Above Average

I am reading Amitabha Bagchi's Above Average these days, in between parts of Tezuka's Buddha. I didn't like Above Average the first time I tried to read it. The narration moved in time way too much for a book in this genre. But I am liking it now and have moved well beyond the first few pages.

After my previous failed attempt I had dismissed it by saying that it is a novel that only Comp Science students (or Compguys as one of the characters in the book says) at IITD who did their schooling in Delhi would understand. I missed that chance by about a 1000 ranks a few years back. But, now I feel that most IITD guys, irrespective of their departments, would identify with a good part of it. Maybe in time I would start believing that any reader could probably appreciate the 'story'.

One reason why I didn't appreciate it all that much was because I was treating it like another Five Point Someone. I didn't have time and was just speed-reading through it. Now, I do have time. And it's no FPS. There are some lines in the book that I find particularly interesting and insightful.

It's even more interesting because it's written by someone who teaches at IITD now. It took me a long time to realise that Professors are human beings too, who have a life beyond the classrooms, labs and their offices. I still tend to forget that at times. We don't have labs at my present college though.

Here are a couple of extracts that I underlined in the book (I never do that).

Unshakeable self-confidence was key to winning the battles we fought. The battle for grades and academic achievement was just one small part of the larger war, the others being the battles to appear unconcerned, in control, well rounded, cultured, self-confident. Accustomed all our lives to being lauded as exceptional, we were all scared that the true measure of ourselves, our unremarkable selves, would emerge one day.

And,

It was Neeraj who taught me that friendship between two men can have all the ferocity of a love affair. Of the many things I was forced to realize in reflecting on the time I spent with him, perhaps the most sobering and terrifying was the understanding that the strongest and deepest bonds we form in our lives are with people who know how to hurt us in the most devastating ways.

Johnny Gaddaar Redux

I am not a great fan of Raja Sen (of Rediff film-reviewer fame), but I am not joining his hate community on Orkut anytime soon either. Especially after his fantastic review for Johnny Gaddaar. It's come a little late in the day, but every bit helps. This is the closest that any of the better known reviewers has come to what I felt about the movie. Go watch it, if you haven't yet. Hell, watch it again even if you have.

Random thoughts

Right now I sort of have an inkling of what multiple orgasms must feel like. I got private access to the movie collection of this batchmate of mine, who I didn't even know had such an amazing collection. He has tons of movies that I have been trying to get my hands on for the longest time. I will have to somehow balance watching all these movies (have stopped writing DVDs, which creates a problem with the limited hard disk space) and attending the few classes I have to attend.

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The coming days are going to be good fun for the quizzer in me.

A few moments after we (my two teammates and I) won an annual Jadavpur University quiz this weekend, I was saddended by the thought that this is the last year I'll get to participate in inter-college quizzes. Once I start working (and I am fairly sure I'll be working a year from now), I'll have to wait for the rare open quizzes to participate. Anyway, my sort-of-regular-partner and I are making good use of the last year we have.

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Was going through the last couple of posts from my previous blog. I had written about my initial experiences in IIM Calcutta there. Things haven't lived up to the initial expectations. I have sort-of got disillusioned by the kind of 'business leaders' that B-schools seem to create. But there have been great moments too. And all said and done, even though this is a little early, I am glad I came to IIM Calcutta.

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I am watching Raakh, one of Aamir Khan's first movies, even as I write this. It's fascinating how raw movies like these used to be in the late 80s - early 90s. It's a very nice movie - another one of those I had been looking for for some time now. It's difficult to imagine that we have come out of those out-of-the-world times called the 1980s.

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I realized a few days back that I have gotten this habit of saying 'sort-of' too often.