Too hot to handle!

It is too hot these days. The month of May was unexpectedly pleasant. But June is turning out to be a genuine torture. I have to go to institute these days for project work. Standing at the bus-stop, the piercing sunbeams are awful. By the time I get into the bus, my back is drenched and beads of perspiration start dripping onto the ground from my face.

What next awaits me is a seemingly long and dispiriting journey to the IIT bus-stop. Morning is the time when one realizes that how populous Delhi is! As a result, my incapability to find a seat, leads me to stand in utter despair. The jostling and shoving crowd gets on my nerves. By the time I reach institute, I have had the worst time of my life.

To make the matters worse still, even a short walk from the bus-stop to the Main Building is heavily taxing. Sweating profusely, I pave my way to the lab where I am supposed to do my project.

There’s no place like home. That’s right! But these days I have rather become critical to this fact. I am not having a good time even at home. Everything that I touch is hot. Or if it is cold then the nature and my grasp do everything to take away its coldness, something like the Midas touch. The water flowing through the taps is geyser-hot. I wonder if there is any hot spring near by which may contribute to this effect. Even to think about a bath is a terrible notion. Moreover, I am too tired of getting up every 15 minutes for a glass of water, how refreshing the end result may be.

Perhaps the afternoon hours are the most burdensome. Accompanying the torment are the typical summer season winds known as loo. It slaps my face with sheer disregard of my plight and leaves me cursing the season.

Newspapers are flooded with articles on global-warming these days. Suddenly the media has woken up to this issue and seems hell bent upon informing each and every person about it. Or may be is it that the authorities have woken up to this fact that something needs to be done at this stage to ensure a safe future for the generations, yet to come? Only time will tell so. A recent development is that all the countries in the world are imploring Uncle Sam to cut down its Carbon emission (which is humongous). But it doesn’t seem to be paying off.

I think that the pangs of global-warming are too obvious to be described. They can felt everywhere. Perhaps the heat is all around and has even ‘heated’ the people. Look around and one can notice the unrest anywhere. After the tiff between Dera Sacha Sauda and Akal Takht in Punjab came the unsettling feud between the government and the Gujjar community. The unrest spread from Rajasthan to the adjoining states only to be called off in time after a meeting between the Gujjar community and the BJP govt. in the state. Though the meeting made an headway, but at a cost. The cost was the lives of many innocent people and the inconvenience which was faced by the commuters.

To return back to my plight, no amount of ice-cream, AC or iced-tea can work against this sweltering heat. As a result, I have been feeling more ‘heat’. Even the simple act of thinking about heat, leaves me disgruntled. The only thing I can do is to wait, and wait for the Rain God to be generous and sing bhajans to appease him.

Check out these new trailers of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, scheduled to be released on July 13. These are better then the previous trailer which was released in a hurry long time back and was pretty disappointing.

At Apple Movie Trailers...
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/harrypotterandtheorderofthephoenix/trailer2/

At The Leaky Cauldron Video Gallery...
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/videogallery/video/show/670

Both are different. So don't think that these are two links of the same video! I liked the one at Apple Movie Trailers more rather than the one below it. But both offer a glimpse of the movie in their own manner.

I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood prince in July of 2005. The Counselling session conducted for the new admissions was over. I had even been informed about the branch which I had inherited. I had been very eagerly awaiting the sixth installment in Harry Potter series. there was so much I wanted to know. For instance, Harry would receive his OWL grades, whether Hermoine would make a fuss over her grades too(I had assumed that she will get nearly perfect score), who would be the Prefect, and the most of all about the fracas in which the good side of the Magical society was involved.

Thus I got ready around 8am. My mood was utterly jovial. I had already got a copy booked for myself at the local bookstore. In around 20 minuted the book was in my hand. I cannot describe the sensation. It is too good to be elucidated. As soon as I got home I delved into the book and everything else was forgotten.

It took me three good days to finish the book. I wanted to read the book slowly. This was to ensure that the sense of reading a new Harry Potter doesn't desert me too soon. I like this feeling very much. It's a special one.

There are many aspects of the book which I would like to consider. Firstly, the style of writing is crisp and clear. It is unlike its predecessor which was unnecessarily lengthy and contained irrelevant sub-plots. Probably, while writing the book J.K. Rowling had in her mind a mature reader. The fabric of the plot has been woven with caution so that too many details aren't let out. Throughout the book there is a sense of anticipated danger. A feeling of despair, darkness and something evil as well as disturbing, runs through the book.

Another point to ponder is Dumbledore's death. It is extremely unwelcome. Perhaps I had become very sad and disappointed by the end. He was at the forefront of the war against evil. He was a master strtegy maker and had a charismatic personality. He was the only one whom Dark Lord had ever feared. Moreover Dumbledore's omnipotency was his biggest strength and a boon for the Magical World. Now in his absence the onus lies on his followers and none are as capable as him. Harry may have faced him several times and may contain the power to love(according to Dumbledore that's a great power), but still he requires extraordinary skills to slay Dark Lord.

J.K. Rowling has conceded to the fact that the last two books are linked. This means the seventh novel will resume from the point where the sixth one left. I am expecting that the last one will be very exhilarating as well as convincing. After all the author is supposed to tie all the loose strings together. Many questions have been left unanswered.

