.

… And there were many more! But talking about all of them would bore you to death, isn’t it? 

Ever since I bought a multimedia phone, I’ve stopped listening to FM, literally! Agreed, that having the music of your choice loaded in the phone, so that you can listen to it anytime you want, is very convenient. But can it ever match the spontaeinity, the suspense of the radio? All the fun of guessing the next song is lost. All the fun, and frustration, of scanning all the radio stations and not finding the song of your choice, is lost. All the fun connecting to the RJ is lost. 

The pocket radio has stopped working ever since, and the FM reception in my phone is not upto the mark. I think I’ll have to spend that Rs. 175 again!

Sing Along!

Note: This happens to be my 25^th post over here. Happy Silver Jubilee!

Image Courtesy — purplesongscanfly.org (part of their logo)

As promised earlier, I am presenting my experiences at Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology (MSIT)‘s fest.

If you want to learn how not to manage a fest, you should attend the one hosted by the said college. Blitzkrieg ’08 was a disaster when it comes to efficient management.

There were three of us — Dhruv, Mohnish and me, who went to participate over there. Mohnish had gone for LAN Gaming, while me and Dhruv were there for Possiedon — the C/C++ event. And I knew how things were going to be when I reached the registration desk.

We had registered ourselves earlier by visiting the college one fine day. However, when I went to confirm at the day of the event, I was told, “There has been no registrations from Hans Raj College.” And I was like.. What?? Why?? I had to do a separate registration again. The icing on the cake? Barely five minutes after the second registration, one of the volunteers said that there has been a mistake, and we had been registered earlier itself. What the Fuck? Couldn’t they check properly?

One who makes the rules, should make it a point to follow them as well, isn’t it? But there are no takers for this adage at MSIT. They made the rule that no more than two teams from each college will be allowed to participate in a single event. However, there were colleges over there represented by more than fifteen teams! Horrible! And if I must tell you about their skills at crowd management, you’d quip that ten year olds might have done a better job! Take a look:

My verdict — Don’t you ever go to MSIT for a fest. Even if the director personally invites you!