It happens only in IIT !

7:50 am : Wake up somehow and look disbelievingly at the clock
7:55 am : Drag yourself out of the bed
7:56 am : Switch on the Lappy to check for new mails on GPO.
8:00 am : Brush teeth with 10 others in front of 3 washbasins . At the same time ensure that your bucket is in a strategic location in the queue for Hot water

8:15 am : Dammit ! Again i forgot to give the clothes for cleaning . Now i'll have to wear the same shirt for the 3rd successive day

8:20 am : Breakfast . Although looking at the fare on offer, you would be better off not breaking your fast

8:25 am : Wait for TumTum / Your friends bike / Get on your cycle

8:32 am : Shit Late again ! This lift takes ages to come !

8:35 am : Rats ! Prof starts off with a surprise quiz ! Did he really teach all this ?

9:00 am : You try to concentrate like anything . Hell , This is interesting !

9:15 am : How did i ever think that this was interesting ?

9:30 am : Your eyes are closing...closing......closing.......closed ! And off into dreamland

9:45 am : Wake up with a start ! I slept for 15 mins ?? look around and see half the class in varying phases of slumber . Go back to sleep !

10:30 am : Damn this prof comes so early . No time to go out

12:30 pm : Finally 2 lectures are finishes

12:45 pm : You are in MESS. Literally

1:30 pm : Check mails. Surf net .

3:00 pm : Time for lecture. Why does that goddman prof choose this time .

4:00 pm : Half the class ( including you ) is soundly asleep .

4:15 pm : You wake up as you hear the word "Quiz" . LOL , another quiz !!!

5:00 pm : Hooray ! lectures finished .

5:30 pm : Play Football / Cricket/ Hockey/ Basky / Volley/ TT / AOE/ CS/ NFS etc etc

7:30 pm : Loads of assignement . You knock on muggu's rooms to see who has done the assignement so you can copy it .

8:30 pm : Even Bigger MESS .

9:30 pm : Aha ! Movie time ! Search for an English / Korean / German / Hindi Movie in that order only .

12 Midnignht : Chalo Canteen Time . Stuff in 2 parathas and juice.

12:30 am : Now what ! you decide to study ! within 10 mins someone has buzzed you on yahoo and you are chatting away merrily .

2:00 am : Should i sleep ? You decide to have one last round of AOE/ CS/ NFS before sleeping

3:00 am : Finally with every part in your body giving up , you flop yourself on your bed and off to la-la-land

And hence another day begins in the life of an IITian

A moment of madness !!

A moment of madness........thats what it took me to ask her the most important question of my life . What was i thinking ??? Did i know about her feelings ?? She was not the sort of girl to have a boyfriend . And if she did, it would be her only one. Was i ready for such a committment ? Had i thought it through ? Or had words written in a diary misled me ?

Thankfully, none of these questions came to my mind when i asked her. And, thank god , they did not figure in her mind too .

And thats why she said YES.

A Pledge for Blank Noise

I dont know whether the Blank Noise Project will bring about some mounmental change or not. Frankly, i think it is diffiult . With all the efforst that we bloggers are taking, it might never reach mainstream media . But this is a BEGINNING . Today we have 500 bloggers in this . Out of this even if only a few learn to give respect to girls and change their minds about this issue, then the BNP has DONE something . Things will change . A change in mindset is always the most difficult thing to bring about . It cant be done overnight . But a start is made . It is upto all of us in BNP to not let go of this . To make sure that BNP always remains on top of our minds. To make sure that we get this to as many people as we can. To make sure that we bring more and more such atrocities against women to light . To make sure that women get their dserved place in this society . To make sure that girls can walk without fear in our country . To make sure that we have done something good in our live. Lets all make this pledge for Blank Noise Project.

The Pervert's Holi !

Tomorrow is Holi - the festival of colours. It is the time everyone celebrates with a dash of colours and loads of enjoyment. Cast, creed, religion is forgotten and people celebrate in a true spirit of community . But there is a dirty underbelly of Holi . The festival of colour takes on a totally different meaning for the PERVERT . Yes the same pervert against whom the Blank Noise Project is . The same pervert who thinks nothing of groping and fingering innocent girls . Lets call him X.

For X, Holi presents a great opportunity . For starters, it gives him a chance to actually TOUCH girls in public without any qualms. Come on, X is just applying some colur to the girl's cheeks . Whats the harm . But was that touch a tad too long . Did his hands go where normally you would not apply the colour ? But she ignores it in the spirit of Holi ? Or does she ? Well i dont really know . But for X this is like manna from heaven . Now he has not one but several victims available conviniently . The Holi parties are even better . There are so many people out there that no one really bothers to know who is colouring you . Won't X love to be at such a place . Can we really know who is genuinly applying colour and who is a X in disguise ? I am sure all of us have seen these X's at work . The uninvited guest , the distant relative, someone's friend's friend - X comes in all avatars . And you really have no way of knowing . For us Holi is a day for enjoyment and fun . For X , the feast has just started .

Greatest Cricket Match Ever !!

What a match ! its been more than 2 hours since the match has finished and i still can believe it. South Africa chased 434 runs and how they chased !! With a spirit and gutso hitherto unseen, Gibbs and Smith plundered their way towards an improbable target . It was a true Captain's knock from Graeme Smith . It takes a lot of courage and will to even THINK of chasing such a score but Smith's men did it. What an innings Gibbs played . It was out of this world. He was hitting as if there was no tomorrow and every shot was of the meat of the bat. Such was his brilliance that Ponting's astonishing knock was overshadowed. The match could not have been won without the contribution of the cucumber-cool Boucher and a revelation called as Van Der Wath .

