V-Rod

Yesterday i actually saw the V-Rod while driving home. 2 superbikes infact, driving together, near Coles Park....


One of the bikes was a Ducati Monster (i've seen this one quite a few times on the roads, so there must be a few in Bangalore), though it really didn't do much for me since the Monster is quite old (90's) and moreover i don't fancy the whole Naked Bike-look anyway.


But the V-Rod....whoa! I never thought i'd see a Harley Davidson on Indian Roads, so the V-Rod was really awesome. You really have to see the engine! It's phenomenal! Huge chrome everywhere and a incredibly THICK rear wheel! No trademark sound though....thanks to the bloody Monster idiot who drowned out the V-Rod.

Anyway, if you haven't seen the V-Rod, here are 2 pics....and if you have, here are 2 pics.

Rocking around the Christmas tree.....

X'mas this time was really fantastic! Well, Christmas-eve to be exact.... This time the party was at my place, so being home alone for X'mas turned out to be a super thing! The guys descended on home-sweet-empty-home at around 7pm, and proceeded to go progressively insane till the wee hours of the night.

Though the party was a tad slow initially, we were in high-spirits real soon..in no small part due to the intercession of my favourite holy man- the Old Monk from Mohan Meakin, who did his job flawlessly after 7years of hermitage in a cask. Also deserving accolades for its role in fuelling the party- The Pig; that martyred itself to provide Vindaloo for the sake of 12 famished dentists....


The grumpy neighbours shut up and put up too, which was a pleasant surprise. (Maybe we got them grooving inside their homes...after all we were playing some pretty dinchak music!)


Aqua vitae flowed, shirts came off, we swore by our friendships everytime we crashed into someone, someone threw up, someone took pictures, someone danced, someone shouted, someone got senti, someone watched my mpeg collection, everyone had a sexy time. By the time it we wound up, we were all just a bunch of phenomenally happy guys with glazed eyes and delayed reaction times....good vibes all around! Really, an X'mas (eve) i'll remember.


God bless the baker's at Thoms for their excellent Plum Cake!
God bless the distillers at United Breweries for their outstanding firewater!
God bless my liver for working extra-hard to spare me from a hangover!

Internship!

Alternatively titled: The past 2 months

Finally i'm an House-surgeon! A bonafide, genuine, authentic one. It's been a back breaking journey so far... lets hope there's truth in the saying "The best steel passes thorough the hottest fires".



NOVEMBER:

Internship began and my first rotation was in K.C General Hospital, Malleshwaram. What an awesome posting to begin with- close to home, enter upto 45mins late, leave 30mins early, interesting work, nice people and a totally cool Staff Doctor to oversee our work. We couldn't have had it better. Our seniors, the outgoing batch of Housies were posted with us too, and they kind of 'handed over' things to us. And thank god they were around- they were at the end of a full year of clinical-rotations and always knew exactly what to do when. Their presence was very reassuring and it allowed us to build up our own confidence levels to 'intern-level'. I've now realized that being an Intern is all about having faith in your own abilities...do the same thing old thing, but do it with confidence. Although, its scary as hell when youre testing out your abilities for the first time.



DECEMBER:

I'm currently posted in the Dept. of Operative Dentistry Endodontics, also known as 'Conserv' (U.G speak) or 'Endo' (P.G speak). No seniors now to help us. Since only so few of us came out of the end of the Final Year pipe, there are only 2 of us to a single batch....when a usual Inter-batch has a minimum of 4 Interns. So me and my permanent batch-mate, Gunjan, are doing double the work that an Intern Batch usually would in the same time. We're sweating blood. But we're learning loads. Thankfully, our efforts aren't in vain; people are aware that we are are working sincerely. At the end of a hard day...i swear to you, it feels great to be exhausted!

Coming Soon

Currently working on a better blog.....Coming soon.
Just let me get some time...and i'll surprise you.
(Call it a new-year resolution or something....it'll happen.)
Regards,
Dinesh

Pune Trip

So i got back from my Pune-trip a few days back.





I had a really "wholesome"-holiday there!





a photo of Parwati Lake...what is now the Parwati Darshan area


There is a distinctly different vibe to the city....totally unlike Bangalore. Or maybe like the Bangalore of old- when Banagalore WAS still a 'Pensioners Paradise'.

Anyway Pune has its own sobriquet- 'Oxford of the East'. And its a moniker thats completely valid... coz it a SUCH a YOUNG-CITY! I mean it...It's like a Lord Of The Flies scene!

Whereever you look there's young-people.... And i dont mean chunnu-munnu's and age-29-not-old-by-oldies-standards-but-not-young-by-teen-standards crowd.... i mean College-going, Midriff-baring, Goatee-sporting 20-somethings.

