Hans Raj Khanna

I'm back to blogsville after eons , thats not unusual for me . Well , what woke the sleepin demon in me again ? Jus a wiki article read after a night time robbed of sleep by insomnia. 

Justice Hans Raj Khanna , dont know how i stumbled upon this page durin my mindless meandering through the web , with more tabs open on chrome than ever thought possible by google. 

neway... Here was a man who had upheld what I hold closest to my heart, during a time when it was feared that this treasure would be lost forever in my blessed land. 

Freedom and Liberty. 

The year was 1975, when in the name of an emergency , the country's prime minister did what citizens today do quite blatantly , rob people of their freedom . 

By a few technicalities in the constitution, she was able to detain without trial a large number of people under an Internal Security act and render the bastion of freedom - The Habeas Corpus invalid.  

Yet the writ was filed and the case taken before the Supreme Court. It's here that we can see a beautiful example of justice being upheld in this nation. Well not exactly - the decision did go in the PM's favour with most of the judges doing the only thing they could being as they were constrained to the lines of the constitution which gave unrestrained power to the reigning government. However , one man did rise above the lines and saw into the spirit rather than the letter of the law. He delivered a judgement which he knew would mean a premature demise to his aspirations to one day be Chief Justice . In his words, his judegement was

"detention without trial is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty... A dissent is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may possible correct the error into which the dissenting Judge believes the court to have been betrayed"

Seldom have I come across words better said. The courage , leadership and charisma of this man, who did his bit to pull the country out of its darkest hour. The most gallant knight of democracy in its most depressing year was hailed by the new york times too. 

Today we watch a scene  of religious and cultural intolerance , of chauvinism unparalleled , enjoyment of simple liberties by women  being rewarded with blows by ruffians. No questions are asked . Are we ne better today than we were during the emergency ? Will a voice rise again in our midst and speak freely and fearlessly minding not the heads that may shake and tongues that may cluck or even the spears that may be raised ? 

As I ponder over these questions (and also over whether to hav bfast or jus sleep off finally :P) I also realise how little the common Indian knows about men like Justice Hans Raj Khanna. Maybe while they decorate our history textbooks with the likes of Stalin and Hitler. They could tell us tales of such heros too. A little inspiration would go a long way in an era where once again people fear to rise for their rights. 

freedom

The Sena against Valentine's day , BJP against beauty contests , The Goa-Police against rock concerts, AVK against B'day parties. "Welcome to India where as comedian Vivek puts it.. "Ur Free to piss on the streets, but not kiss"
Women's day 8th March - BPGC - Venue- Audi - A gathering of educated youngsters. My foot !
Mr and Ms Waves - The way the female participants who walked the ramp were treated, u definitely had to give an award to BITsians for the heights of blatant sexism , ad disrespect to women (that too guests of the college) and kudos to the audience who laughed along. Pat on ur back. Imagine having to walk the ramp , perform ur talents on stage , and answer sexist questions ( btw clean creativity has hit rock bottom in bits and questions without 'subtle hints' are non existent) when all the while some moron types crap abt u and ur anatomy on a huge screen at the back for all to see! Well at BITS - thats just another event, something all women are expected to endure by virtue of their gender. Ultimately it was just a violation of the right to dignity. Its amazing how after 17 years of education, knowledge of basic rights ,sensitivity to feelings is at absolute zero.

The bad evening doesnt end there- Junkyard Groove told to pack up and leave @ 11:30 by the police , it was just good clean fun on the campus. So what if some ppl got drunk , y r the others to blame ? y stop such a wonderful display of talent for such a flimsy reason ?
Where did the right to freedom go ?

Its high time, we get to know our rights, stand up to them and respect those of others.

money doesnt grow on trees , thank goodness for that !!

Money doesnt grow on trees , a popular saying.
They say it as if it would be a good thing if it did. What would happen if you had to plant a tree ,nurture it , wait for it to grow, and produce your shiny coins and crispy notes.
Cost of creating that money would be soo high, much more than just printing it out in a mint large scale. And what about the money that is just keyed into accounts by banks ?
It has no kind of paper or metal banking , just a number quickly typed in , effortlessly transferred @ no cost @ all. (i mean actual cost of creating the money not the value of one unit of it )
Infact if we started using edible nuts as money , they would grow on trees. They are just far more expensive than the money we use today ( one of the reasons y its not considered for use as money)
Ultimately, point i make is Money has no value of its own , Its value is derived mainly cos its accepted as legal tender for goods and services. If the govt were to print a lot of crispy notes today and give it away to all the poor, ultimately it would just lose its value and result in sky high prices for all , no better condition for the poor.
Ya i knw its just a saying , shouldn't be interpreted too literally. I'm just trying to say, what may appear to us to be a state of euphoric bliss , may just be a predecessor to pandemonium.

is there a roark in all of us ?

