Musical Musings

Disclaimer: If the title alone stirred your interest in the following post, desist from reading further. Musical Musings did inspire this post, but then I digressed astronomically.

After nearly 2 years of complaining about insufficient co-curricular activities to complement the coursework at our college, we can finally see clubs sprouting here and there like mushrooms and grass in this delightful rainy weather. 

The best part being that they show signs of a wee-bit of growth and the potential to become associations in themselves- something that will not end with the most enthusiastic founder members passing out. They display the potential of blossoming into active communities. 

To name a few clubs in alphabetical order: 

The Anime Club: They meet regularly every Tuesday. Well, most Tuesdays. A large population at IIIT-Delhi used to watch Anime as it is. Now they have an official platform for heated discussions with people across all batches. A great future(for the club) can be seen in the twinkling eyes of every avid anime viewer.

Astronuts:The astronomy club has met just once so far, granted. But that one meeting sure was informative, not to mention, magical. We saw the following heavenly bodies before the poor skies forced us inside -
Jupiter along with Ganymede, Lo, Europa and Callisto.

Kartikeya Nakshatra(alternatively known as M45) 

Gemini, Taurus, Libra Constellations

Orion along with four stars in the Orion Nebula

The main driving force for this club is the founder, who's been practicing amateur astronomy for the past 5 years and is unlikely to give up such a long-time hobby. Plus she's a first year and can help strengthen the foundations of the club before she passes out. Her interest will benefit the rest of us less knowledgeable folks( strictly w.r.t. astronomy). Moreover, her plans for future meetings are quite interesting.

Audio Bytes: They don't have an official structure which assures training for the truly passionate. But then, if you are into music enough to really want to learn it, you don't need anything except maybe a sound-proof room and the right instruments. Currently, we have a decent set of equipment for the all the drummers, guitarists and pianists out there. Moreover, it will take more than the lack of equipment to kill genuine interest in Music. On this note, I digress for a moment to pave way for the latest discovery - the ShrutiBox, a  collection of songs by the music composer and clarinetist, Shankar Tucker. The Hindustani and Carnatic vocalists provide a distinctive flavor to some previously known songs. I find a few more likable than their original versions. And then there is the main man- Tucker, who as their official webpage claims plays most of the instruments in these compositions. Modern Classical music- a great revival technique.

Here's a sample.

Next in line is the Dance club - Madtoes, the lack of funds does not deter their enthusiasm for the art. They have taken the bold step of organizing a Dance party without free food. Hitherto, whenever someone was bold enough to so do, organizers and their most faithful friends made up the entire gathering. People never dare to organize an event without the promise of free food in boldface, for food is the adhesive force that brings us all together. Salute to the Mad(toes) organizers. Hope the event goes well.

FooBar: An institute that prides itself in its CS program, must have a strong group of coders who shine at events like CodeChef, ICPC and the rest, bringing eternal glory to the institute. FooBar, was created to serve this end. They are fairly active, considering that they just came into existence a month ago.

Lit-Soc: This hurts the most, for I helped find this one. Some meetings were held in the past 6 months, sure. But the attendance has been a monotonically decreasing curve with respect to time and unless this club is given a face-lift soon, it may become one of many pre-existing dormant clubs. The one event that had the most active participation was an Online Haiku Writing Competition. It's a little sad, even though the competition was a great success.

Quiz Club: If ever there was a more secure set of individuals, well, I shall do a jig for the entire class to watch(before the Prof. comes in). They do not care for funds or infrastructure. Mind you, the nature of this club is their main advantage. All they need are inquisitive minds with a competitive spirit. I just wish these quizzes were not just a once-during-every-college-festival affair. Still, these guys are pretty active.

Spic Macay: This is the latest addition to the list of extra-curricular activities. This doesn't really count as a club, but a IIIT-Delhi Spic Macay Chapter is just another step towards becoming a wholesome institute.

