The · Jungle · Book.

If there were ever a level of sophistication that had no justification then this has to be it. I mean this was the pits of sophistication. But, before I get down to it, here’s a little background on the whole story that by itself is really amusing.

For a kid like me, brought up in Calcutta and Bombay(yes…back then they were still called that) in a solid middle class working family, the United States of America was always something that was spoken about with a certain glassed over look. The very mention of it would fill my head with pictures of manicured lawns and fancy cars and what not that drive the imagination of a little 8-year old kid wild. Add to that the friends who had fathers and uncles who came back from the USA with lots of chocolates and crayons and stuff that they brought to school to show off, you’ll get the idea.

At that stage of life my dad’s brother went to the Gulf – Dubai to be precise and he flew through Bombay on his way back and left behind a huge bag full of chocolates. I still remember the names – there was the usual Snickers and Mars, and there was this coconut filled bar called Bounty and tons of others with names written in an undecipherable script which I learnt later was called Arabic and wasn’t really an alien language. Oh…and I got my first set of Crayola crayons. For a week, I was the cool cat in class. Everyone wanted to be my best friend. Then some idiot’s dad went and got him a 56-shade Crayola box. So, I was relegated to second best friend. But, that guy was a dud anyway and got taken for a ride. Someone stole his crayons.

And then there were various other relatives from extended branches that went and settled overseas and became citizens. One such example was my dad’s mother’s elder sister’s daughter. For the sake of simplicity let’s just call her Aunt, her husband Uncle and kids Son and Daughter. Now, Aunt, according to the latest intelligence reports has been in the USA for the past 33 years, which is ever since she got married. Uncle used to work on the National Scientific Advisory Council or some thing to that effect. Basically, he gets greeting cards from the White House for Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving and other random occasions. Son and Daughter are both American citizens and speak American and Aunt throws statements like, “Would you like to complete that train of thought before I interrupt you?” Good going Aunt, what do you think that statement just did, eh?

They come to India once in three years and we are expected to talk to them as if we met them ten minutes ago on the way to the loo. Or whatever. And since, they have oh so busy schedules compared to us unlucky folks stuck in India, they will organize a pseudocool get-togther in a pseudoplace and everyone is expected to turn up.

Now, comes the killer. This time around it was at the KGA club on Airport road. The catch is that you are not allowed to wear slippers and that kind of footwear. It has to be something that has a strap at the back. Neither are you allowed to wear round neck t-shirts that are missing collars. Why? No one knows. Club policy and all that. Despite all this, the Aunt’s brother is a member there and pays some obscene amount of cash on a yearly basis to be able to chase little white balls around nine holes and then sit and sip 60-buck Royal stag at 300-bucks a shot in a club house with equally dumb people.

Needless to say, I elected to stay at home to go pick up my sister, look after my grandmom and write this post. I also have it from eye-witnesses that a ceratin aunt of mine who resembles a rikishi in build managed to overpower the bouncers and walk in with a pair of Paragon hawaii chappals.
Adios and here’s wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Zappy New year!

I am pretty sure at some point in life everyone has been confronted with a situation that seem…well…strange. I really can’t find a word that succinctly describes what I want to describe so I will just call it strange. The states of things that I refer to are thus.

a.) You know you have been taken for a ride, it’s unfair and you landed the bad end of the deal.
b.) There are ways to get back but you simply won’t do it because that is compromising your own principles and you will on no account resort to that.
c.) Everyone around is pretty happy, things are hunky-dory for them and you know that they played dirty.
d.) You are twenty and you are in college at a point of time where you know you can make a change but you know the world will kill you if you try to.

So, you know you are going to get fucked. So, might as well, lie down and enjoy it.

God…I hate this relative grading. Thank you, dear lecturers of ‘Ye Olde NITK’ for screwing my life. Gracias!


P.S: Not only, grading. Everything.

I got tagged. Here goes the most difficult post I have had to write – twenty things about myself.







1. I guess therefore I maybe. I am a very confused soul. I have no idea what I want to be. It currently is a fair fight between engineer, drummer, chef, musician ad wildlife photographer. In the past it has been ninja, barber, cobbler and an assassin. No kidding…I swear.

2. I am very gullible. I can trust people very easily. If someone is nice enough to me and lends me a kindly ear, I will spill my guts and tell them the color of my underwear.

3. I wish I could fly.

4. I am crazy about food. And crazier about while reading my favorite book while eating. I will eat almost anything that falls under the category of junk food. I love snacking on potato chips.

5. I am an absolute weirdo. I am big fan of hard rock and metal and Carnatic classical. I can even recognize a handful of ragams. I can swear colorfully in four languages and I know a smattering of the ‘Vedas’.

6. I wanted to grow my hair long. I still do, but a couple of days back I was forced into cutting it short. My hairdresser(yeah…I go to a hairdresser, not a barber) thought that it was a pity to cut such long hair, so he gave me this really nifty look.

7. I think I can fall in love very easily. And that makes me think that my definition of love is not exactly what the majority of humankind calls love. Never mind, I realized that writing my own operating system a la Linus Torvalds style is easier than figuring out women and falling in love with one. It will happen when it will, you cannot stop or predict the inevitable, I guess. Whatever, inevitable might be.