The place is full of them...i mean...full of us!

(A few more praise posts on Pune coming up....)










pune university uilding










st.pauls church..still stands today shaniwarwada...peshwa dynasty

Last Class Trip. Missed!

I am going to miss my class-trip.

I can’t believe my timing…Neither can my friends

When I told some of my close friends that I wouldn’t be making it coz I was going out-station the same day as the trip, many of them just laughed.

And when I assured them that I wasn’t kidding, they laughed even more. They think I’m joking.
They’re like: “Who will miss the trip- You? Hah-hah, we know you’re coming.”

You see, I’m always counted-in - by default. Any head-count and I get counted-in automatically, and THEN asked later.

So if/when I have to refuse, this is what happens- I get disbelief.

Which makes the "saying-“-sorry-I’m-not-coming-”-experience even more bitter for me. This is what happened today.

I already felt like crap for not being able to make it to the trip, but when I finally told people I wasn’t going, I got incredulity and doubt…It was assumed I was coming anyway. Slit skin, insert salt, rub…

But this class-trip is a bit more significant than the others- It JUST MIGHT be my batch’s last trip together. Sure, the guys will go to Goa once, but it isn’t the same as having the entire class along.

Once the results are out, I can already see people rushing headlong into Internship. The studious ones will start their PG-entrance-exam preparations, many will join practitioners as assistants, a few will arse about…. a few won’t even make it into Internship! But Interns are Interns…(and Repeaters are Repeaters) and those left out of Internship for 6months will get no sympathy- life will just rolllll on.

There’s another reason why I so badly longed…YEARNED…to go on this trip. You see, I don’t really see myself passing all my papers this time... (something I have no problem admitting as such). And once the results are out, most of my batch is going to carry straight on, with a ho-hum, into Internship, while I get left behind till March.

…and “Before-Results” is going to be the only time that I will be seen as an equal amongst classmates. “After-Results”, well…it’s the reason I want to go on this trip with my entire batch, before the results come.

(PS: Arrrgh! Life is going to be unforgiving- It’s frustrating at times to know this and still be helpless…..Shit, this is kind of ‘negative’ blogging that a missed class-trip brings on! Hope my bad mojo doesn’t stick!)

(PS2: There's a song which comes to mind now...a Kenny Rogers number: "You Picked a fine time to leave me Lucille..." hehe)

A short story i wrote yesterday....

G.O.C= General Officer Commanding, a very very high ranking officer in the Army, who usually heads an entire Corps or a enitre Command sector...usually of the rank of Lieutenant General or a Major General.
Flag Staff House= The residence of the G.O.C is traditionally called Flagstaff House.
Captain= The juniormost rank (Outside of the Academy- where the Officer is comissioned, and within which he wears the rank of Lieutenant)
Patiala= You dont know THIS???? Fugg off and educate yourself here. It's a nice story about the Patiala Peg!
Lidocaine= A local-anaesthetic your dentist gives you, usually as an injection.
Anyway, here goes....

QUITE AN IMPRESSION

A shadowy figure padded its way through Flagstaff House making its way to the cabinet that held the foreign scotch. A Patiala was hurriedly poured and gulped down. The glass nestled in the clammy hands of a man who had spent a lifetime marshalling anxious subordinates around, and who was now deeply distressed that he could not marshal his own anxieties.

A few more sips later, and considerably less anxious, he remembered a trusted maxim from his days in the Academy- ‘The best defense is a good offense’. Indeed, the figure thought, tomorrow, an impression would be made. He would show who was Alpha Male.

Hardly a furlong away, Srini’s roommate walked in to find him sitting amidst by a sea of books. The G.O.C was coming, he was told, and that Captain Srinivas hoped to make a favorable impression on the big man.

The next morning, the G.O.C was received at the steps of the Dental Center and briskly escorted to the office for tea and snacks. It would help, thought Capt. Srinivas, to establish a congenial Patient-Doctor relationship.

“No time, No time…Lets get down to the deed right away.” the GOC declared. Immediately, he was escorted into Surgery-I, and made comfortable in the Dental Chair.

“I’m just going to give you a small shot sir, it shouldn’t hurt at all.” Capt. Srinivas said cheerily.

“I should certainly hope not.” the G.O.C informed him.

The injection loaded with local-anesthetic trembled slightly in the Captain’s hand. After a deep breath, he proceeded to administer the Lidocaine.

The G.O.C merely grunted and calmly closed his eyes.

“I’d prefer it if you kept your eyes open, sir, it helps to gauge reaction.” Capt. Srinivas said, a bit warily.

There was no response and the eyes shut even tighter.

Injection finished, the Captain moved to pick up the new pair of German Forceps he had had rushed in.

