Victor Fernandes

“What about religion? Did you get into religion?”

Victor has had ups and downs. A bachelor of Science, it took him six years to wrap up the three year course at University. A troubled childhood translated into psychological turmoil during his time at University. Marijuana worsened things. Last evening, I met Victor over beers. It was probably the first time that I’d have a drink with him in his neck of the woods.

“College was fun, wasn’t it?”

Well, it wasn’t for me.

“Well, I was bored during all of it, Victor.”

Youth cultural festivals in India

Someone I know posted this today, fables about a popular youth festival in Mumbai in India. Sorry state of affairs. Somethings got to give.

FIN

21 years hence.

Attention: this post is a Shaaaks commemorative.

Ashwin had always been this lad at school. Good at sports. Our school won every single inter-school hockey tournament whilst Ashwin &others participated. I hardly ever interacted with him whilst in school, except for the odd discussions about the Wednesday night porn telecast on the local cable television. We’d go to Mr. &Mrs Geoff for tutions in Math &Science in Std. X. I got to know him a little better then, or maybe not.

We’d join different juinor colleges. Come university, we found ourselves in the same institution. He’d graduate in Chemistry &I’d do Physics. It wasn’t academics, but alcohol that brought us under the same roof &at the same time.. whilst lectures &practicals were conducted a few blocks away, at the institution. Ashwin, myself &fifteen others discovered an institution of our own.. the bar(s).

Malhar 2009

I spent the day at Malhar in the midst of 2000 odd juveniles. Detailed posts later. But a few highlights now.

I thought that this collage was very cool. Photos of the college and volunteers of the past, I guess. Well done.

Oh yes, Jhonny, I like the spirit. Reopen Rang Bhavan.

Used books were on sale. Good books. Good Prices. Among all of them, these:

Way to go, dude!

Oh yeah, Jill, I like the spirit.

Michael is always good.

Okay, now those of you who spent the day i.e. the Sunday of Malhar, at Malhar, there were these buggers who’d done this tribal dance like thing at around noon, at the Foyer. Malhar Volunteers? Know who I’m talking about? Got a number? I thought those tribal buggers were very natural &cool. Need to get in touch with them. Anybody?

And yeah, the sound was awesome. &I’m not saying that because all of the staff from PULZ &some of them from Roger Drego are close friends of mine.

Cool, get in touch if you know those buggers who’d done the tribal dance like thing. If you were a volunteer, leave a comment, maybe you could help me.

PEACE

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The ongoing debate in India, the One Country, One University thing

Okay. So now there has been talk a’plenty about scrapping all state run Universities, and, instead, subscribing to a centralised National Education Board that’ll conduct Standard X and XII examinations across all states in India. Educationalists, politicians, non-profits and fuck knows who’ have been venting out their three paise  [3] on television channels and newspapers the clock’around.

Neither do I have a solution to this issue, nor do I want to participate in the debate. But then, having had to be slave to the institution [1] and its ways for the first twenty-one years of my life, I have an opinion on how I’d have liked things to be.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Elocution Competition. In school. Late Eighties. Early Nineteen Nineties. “Canon to the right of them, Canon to the left of them, Canon behind them”. Scans of the handwritten thing by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1864:

“NO KISSING”

It’d been raining. Since morning. I was traveling, from some fifteen kilometers to home. Along the way, whilst clogged in traffic, I found this auto rickshaw, just up ahead, a strong, but pethetic message, it spelt: NO KISSING.

FIN

Nelson doesn’t love us.

Nelson is Goan, almost retiring, a couple of years, perhaps.

“We, in our time, were very loyal to our workplace, our company. We’d stick. We’d learn. We’d perform. We’d be sincere to our company. Today’s young generation, they have no sense of loyalty, they jump from one company to the other for five hundred, one thousand rupees more.”

Nelson is a highly qualified hardware engineer. He’s spent almost all his life in this one company, that manufacture audio hardware. He’s got a good ear, and taste in music.

“I stopped taking interviews. I am fed up. Sagar now does the interviews. I cannot stand the youth of today, they’re a bunch of shit. One day, someone came for an interview and asks me – which company is this?
Can you believe it? I asked him – you’ve applied, you’ve come for an interview – and you don’t know which company you’ve come to for an interview?
And he replied no – I don’t have access to the internet – my brother has Internet at work – he applied to several places for me – now how do I know where all he’d applied!
Can you believe that?”

Nelson is full of stories.

“I asked him, what are your expectations?
- twelve thousand!
I meant to ask – what were his expectations of the company, his work but straight away! A fresher! Twelve thousand they want! Any sense!
I gave him a written test – bugger doesn’t know how many centimeters make an inch! He phoned a friend and asked him to check it on a foot ruler! Any sense? What is a decibel, we asked – he wrote a whole theory and equations – took an extra sheet of paper! We only expected him to write – a unit of sound!”

THIS WAS A VERY INTERESTING CONVERSATION. BUT I’M TOO BORED TO CONTINUE. I GUESS I’M DONE WITH BLOGS AND BLOGGONG. PERHAPS NOT, BUT NO MORE STORIES FOR YOU.

Not only, but also

Master Jatashankar taught the boys Hindi, in school. Master Jatashankar spoke bad English, to say the least, and often cracked indecent jokes about Lilly, the sexy English teacher, who’d wear her skirts to school, exposing knee to ankle. Jatashankar’d be rude to his students at times, all dialogues in Hindi:

“Yes, second row, second last bench, if you want to laugh, laugh at home, in front of your lowlife mother, and lowlife father, and not in my class.”