Sports: Joga Bonito-the annual intra-college football tournament, an annual Cricket Tournament and several Pool, Table Tennis and basketball enthusiasts make a strong enough case for the level of activity in this area. But the rest of the sports are seasonal. This is not a reference to Ice-Hockey or Skiing. Delhi hasn't witnessed snow in the past half-century and we do not have enough funds for creation of an artificial arena. Badminton and volleyball enthusiasts surface once every spring. The 'active' runners can be seen marking the college perimeter once every autumn. However, establishment of proper infrastructure within the next few months, will hopefully change the scene for most sports here at IIIT-Delhi.

Tasveer: A club for all those lunatics who whip out their fancy camera phones or DSLRs everytime they see anything remotely photogenic seems logical, right? Tasveer is still in its nascent stage, not unlike FooBar and Astronuts, but it has inherent potential. (Pardon the repetition, for when has potential energy ever been not inherent?!) Plus, we have some very good amateur photographers already.

So there you go. Those are the clubs that make the IIIT-D news most often.
Without further ado, I shall go back to my studies and let a English novelist and theoretical physicist conclude this post.

'One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.'  ~E.M. Forster

'I have no special talents. I am just passionately curious' ~ Albert Einstein

21

From a bee-sting that caused my father to be admitted into the hospital,
From the walks in the park where I would try to imitate the great man, my grandfather,
From the tales spun around lizards, monkeys and some members of the insect family( cockroaches, if memory serves me),
From the house with a grape vine and a bed of roses,
From the birth of a brother who literally, turned everything around,
From the cement table, the banyan tree and the ghostly garage that scared the bejesus out of a bunch of   8 year olds,
From the time of hide n seek, french cricket and azaadi,
From the get-togethers, pot-lucks and moon-lit dinners with people who left us for the lands beyond the sea,
From all those myriads of memories associated with every place I have lived in to the place I call home.
Two years ago, that chapter of my life ended.

And an hour from now, I shall be on the other side of one-and-twenty.

Sickness, trips and whatnot

I feel sick. Not the soul wrenching sickness that plagues so many youngsters of today. Its the troublesome sickness generated due to one(or more) of the following -
1. Jumping in a waterfall (not from the ledge though) and staying put in the extremely cold water for close to an hour.
2. Celebrating a slightly wet Holi despite clear signs of common cold being just around the corner.
3. Being in close vicinity of a person already infected by common cold and what-not.
4. Clothing myself thinking its June when its closer to mid-February in the City.

Though no.1 may seem like the clear winner, the other three should be given certain amount of credit too. Its been nearly a week. The cold and deadlines have kept me from talking the hell out of the recent trip to Jim Corbett. From switches* to waterfalls and waiting in an open jeep for a tiger that wouldn't show up to being so desperate to see a tiger that a dozen kids almost believed that any random video of a tiger behind some bushes in a random cell was an authentic one and that "It all comes to those who wait"- this is what the Corbett trip was all about. And some other stuff squeezed in here and there in a 3 days and 4 nights trip(2 nights in the resort and 2 in the bus).

Lessons learnt-

When on a  trip with people from college, be sure to run low on sleep. Sleep deprivation is something you simply cannot avoid. Specially when a bunch of kids consider it their foremost duty to wake up anyone who chances to fall asleep. Almost as if it'll be bad for them to sleep on the trip. I count myself lucky to have been a part of this bunch at times. It prevented me from dozing off myself. Then there was this kid who dozed off on a bench(surrounded by black dogs) because his room had been converted into a card room. Or maybe simply because he found the bench cozier than his bed.

All Leaf colors, can they be found on a painter's pallet? I doubt it.
No camera can capture the feeling of seeing a forest view in person. Situations, yes. Certain landscapes, yes. Cameras do capture all that. But not this feeling. And I don't think this should be called seeing(or any of its synonyms). The sensation is not merely limited to being able to see/view/look at an object. Of course, all other senses supplement what the eyes see to generate that feeling. Bottom line- Cannot capture all the senses worth of feelings in a photograph.

