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Sunday morning I’m waking up

Can’t even focus on a coffee cup…

 

Don’t even know who’s bed I’m in,
Where do I start,
Where do I begin.

 

Where do I start,

 

Where do I begin…

 

This Chemical Brothers hit titled “Where do I start, where do I begin?” is my theme song these days. The bewitching electronic music (characteristic of the talented duo) with it’s simple, yet telling lyrics best captures the spirit and the course of my life these days. This zonked out/180-degree phase-lag must not be confused with the “morning cobwebs” everyone gets at waking, this one’s the quite surreal feeling experienced by the truly rudderless ones….. or the driven ones who are quite unsure where their all consuming endeavour would take them. At this stage, I would place myself in the second category. The 18 month long (per attempt) Indian Civil Service preparations consists of gruelling lectures at the coaching centres, their weekly test series, hours of rote reading and memorising syllabi like the Indian Constitution (which I have come to worship, despite it’s few execution flaws), analytical understanding of certain topics in general studies and history (my first optional) and in my case competition with thousands of very capable science students and engineers in my 2nd optional, Physics. One could guess the calibre of the aspirants when I say that in my Physics class alone there are 17 IITians, an MTech from fr1ggin’ IISc, a guy from IIM-Calcutta………. plus yours truly who’s a (mathmonkey-button pusher) rocket scientist. So there!

 

In a deathrace like this where there are actual *casualities*, i.e a suicide or two every month on average, one can’t but let body and soul be consumed by the Dark Gods of UPSC; the Gods whose altars and sacred trees must be watered from time to time by the blood of countless aspirants. There are about a quarter million aspirants every year….. of whom a tenth are really serious candidates who have more than a snowball’s chance in Hell. It’s from this pool that the final tally of 300-450 “babus” (top bureaucrats) and “pandus” (top cops) are chosen. Given the sterling quality of the large pool of 25000 folks, the prelims elimination which takes in just a third of this number has an *enoromous* luck factor. To offset this luck factor, the serious aspirants leave nothing to chance and immerse themselves in depth and breadth based studies. Yours truly made a cardinal mistake by eschewing a couple of text books and the National Gazetteer in favor of other books that cover the same topics, but due to my perennial ill-luck and the change of guard in Delhi’s corridors of power, there were questions galore from topics stressed by those very tomes. Result, your Uncle Anand missed the 2006 bus….. t’was by a whisker, but a miss is still a miss in this winner takes all exam.

 

Well, there goes a whole year and some….. but not down the drain. Not yet! I have reconsidered my earlier decision of “resigning” myself to tech world forever if I fail this time and have decided to see it through to ze bitter end. I ain’t gonna let this go so easily after putting so much into it…. and coming so close. Much closer than I told my friends and family in fact! However, given the narrow odds one has to consider the worst case scenario too… i.e, what will I do if I fail my remaining attempts? What will I do if being a Babu or a Pandu is not in my kismet? I can give two more attempts and that would mean 2009 AD at max. Mui Problemo is, in this 4 year gap ( Spring 2005-March 2009) if I hedge only on Civil Services and fail…. I would be very much out of phase with my core realm, Science and Tech. It’s been just a year since I “took leave” from this realm and I have already forgotten things I shouldn’t, my rather impressive skills (in all humility!) in certain fields have rusted….. realised this after I watched a couple of my old recorded lectures and rambled through a few notes/eBooks from my masters on a lark. Guess I needn’t say it scared the living daylights outta me!