The G.O.C opened his eyes wide this time, stared at the polished steel and quietly reverted to his mother tongue.

A shudder passed through the Captain’s thin frame.

A few deft rotations later, a bit of traction and the tooth was out. Like a proud father, Captain Srinivas held up the bloodied forceps holding an equally bloody molar in its beaks, covered with bits of tissue and a few spicules of bone, for the G.O.C to see. It was precisely at this point that things began to go rapidly downhill.

The G.O.C took one look at the gore being thrust towards him and fought back a fresh wave of nausea and decided the best thing to do was to go ahead and faint. A few moments later Captain Srinivas burst out of the surgery and told the Attendant, “I think I’ve made the G.O.C unconscious.” And then promptly collapsed.

15mins later, in the Recovery Room, both the G.O.C and Captain Srinivas gazed at each other solemnly from neighboring beds. Neither spoke, but both were united in thought.

They had, each realized, made quite an impression on the other.

By,
Dinesh Francis

B'lore- boom/bust?

Bangalore today is on this upward spiral largely because of IT.
The cosmopolitan flavor is largely due the massive influx of techies into the city…hundreds upon hundreds of Software Engineers descend on the city every month.
And Bangalore absorbs them all…

”2BHK, Running Water, Tiled flooring, Exorbitant Rent included”…sure, it’ll get lapped right up; the company’s paying for it!

One need only drive along Sarjapur Road, or Airport Road, or Whitefield, or whatever-halli to realize that a there is a new Bangalore coming up in the hinterland of Bangalore. Apartment complexes soar skyward, clustered like concrete warriors on either side of the road. They are occupied by the hyper-nuclear families of Bangalore: Single child, Double-income, Multi-lingual, Poly-cultural households, who pay upwards of 25lakhs for their humble abodes.

If Bangalore was once a svelte woman, it has now assumed the features of double-chinned, blubbery biped. Instead of maintaining a core city-area, with a central-business-district, the city balloons outward rapidly, reportedly at the rate of a Kilometer-A-Day! What was once a compact city-district, is now urban-sprawl. The cities planners have failed hopelessly to bring a semblance of order to the city’s growth, and thus unchecked construction continues, with a peripheral bearing, rather than central city.

Why people continue to use the byname “Garden City” perplexes me... Greenery exists, I do acknowledge, within the old city-limits, and that too is gradually getting replaced by concrete-jungle. While in the outskirts of the city, there is no greenery to speak of. Manicured lawns within apartment complexes do not constitute leafage. The outskirts of the city are dusty, treeless places. Only the overgrown shrubs in the odd empty-plot of land remain.

That the city is bursting at it seams is all too evident from a drive along the cities roads. Disposable salaries fuel automotive spending, and the frequent traffic jams are a testament to this. The roads are bad, and narrow, and the constricted fly-over’s that are offered as the solution hardly suffice. The Traffic Police too is chronically understaffed - Bangalore has the worst ratio of Police-personnel per 1000 of population, and is consequently hopelessly ineffective.

The Standard-of-Living in the city has reached stratospheric proportions…what was once considered a ‘pensioners-paradise’ is now a high-priced city. Loose purse-strings go hand-in-hand with good time and “Well-heeled is Wel-come” seems to be the message every shop shouts out.

Its turning ugly fast, and to arrest mutation of Bangalore something needs to be done…and quick.

Collective Chaos - the muted adventure.

Ok, I finally have finished my exams. My last exam was yesterday. Since our class takes the exams as 2 batches on 2 consecutive days, there isn’t really any point celebrating on the 1st day since half the class still hasn’t finished.

So, for want of something to do in the evening, I decided to go checkout Collective Chaos. Now CC, is part-forum for budding young filmmakers, part-film-society which arranges weekly screenings of alternative cinema. How I know this? Because its on the website… beyond that, I know nothing. I first learnt about it on the college bulletin-board, and was told it was a nice place to go if one liked art-movies etc…and that further details could be obtained ‘at-venue’.

Also, CC is on Millers Road…really quite close to home. And the weekly screening is on a Friday, a day I usually find myself quite bored in the evenings anyway. I’ve been putting off a check-out-visit for a long time now, and I decided it would be a nice tension-release after the exam.


So yesterday I went to CC. I walked into the Cinematheque…it’s on the 5th floor. I’m 10mins late and so I’m not surprised to see a lone guard sitting near the door, and no one else around. I confirm I’m at the right place and walk on in.

The show must’ve started and that’s why there’s no one around, I figure. So I walk past the heavy sound proof doors and enter a smaller-than-expected auditorium. The lights are off and there’s a overhead projector on, playing a foreign-language movie with English sub-titles.