Spare a thought for Aussies . After scoring 434 no one in their wildest dreams would have thought it possible that they are gone lose. Ponting played the 2nd best innings of his life ( the first one is the WC2003 finals against Indians ) . He is a treat to watch when in full flow. Its a shame that he ended up on the losing side. I feel he made a crucial tactical error when he persisted with Mick Lewis even after he had gone for 80 of 8 overs. Brett Lee still had overs left and Ponting should have given the ball to him . As fate would have it, Lewis was whacked to all corners and ended up with dubious world record of conceding the maximum runs in a ten over spell .

I watched the match in the hostel TV room and the atmosphere was electric. It was as if the finals of the world cup was going on . Half the hostel was there and they were putting their entire weight behind the gallant South Africans . When SA won, everyone celebrated as if India had won the match . Truly , it was the GREATEST one day match ever. Hats off to both SA and Australia.

P.S Wonder what India would have done when faced with a target of 435 in 50 overs !!

The Story that shook me

This is one story i picked from one of the blogs in Blank Noise Project . Can this be true ?

Once upon a time, there were four girls. Close friends – two pairs of best friends. They were always together. A and B went home together. In the train. C and D went home together. In the bus. Then, B began complaining that there was a man bothering her in the train. He got on at the station A got off. He used to come everyday and sit next to her and try to feel her up. Every single day.The four of them came up with a plan. They would go all the way to B’s station but A,C and D would act like they didn’t know her and sit in some corner so that they could observe her. Then the next day, they would come with a police officer.It was a fine plan. They went all the way to B’s station, all the while, watching the ugly scene in front of them. They were helpless and scared. But they told her not to worry. Tomorrow, the police officer would deal with the awful man, they said.But the next day, she was missing. She didn’t come to college. Not B. A. A was missing. She was the leader in their group. The driving force. The mastermind of the plan. Where was she? She didn’t come the whole week. When they finally decided to go to her house, they found her mother wailing. Her daughter had committed suicide. What??? They couldn’t believe it. Why would A commit suicide? She was so happy! The scared, confused, upset girls turned to go offer their condolences to A’s father. And everything fell into place. A’s sudden silence on the train the day they went with B. The sudden shadow on her face when the other two were consoling B. Her suicide.
A’s father. The man on the train.
Fact or fiction?

This underlines the basic reason of the fear thar girls face - You never know who is the pervert ? Who said that he should be a cheap looking, paan- chewing , oily- haired, scary looking from the slums ? Why cant it be the guy with decent clothes, greying hair and having a father-figure look ? The pervert demon inside does not care for the outer look . It just wants to lech, grope, fondle, rape ......

The Blank Noise Project

I am taking part in a terrific intiative Blank Noise Project . This group has taken a great intitiative to change the attitude of Indian People about "Eve-Teasing" and "Sexual Harassement" and bring such heinous crimes to light. Needless to say, it is as worthy a cause as any other (In fact more so because it is also the most neglected one ) . Gaurav here talks about the mindset of the man . Several others have also linked their experiences on Blank Noise .

Most of the people are under the impression that it is the uneducated and low-class poeple who indulge in eve-teasing. While this is true to certain extent, the great "Educated" youth of Modern India is not to be left behind. Indeed, I have seen and heard of several cases where girls have been teased, groped and fondled where the so called "Enlightened" Youth were present . ON two occasions, one of my friends was the sufferer .

Once, before joining IITB, We had come to TEchFest 2003 from Pune. ON the final day, there was an exciting RoboDogs show in the evening. The interest was tremendous and by evening there was a great rush of crowds to get into SAC at IITB . IN the melee, when everyone was trying to get in, my friend was fondled not once but thrice. She could not see the cultprit because of the crowd , but she was shaken ! I was shocked when i came to know about it. Of all the places , IITB ! OF course the IITians dont control who comes to watch these shows , but surely some better way to manage crowds and handle miscreants is required. I am 100% Sure it was some students , as no one apart from students was allowed .

The same friend told me how she and her friend had suffered the same when they went to shop in Tulsibaug ( A very famous Shopping Area in Pune ) . And mind you, they are not the ones who dress in a way you can call "skimpy " or "Revealing " . So what propmted the wild-bristling-with-mojo-sadistic-bastard guys to grope these girls ! Simple lust ! Of course they knew that the public is going to blame the girls and not the Groper himself. Disgusting !!

I have seen even worse behavior at Verve which is an inter-collegiate competition in Pune. The level of crowds at this event is so pathetic that it becomes difficult for girls to go anywhere without some guy staring lecherously . Girls have to be accompanied at all times. And all this in a so-called "Culturaly enlightened " city like Pune. In fact, our experience at Verve has been so bad that we stopped going there after our 2nd year . Where is the moral brigade now. It only shows its teeth when it comes to acts of vandalism to protest the "Western" Valentine Day or to tear the posters of some "Offending" Film .

In all these cases of eve-teasing, the role of the "Gaurdians of Indian Culture" has been as an advocate of the hapless i-cant-control-myself-when-i-see-a-female male. To blame the girl is oh-so-easy for the culture brigade . And why will it not be , when the members of culture brigade themselves are among the perpetrators ( The infamous Valentine's Day episode in Mumbai this year where the "guardians" happily tore the clothes of women and girls who were there). Anyway, the less said about the "Gaurdians" , the better.

I hope that all the readers of this blog will join this movement. It is upto the common Junta, us, to take up this issue and change the people's attitude. We can , and we will make a difference.