I decided I must not let my orbit get degraded (as my old Prof used to quip whenever we talked of bunking and freakin’) and I need to keep my moorings in science and tech…. ‘coz when it boils down to basics, I am an engineer. I might not be a Nikolai Tesla or a Richard Stallman, but I am quite good in certain areas. Well, I have started brushing up my old engineering tomes and tools, re-training myself in my old languages (C and C++ are already done, gotta do the Java and some HTML-DHTML and CGI) before proceeding to the .NET 2.0 platform, Python, XHTML etc (which I don’t know jacksh1t about yet). In the meantime my physics classes are wrapping up, we are on to Special Theory of Relativity now and the whole course will be over in a week. In this backdrop, I have started a job search…. somewhere in Delhi itself would be Zhang; in a job where there ain’t much attrition on my hours, no pissant PHBs, no long legged secretaries or HR Iron Butterflies like in that “Pardesiya” music video by Rakhi Sawant …. somewhere I can continue my preps on the side. Money ain’t the prime factor but yeah, earning some money on my own (after a long time…. used to work part time during my masters) would be great. Main factor is the work experience gained in this period…. it will be useful in case I fail in my remaining attempts and have to go back to tech realm or pursue higher studies or something else. Some folks have advised me not to disturb the preps by taking up a job and advise an “everything or nothing” approach….. but then, I don’t have a choice, do I? Umer bad rahi hain and I have to settle in a CAREER, right? Can’t afford to gamble at this point. Moreover, I had spent a good 15 months solely on my preps and have “gone the distance” and the knowledge gained there would stay with me for good. What I need to do is build up further on this solid foundation, “correct my mistake” (using a steeled and creepy Delbert Grady voice now ….. see “The Shining“?) and keep my cool. I guess I could do that even if I take up a job….

 

So after this long, self obsessed introduction let me come to the core of my post; A day in the life of The Wanderer. In the above mentioned backdrop. Yeah what, you ‘re shocked?! That’s right, all this was just the introduction! Didn’t you wonder why the material so far didn’t match the title of the post? By this time you guys must be knowing I lavv ze looooong posts.

Enjoy…

 

 

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My “morning” starts with the shrill alarm of my little black alarm clock, waking hour ranges from 5:00 AM to 11:00 AM…. to be precise, after atleast six hours of luving, luvving, luvvvving, deeeep, deeeeeeeeep sleep. I scoured a dozen shops to find an alarm clock that can raise the dead, ‘coz nothing less than that can get me off my four thousand winks…. found this pocket size banshee in a little shop near Munirka. I pound the unfortunate contraption to silence it….. and proceed to the love of my life, my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop and let her light wash my face. The emptiness of my soul, the quo vadis feelings I talked about are washed away by this “Noor ul Dell-Ah”. I press the right buttons, dust her time to time and get her “jewellry” like internet, latest softwares and updates and she opens her heart to me in return. First thing I do is open my fave websites like Rediff, BR and CNN and get a grip on what’s new. First thing in the morning! Orkut and emails first check come only after this done.

Oh dear, mornin’ abulutions and chores now? I consult the calendars (Hindu, Hajira, Mayan and Chinese….. and Kingfisher and Pirelli calendars too just to be safe ) and notice that it is a full moon day today. Darn, the elementals are active today… guess it’s one of those rare occassions where I got to clean up myself. Cursing the day and shaking my fist at the heavens, I drag myself to the bathroom…. well, atleast my neighbours and classmates will be overjoyed today.

No breakfast for me when I am in Delhi…. I am on a vain and unhealthy and unscientifc starvation yo-yo diet now. What I would do for some nice Appam…..

The first 3-4 hours are always for extra reading. Can’t do without that…. I am on a totally demanding regime but still, I can’t let the extra reading stuff go by. I have tried and the resultant Cold Turkey almost annihilated my mind! Usually I take up random topics and wiki/google it up and follow up on them now that I am cut off from/finishedoff my book and ebook collections. Recently I persuaded my parents to buy me three nonfiction books by Peter Hopkirk (viz. The Great Game, On Secret Service East of Constantinople and Setting the East Ablaze) and two by Karen Armstrong (viz. A History of God and Holy War: The Crusades and their impact). I had searched Heaven and Earth for these rare books and found them by chance….. and boy, were they expensive! I had to postpone my plans to change my Nokia S60 for a Nokia N93 so that I could get these. But I must say it was worth every paisa…. already finished The Great Game and A History of God and it was like getting hit by a bullet train! Wish I had more time to corroborate this, pursue this a little more and make some notes. I ain’t so sanguine about Holy War by Armstrong, fFrom what I heard it’s a sort of revisionist work. Still, one must look at other POVs….

If there’s time between the end of the above time slot and brunch (i.e in case I wake up early), it’s time for polishing up my old tech stuff, programming and job search online. This takes about 3-4 hrs max ‘coz I find I am able to pick up the pieces pretty quick and I am confident I can learn the new stuff pretty fast. Prior to these retraining days, this slot was reserved for Medieval or Modern Indian History.