So, I take a seat. There are people all around me engrossed in the movie, but the glow off the screen isn’t enough to make out any details. I’m trying to make out the company I’m in….young/old? College/working? Serious/informal? I can’t make out anything, so I stop staring out of the corner of my eyes and pay attention to the screen.


The movie is called “Blackboards”, and is about a teacher who carries his blackboard with him everywhere, high in the Afghan mountains, persuading the boys who run the illegal paths through the mountains to Iraq to smuggle contraband to let him teach them. They’re obviously disinterested.

It’s a bleak landscape, and plenty of gallows humor. Still no one watching laughs, mumbles or says anything. It’s really weird. No one talks. No cell phones going off. No one getting up in between. Nothing.

Then suddenly the movie is over. The kids get shot as they’re crawling amidst a large flock of wooly sheep past the border guard. Still nothing. No shocked gasps. No whispers to the neighbour. There’s a pause. Then people start getting up and leaving.

No one’s talking much. People move out in groups of 2’s and 3’s. Outside, the volume is not much higher than it was inside. People quietly read the circular about next weeks movie, and move off.

The whole experience was absolutely surreal…like one of those weird dreams when things only ‘happen’ and no one talks. Like an out-of-body experience. I walked away feeling a bit numbed by the whole thing.

It was such a weird experience that I’m going back next week.

The 1st Years Chronicles/KU64 Review

A new batch of juniors has unceremoniously been inducted into the Bachelor’s programme at my college even as I write my final exams finishing 4 years at Dental-School.

Watching them troop down from one lecture hall to the other; they walk around the corridors, unsure of themselves, looking this way and that, eagerly absorbing the sights of a busy teaching-college.

Only yesterday, it seems, I too was one of them, just a “plus-two-pass”, eager and excited to begin the next big phase of my life. I can’t help but be envious of them.

It’s almost comical when they cross us in the corridors. While most of them fail to make the distinction between Patient and Senior, a few of them are already vaguely conscious of a hierarchy they are a part of…and they indicate this awareness by developing an uncomfortable stiffness as they cross us. Plus shifty eyes, and quickened pace. Nothing could delight us more.

KU64

It isn't a movie about a mystery airplane. It isn't a crack commando regiment. It isn't a super-secret molecule that can kill millions. It isn't a map-reference to a hidden bunker. It isn't a elite spy's code-name. It isnt a German U-Boat.

It's a Dental Clinic.
Make that, The World's Coolest Dental Clinic.
And its in Germany.

So, Maybe a dentist with some secret fascination with WW-II submarines decided to name his clinic KU-64?
Not really, it's named after its Kurfursendam address in Berlin.


Check out some pics of the place. The whole place is about 'light, space, freedom'...and YELLOW!

Here you combine dental treatment with a luxurious relaxing spa-retreat...

And relax in a 10,180-square-feet spread.......(Must be easy to get lost!!!)

It accommodates 8-fuck-lucky-dentists at one time...

Who probably treat beautiful hotties...all day long.

LUCKY BUMS!

Insert Holy Foot in Blessed Mouth!

REALLY REALLY REALLY FAST REPORTING!!



Regensburg, Germany- International superstar Pope Benedict the 16th, has gone AWOL!
To a sleepy university audience, he purred; and i quote: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman."

Interestingly , this was a quote itself.... from a 14th century Byzantine dude, Manuel II Paleologos- who apparently rapped 'most excellently' - on holy war.
(Clearly aware of the topic's sensitivity, he mumbled, "I quote," twice before pronouncing the phrases on Islam, as if to only use someELSE's words. DID NOT WORK!)

Traditionally, Popes rarely speak out on events not related to the country being visited. TRADITIONALLY...Popes dont speak out much at all!!! Bit like Baywatch extras, these Popes.

Even during his current visit to his home-country, Germany, the Pope prayed privately for the 9/11 victims inspite of all the headlines surrounding its 5th anniversary. The Pontiff stuck to his itinerary and prepared texts, staying mum on Islamic terrorism....and then went and made some decidedly non-politically correct things about Muhammad.

Guess who clapped for the Pope's speech....the Al-Qaeda member sitting in the audience! Hehehe.

Oh yeah...trust the Paki's to arse-up things...Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson, Taslim Aslam says that the Pope proved his "ignorance" on Islam and that Muslims were "the founders of science in general". HELLO! UNCONNECTED TOPIC?!!



SPEAKING OF CONTROVERSY, here are some the infamous cartoons carried by the Danish mag Jyllands Posten Denmark...



















WHO HAS ARSED ABOUT ON SIMILAR THEMES???? BUSH!!!



...With his "Mandate of Heaven" for the Iraq-occupation!!!



...And his "God wanted me to be President" nonsense!!!








