2008 August « Quarter Past Seven

City Lights

As a part of my “duty”, I have to go to each girl’s room in my hostel and take attendance. When I do that every week, I spend the longest time on the 11th floor. That’s because I can see the lights of the city from that floor.

I love city lights. I love standing on over head bridges and looking at cars with bright headlights coming towards me and going away from me. I love looking at far away buildings that are matchbox-like HDB buildings by the day but turn into what look like a thousand chandeliers by the night. Everything looks different. Just different.

Sometimes when I am up late rushing a report or a proposal for the next day, I stop for a few minutes, stand next to my window and watch the traffic lights go red from green and back to red. Perfectly on time, unaffected by the absence of any traffic on the road. Sometimes I try to find a melody in the relentless switching of traffic lights, I try to imagine a certain song that the world might be trying to set itself to.

I like that silence. That is one moment when my brain switches off and forgets all the pending lab reports and tutorials, proposals and student testimonials, tickets to sell and next rehearsal dates. I think it’s good to blank out your brain sometimes. It brings me calm and makes me realize the value of silence in my otherwise chaotic and over-worked life.

On being a champion

August 12, 2008 at 11:04 pm | In Engineering | 7 Comments
Tags: celebration, personal

You remember how when you were young and you could finish a math problem before everyone else in the class? You remember the feeling you got when the teacher gave you a star and a smiley face when you took your notebook to her? When the people who got it wrong came to you to ask how you managed to solve the question? When you explained your answer to them politely while thinking aye-haye-isko-to-itna-bhi-nahi-aata to yourself? When doing that small stupid addition problem made you feel like you had the world at your feet? Do you remember that feeling?

I had the same feeling again, today.

I hereby declare myself the champion of soldering.

Week One: Fried Brain

August 11, 2008 at 3:13 pm | In Angst, Engineering | 5 Comments
Tags: life, sigh

After trying to get things back in order during week zero, I was looking forward to school starting asap. First week is always fun. Everyone is back from home, fresh and ready for the semester. The air is filled with the usual gossip about who lost weight and who didn’t, who went places and who chilled at home. Everyone has gotten their sleep, and everyone is talking about partying.

Everything is ‘the usual’. The usual people, the usual chaos, the usual lazyness and the usual excitement to see everyone again. The usual ‘catching up’ lunches and dinners, the usual who-changed-hair-style discussions. The usual happy faces. The usual freshmen and the usual seniors on the prowl for freshmen. Good days, sigh.

In the midst of ‘the usual’ things happening, I stagger into the lecture theatre with tired, sleep-deprived eyes. My friends think I need therapy. But when you wake up at 4am to work on a proposal, reach office at 9, go for a project briefing at 10, try to figure out the fourth groupmate for the 6 credit project course, get back for a meeting at 12, grab a quick bite at 1, rush to the post office at 2, fix up a dance rehearsal for 6 pm, and come back to office to a brand new email that says ‘meeting at 9 pm today’, there’s no way you can react. Because your brain is fried.