Ayn Rand's Fountain head- naa i didnt finish the book. I put it down , got started on my study oriented project,on currency areas ( And switched to pointless surfing on the net)
Thats what i am expected to do , stick to deadlines , exams , reports, labs, presentations,
not read , learn , explore.
Is there a Howard Roark in all of us ? struggling for expression ? To move away from all the constraints , paths fixed by the society.
Are we just following a well laid road, leaving the rest of the countryside unexplored ?
Where will this road lead us ? After all, ultimately to the grave.
No its not pessimism , just a thought, if its going to be just one journey, why take the beaten path. The end is the same , without doubt . The joy is the journey . The joy is in exploring. why worry about where a way less traveled will lead us to ultimately ?
The journey is life, not the destination.

Tonight at three I pray,
Oh lord dont show me the way,
help me blaze a trail
to a land where no1 has set sail


Ps: thoughts @ 3am in the night are usually dismissed as junk after a good night's sleep

The Jaundiced Eye

Man, the past couple of weeks have been absolute hell for me , started out with a really bad fever . Life was like writhing in pain in an unending inferno, which threatened to make me go insane. Misdiagnosed @ BITS as some viral infection due to some pathetic blood reports , i was put on some of the meanest antibiotics, unknowingly i was killing my already damaged liver ( poor thing) . Despite misgivings i had to let my parents knw, and of course whn the fever wudnt come down, mom did. So mom came to goa to take care of gow. Till then , i was kept alive due to excellent care by my two wunnerful frienz.. pavi n vaish.. lil angels they are, thnx 4 saving my life !

neway .. mom's coming brought solace , the fever started coming down , but the nausea never stopped, further blood samples showed varying liver enzyme levels but the damn biliruben the one compound which would indicate jaundice remained low, confusin and scarin the hell out of all and sundry, wtf was wrong with me ?? ultra sound reports were normal.. neway it was decided tht i shud fly home . so i hopped on to an indian airlines flight to chennai , early jan mornin.. as yellow as the ripest mango in chennai's hot summer , ( still no diagnosis of jaundice ) lol ,I was the sickest lookin thing in the flight , god knws how i sat thru it , hair dirty and matted , it looked like.. thnx to budget airlines et al , beggars are now flying :))

In chennai , after a quick consult with a family doc , I went into the apollo emergency , heavily dehydrated and liver enzymes spiking (though i didnt knw it yet ) . 10 bottles of painful iv later, i could finally feel a lil alive again. Tests finally confirmed hepatitis A . The doctor was a cute and jovial man , he brought solace by behaving like nothin was wrong with me @ all , and i wud be up and about in no time. " Have Biriyani if u wish " , he would say with a sly smile
then the acidity started , cos i hadnt had solids for weeks , the stomach acids gushed into the esophagus like the joyful waters of an open dam.. DAMN! My chest burnt like...i cud actually sing beedi jalale .. jigar ma badi aag hai :P .. heavy antacid tablets , syrups and shots later.. i was fine again.

Today i was discharged, after 7 long painful days, hail those sisters who took care of me all along , I always feel nurses shud b treated as equals with doctors, esp in India where dignity of labour has taken a bad beating since the days of manu...

Neway i was standing at Apollo , waitin for the car to drive me home , i got dizzy due to xtreme fatigue, i was wonderin y am i here, far away frm goa , where i shud be , my studies , college activities , my work for quark all taken a beating, how will i catch up ?? what about the tasteless diet i have 2 follow ??
Then i saw a bit of the blue sky outside, it had been a week since i had seen it last , 2 since i had noticed it. I smiled. The sky was the same calm blue , the good things were still waiting for me , jus the same , though i wasn't aware of it. My life @ goa , is still there, like the sky , waiting. The same with good food.

Sometimes we fall during a race , we scrape our knee , but then we get up and look up and see the sky, it may be a while before we catch up , but its worth it. After all, those who look just ahead , may never look above.

hibernation done

k ppl , those who jus cant blv it.. its true , its happening !!!! Gowri Thampi is writing another blog entry. Dunno y , maybe it's contstant reminders (and threats) from frienz.. but i now seriously feel that the time for the resurrection of blog has finally come. :P

and for now ppl all i hav to say is i hav wrked my fkin ass off , on Optimus , Corporate event of QUARK - 2008 ( Quark is the techfest of BITS Pilani - GOA campus , this time in association with Cognizant , Thermax, Cypress Semiconductors ) , so if neone is actually reading this blog, they must do me yet another favor by registering for the event , solving the caselets that will be up soon and then come to goa and party yoyoyoyo... 15,000 cash up for grabs !!! Workshop by Reuters on specific aspects of finance , it doesn't get better than this people , so wat are u waiting for ???? go to http://www.bits-quark.org and click on optimus under corporate, with tht i leave for yet another optimus meeting . Adios

the damn test thing is over

thats it.. i am done with test1.. though i F**ked up real bad.. its over , its gone , its history , its no more.. i jus need to cremate the papers when they arrive and give them a decent funeral... but the prob is test scores never become obsolete .. they have an everlasting memorial (cgpa); btw that sux too...