8. I obsess about stuff. From people, to tunes, to problems and god knows what. Something that I cannot place or find an answer to haunts me for a long time and it eventually drives me crazy. If someone hurt me, it takes me really long to heal.

9. I have a very very short fuse. My temper scares me and I can fly into a wild rage at a moments notice. I end up shouting at people for no fault of theirs and later I have to go down on my knees and say sorry. I don’t really mind saying sorry.

10. I hate people who lie. And that too without tact. If I know someone is lying I will go to great lengths to prove that they are and then blow up at them.

11. I believe that everyone is beautiful and great in their own right. Everyone is special and everyone deserves a fair chance and a second chance.

12. I don’t really believe much in God. It’s not like I hate God, it’s just that if he is there then I am glad that he is there. If he isn’t there then I am sorry, that a lot of people simply wasted their lives trying to find him.

13. I am a fairly contended guy. I think I have pretty much of what I need. A loving family, lots of friends, a bunch of people to bitch about, a little extra cash to blow. Right now all I want is a doctorate and nice satisfying teaching job in about five years from now. And someone to watch the sun set into the ocean.

14. I simply love to read. Comics and books are something that I hoard whenever I find I have the money to buy them. I don’t read vague intellectual stuff. I am very happy reading stuff that people have heard about.

15. I am a die-hard quizzer. Or, at least, I used to be. Some where along the line all that enthusiasm evaporated. I am desperately trying to find some way of getting it all back. Help…!!! I wish I were funny enough, too.

16. I am a loner. I like people, but most of the times I am very comfortable on my own, partly because I am scared that I might rub people the wrong way. I have little tact and subtlety. I sit on the beach for hours together at a stretch. I have spent a whole night on the beach all alone. I am creature of the night.

17. The people I love and care about I cannot live without. I constantly need to talk to them just to know that they are there. And I miss folks terribly…very terribly.

18. I am self-styled experimental cook. I get high by throwing random things into a pan on the fire and then mix it all up to get something that tastes brilliant. My success rate is slightly more than fifty percent. If not an engineer then definitely a restaurateur. Some thing exclusive and small and homely, maybe.

19. I like to write. I hope someday, something I write will become famous and some one will walk up to me on the street and say, “Aren’t you the guy who wrote…” But the writing is getting harder and harder by the day. I am going to make a resolution this New Year to write more often. And I have a very bad track record of keeping up resolution.

20. I dream. Day dream, at night, in buses, in class, while studying…almost everywhere. They range from bizarre to normal to dark and foreboding. Most of them are what will never happen, but then what’s a dream if you don’t dream it!

And…I guess that’s it. Thanks, silverine.

Wtmewry and M are hereby declared tagged. Go write twenty things about yourselves. Else face my wrath!

Thebest thing about having a professor who has a terrible short term memory is that he will not remember things that might end up screwing you. For instance, a Lab Exam.

Enter, Dr. K Chandrasekaran. Former HOD of the Department of Computer Science Engineering and Information Technology. He buys shirts from his home-town(I have no clue where it is) that suit his taste and asks his wife for her opinion. He has an obsession for Ideal icecream and it is an inherent part of any example that he provides in the course of his infrequent discussions on the topic.

He also has a very bad short term memory. Which is all very fine for the 59 of us who had our lab exam deferred by four days, simply because he forgot he was supposed to do it today.(KC, you the man!)

Now, the moment he said that 50% of my meagre brain switched off and I was wondering what to do to while away the next forty minutes. For some reason, the time complexity analysis that he was doing, inspired this little paper that I present below.

Analysis and determination of an upper bound on the number of relationships before a successful love relationship

Abstract
The primary aim of this paper is to quantify, in a possibly deterministic manner, the average number of relations that an individual must have before he enters into a successful lasting relationship. The model that we present is a fairly idealistic model that is bound by some constraints. We use the growth function of the model to determine the number of relationships needed. Further, we also try to account for the fact that the alogrithm might end before the upper bound is reached. This is accounted for by using a probablity function that computes the success rate of a given relationship. Finally, we present a sample case study and an implementation of the model using C.

It’s actually pretty simple. Not as fancy and difficult as people make it sound. If I can do it so can you!







First of all, here are some friendly warnings:

1. If you screw up the cake and then get die after eating it, it’s basically your problem. Not mine. Bake this cake and eat it at your own risk.
2. If you have religious reservations against eggs and alcohol then I would suggest that you find another recipe. Apparently, these are key ingredients here.
3. Be careful with the eggbeater and the oven. Do not try stunts or you may end up blowing yourself and your house in the process.

Now, for the ground rules.

1. This is a recipe that I gleaned from various people at home who bake. I have added my own little whiz-bangs to it. So, now by GPL2, I kinda have a partial ownership to it. If you make and people like it then say you go it from here. If they throw it back in your face then say you made it. DO NOT ON ANY ACCOUNT TARNISH MY REPUTATION.
2. You have to follow what I say. I call the shots and you simply follow. No questions are to be asked. My words are gospel.
3. Clean up before you bake and clean up after you bake. Eggs shells and other refuse are to be thrown into the bin.

