Trying my hand at a bit of concrete poetry. What concrete poetry is.
Click on the image for higher resolution.
Concrete poetry
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Senior undergrad? Seriously?!
Lately I’ve seen a lot of “About Me” sections on websites of Indian college students with lines like “I’m a senior undergrad at so-and-so college”. I never remember people calling themselves senior or junior undergrads; but then again, I’ve just recently chanced upon the college scene, and maybe this is a common trend. At least one thing I’m sure of: this is something prevalent amongst students of comparatively bigger institutes: some of my friends from other colleges still call themselves “second-year students”.
THIS is a really senior undergrad
So why are people switching to this new nomenclature? It’s simple: That’s how the Amreekan college students refer to themselves, and similar lingo on an Indian student’s website or profile more often than not indicates a desire to be recruited or at least understood by some Amreekan “grad school” or company. Maybe the admissions committee at Texas A&M does not know what “fourth-year college student” means.
I’m not some khadi-wearing politician who exhorts people to not “ape the West”, but these terms are alien to us. Indians might probably understand fresh fruit or fresh fish, but calling a person (even women, for that matter) freshman is certainly odd; sophomore is totally Greek, whereas sow for more might be more intelligible. In most Indian colleges, a so-called “junior undergrad” is actually senior to half the college, and a “senior” is not a senior to almost one-fourth of the population.
I’m not saying “first-year student” is a Sanskrit phrase, but maybe here (as in other and more important matters) we are getting rid of language we traditionally use, in order to be better “understood” by the West. But then, (sounds very clichéd, this) change is the only permanent thing in life. If only our college experience was as Western as our names for it.
This post was written by Nachiketa Adhikari, a sophomore at BITS, Pilani.
Dedicated to Paul, the psycho-ic Octopus
Photograph by David Doubilet
Paul, or Pablo as many now wish to call him, has taken the world by storm. From cooks to corporates, nobody can stop talking about him. How then can I?
I did some octopus hunting on my favourite site, and came up with:
8 fun facts about the octopus:
- An octopus has not one, not two, but THREE hearts! ~ FactsMonk.com
- “Using a network of pigment cells and specialized muscles in its skin, the common octopus can almost instantaneously match the colors, patterns, and even textures of its surroundings. Predators such as sharks, eels, and dolphins swim by without even noticing it.” ~ National Geographic
- “When discovered, an octopus will release a cloud of black ink to obscure its attacker’s view, giving it time to swim away. The ink even contains a substance that dulls a predator’s sense of smell, making the fleeing octopus harder to track.” ~ National Geographic
- Since octopuses (or octopi as some say) have no bones at all, they can squeeze through remarkably tiny openings to escape predators. Even a fully grown adult can squeeze through a hole no larger than a coin! ~ Wild About the World
- An octopus can move by squirting water rapidly through a tube – jet propulsion, in essence. In fact, this is one of the functions of two of its hearts. ~ FactsMonk.com
- Octopuses have great eyesight, but are deaf. ~ Stumblerz
- “If all else fails, an octopus can lose an arm to escape a predator’s grasp and regrow it later with no permanent damage.” ~ National Geographic
- “If the octopus’s prey is hard-shelled, the octopus punctures the shell by drilling with its tongue, which is covered in small, sharp teeth.” ~ Wonder Club
Lame Paul Joke:
Q: Why is Paul not scared of death threats?
A: Because he’s deaf!
Artist’s impression of an Octopus
How on earth was the cordyceps created?
The cordyceps fungus.
I first came to know about the fungus a few months back, while watching BBC’s Planet Earth series.
This amazing/creepy/cool fungus attaches itself to a host arthropod, and then releases enzymes which affect the host’s brain, effectively gaining control of the brain. The host ends up doing what the fungus wants it to. For example, the cordyceps attacks an ant, and then under its influence the ant climbs up a tree branch and dies; after this, the fungus grows from the head of the ant (like a scene directly taken from a sci-fi movie, says David Attenborough).