Oh, here's a joke which really cracked me up...

A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months. One day, he motioned for her to come nearer. As she sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, "You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you stayed right here. When my health started failing, you were still by my side. . . . You know what?"

"What dear?" she asked gently.

"I think you're bad luck. Get the fuck away from me."

My Luck is a Hoover....It Sucks!

I just gave my Oral Surgery clinical exam…it went okayish.

And then I went and screwed myself.

Post-Exam, a couple of my friends, who had finished our viva’s went to the Canteen to do the post-exam post-mortem of how the exam had been for us and for the batch in general, how the External-examiner had turned out to be, how much the internal-had actually helped us, etc, etc...

We leisurely finished our grub and made our way back to the College, and I decided to clean up my locker, which was looking a bit messed up from the past week of exams.

Suddenly, two of the guys I had to gone to the Canteen with, and who are also my locker-neighbors, came running from the ground floor, with worried expressions on their faces.

“She knows what we’ve been talking about, man!!!”

“What?...Who?”

“She…”

“Ya, I don’t know how, da, but SHE KNOWS…she just shouted at us.”

“Shit!.............Are you sure?????”

“Yes, yes, we just GOT ITT from her!”

“What did she day?!”

“She said you’re not even Interns yet and this is how you behave!!!”

“Shit.”

“She’s calling all of us.”

“Oh Fuck.”

“Oye….Have the marks been sent?”

“I think they’re still deciding…”

“Fuckkk.” (2 voices simultaneously)

“What were we saying da????!!!”

“We’re Fucked man, Fucked.”

“What were we saying DAA????!!!”

“Shit…I was saying ‘mangalore’ and all”

“I hope she didn’t hear me!”

“Go fuck yourself…she heard everything.”

“Shit, I said ‘unfair bitch’ daa!!!”

“Uhhhhhhhh…….Maga!!!!”

“Maga…we’re fucked!”

“Shit...why did we sit there man.”

“Are you sure she’s not normal-angry?”

“Aye, she just SHOUTED at us man!!!...She said ‘come after 6months’”

“FUCK!”

“Yeah- FUCK only!”

“Come lets go meet her.”

“Faaaaaaaak maaaaaaan”

“Tcha!”

“We’re screwed na?”

“Yeah.”

"Shit."

"Fuck."

(EDIT: I re-read this article and realized there's nothing to suggest the setting in which this took place, so here it is:)
Our canteen is right behind the corridor lining the HOD's chambers, and the Oral Surg HOD's chamber opens right into the very corner of the canteen where we were sitting.

We had finished our viva and were sitting there. And they were inside hosting lunch for the external! Luckily our voices didn't carry much beyond the window....noone IN the room heard it, except our prof who was standing near the window itself. And we weren't talking very nice things about her!

We were summoned by her later and she gave us a piece of her mind....and we apologized profusely. Thankfully, we hadn't mentioned names so we palmed it off as if we were talking about another prof...(lol) which pacfied her a bit. And luckily I had only been asking the questions about her... all the dirt came from the others who were answering me.

Still, total tension till the results came!!!

Fudging

My 1st RCT!...and oh yes- I love fudging!

I finished downloading the "James Blunt: Back to Bedlam" album yesterday....frikking awesome.
Theres a neat page which allows has .rar links to individual songs (nifty if you cant down the album in 1 large file)...try them if you like.

Tear & Rain
Billy
Wisemen
So Long Jimmy
Out Of My Mind
High
No Bravery

...My favourites songs from the album (in decending order).

...Theres Cultural Week coming up in GDC, and i plan to participate in a whole lotta events.
I'm gonna try the DDos strategy...swarm the server and you might bring it down...participate in as many events as you can (with a reasonable level of competence, of course)..and you might land a few certificates. I might as well make the most of the last 2 years of life as an undergrad.

I did my VERY FIRST RCT (RootCanalTherapy/Treatment) today...its really easy!!! I was expecting a tough-as-hell procedure.... but my patient actually dozed off! If the guy was actually relaxed enough to doze off, inspite of a handpiece drilling away into his tooth right in front of his eyes, then altough it might sound stoopid, but i'm considering it a high compliment. Whoopee! Tomorrow i determining the working-length of the canal, and will do the bio-mechanical-prep.

In another news, i wrote my 1st Internal Examination of Oral Surgery- an exam invigilated by the PostGraduate-freshers of the MaxFax dept.....just 1 year senior to us and just learning their way around GDC. We walked all over them...