Artificial Rappelling turned out to a shade tougher than the real deal. But its also less scary. Take your pick.

One should never underestimate the photographer's ability to capture one's most ridiculous expression. Just freeze whenever you try/try not to pose for a picture. Don't twitch or anything because that is the photographer's window of opportunity.

Lastly, nature hikes are the best. The BEST. Specially the ones that have a waterfall towards the end.

Also, Holi is a blur. Colors and balloons are all that I can recall. I do remember waking up that day to see a huge face looming large above me. My imp of a brother was trying to wake me up by asking for my permission to hit me with a pink water balloon.


*Not the regular kind. The special emotional switch.

Latest Addition to Travelogue

I took another trip to Mumbai. This being my second visit in the last one year. A different team. A different purpose. The same old me.
New aspirations and apprehensions.

I'll let these pictures do the talking.

The last four images depict a bot called 34 by 2. The reason this requires mention is that it was designed and  manufactured almost* completely by four second year students- one out of those four being the author of this post. Also, because it made the Quarter-finals!

I cannot lie to you, my dear blog. Its been a long time since I felt this peaceful. I guess it has something to do with being around school friends.

Or maybe its just the waves.

Stare at the water crashing against the rocks and you'll find your peace

*A senior student played the guiding angel

A Season to Love

October- the best time of the year again. Just went by. Not that other months aren't good. I love the time Spring is just around the corner and the Christmassy air never fails to lift my spirits. But October has its own beauty and appeal and the fact that its the most festive season in our country simply adds to the charm.

Oh! And my birthday just passed me by. I wish my motives behind writing his post were loftier.
Alas, they are not.
The Dude-I-am-twenty moment is passe. Somewhat.

I got an awesome slippers for my birthday that sound and look good. Here, take a look.

Brand new slippers

It was nothing like it was expected to be. Strangely, that suited me well.

The End Of Particle Physics As We Know It?

'If it is true then we truly haven't understood anything about anything.' ~Alvaro de Rujula, theorist at CERN


'Neutrinos can travel at a speed faster than light.' When I first read this on Facebook (Sadly enough, Fb is currently my main source of information), the thought that jumped to my head was "How many theories are going to require revision?! Second thought- If and only if this is validated and truly true, we are a step closer to time travel. Wow. Third thought -Lets put the internet to work for us through ifttt.com i.e., 'If certain subatomic particles can travel faster than speed of light, reset all the (now) obsolete explanations and theories based on the presumption that the fastest a particle can travel is at the speed of light.
This news came around a week back and since then, the blogosphere's been flooded by related posts. This discovery if found to be true would destroy the very foundation of modern physics.

A fundamental pillar of physics that nothing can go faster than the speed of light appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around Albert Einstein's theories - is what The Hindu had to say about this.

 If this observation is validated by the Fermi lab in Chicago( a lab well equipped to test the validity of this overwhelming claim), Einstein- the man labeled as the father of modern physics who taught us the energy- mass equivalence, would be dethroned leaving the door open for another great mind to walk in and be immortalized as the man who flawed the almighty E=mc^2 equation.

Did you know - Einstein along with Richard Feynman, Fermi and Openheimer had a direct role to play in the Manhattan Project? In Einstein's defense, his equation might explain the release of energy during a nuclear fission but it does not tell one how to make a nuclear bomb. In his own words, Einstein expressed his regret at having even suggested research on nuclear energy as a good idea to FDR - "Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing."

Anyway, amongst the several theories floating around, one particularly interesting theory goes as follows:  particles can travel at a speed greater than 299792 km per second by taking another (a fifth?) dimension through time and that is, travel through wormholes.


Incredible claims require incredible evidence - NY Times.
And for when someone does find this evidence(if it exists), more concrete than anything, the implications will be HUGE. I don't think we can fully appreciate the magnitude of the mess this is going to create.
For now, all we can do is wait. (And hope for time travel to become a reality before our stay on earth  terminates.)