Amazingly, there is a unique cordyceps species attacking each of a thousand or so species of insects and caterpillars. Moreover (this from Wikipedia), there is a particular species of this fungus which is supposed to have a very high medicinal value, and accounts for a large chunk of Tibet’s economy.
You can view the relevant part from the Planet Earth Jungles episode:
The Showdown: Red v Yellow
Synopsis: The protagonist (me, coincidentally) of this story has to make a demand draft to pay his college fees, and send it to the college. I present a comparison of his adventures in the two major institutions required to complete a task of this magnitude: the bank, and the post office.
To keep the competition fair, I selected a nationalized company for both services.
Bank: UCO Bank, Memnagar, Ahmedabad
Post: Post Office, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad
Our hero (again, me) evaluated both these heavyweights in a variety of categories:
Distance from home:
The bank is at five minutes’ walking distance from my house. The post office, on the other hand, is ten minutes in an autorickshaw. Though autorickshaw is an added expense, I avoid walking amongst the puddles and get more time to gather the courage required to face government employees (referred to as gollums hereafter). The post office draws first blood here.
Post Office 1 Bank 0
Prior preparation:
The bank required me to know who I wanted to make the demand draft for, what amount it was for, and a bunch of similar uninteresting details.
Post office asked for just the desired destination of the speed post.
Post Office 2 Bank 0
Paperwork:
The bank asked me to fill in a form for the DD. For the post office, I had to fill in the address on an envelope. Spoils shared.
Post Office 3 Bank 1
Gollum Tackling:
At the bank, there were three gollums: the cashier, the assistant manager, and a someone. I took the form to the cashier who looked at me over the top of his glasses and instructed me to go to the assistant manager, who in turn directed me to the someone; the someone looked at my form and directed me back to the assistant gollum, who finally realized he would HAVE to attend to my request. He examined the form with utter disdain, trying to find some mistake. Foiled. He then did something on his computer, made a complex design on my form and sent me to the someone. The someone stamped the form and sent me back to the previous man. I ping-ponged twice more before the thing was finally ready to be made. “We’ll let it simmer for fifteen minutes, then you can take it,” announced the someone triumphantly.
The post office couldn’t be more different. I had just one gollum to tackle who handled everything.
Post Office 4 Bank 1
Gollum Efficiency:
At the bank, the gollums were constantly doing some work, whether it be entering transaction details, approving transactions or attending to customers; even if they made me wait for some time, I could make out they were doing something important.
At the post office, the speed post gollum was a dud (no, not a dude, a dud). He kept counting all the money in his drawer after every transaction (WHY?), expecting it to magically increase, and thus frustrating everyone in the queue (including our fearless protagonist).
Post Office 4 Bank 2
Expense:
The bank charged me Rs 240 for just making the draft.
The post office took Rs 25 for sending it to a God-forsaken place 500 kilometres away.
Post Office 5 Bank 2
And so, the clear winner is…
I vote – not to vote
Come October 2010, and millions of residents of Gujarat will be forced to go to the polling stations to vote. This is the latest mandate, in a “landmark bill” passed by the Legislative Assembly. The bill (now a proper amendment to a law) makes voting to municipal corporations, district, village and taluka panchayats and municipalities compulsory, and also ratifies the Centre’s suggestion for reserving 50 per cent seats for women in civic bodies.
According to the people behind the bill, it is “absolutely essential for strengthening democratic process” so that “the true spirit of the will of the people is reflected in the electoral mandate.”
Convinced as I am in the belief that the Modi government is the best one can get right now in this country for love or money, this bill is not only Draconian, it is atrocious. “The true spirit of the will of the people” is already reflected in the poll results, without any compulsory voting: the fact that only sixty per cent people turn up to cast their vote shows that many of them really can’t be bothered to think about the country, yet others think it futile to vote for anyone, and the rest find it so difficult to put a meal on the table that it actually doesn’t matter to them who is in power ruling the country (civic bodies in this case), even if they do know the meaning of those words.
