August 17, 2008

Random Thoughts

Wow, and for what am I writing this blog entry today? For no great reason at all. Maybe just because it’s been one complete month since I arrived here at IIJNM, to become a journalist. One month over of this 11-month course! So how am I doing? Hmmm… Not bad, good we can say. But am I at my best? NO sir. Why not? Ughh... If any excuse has been devised to justify complacency or reluctance then tell me. I’m still not at my best. Umm… Attribute it to lack of will power too. I want to wake up early in the morning, but cannot. This is my childhood problem. Hehe... But stop it, it’s not funny. Even though I’m not doing bad here, I’m not at my best too. It’s been too long since a potential winner has been the be-all-and-end-all of Hemant Gairola in his academic life. It’s time for a change.

And yeah it’s not just about talking big, I’m going to walk the talk here. I’ve got some great plans here, just need to implement them. It ain’t like I haven’t done anything about them as of yet, just I need to stay more motivated and proactive. Ugh, why did I write "proactive" here when I’m not sure of its exact meaning?? Maybe I’m experimenting.

Anyway, this blog post is not about anything in particular. I’m writing just because I felt like writing. Anyhow, another people in the media lab are punching the keyboard so fiercely, so much noise that I felt like showing how you can type (a lot) faster without producing least noise. Man, who’s typing there soooo harshly!! Forgive your keyboard, plz…

Anything else? Yeah, maybe I’m writing just because my last entry was two weeks ago. I’d like my blog to be active and happening. I hope it becomes popular.

Ok, enough of blabbering, let’s get to work. So what are the things on my mind right now? Academics obviously, and how to excel. Now let me try to answer this question — how to excel (my God, why do you guys punch your keyboard like this, folks!!).

So what are the things I ought to do but don’t really do on a regular basis?
1. Building vocabulary
2. Speed reading thing
3. Reading books (quotes, Chicken Soup)
4. Reading newspaper
5. Doing my other research work about my ideas
6. Social work thing
7. Wanna get better (good) at guitar, singing too
8. Should play basketball every other day
9. Some kind of workout at least
10. Learn Kannada, man
11. Surf the statistics sites
12. Complete assignments at the earliest

And what else?? I’m sure there must be other things too, just not able to recall them. Well it’s not that I had a divine enlightenment today that I’m writing up all these things, these things are always on my mind, just not able to execute them well. But WHY NOT?? That’s the question. Ahh the same old excuse, occasional complacency, reluctance, lack of will power. Hell with it! Now, today onwards, I’m going to… Ah you know what. Going to “walk the talk.” I’m going to push harder. I want to get to my best. I want to see myself at my best. After a long time.

I’m really lucky that I’m at such a great place. Ralph sir is just fantastic
! A journalist of such a repute... He’s so dedicated, sincere and just what do I say... dedicated! And it’s not just him, our other faculty members too! Dakshinamurthy sir is one of the founding members of Al-Jazeera English. Lucky to have Nagesh Hegde sir for my electives. Saggere sir owner of Bangalore’s biggest photo agency, Kanchan mam and everyone bring with themselves such a vast experience of quality journalism… Everyone, Brent Hurd, Nikhat mam, Surekha mam… these are all people of great stature, having worked for so long for the best media houses in the industry. I’m blessed to be at this place. Good, that I understand that. But shouldn’t I be pushing myself to the limits to get the very best out of me?

I don’t know who you are, reading my blog but I don’t care if you feel like this is all empty talk. The thing is that, I’m just getting so damn fired up ever since coming here, I want to make it really B-I-G.

Michael Phelps is making record after record at the Olympics. Stories of his heroics splashed all over the newspapers. And what did he say in one of his latest interviews? Dream big. Believe in dreams. Nothing is impossible for human kind. (I’m not putting it under inverted comma because that’s not direct quote.) And what did I read in a newspaper supplement yesterday? “Human consciousness has the potential for immense talents and the purpose of human life is to actualise it.” Man, such things inspire me a lot! You can do, be or have everything you want in life. (Remember ‘The Secret’) Think positive, be happy… Ask and it will be given, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened for you. For, everyone who asks receives, who seeks finds, and who knocks it is opened for him. Comes from The Holy Bible.