The Beginning of a Tradition

The event ended. More events ended. All the events ended. And still nothing remotely blue. Later , while I lay awake contemplating on how the last two days had been a complete blur, post-Esya blues hit me. More so because a pile of work awaited me with open arms. Another silver lining on the horizon. Yes, I am kidding you.

Months of planning and  hardwork later, people could see their efforts come to fruition. It was amazing how our event heads had planned out each and every moment. Thought of every possible glitch. Took care of everything. Almost superhuman. The entire event is like a reel of film I can run in my head, any instant.

Memorable Moments

Tech Talks - The first GD round was more of a cat fight than a discussion on UIDs. The moderator's expressions were worth capturing. 'C'est abominable '- his expression said.
The finalist for the debate decided to empty an entire bottle of toothpaste on the stage. It impressed the judges and he won the first prize. (He spoke well, though.) 

300 or so participants in Treasure Hunt -  I missed out on this event due to the unfortunate clash of events but they say it was the most happening event of the college's first ever technical fest. Five Rounds. Five clues placed at select places in the 100 acre campus.

The Gaming arena set up in one of the classrooms - Our usually boring, drab and dull classroom was transformed into a haven for gamers overnight. It was absolutely unrecognizable. And the shock of seeing it get back in its normal state less than 24 hours after it was packed with gamers of all sizes- huge boulder sized and tiny kids, was appalling.

The Quiz was another interesting event. The final round made us sit at the edge of our seats. 

The college band's maiden performance - I had heard them play before, but that day with the slight drizzle and the happy crowd of fans and participants, they took it to a another level.

The Rain Dance - The DJ got seizures in between really great dance numbers. The sprinklers malfunctioned. But it was so awesome. Everyone got drenched to the bone and shivered all the way back to their home or where ever they planned to take lodgings for the night.

I'll remember this one for a long time for the tragedy of events that took place. And even otherwise. 

Make way for Esya '11

I never thought of my blog as a space for sharing events from my life. I considered it more of a space where I could go on a rant and be insanely talkative about unrelated stuff. But it is hard not to! Inevitably, I ended up creating a label 'Events' - for when I wish to talk about the happenings in and around my life.

And this time its Esya '11, the first IIIT Delhi Tech Fest.

Excitement is high. Its the topmost thing in almost everyone's mind. Even the non-workaholics are working really really hard for the success of this event. Everyone in the NCR region who has the remotest contact with a IIITDian is receiving invitations for events like- programming, quizzing, debates, treasure hunt, gaming, business strategy, DJ night and lots more. From the basic planning of events and resources to arranging sponsors- its all being done by the students.

Esya '11 - Of the students, By the students and For the students.

The Summer Of My Discontent

This marks the end of three months of vacations that just flew by.
THREE ENTIRE MONTHS!
Gone, gone, gone...

My only discontent being - the end. It came too soon for my liking. I was just beginning to feel truly at home at home.No matter how clichéd this sounds, it truly truly seems like just yesterday- the start of our vacations and there I was, troubling people in other colleges as they tried to slog through their end-semester exams while I celebrated the start of 3 months of awesomeness.

College starts today. As I go through the 'its-the-last-day' FB posts flooding my News Feed, I am not altogether sad at seeing the end of the vacations. Its back to the fun/work. Yay!

And yeah- the title is inspired from a novel. Pardon me, Kaps, for sounding somewhat like you. Your latest post made me want to write this short piece.

Organ talk

^Its time to talk 'Organs'.

My job being to talk about the following critical ones only.

Heart

Its pointless to elucidate it's functions and importance. What I will talk about though is, how your daily intake of junk food can drastically reduce healthy heart functionality. All the fatty food that we consume leads to the fattening of the pulmonary arteries- a major cause for heart attacks and other symptoms leading to one.