According to Modi, this bill will curb black money and thus reduce poll expenditure. Maybe, but does it not cost something to know who has voted and who has not? I doubt if the electoral roll has the name of each and every eligible voter, whether it has the correct names and other relevant information, and so on. Before implementing the bill, the government will surely have to ensure an error-free voter’s list, if anything else. That will cost crores. The idea is to brand every non-voter as a “defaulter”, and send him a notice, to which he shall have to reply within a month with a “valid reason”, failing which he shall be deprived of certain State “services” such as passport, driving license, BPL status, bank loans, etc etc. I wonder how much these “notices” are going to cost the taxpayer. I wonder how much paperwork shall be required for listing these defaulters and depriving them of these services. I wonder who has the time to take care of all this: the election commission? Surely not. New recruitments? But then where is the expenditure being cut? The burden of all this will no doubt fall on the already overburdened administrative worker, and an inevitable conclusion: people who have voted being listed as defaulters, real defaulters going scot-free, some people casting ten votes (which always happens), some people finding their names on the voter list of a constituency five miles away (which, again, always happens) and some poor guy in Bihar getting a notice of which he can make neither head nor tail. In short, confusion.
I mean, the EC can’t even print people’s sex correctly on the voter ID card, how do you expect such a mammoth task to be carried out?
And now, to the main reason why this bill is downright wrong: what if I do not wish to vote? Who is the government to force me? It is not a Constitutional duty and therefore non-binding on any citizen. The passport and driving license I get are not because I vote: I get them because I am a mentally sound, resident citizen of this country, and I would remain a citizen whether or not I went and pressed a button on some electronic device. Who is the government to deny me a driving license?
Let me make this clear: my refusal to vote is not because I do not find a suitable candidate (which, even otherwise, I do not find), but because I do not believe in this system of voting: that if 100 people (from varying backgrounds, educational qualifications and accuracies of judgement) are voting, 51 vote for one person, and 49 for others, it is the 49 who suffer. Heck, even if out of one billion people, there is one person who votes for someone and the rest all vote for someone else, are we not neglecting the wishes and aspirations of that one person? Voting, in such a system, even if you vote for “none of the above”, implies that you are embracing that system, and approve of it. I do not approve of this system. Just as we have a right to vote, we also have a right to not vote. I do not know of a better system of democracy or voting than that which exists in our country, but nevertheless the current one is not good enough. And therefore, I shall not vote. I eagerly await the notice.
Wolves asked to explain
Wolverhampton Wanderers have been asked to explain their team selection for the match against Manchester United. Click here for an in-depth report.
Apparently, there is a clause in Section E of the Premier League Rule 20 which says that a team must field a full-strength XI for a match. In seven years of watching Premier League football closely, this is the first time I’m even hearing of this rule. Just because Wolves are a small club and United a big one, their selecting a below-strength team has become an illegal thing. What about all those times when big teams field reserves and 16-year olds to save players for Champions League games? If this rule had been used on every previous occasion a team fielded a second-string team, Benitez would have had to spend whole weeks in the Premier League office, he seems always to choose the likes of Ngog and Traore over some of his (supposedly) better players.
Wolves boss Mick McCarthy had the perfect response to his team selection causing such an uproar: “At the end of the season I will be judged on whether Wolves have stayed in the Premier League or not. It was my strongest team – because it was a team with fresh legs. I have a squad of 21 to pick from and I regard them all as first-team players.”
Who is the Premier League to decide which is a club’s full-strength team? When I play FIFA in Manager Mode, I have such a squad that I have to keep the likes of Rooney and Henry on the bench, so does that mean I’m fielding a weak team, while starting Messi and Ronaldo? The person who knows best the full strength XI is the manager himself, and no one else. As for the feasibility of this notice, McCarthy can just say all his good players have a cold, and the Premier League can do absolutely nothing about it.
This decision reeks of the Premier League’s inability to do anything about big clubs breaking rules (and that too pointless rules), and it’s the small clubs who have to pay for it.