Brunch, at 12 PM noon no matter when I wake up, is always the same…. pan toasted bread with scrambled eggs, omlette or fried eggs I scrounge up myself….. or Chole-Battura from the friendly daylight dacoits next door. Heavens, the Yamuna river of mustard oil and trans-fat that’s going in…. hope I live to see one hundred! But chole-battura is tasty, I luvvv the greasy, spicy chole and the thick, piping hot batturas with raw onions, slivers of cabbages and green chillies combo. Sorta hooked on to chole-battura now, I get it every other day…. Now you know why I skip breakfast; gotta keep my Chippendale hot bod’, na? I open my ebooks on my laptop and consume a few pages along with my meal… these days the favored one is the epic Sandman series by Neil Gaiman.

Afternoons, i.e 1:00 – 4:00 PM are reserved for General Studies; stuff like Polity, Economy and Social-Cultural Affairs. This is where rote reading, mug up et all come into play….. I hate this type of study. Let me stick my head out and say that ze females excel in this method of study! I mean, it’s like those convent school girls studying chemistry in a “Take a beaker…. take a beaker. Full of water….. full of water. Add the salt….. add the salt” fashion! WTF ?! For a science-tech guy it’s supreme heresy to study something in this manner. Still, there’s no way around it when it comes to certain topics. Sighhhhhh…..

4:00 – 5:30 PM I get ready for my Physics classes, revise the previous days topics and take a look at what’s in store today. 15 minutes before I leave it’s time for some Orkuttin’, checking my mails and opening my fave forum threads… just to see what happened in the meantime. I pump half a gallon of aerosol deodrant and wear any clothing that doesn’t look like a CITU gunny bag from Trivandrum’s Connemara Central and rush to the classroom right next door. For another two hours, I surrender my six senses to a very animated and engaging lecture by Vajpayee Sir. I’m in seat No. 5, right in front of him in the first row ‘coz I was the 5th one to register for the course. As I have mentioned before I am notorious for dozing off or daydreaming in class, Maitrayi Ma’am gave me the Mungheri Lal nickname 17 years ago. Nothing of that sort here, if he ever caught me wandering I would get the proverbial “GMD” and the ball-breaking of a lifetime. Moreover, one can’t help but follow him throughout the lectures. However, in boring and mathematically rigorous units like Electrodynamics and Magentostatics he “lets” us slack a bit ‘coz he himself confessed that he loathes those “sidey” topics.

At 7:30-7:45 PM the guys scramble out to the dabbas before the samosas are finished, myself included at times. Dakshin Dilli Samosas are bigger and fillings more exotic than the wannabe samosas from back home (or even North Delhi where I stayed before coming to South Delhi). Here you have paneer bits, raisins, cashewnuts and what not as fillings…. psychedellic experience onlee. On saturdays I walk briskly to the IIT gate food court where there’s a Mumbaiyya guy who makes authentic paav bhaji, vada pao and the tastiest chaats. Saturday snacks are invariably Dahi Papri Chaat with lotsa Aamchur for moi (don’t like Aloo Tikki Chaat or the Bhelpuri much). Out there I spent like half an hour to forty minutes so that ze PYTs can gawk at moi and I can return the vibes if one of the abovesaid lay-dees catches the fancy of the esteemed myself. When my time’s up I give them all a goodbye flying kiss, break their hearts and trudge back to my apartment. Saturday night dinner is zimble fruitarian Kela and Papaya with some Tropicana juice. Sunday dinners on the other hand are bada-khanas…. I usually order a pizza from Slice of Italy or take a bus to Munirka for some Tikka or Kebab. Sigh…. how I wish I could shelve out some money and get me some exotic Murg Mussallam that’s been beckoning me for the last three months…. that single item goes for Rs 400! Hmmmpfff, I could survive on that much money for 8 whole days! Soon…… very soon. Just you wait….. On weekdays food is usually North Indian roti-subzi/paratha-veg Korma. For a total non-veggie, nay *carnivore* like me, living on veg food is hell! Food is accompanied by eBooks or a part of a movie from my considerable movie collections…. and movies from a “demon” downloader next door who has an unlimited 256 Kbps connection.