Abnormal Aorta

         

             Normal Aorta

Abnormal Aorta with fatty streaks

             
Brain

The specimen at display at the Organ talk had Hematoma. The black thing on the right specimen is the clotted blood due to a severe head injury that was evidently fatal.

A normal brain(left) v/s one with Hematoma

Lungs

Yeah, smoke your worries away. But do remember the effect it has on your lungs(See pic). Apart from exponentially reducing the alveoli count, it makes your lungs much less spongy(which effectively means- the lungs' capacity to expand upon inhalation has reduced significantly). Seeing the skeptical look on one of our faces, the demonstrator had us touch the right lung. Both healthy one and the one blackened and damaged due to smoking. I could see from the look on this lucky person's face that she wasn't too happy about it. 

            

A smoker's lung

Blocked Alveoli

Liver

The following picture is why alcohol consumption is not the healthiest of options. Besides the fact that it severely hampers normal functioning of the liver- which includes emulsification of fats, manufacture of bile juices and blah, it doesn't make your liver look good, does it? 

A cirrhotic liver- scarred and blotchy

Bones

Now this reminded me of the Amul jingle 'Piyo dood in every season, piyo dood for a healthy reason'(Drink milk in every season, Drink milk for a healthy reason). Because Osteoporotic bones are weak. So much so that a slight bump against a piece of furniture will cause your bones to crack or break away neatly. 

Why was I present at an organ talk anyway?

Well, my mother's department organised this event on the occasion of the death anniversary of the former head of the department and she asked me to be there. Since I had nothing up my sleeve that would excuse me from this event , I obliged. And boy, was I glad I did that. It wasn't boring at all! Last year's event had been more of a dull exhibition. This year- we, a former school-mate and me, walked in amidst a great introduction by the head of the department. Grand, I tell you.
 Apart from meeting up with our old science teacher we chatted with the weenies about the weird changes made to our good ol' school. The tea and luncheon only made us happier. What was astonishing though, was the way the tenthies(DPS) took on the 11th and 12th standard people(from other schools) in the organ talk quiz. Maybe it had something to do with the booklets they were provided beforehand. The token of appreciation for the winners was a Lucky Bamboo- a Feng Shui plant said to bring good luck.

Post Organ talk, my friend and I headed for our local haunt and gorged on an odd assortment of junk food- golgappas, tikkis, momos, pasta and faluda. 

A deliciously hypocritical finish to a long day.
 

Excerpts from Life in Another Metro

Here, you will get to test your patience. If you can get to the end of this post without a feeling of boredom shifting your cursor to the little cross-mark on the top right corner, you know you are a patient soul.

I am in Mumbai, People! With two others who, like me, have never ever been on a trip like this one before. One of us has never been to this city before so its an entirely new experience for her while the other has lived here for a considerable time (which effectively means- we always have an unpaid guide by our side).
What makes this trip so different? 
Well, firstly, its just the three of us. We manage our own chores. And by that, I mean every task imaginable.  Buying grocery, using it to cook our own meals, eating whatever we cook regardless of the taste and loving it at the same time.(We have cooked a couple of things and, surprisingly they've all turned out quite well. Edible. Tasty.) We live in a teeny tiny walk up- complete with a refrigerator and plenty of freedom. Living in a city alone makes you see it in a light you would have never seen, were you accompanied by your family.

The start was eventful enough with my breaking of the wash-basin in the bathroom of our landlady's house. Needless to say, she's not our landlady anymore.
Local trains are not as bad as they are thought to be. They are the 'metro minus the air-conditioning, sliding doors and the weird-sounding lady announcer'. In fact, the relatively new local trains do have a lady announcer who sounds more human and less of a parrot(comparison with the Delhi metro).
Then there are the people here. 'Bindaaas' is the only way to describe them.