And, that’s that. Let’s get to work.

Here is an important formula you will need to remember.
2 eggs = 1.5 cups flour = 1.25 cups sugar = approximately 3/4th of a slab of Amul butter(the one that costs about 13 bucks…I think the 150 gm. one)

I am a little generous with the sugar to account for my generosity with other things. You must learn to adjust accordingly.

Once you have the stuff that is there in the equation above, you are ready to get the batter done. Take the butter and make sure that it is nice and soft – the consistency that is perfect for spreading the stuff on a toast. Put the butter in a bowl and add the sugar and mix them well. Keep this aside.

Next, get hold of dry fruits. Almonds, cashews, raisins, pistachios, dates, tutti-frutti, chopped orange peel, sugared plums, cherries…just about anything that pleases you. Chop them all up real nice and chuck them into a shallow basin. Pour in enough rum to soak them all and then add a generous little more for the heck of it. Ideally, this soaking thing should be done about a couple of days earlier so that the nuts and stuff get soaked really well. The longer you keep them in the booze the better, but not long enough that they start to rot. Powder some spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves and put in a nice big pinch of this with the booze mixture.

Sift the flour along with a pinch of baking powder and generous amounts of cocoa powder. Keep this aside, too.

This is a little tricky. Break the eggs into a bowl and add a little bit of vanilla essence(optional) and beat the eggs till they become a little thick and foamy. The important part is to remember that beyond a point the eggs that have turned foamy and stiff will become watery. That is useless so you can chuck them out and start all over again.

After this, slowly mix in the butter-sugar thing and slowly beat the mixture. Now rub in some flour with the dry-fruits. Slowly add the flour to the mixture and fold it in. Add the dry fruits and how much ever coffee decoction you want. Some caramel if you please.

Grease a baking tin, pour in the batter and bake for about an hour or so till the cake rises and a knife stuck into the cake in the middle comes out clean. Make sure the oven has been preheated to about 100 degrees C for about thirty minutes.

That’s it. Eat and Enjoy.

After a long long time. Still posting from the lab when I am supposed to be working. Goofing off as usual!

I also baked a cake with lots of rum and dry fruits. Pity, that it still don;'t make no difference!!!

Sigh.....

Yes, this was inspired by Jimi’s autobiography and a messy drive in pelting rain. Yes, this is also another one of those rants and one of those pieces that come straight from the heart. Yes, I am angst-ridden and nurse a deep feeling to simply be able to care about nothing.

No, I haven’t read the whole book yet. No, I haven’t listened to the song. No, I did not kill anyone in that drive in the rain. No, I do not hate you.


A little thought over the past few days made me realize that all my life, more often than not, all that has mattered to me was…me. It was a filthy self-centered existence. Only what I wanted mattered. Things that didn’t work out were always blamed on someone else, it never occurred that it just might be my fault.

It was simply an endless stream of Is. Words that I spoke, I never thought about. Not even a second to figure out if I might end up hurting somebody. What I did was always what pleased me; what made me happy…never something that made someone else happy. In spite of this, I always wanted people to do things that made me happy, that pleased me never for a moment realizing that it just might end up hurting them.

I have been a selfish person interested only in myself. I am sorry…I really am. Forgive me if you can.

I used to live in a room full of mirrors
all I could see was me…


P.S.: I am disabling comments on this post. If you really want to say something then please mail me at bluebarnacle@gmail.com

I feel like a cigarette. Not a Dunhill, not a Davidoff. Not even a Classic Milds. Terribly cheap and terribly like a use-and-throw thing. Like a cheap Wills Navy Cut or a Goldflake Kings. Or maybe even a beedi…

It’s nice while it lasts…the cigarette. You light it and watching the glowing tip and the smoke that comes out of it in spirals and eddies. It curls up and slowly floats away. You take a drag and the tip glows brighter and the cigarette becomes a little shorter. The nicotine makes you feel a little light and a little numb. It settles thoughts in your brain for a short while. A fleeting instant in a lifetime, but, even an instant is fine. Another drag…and another and yet another…and soon you are down to the last one.

Now it isn’t all that nice. The smoke starts to go into your eyes stinging them and making them water. You want to get over with this as quickly as possible. It’s stopped tasting good, if you can call the bitter taste of burning tobacco good. You take that last drag, drawing deep for all that it is worth and then you drop it. And if you are prudent enough you might stamp on the butt to make sure it goes out completely, lest it be the cause of a fire. It simply lies there – crushed and burnt. Of absolutely no use, nothing different from the hundred others that lie there. Just another butt on the ground…

That one is gone but the desire for another still remains. You fish the pack out of your pocket, pull out another, tap the filter, put it between your lips(ironic…it seems like a kiss…) and strike the match and light it. Hell, it’s just a cigarette…nothing more, nothing less.


“Later in the evening when you lie awake in bed,
The echoes of the amplifiers ringing in your head.
You smoke the day’s last cigarette,
Remembering what she said…what she said…”