Sudipta's Life

Interacting with different people of my own age here in the university leaves different impressions. And even if you are not interacting, it is difficult not to overhear snippets of conversation between others (especially undergrads) who discuss a lot of things. I find that the word that dominates these conversation is, "Like". A typical conversation snippet is this: "And I was like... totally, like [eyes appropriately squinted, shaking head in disapproval] and then he was like [raised eyebrows] ... and then I was like, OH MY GOD!! [bulging eyes and throwing up arms] ". Please interpret the above ...-s to mean a sufficient pause in the conversation. It used to be unnnerving at first, because the 'like' word can take a thousand different meanings at different times, sort of like the universal pronoun. Most of the time, it means exasperation at something, or when the speaker is at a loss of words to actually convey his/her feelings. But the rampant use of th

I had ranted earlier about me pouring butter milk into my morning coffee upon my first arrival in America. But when I was reading through this post by Anjali , I was horrified to think that someone had set up a video surveillance in my kitchen and had just recorded my experiences there! Believe me, even though that post is nearly two years old, I think it might have been written in 1000 B.C. and would still have held its ground through the ages. This comes from a guy who just about a year back had a long debate with his friend whether you should put a heaped tablespoon of salt or should it be a heaped teaspoon when you make a single omlette. All this intellectual discussion happened while the oil kept magically disappearing from the pan on a oven at its highest flame. Needless to say, we did not really eat the "omlettes" we made that night. Things haven't changed so much since then, though. All the curries I make out of frozen vegetables end up magically tasting the same

I was tagged twice --- with the same tag. First, it was Life Lover who confessed that she wanted to learn belly-dancing and then passed the baton to me. Supremus , on the other hand, finds Lata Mangeshkar's voice amusing amidst his musings about why he is single yet, and asks "Why not?". So instead of waiting for someone to complete the triplet of tagging me and recieve brickbats from all these people till that time, let me go ahead and finish this tag. Three things that scare me: Computers conking off when an unsaved program is just beginning to do what it is supposed to do after 10 hours of debugging! You'll know this only if you've ever faced it. Friends who rightfully get angry at my follies --- I completely give in to them and would do anything to see them smile again! Landing up in helpless situations: when the only way out, the only rational logical way to behave and do things is to let the events mould themselves out. I am talking of situations where your

Orkut does a lot of good things, such as connecting old friends, help form new connections and fraanships, etc. So when the other day I received a friend request from a person I knew in school, it was a pleasant surprise. A couple of scraps were exchanged, with the general CBI-meet-FBI information exchange and 30-second elevator talk. He was in India and had graduated recently and was employed. Then one fine day I saw a chat request from him on google and was glad to accept it. Soon afterwards, there was a little window blinking in the toolbar. "Hey, hru?" was how the conversation had begun. I obliged with the typical "I'm fine, thanks" and was about to reciprocate the routine when he popped the second question: "So you've been there for about 8 months now --- how many girlfriends do you have?" I was a little taken aback: I did not really expect a friend talking to me after about 10 years to be interested in my set of girlfriends as the first thing

I rather think I should call this post, "How to beat graduate school stress" or "How to boost your heart after you've collapsed in the middle of the road". After last Thursday's little excitement surrounding me, where various theories ranging from heart-break to heart-attack were suggested as the cause, people were really sceptical if I was up for a full day at the Six Flags over Texas amusement park at Arlington. But, people like me don't let little excitements stand in the way of much larger excitements, and so early on Saturday morning we went off to Arlington to have a first-hand taste of amusement in America. The day started off with a roller coaster ride inside a pitch-dark tower ---- the fun of the ride being the unpredictability of the rolls inside the darkness. But that was just the beginning of the fun for the day! We were soon out in the sunny Texan daylight, dropping down 255 feet at 85 miles per hour on the Titan , or being hurled around st

Yesterday, I was rushing from my home to the university as it was already late and only 5 minutes remained before my midterm exam started at 9:30 in the morning. I crossed the highway and was walking past a series of parallel-parked cars on the footpath beside a busy road. I could almost see the building then: and quickened my pace to reach the classroom. The next thing I remember, paramedics were bending over me and asking me what happened. I found myself tied to the bed inside an ambulance (EMS) van being rushed to a hospital, with a full set of oxygen tubes being forced near my nose, people asking me to relax, etc. And I was bloody confused, bruised and really really unsure what was happening! As far as I understood later, this is the series of events that happened: at about 9:25 when I was on my way to the class, I had suddenly collapsed and fainted. Now, don't ask me why --- neither I nor the doctor have the slightest clue. I lay there on the road, between 2 parked cars for ab

I was reading this post on Arasubalraj's blog (via BlogBharti ), and it left me distressed and thinking, as these issues always do. The carnage of human flesh, the butchering of a son in front of his mother's eyes, someone's sister being paraded naked in a village and then being tortured to death... something inside me screams, WHY??? What was achieved? I know that anger builds up over time, that one day the dam breaks and then suddenly nothing seems to make sense. I had written on the issue earlier, in three parts here , here and here . The traditional answer to "what was achieved" has been in some form or the other a sense of revenge, the sense of justice being done somehow. But, how exactly is justice achieved is what I don't understand. If someone comes and harms my near and dear one, I will have my revenge on him: see to it that justice is meted out to the person. This makes sense to me. But to go ahead and kill all in his locality, to butcher an innoce

The latest message in my mobile's voice mailbox: [Thick American accented girl:] "Hi honey.... why didn't you call me after last night? I am so horny now and want to f*** you ... yeah - yeah - yeah..." followed by a much graphic description of everything proposed for about 30 seconds, which ends with the word "bitch" Let me explain. Twice a week, I have classes from 9:30 in the morning till 5:00 p.m., and then I go to a research meeting which lasts till about 6:30. During this time, my cell phone remains on silent mode and it is only after 6 or later I get to check any messages. So yesterday, after drinking a gallon of coffee to survive through the day, I had a voice message and a missed call from a no-number. Well, no-number meant that someone had called from a PC using Skype or Yahoo or something like that. And that person had left this voice message. The first time I heard it, I was stunned. From the second time, however, I have been laughing my guts out