Wich Latte, Cossway

NOTE:
To shop at reasonable rates visit Cossway, near Gateway of India. Bargain your way through some really awesome stuff. There is a 98.9% chance that you will overspend and get value for your money. (0.1% chance that you don't overspend and 1% chance that you can't bargain). With a considerably lighter wallet, stop over at a cafe for your favorite beverage. And just in case shopping (or drinking) bore you to death, take a buggy ride to Marine drive. Or take a walk through the crowded roads that were witness to the 26/11 terror strike. As luck would have it, we went there- neither once nor twice, but thrice!

Some ten days later...

The Mumbai monsoons are upon us. The only problem is navigating the narrow lanes without the aid of rubber rain boots. Not that I ever used them before. I don't even own them. But now I wish I had them. Mumbai draws a few parallels from an ant colony. No amount of rain or sun can stop the people here from going about their business. The first day it poured heavily- we stayed in due to sheer laziness, under the impression that the flooded streets would result in walking in ankle-deep sludge. The second day, we ventured out anyway. Destination - Powai. One of the few places where a little greenery is visible in Mumbai.
Kung Fu Panda 2 's awesomeness blinded me like no other animated movie has ever done before. iMax 3D is simply too good to be true.(I like writing iMax the way I did.The inspiration is too obvious to be stated.)


Bombay was the perfect name for this city. Just like Bangalore is way better than Bengaluru.  But the Shiv Sena and its bunch of goons decided that 'Bombay' was a corrupted English version of 'Mumbai'. The British did hordes of bad things to India and its resources. Agreed. But christening the 'gateway to India' as 'Bombay' is certainly not one of them.The national government actually objected to this renaming, fearing 'Bombay' would lose its identity internationally.It hasn't. Foreigners still refer to Mumbai as Bombay. Ha ha.

Now that this first of its kind trip draws to a close, I guess I should conclude this post too and enjoy the last night in this city (on this trip).

In God's Land

How could I complain about life being dull? It can be boring at times, I agree. But dull it certainly is not. Here's why.

Rewind to the morning of 9^th May.
College mates and adventure - a  marvelous combination. From jumping off a cliff into the Ganges to climbing down a vertical mountain face, white water rafting over a 16 kilometers stretch to an early morning nature walk – we did it all. Not to mention the trek up and down a hill along a pre-chalked out path complete with slippery steep regions and a silent zone(Its a human settlement, so you are absolutely prohibited from as much as whispering here. Nevertheless, this is where one of us started singing 'We are the Champions' at the top of his lungs and progressed to singing a few Christmas carols before somebody told him about the zone being a silent one) and a cleanup region(where we were supposed to pick up all the non-biodegradable junk careless mountaineers leave behind. Here we found out the brand of gutka (or pan masala) preferred by people while trekking. We stayed in a cozy little tent complete with an attached washroom. (Tents should be made up of sound-proof material. Even the people trying hard not to eavesdrop can hear everything you say. And whispering doesn't help either.)
Jumping off a cliff into a river is not really that tough. All you need to do is get to the edge, close your eyes, and take a step forward. Gravity will take over and the water below will cushion your fall(almost always). I never understood the power of the potential energy being stored in a object due to the work done on the object by gravity as well as I did during that 3 second fall.
Caves behind waterfalls have neither algae nor bats (or vampires). At least the one I went to only had loads of green surfaced-rocks, a marvelous view and a rare kind of peace and quite.
Most important lesson learnt: When on a bus full of your peers, take care not to fall asleep. Because if you do, you will regret it. Facebook will make sure that even the people who weren't on the bus get to know how peaceful you look while you sleep.

Though I am trying to give words to this experience of a lifetime, memory alone can do justice to this trip. Words simply cannot describe how exhilarating and rejuvenating a trip it was.
Pictures, you say? A few of them, I did manage. Just me and my ghisa-pita phone-cum-camera.