There was a collective sigh of relief when the faculty-member gave us the question-paper and then left, leaving the pappu's in charge...3 of them. Right away i pulled out my notes and started checking out what i didn't know. The best that one of them (the "principled-turd" of the 3, i've decided) could come up was "Put your book away!- Ask around, but at the very least dont cheat from THE BOOK!!!". So i put it away- for some time. Later, i was passed a chit that had the Classification of Cysts on it, when he came up behind me and took it away. Moja-Farjer! In my mind a giant hand opened the 2nd floor window and gently flicked him through it. The other 2 guys were OK, and gave us all "aww-okay-we've-done-it-too-and-we-sympathise-so-cheat-away-besides-we're-new-here-and-we-dont-want-to-be-marked-out-as-bastards-by-the-student-community-just-yet" smiles. We returned "thanks-for-letting-us-cheat-dudes-and-we-know-you-need-us-on-your-sides-so-dont-throw-your-weight-around-understand-and-we'll-be-all-right-chum" smiles right back at them.

I think i'll pass, thanks to them, unless they cross-check my paper with what the guy next to me wrote, hehe!

Review: The DaVinci Code

Da Vinci Code!


I went and saw the Da Vinci Code yesterday- 1st day 2nd show. (The bastards had already done 2snips, as far as i could detect, anyway..)
Anyway, the guy who play's Silas- Paul Bettany is really creepy! Couple of excellent jump-in-your-seat moments too- this considering that MOST of the audience, like me, had read the novel before and knew exactly what to expect, and when. I think it actually heightened the experience...coz whenever anything was to happen, i was on edge well before it actually did. Tom dada looks podgy- he's done better work before.
And i SO wish Kate Beckingsale had played Sophie, not Audrey Tautou. She was considered and lost out in Casting. You would agree it was a mistake too...see. and here. and HERE. and HERE. and HERRE. Oh BTW, Audrey Tautou's dad is a Dentist!

Trivia: Officials from Britain's Westminster Abbey refused to allow filming to take place in the Abbey, claiming that the book is "theologically unsound". Instead, the filming took place at Lincoln Cathedral in eastern England.

The whole theatre was filled with 20-somethings....and when the opening sequence to the movie started there sound of cheers & hoots was Really loud! Good stuff...especially when the girl sitting in front of you isn't wearing a bra and has a short hot-pink top cut halfway down to her belly button!!!

Monster Protest
There is going to be one BIG mother of a protest on Sunday...check this site for details: Savebrandindia.org Youth4equality.org

The govt. might change its mind after all, if things go on like this.

Even more Quota thoughts

Flaws in the Mandal Commission Report:

• Flaw1: Obsolete Figures
  
• Figures on which the Mandal Commision's reports were based date back to the 1931 census(!!) report.
• Why?
• Because, beyond 1931, the National Census was not carried you along Caste lines. So a 1979 survey used pre-independance data.
  
• So?
• This renders the current implementation of these proposals as illogical and unreasonable.
  

• Flaw2: OBC's? What OBC's!
• The Mandal Commission mistook the Backward Classes and created an artificial group called OBC's.
• So?
• Despite the incompleteness of the data, the study, the analysis the commission grouped some 3700 castes as OBC's and recommended 27% reservation of educational seats and Govt. jobs.
• Huh?
• This unstructured and un-scientific study ended up including some of the most powerful and prosperous castes as OBS: the Yadavs of U.P & Bihar, the Meenas of Haryana & Rajasthan, the Kurmis & Koeris of U.P and, the Telugu Chettiars of A.P & Karnataka.. the Vokkaligas and Gowda's of Karnataka. (complete list here)
  

• Flaw3: OBC's are WHAT percentage?!!!!
• There is no definitive demographic evidence of the percentage that OBC's constitute.
• What?
• These are all official Govt. figures:
  
• Mandal Commission: 52% (after a 2yr investigation: 1st Jan 1979 to 30th Dec 1980)
  
• National Family & Health Survey: 29.8%
• National Sample Survey Organization: 32%....(Latest)
• So?
• The latest figures (NSSO figures) show that 23.5% of all Univ. seats are already with OBC's...just 8.5% lesser than the NSSO's OBC-calculation.
• Huh?
• So what this means is that, all the current attempt to increase quotas will only be to compensate for the 8% left out. This would be classic over-representation.

But I felt bad??!

Things i found funny today:

The CNN IBN Rakhi Savant Interview:
Interviewer: Do you think the songs you do are vulgar?
Rakhi Sawant: NO! Jo log uss nazar sey dekhe hain unhe vulgar lagta hain. Vaise to mere costumes bahut glamorous hain.
...
(ok, video ho we believe you)


And then...