Anyway i had a really gr8 time today.. 8 of us gals shooted off to vasc0-da-gama ( jus plain old vasco)... on the way to the zari bus stop we saw a dead dog on the hi way.. its guts spread out on the road.. not a pretty sight.. but it reminded me of a tragedy that occured @ my alma mater - psbb - a month ago ( i am diverting here.. not talking abt my gr8 time for a while)

some of the school kidz were hangin out @ anad bakery ( ab was a fav hangout and i miss it) after some iit class.. when they noticed that the bus th@ they had to catch home was rollin in.. the hurried dash across the road cost 2 guys their lives.. left 2 girls seriously injured.. god bless their innocent souls and give their parents the strength to live .. is all i can say. The usually footloose Ms Gowri was xtra cautious on the road today

The bus ride to vasco is a fascinating experience.. that really takes u places ( ya well literaly too it does) .. the jam packed crowd.. the smell of alcohol, fish .. a conductor whose whistle sounds like a horn and a horn that sounds like a whistle, the cheap lipstick , trinkets on local women ,it takes u down to what india really is , the real heart & soul of it... i love the way the bus twists and turns around as newton's laws takes a heavy toll on the sardines (oops passengers)

@ Vasco we did the usual stuff.. temptations , goodyland .. eat like pigs.. went to a t-shirt shop .. threw everythin around( drove the guy crazy) and dint buy a thing.. lol..
We tried getting Anu's shoe repaired by a roadside cobbler.. but he was too drunk.. so we had a good laugh and left with the torn shoes

The ride back home ( hostel) was in an auto..5 of us.. with pavi on my lap..vaish mentioned the latest tamil movie ( vetteyadu villayadu) was on the hub ... rite now pavi's tryin to download it.. may watch it tonite :)

Thus life goes on after a stupid test... the sc , sac are full again , couples back under lamposts... and int he hostels...ppl are back in the common room.. browsin the net , logging on to dc++ ,watchin tv, readin mags.. the eerie silence th@ flooded the corridoors replaced with loud music.. i think even the 10ps are taking a break.. lol

I think i'll sleep thru the morn tomorrow.. never hav cared much abt classes.. got damn phys mt.. havent drawn a single graph for the past 3 exps.. hope i can slip away tomorrow.. else 'let him give me the () i desreve .. :)) .. too tired to care..

anyway ciao again ...
i luv life !!!!!
GOwRi

ok i have been ignorin this blog 4 a while... cos of two reasons

1) we were driven out of our hostel, forced to shift to a our present substandard residence which means no lan
2) the busy bitsian life
anyway the week since i joined campus for the 3rd sem- i landed here only two hear the dreaded words - " we're shifting " the chaos and confusion which followed cant be described well in words.. we were a group of tired, angry and muddled gals.. tryin to make ourself at home in a new hostel jus behind the mess!!!!! yuck!!


the juniors got an opportunity to laugh @ us ( many would regret it later) and we learnt many lessons in life.. abt helping each other and getting seemingly impossible tasks done solely by the merit of team work

ofcourse those who came with their parents had a better time.. same cud be said for the ones with steady bfs.

after the chaos of shiftin.. i got my time table substandard again with sk sahay for cp tut .. however the number of tuts had decreased to 1 per week givin me substantial free time... i therefore decided on an elective - ' Symbolic Logic ' hope i do it well more in l8er posts!!

the 1st

I promise to think of more creative names for my future posts...if there are any...lol....i am not a very patient person... neither am i systematic or organised.

Started this blog as a personal space for me to rant... dont care abt who reads it or who dusnt read it ..so its gonna b just as cluttered and chaotic as my room and my mind...

i am jus this very very ordinary 18 yr old girl.. my ordinaryness borders on xtraordinary!!!
pjs apart .. i am this really confused person who is gonna ( in a few days time) start of her 2nd yr @ bits-pilani , goa campus ... ( studyin econ and eee) xtra-ordinary combo brought about by my very ordinary bitsat score... anyway... a 2.5 month long holiday comes to an end in a few days time... maybe thats wat made me start of with this blog... taking solace in the internet jungle which for me is a virtual home as cluttered and messed up as my solid one...

so saying i start of with my blog.. which may not survive for more than a few days.. or it might... jus might... have a long and healthy life as my companion.. to all those who try to read this (not expecting any @ all) ... srisly there r bttr wayz to kill time..