The End Of the Beginning

Today marks the end of one year of college life. No longer freshers with shiny faces,we are now the all-knowing second-year students rearing to have a go at the humungous work and bucketful of fun in the academic year to come.[We have repeatedly been told how ' your workload is nothing compared to ours. ' Its funny how seniors (be it the ones in school or college) always say that.] But we need to contain this steam because its still three entire months before college restarts. Till then it is Fun, fun, fun.


And when it comes to fun - nothing is fun on an empty stomach. So, we celebrated the end of  the end-semester exams with a visit to Pizza Hut. And the best(and most delicious) part was the cheese cake(see pic, if you haven't already).

There are so many things that need to be done during the vacations. Not to mention the great list of must-watch movies to be released this summer. So much to look forward to apart from the usual hobbies which are almost always neglected during term time. Its exciting just to think about it all.


P.S.: This post was due to be posted on 29th April 2011. No explanations available for the delay.

H v/s H

Being home after a particularly long spell in hostel, I grabbed one of the most fluffiest pillows on my bed and settled down. Two minutes into this semi-sleepy state, the following came to me:

1.) Home - means food is only a few steps away and every time you hear an odd rumble, you don't have to walk a few hundred meters to satisfy your hunger pangs.

2.) Home is spacious.You can jump, dance and hop all you want without the fear of hitting some random piece of furniture. On the other hand, hostels provide you just enough room to study, sleep, etcetra, etcetra...but NO jumping and absolutely NO dancing.

3.) Take a really prolonged bath. And if in the due course there is no banging on your door asking ...nay, ordering you to come out asap- you know you are at home.
And if its Holi, 'you gotta be home'. Or stay that tinge of green, red, pink, orange, purple, black or silver (or all together) till you get home.

4.) Going home on the very weekend a live band is performing in (almost)your college grounds implies there's a 99% chance you are going to miss an Awes..full ...Awesfull performance. It should actually have been 100% if unlike me, you don't believe in miracles.

Yawn...Post Holi lethargy catching up with me.
Continue this in another post.

It's in the Air

The season of spring's approaching and a pleasant balmy breeze blows all day long. Other things coming up : a test, a marriage in the family (Yipee... I am attending :D), another test(s) and mid-sem exams (in that order). And various miscellaneous events at college. And Holi is coming up too. But its still a good one and half month away from now. Plus I'd like to devote another post to that.So, I'll leave it at that.

And yeah ... St. Valentine's execution day is just around the corner too. The most plausible story behind 14th February runs as follows :
Claudius II announced a ban on marriage because he believed that marriage made young men emotionally unfit to become good soldiers. But, St. Valentine, a priest defied the emperor's direct order by secretly joining young lovers in holy matrimony and was arrested for his actions. During his imprisonment, a deep friendship developed between Valentine and his jailor's (previously blind) daughter (whom he cured through his strong vehicle of faith - Catholic interpretation or some miraculous powers - Protestant interpretation ). Impressed by his conduct, the emperor tried to convert Valentine to the Roman Gods but Valentine instead tried to convert the emperor. This angered Claudius and he ordered Valentine's execution. Valentine signed a note addressed to the jailer's daughter as "From your Valentine" -  a phrase that became immortal along with Valentine's name. But it is widely believed that his execution had more to do with agape than Eros (Use your favorite search engine here, if the need be).

So, things are lined up neatly for the next few days.  ;)

When they saw the Spotted One

This trip has been in the planning stage since the last one week. So, when all of a sudden a spotted cat(read Cheetah) comes along and renders the place where we intended to camp a 'Entry denied till further notice' area, I am not too glad about it.


Now, untill the forest officers pluck up the courage to catch it, we cannot go anywhere near the forest.

And THAT is not likely to happen soon.

Whats worse... they aren't even sure about its current whereabouts.Another forest has become out of bounds due to this.Hence, another possible destination has to be crossed out from our places-we-can-go-to list.
I just hope we find a alternative soon because such moments when all the 'people' are back for the end-of-sem vacations and have the time to hang out(all together), are rare.
Really rare.

After all, when was the last time we all went for a trip??

Can't even remember.