Manu Sharma's (Jessica Lal's now-acquitted killer) 6page hand written FRIKKING CONFESSIONAL goes like this:

"I reached Qutub Colonnade at around 11.30 pm along with Vikas Yadav, Amandeep Gill and Alok Khanna. We were already a ‘peg' down. A Thursday party was on and about 300 people were present. At around 2 am, I went to the restaurant inside and asked for more whisky"
"Malini Ramani, Jessica Lall and five to six people were standing there, they told me the whisky is finished. I felt bad. I took out my pistol and fired one bullet at the ceiling and another at Jessica Lall which hit her above her left eye. There was a great commotion. Somehow I managed to reach Tony Gill's place where Vikas Yadav and Alok Khanna were also present..."

"I felt bad".

"I felt bad"?????
"I felt bad"!!!!!!!

After reading that, i had a good laugh.
Then- i felt bad.
HAHAHAHA!!!!


Today i carved a great amalgam! Ridge/Fossa/Cusp/Groove...all there.

More Quota thoughts

The quota-debate will never bacome a national movement. Coz there's a distinct difference between the North & South.

Why? Well according to me...

• Coz the South has learned to live with quotas, and has made its peace with them.
  
• Coz the ‘Hartal’ culture is not really a part of the protest-process in the South.
• Coz the Supply-Demand equations (as far as seats are concerned) are much more favourable in the South.
• Coz the OBC’s are not as marginalized in mainstream society as in the North.
• Coz caste-politics is far more active and more of an issue in the North.
  

To reserve or not to reserve?

Am I For or Against the changes in the reservation policy?

I sat down to answer to myself where I stood on this issue, after watching 2 debates on CNN IBN (moderated horribly by that damn Sagarika Ghose woman) and another on Headlines Today.

I’ve been feeling a bit muddled in my head about where I actually stand, and so I decided to make up my mind on an issue that not only is bound to affect my education in the future, but also in the immediate present is an important issue.


The fact that I am a Merit student in a Govt. institution makes it all the more necessary to crystallize my views on the subject. And then on top of all that, I am a member of the Medical-fraternity that is leading the protests. And that too in a college that is actively involved in the whole thing.


While thinking about where I would stand, I realized I had some ideals that I was not willing to compromise on, namely:

• The country must progress at all costs.
• It is not progress if it remains concentrated to a section of society.
• Although uniform progress for all is a utopian ideal, it is not unreasonable to expect that SOME progress must be felt amongst all, no matter what magnitude the change may be to different sections of society.
• No one section must be unfavourabely depreived of the chance to improve according to their potential, no matter which end of the spectrum they come from.

Im still thinking about it...

Room 7 Woes

I’m posted in Prosthodontics…Department 7 in Govt. Dental College, Fort, Bangalore.

Alternate mailing address: The Fires Of Hell, Fort, Bangalore. And kindly address all fan mail to Dr. P, the HOD and Slave-driver-of-the-month.

When students meet each other, they’ll usually ask each other where they’ve been posted.

So a typical conversation would go like this:

“Hey, where you posted?”

“Oh, I’m in 2. You?”

“I’m in 5. So how’s it going?”

“Cool. Hey, we saw a really interesting case today…”

“Really, what case?”

(Conversation continues)

But this is what happens to me nowadays:

X: “Hey, where you posted?”

ME: “I’m in 7.”

X: “Oh.”

(Silence)

X: “uhh…Till when.”

ME: “16^th of May.”

X: “Hmm…”

X: “Okay, Best of luck man. I gotta go.”

X” “Bye.”

ME: “Bye.”

The department is that hard.

Well, the work is pretty okay as such. But it’s long, intricate and physically very demanding. Get past that and you can learn to appreciate the subject- as long as the work turns out OK. Coz, make the slightest error and your end up FUBAR’ed instantly.

Vaseline won’t work …you will get rogered, you will learn to take it like a man, and you will weep like a little girl (If & when you are told to start all over). But its all good in the end…I haven’t known another situation where the saying “The finest steel passes through the hottest fires” rings more true. It’s sounds really corny, but at the end of the posting, as a Dentist, you will be better in many ways.

(am no longer posted in 7..i’m just posting this entry late)

PG Exams

A Post-Graduate...or PG-exam is the like the Eco-Challenge. It’s an extreme event...literally!

You have to undergo grueling training for months.

When it starts you have to be in great shape…mentally and physically.

You sometimes have to suffer through the night to reach a Pit stop.

You ­need your team to be with you every step of the way.

There’s a lot of luck involved.

Towards the end it just seems to go on and on.

And when it’s over you wonder how you did it.

Rajiv Gandhi University just got done with its PG examinations. Phew! How do those P.G’s do it??? A practical examination that lasts for 3 days and ends in a Spanish-inquisition-meets-Clinton-impeachment-hearing-style-grand-viva where you defend your Thesis. Oof!