Hmm… Likhne ko to ham bahut kuch... Oops! English only. Yeah, I can write just on and on an on... But its... Ok, one more thing...

I had a crush on sooo many girls in IMS, and I was perhaps kind of expecting something while coming to Bangalore. Bangalore girls! I wasn’t really that much excited (irrespective of what you might think, I’m a gentleman) but looking forward to Bangalore girls, nevertheless. Yes, here at IIJNM there are many
beautiful girls (though we are only around 60 students here)! But you see, I don’t get that kind of feeling, like we used to have in IMS. I don’t have a crush on anyone here!! Rather I sincerely admire these girls, some because they are so sincere and hardworking, and others simply because they are so simple, sober and nice :-) Maybe it’s also because of change of place. IMS was hell of a place. IIJNM is different. Haha… I’m around a lot of beautiful girls and I don’t have a crush on anyone, rather I respect and admire them (my friends would think I've gone crazy)!! Hey, nothing like respecting women-folk is a strange phenomenon for me. What’s interesting is that I don’t have a crush on anyone!!

Hmmm... Still got three assignments due for tomorrow. Is ‘due for tomorrow’ a correct expression? Don’t know. Please leave a comment to point out grammatical mistakes. Yeah, coming to the point. Just checked the iijnm.org mail, Ralph sir is online, I’m glad he is, for now I’m going to stop blabbering and gonna get back to work. I hope to finish it sooner rather than later.

Arey, looks like I forgot to mention few of my goals and Do’s and Don’ts. Putting them up in random order:
Make your grammar flawless, you fool!
Be more fluent in speaking.
Talk sloowwwly, think fast.
Little more emphasis on workout, yaar (once upon a time, not so long ago, one could notice your bulging biceps)
Read more of that Reverse Dictionary.
Again, complete your assignments asap.
Vocabulary: Everyday use at least five words you learnt, in your blog or mails.
Blogging: And try to blog almost every alternate day, idiot.

Ahh I think I’ve already mentioned all this and am typing here just for the hell of it. Oh yes, forgot the main point, no problem will write it here:
- SAY NO TO ORKUT (will figure out a weekly time for it)
- Yahoo! Mail only once a day (15 minutes before dinner)
- Gotta figure out a perfect schedule for myself pretty soon.
- Ugh… Abe kaam kar (Work, stupid.) Ok, I’m in a great mood, just don’t want to stop typing, so let me first finish my assignments one by one then I’ll take out time for this. Are
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Hmmm so where's the text gone I had written after 'Are,' the last word in the previous sentence. Agh I had typed out the whole text in MS Word and pasted to here. Have already closed the Word file without saving. No problem, there was never anything significant written under it. Bye bye!!

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be.” — James Allen

August 04, 2008

It's IMS Again!

Today is the first day of the new academic year in IMS — Institute of Management Studies, Dehradun. My college. Ugh! I never thought I’d address IMS as ‘my college.’ But well, as the things turned out in the end, I miss my college and my peers.

Let’s analyse. What exactly do I miss about being a part of IMS? Undoubtedly, it’s the fun factor that I’m missing. Wow, what a college it was! And what a life we lived… Never bothered to take along a pen or paper, but always made sure before leaving home that the cell phone and the headset were in my pocket. Once in the college, there it was, our balcony seat! Classrooms in IMS are built in theater-style, i.e. staircase type. Ours was the laaast seat (we named it balcony seat). And our balcony seat was just next to the window. Imagine, last seat next to window in second floor classroom, and at such a location from where you could see everyone’s movement in college. From our window we could see the entrance gate of the college, the main building, way to cafeteria, the tree we made famous.. Wow.. How we proudly used to occupy our enviable position on our balcony seat and used to look at those beautiful girls of my college!
 

