3rd Fingers - Chapter 8/8

Disclaimer: I am tired of these disclaimers. It started out as a joke but now there is such pressure to do these idiotic nonsensical lines that I want to throw up. Who are these people who get off on disclaimers? Illegitimate children of lawyers? Why did you ever write in saying these disclaimers are funny? A disclaimer is not supposed to be funny. It is supposed to protect my ass when some hardline nutcase comes gunning for me. Get that? That’s not funny! If you laugh more I will shoot you. ,.!..

A new semester has begun. Things have changed now. Looking back I remember the words of a nutcase who brought back “sex” to technology. He said – You cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. Most of the dots this year have been connected. A few will be joined soon.

Joose has gotten used to his responsibilities and has even gotten over his drunken behavior. He’s thinking of trying sandwiches now. Anyways, sandwiches or not under his supervision my Hall won the grand festival of Illumination after 8 years. I don’t bother him with the window now. I’ve learnt to live with it. He’s learnt to live with the fact that though the G. Sec inside him will always be my mortal enemy, the Joose is and always will be my dearest friend.

I’ve cracked an intern in a small Mumbai based investment banking company. It’s not glamorous as Deutsche Bank or Barclays, but is offering me good work. Only time will tell where it’s going to take my life.

The VIP visited and went back. There aren’t only negatives of such events. The campus looks cleaner now and has better roads. If this was the only consequence of hi visit, it was probably worth it.

After a strong protest by the seniors of my Hall (in an ancient Hall like mine, everyone has a senior, even the final years’), the mess was freed against the freakish online system and I’m gaining pounds again. Maybe there was something good about the online system.

Nitin has given up his hopes of becoming a dancer and focusing on town planning and green architecture again. He said he’s making a project on making homes more eco-friendly and by the looks of it, the next time your successors buy a house, it could have been based on his research.

Anjali and me are going great as ever. The whole family fiasco gave me an opportunity to be more open to my clan about Anjali. People pray to God for such opportunities in life. Mine was made by Vodafone.

Classes in the department have become better since the departure of the 3 Profs and now we can actually understand what a Prof tries to teach. Though their teachings have no consequence in the exams which are dominated by quant equations, I’m trying harder.

Even mini-Sabu has stopped poking me all the time and brought his own watch. I think he’s a little pissed off after my reading my blog. Heck! Who cares?

Finally me and Ishenam might go down as the best Governors Talaash had in several years. We’ve not only successfully completed all targets but also revived the annual campus magazine which had been lying dead for 3 years now. We also organized a day’s worth of events in the campus fest. This college has seen days when literature was scrapped for dancing and acting. It feels proud to be the person under whom it came back.

So even though this has been a great year, there are new milestones to reach. So we shall meet again next year where both I and my story will be on the Final frontiers.

3rd Fingers - Chapter 7/8

Issued in Public Interest: 3^rd Fingers is not exclusively for engineering students, it can be enjoyed by anyone who has a sense of humor. If you don’t have any sense of any sort that may also work. The problem with most grown up people is they have a lot of sense but they don’t have any nonsense. In essence they don’t have any sense of humor. But hey, you are still welcome to read this blog.

There was only one place which made my existence in this campus worthwhile. No, I’m not talking about the vast dark stadiums. I am talking about the place where obscure old post-retirement men tried to transfer to us what they had learnt in the years when they were waiting for their hair to grow old so that they could torment us the way they had been tormented. I was studying aeronautical engineering and in essence it’s a beautiful course. The entire design of an airplane, the relevance of the tail, the gliders, everything about the subject mesmerized me till the teachers spoke. However, when they got on to writing about the subject, they left petite things like English behind and entered a realm of quant equations which would take a mini-supercomputer to process. I was not equipped with such tools thanks to my engagements in the initial years of college.  As time passed by in each class, every equation grew. Once a Prof tried to teach us the relevance of a tail in an aircraft and made a paper plane in the class to prove his point. The class hooted. It was the first time someone was actually showing us engineering on a level we understood – paper planes. Somehow soon the elegant paper clips and force of the hand converted in partial derivatives and avionic controls which were starting to flow past my head. There were mainly 5 types of Profs in my department.

These Profs ended the class on the same note on which they began and the students are left with the same amount of knowledge they had while entering the class. They usually brought power point presentations to help them maintain the monotonicity.

These are excited Profs. They teach their subjects as if it’s the only subject in the world. They disregard petty things such as pronunciation and one can know that a question has been asked only when the Prof suddenly stops and looks towards the class with expectation. This Prof usually likes the green board as using slides hinders with his excited hopping.

This is the most dangerous category. They start their lecture on a high note but soon fall to zero and then lower (YES, it IS possible). By the end of the hour, you can find devils waiting outside the classroom doors to drag the bodies away.

This is another dangerous category and can be identified by the lack of black hair (or no hair altogether). They have taught the same subject so many times that they do not feel the need of the subject to be taught in future batches.

The last category are called the gibberish Profs. Neither the students nor they pay much heed to what is going on in the class as long SOMETHING is going on. Activities of a large domain happen I these classes.

Well, this of course is not an exhaustive list. And any literate who ever attempted to graduate out of a college would know it’s not the Profs which is the problem. It’s the lack of them. In my department of 180 undergrads, only 10 Profs were available out of which only 2 were willing to take classes in the first slot in the morning. Mine was a department where the Profs found it tougher to wake up in the morning than the students and I did understand their plight. After all, they were the people who unlike me actually had work to do at night. I applauded to their sense of responsibility and their hunger for more work. I wished I could be like them one day.

And if this was not enough, I had a mini-Sabu poking me everyday for absurd queries.

‘Have you completed the assignment? Will you write my name on it before you submit it?’ He asked one day. This was the greatness about my college. People didn’t bother copying or photocopying. They found a smarter way. I looked at him. Half in surprise and half in disgust.

Then there was this Prof who found double derivatives and integral manipulation so fascinating that he lost track of time writing them on the board. After he’d extend the lecture by 20 minutes (might not sound much but to us it is 33%), mini-Sabu would poke me (not on Facebook but in the ribs) and ask me to remind the Prof of the time. He could do it himself but somehow the ever blabbering mini-Sabu automatically went into dumb mode during the lecture. Then during the exams his inevitable calls were unavoidable.

‘What is the syllabus of the exam?’

 I won’t tell. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay I’m speaking the syllabus I have written.’ If you had it why are you irritating me? Then he’d go on blabbering while I’d keep the phone and go to order a Maggi at the nearby canteen.

‘Hello? Was that correct?’ He’d be speaking when I would pick up the phone.

‘Yes. It was.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No.’ If not courteous, atleast I was honest.

‘What?’ Why do people ask stupid questions if they’re not ready for the answers?

‘I’m not sure about the syllabus. If something comes out of what you said, I’m not responsible.’

‘Cummon! Don’t joke with me. You know everything!’ When did I ever give that impression?

‘Sabu? What did you say? I can’t hear you.’ I don’t want toy you dumbass.

‘Hey. I asked about…’

‘Sorry I can’t hear you anymore. Seems like Vodafone has finally fizzled out. If you can hear me, bye.’

3rd Fingers - Chapter 6/8

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