As a worker-ant, I got sent to collect the grub for the examiners-lunch from a nice hotel. The PG-student who appeared for the examination was a nice guy, who helped us Undergrad’s a lot, so I was more than happy to oblige.

He passed with flying colors. Examiners are nice-guys when their bellies are full, you know!

(...Inshallah, I shall take part in the Eco Challenge too one day!)…(or is ‘one day too’ more correct?)

BSNL - Aggro is just a call away.

(Ok...I decided that the next best thing to do when your internet connection is down is to spend the bore-time getting up to speed with your blog material.)

A couple of days back my telephone-line went dead....BSNL, naturally. So no broadband.

Now you all know that the Dataone-service has a separate Data-line that accompanies the Voice-line...a 'line pair' (that’s what I was told). Naturally I didn’t know that; I’m a Dentist after all. Within 48hours my voice-line was restored and all I thought all was fine...until I turned my modem on and stared stupidly at it for 5mins wondering why the correct lights weren't coming on.

It turns out, the BSNL guys these days don’t actually fix a broken wire and shit, when a phone conks out....they just assign a new wire to the line and the phone is brought back to life (that’s what I was told). Now, if your have a broadband connection, your data-line should accompany your voice-line when it gets reassigned...that is, if the BSNL linemen actually realize that you have a Dataone connection. They didn’t. (That’s what I was told). So I had a new voice-line and the old (and still dead) data-line arriving at my home. So while my landline was functional, my internet connection remained dead.

Naturally I didn’t know this; I’m a dentist after all. So for the next 3-4 days I kept turning on my PC and staring stupidly at my modem for around 5mins each time, till I finally had the sense to call up BSNL and lodge a complaint. My complaint was duly noted, I was given a docket number, promised repair within 36 hours, made to feel (a) generally pleased, and (b) to answer a prompt "YES….NO" when asked if I was "satisfied with the interaction, and was there anything else I could be assisted with?"

Time travel 3 days forward and my response to the same question has now changed to

“NO! …YES!”, since I am NOT satisfied with the interaction and YESS I can be assisted with something else. This is because, INSPITE of duly noting my complaint, giving me a docket number, promising me repair within 36 hours, and even making me feel generally pleased…my Dataone connection is still flat lining. Aaaarrrrgh!!!

I submitted this one to the RSI monthly-club-newsletter...will print prolly by july or august. It had to be an Army theme naturally since its an army-club. zogger!

Army Fairy Tales

I’m an Army-Brat. I’ve grown up in Army-stations, and, as with most army-kids, I spent the early parts of my childhood in remote stations…read lots of wildlife, jungle, and plenty of places to go exploring. In other words, every fauji-mother’s worst nightmare.

These were situations that few civilians would face. They were unique to the Defence-janta...and they prompted unique solutions from the maternal care-giver.

What resulted from this innate tendency of mine to disappear in to the nearest patch of shrubbery and my mother’s innate tendency to prevent me from doing so, was a particularly humorous version of reality that my mother wove for me. The warp of fairy-tales and the weft of parental caution were skillfully meshed to create a fabric that was draped around my malleable mind. Protect and steer me it did, and it was very successful too, at keeping my tireless feet from carrying me off in the direction of trouble.

These stories took firm root in my dreamy mind and I considered them gospel truth.

So, the small mud path on the way home from school, that lead towards the jungle, suddenly became the home of a grumpy wolf who hated children. And naturally there was a teensy little shark who lived in the pond beyond the colony. Of course, after the monsoons, snakes used to secretly meet each other behind the big Banyan tree and didn’t want anyone to know of their headquarters. And I knew perfectly well that the monkeys that used to visit our bungalow had a king far away in the jungle who turned little boys into monkeys.

It wasn’t all bogeymen and monsters either. For when the power would go, hundreds of little soldiers would come out of the nooks to guard my room. And if brushed my teeth at night the Tooth-fairy would give me a small gift when the time came for the teeth to fall off.

As time passed, I outgrew these home-spun fairy-tales. I recognized them as cock-and-bull stories; traded them for Enid Blytons and Hardy Boys, and then even forgot quite a few. But I don’t regret them one bit. I still look back on the few that I do remember and have a good laugh. To a fauji-mother, they brought peace of mind and a few extra moments of rest. To a wee-sized brat, they brought hours and hours of wonder and amazement. And they continue to figure in my adult life- bringing humor and laughter.

I’m sure anyone who grew up in wild-cantonnments will have similar stories to tell. They say, Necessity is the mother of Invention. If that be the case, then I owe the Army for living a fairy-tale in my childhood

Corny will get printed...ask Jackie Collins. :)

(test post)
or for those who feel cheated by having nothing to read...here, something interesting. http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/

happy?
now...im done.
till i have something to say- cheerio!