Man I always said it that no matter wherever you go you’d never find sooo many beautiful girls who happen to be sooo beautiful! Yes folks, IMS Dehradun girls are really beautiful, even in uniform. (We had a waiter-like uniform – white shirt, black pant, blue tie.) I had soooo many crushes. If one went out of sight, another two used to walk in from somewhere. Those two went, another three used to walk in! Wow.. There was beauty all around… I really miss you girls... And I’m sure one particular group will be missing us too! Your first two years in IMS were pretty eventful, thank us dumbos!
 

And studies.. Aha.. Just don’t ask. No one ever gave a damn what the teacher is saying, never noted down anything in class. My friends and I never gave assignments and presentations, never sat for internal exams for more than 10 minutes, hardly sat for external exams for more than two hours. Aptly put by Tufi, that dear tree of ours was our correspondence address in the college. Our default hangout place. The tree under whose shade we used to chill out, listening to silly ringtones and laughing, or me imitating our teachers, or Rohit playing guitar. Yeah, one sir had even complimented me, “Hemant you don’t bring pen and paper but you always bring your guitar!”
 

Then our small walk to DIT canteen, it used to be so colourful, thanks to all those beautiful girls of DIT, and the rule that casual dress was allowed on Wednesday. Man I really like that girl – coin slot, and meri wali. Hehe.. I’m proud of myself that at least I gathered enough courage to dare talk to a girl and tell her that I have a crush on her! Thanks to a female cousin, it wouldn't have been possible had she not suggested that wonderful technique.
 

This article is not going anywhere. And this is not even an article as such, in the real sense. Damn! I’m a journalism student now and am supposed to be mindful of all the nuances of grammar. Yeah that’s true, but ‘this’ article is about IMS, so heck with any rule! In IMS I never did what I was supposed to do! I lived life on my own terms – messed with the director, had some friction with hard-boiled teacher, came sooo close to a fight situation, then solved it tactfully, became Mr. Farewell…!!
 

Man can’t you simply guess I had a fun-filled life, all these past three years. IMS — Institute of Mismanagement Studies actually — was our abode for fun. We used to go to college everyday because it was so much fun! Those beautiful girls, we friends, our gang, our hangouts, the time we spent together… Heck I miss it! And especially today, which marks the beginning of a new session. I wonder how many beautiful girls are there in this batch! Upon seeing them, on how many of them I’d have got a crush? Ah I’m really curious to know yaar. Last year’s batch brought Arjun ( a beautiful girl with boy-cut, thus the masculine name), black beauty, her whole group (all are soooo ……), bomb, my dear Kangana, then many girls whom we hadn’t given any nickname cuz we were very busy with their seniors. Yaar but last year’s batch was also a good one.
 

Sheh…. I miss being there. Arey kuch rutba tha hamara, dhaak thi IMS me. Khair, my stint is over there. Hmmm.. But let me think, I suppose this is the last time I’m writing for IMS. What really bonds us together? Do we love the college? Hell no! We absolutely hate it. We hate the director, that bloody (I won’t say anything but people understand what I want to say), their stupid, good-for-nothing, baseless rules that we never followed, those useless fines we had to give for damage we hadn’t done, that silly pattern of internal marking that drowned most of us, their.. just every damn thing about them. Ugh we hate college administration. We never had any function that gave us a chance to unite and hangout, no sports, nothing. Oh IMS people you are the world’s biggest losers! But hey, if this college is so bad, then why do people miss it?
 

Simply because its poor, irresponsible behaviour never prompted us to study, placed a complacent attitude in us, no one was motivated or enthusiastic. Like I wrote in the previous article, our life at IMS was a three-year picnic. I loved this picnic. I miss that feeling, that casual, complacent, laidback feeling rooted deep down inside us, when we used to stare outside window as the lecturer used to bore us, used to obediently go out of the classroom when told so...

Oh, man, I miss my college 'education' ;-)

“College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night? ” — David Wood