I settle around 9:00-9:30 PM and it’s back to studies for another two to six hours, depending on what time I woke up that morning. Usually I keep very late hours… I study better when this half of the globe has gone to sleep. Guess I was a vampire in a previous incarnation! This time slot id actually the most productive period as far as I am concerned. I deal with the really important topics, those areas I am weak in and physics in this time slot. Physics is somewhat in the backburner ‘coz I am pretty OK with it and my retentivity is high when it comes to science topics. It’s freakin’ evil Ancient India and Art n Architecture (Ancient-Medieval-Modern) that bugs me no end. It’s tha latter part that royally screwed me over this exam and I am pursuing it with a venegance. Problem is that, given the volume of material one is forced to do the “Take a beaker… take a beaker” path. I am using all tricks in the trade, viz. mnemonics, assosciation methods and even improvised Pavlovian techniques to deal with this area. Darn! Hope something good comes outta all this…

After a long night, I go to my darlin’ Dell and check out Orkut and my emails once again. Then I open my Musicmatch playlists (sometimes on loop mode) at low volume. Invariably, the one I choose turns out to be my fave list consisting of soothing numbers like “Solsbury Hill”; “Where do I start”; “The River King”; “Kamilia”; ” Ever After theme (The Mummers Dance)”-”Wild Child”-”Storms in Africa”-”Only Time”-”Ebudae”-”Caribbean Blue”-”May it be” by Enya; “Divano”-”Madonna”-”Hymne”-”Infanati” by Era; Gaelic Cradle song; “Le Couer”; “She Moved Through the fair”; “Nightingale” by Yanni; “The Crossing”; “Into the West”-Annie Lennox; “Clara’s theme” from our own Thoovanathumbikal and of course “Never Tear Us Apart” by Inxs. This playlist is used when I feel romantic (i.e most of the time ) or tired or sleepy…. otherwise I create a random playlist or use the themed ones like latest Tamil, 70s-80s Malayalam etc. Every night I fall asleep to these songs and I dream of fast cars, monster trucks, Houris, Japanese girls in sailor suits, Swedish blondes, 100 course feasts, friends, Rawalpindi and Karachi in flames…. these are the good dreams. I dream till that electro-mechanic banshee b1tch of an alarm clock wakes me up again for another “Same Shit, Different Day”.

 

Now you folks see what I meant? There was this Stephen King short story (and a Sandman issue) which said Hell was someplace you experience ennui and eternal boredom if not your fears/punishments over and over again. It’s something like Bill Muray’s Groundhog Day movie…. or the Q continum’s eternal boredom as shown in Star Trek. It’s the same thing again and again, the same thing you have done many times before… and after a point you tire off things that once caught your imagination. I am a guy who gets bored soon… find it difficult to stick with someone or something. The astrologers say it’s because the Moon is on the 12th house according to my horoscope. The Moon which is the astronomical body that controls the mind, is in the 12th house, which is apparently the station for water. Water yaane ki fluidness, instability, change etc. Fickleness and even insanity etc are probable characteristics of all those “blessed” with such an alignment. I tend to agree with them… And you can now guess what a regimen and an endeavour like this can do to someone like me. BTW, do you see any possible openings for “entertainment”, “social life” (MUHUHUHAHAHAHAHA), fun-n-frolic and freakin’ out in my time table? Sighhhhhhhhh……… yeh hai meri kahani! But then, no gain without some pain, eh? PS: Blogging and tracking my blogpals’ activities have also suffered heavily since I started my jobsearch and re-training. Anyways, I have not blogged for nearly a month…. and I haven’t commented on my pals posts in this period.

So it’s a good thing a drastic change in my “carved in stone” time table is coming soon, in the form a suitable job…. which I am confident will come about in a week or two. I’ve been on the abovesaid mode, on “autopilot” like Adam Sandler in Click, for more than a year. Like the “can’t even focus on the coffee cup” as the song says. (BTW, the opening scenes of the movie “The 40 yr old virgin” also somewhat follows my life these days!) I need a change. ASAP….

 

Thanx for staying with me so long and bearing with some useless trivia about moiself….

Anand K.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: Voldemort has been stacked at the bottom of the “to-do” pile…. but he ain’t forgotten!