At last… freedom! Last Wednesday was a very fortunate one as my majors got over. Since a few days I have been waiting to, though in vain anxiety, to update the blog. But for those who don’t burn the midnight oil during the lean period, exams are always a nightmare. To cut several big matters short, the exigencies of the semester finally got over.

Being an average guy, the results of the exams are always a source of bewilderment. The reason behind this odd assertion is that an academic stud knows he/she has fared well. Also a not-so-caring person knows that he/she is getting passing grades or not. But being average is certainly a different phenomena.

Yesterday, I sneaked out some time to watch Sunset Boulevard. The dramatic opening sequences were amazing. The ancient manor belonging to an ageing silent film actress Norma Desmond and the gloom prevailing over the characters as well as in the background was to raise my hair. There is a nagging feeling of anticipated agony and depression. The despondency of the protagonists has been carefully portrayed. The incessant efforts of her butler/ex-director/discoverer (though his background is revealed very late into the movie) to keep her in a state of paranoia were very successful. The narrator who is an unsuccessful writer falls in her trap. Later when he tries to extricate himself of her psychological captivation, he has to pay the price of his life. The end was somewhat disappointing. It didn’t meet my expectations. When the tension has been building up, there is a notion that something amazing is going to happen. But nothing of this sort happens. Even the grim background score had managed to create a momentum which was punctured by the uncaring and vague ending.

This reduces my list of movies to be seen by one. The decrement is insubstantial judging by the length of the list. Perhaps it is going to be an exhilarating experience to watch so many movies. Anyway I am game.

Here is a short story about which I was reminiscing recently in my lonely room. I liked the story for its palpable simplicity and the implicit truthfulness. It appeared in TOI on the Boxing Day of 2005. Here it goes...

A Place in Paradise

Many years ago, in the northeast of Brazil, there lived a couple who were very poor and whose only possession was a hen. They managed to scrape a precarious living from the eggs laid by that one hen. On Christmas Eve, however, the hen died. The husband, who only had a few pennies to his name, which was certainly not enough to buy food for that evening's meal, went to seek help from the village priest. Instead of giving him money, the priest merely remarked: "God never closes a door without opening a window. Your money will buy you almost nothing, so go to the market and buy the first thing you're offered. I will bless that purchase and, since Christmas is the time for miracles, something will happen that will change your life for ever."
The man wasn't entirely convinced that this was the best solution, but he went to the market anyway. One of the traders saw him wandering aimlessly about and asked what he was looking for. "I don't know. I don't have much money, but the priest told me that I should buy the first thing I was offered." The trader was very rich, but even so he never let slip an opportunity to make a profit, however small. He took the man's few coins and in exchange gave him a note scribbled on a piece of paper. "The priest was quite right. Now I've always had a kind heart, and so, on this festive day, I'm selling you my place in Paradise. Here are the deeds!"

The other man took the piece of paper and moved off, while the trader glowed with pride at having closed yet another excellent deal. That night, while he was preparing for supper in his house full of servants, he told the story to his wife, adding that it was thanks to such quick thinking that he had become as rich as he was. "That's shameful!" said his wife. "Fancy behaving like that on the day Jesus was born! Go straight to that man's house and get the piece of paper back, or you'll never set foot in this house again!" Alarmed by his wife's anger, the trader decided to do as she said. After much asking around, he managed to find out where the man lived. When he went in, he found the couple sitting at a table that was completely bare apart from the piece of paper. "I've come because what I did was wrong," the trader said. "Here's your money. Now give me back what I sold you." "You did nothing wrong," replied the man. "I followed the priest's advice and I know that what I bought from you is blessed."

"But it's just a piece of paper. Besides, no one can sell someone else their place in Paradise. If you like, I'll give you double what you paid for it." However, because he believed in miracles, the poor man refused to sell. The trader gradually increased his offer, until he reached the sum of ten gold coins. "That's no good to me," said the man. "In order to give my wife the life she deserves, I need one hundred gold coins. That is the miracle I'm waiting for this Christmas Eve." In despair and knowing that if he lingered any longer, no one in his own house would have supper or go to midnight mass, the trader ended up paying one hundred gold coins to get the piece of paper back. As far as the couple were concerned, the miracle had happened. As for the trader, he had done as his wife had asked. His wife, though, was filled with doubt. Had she been too hard on her husband? As soon as midnight mass was over, she went to the priest and told him the story.
"Father, my husband met a man who said that you had told him to go to the market and buy the first thing he was offered. My husband, seeing a chance to earn some easy money, wrote him a note on a piece of paper, selling him his place in Paradise. I told my husband that he wouldn't eat in our house tonight if he didn't get that piece of paper back, and he ended up having to pay one hundred gold coins for it. Did I go too far? Could a place in Paradise really cost that much?" "Firstly, your husband was able to show great generosity on this, the most important day in the Christian calendar. Secondly, he became the instrument of God through whom a miracle was performed. But to answer your question: when he sold his place in Heaven for a few pennies, it wasn't even worth that much; however, when he bought it back for one hundred gold coins simply to make his wife happy, that, I can assure you, made it worth much much more."

( Based on an Hasidic tale by David Mandel. Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. This story is courtesy HarperCollins Publishers India. HarperCollins are the publishers for all Paulo Coelho titles which include Alchemist, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, Devil and Miss Prym, Eleven Minutes, Fifth Mountain, Manual of the Warrior of Light, Pilgrimage, Valkyries, Veronika Decides to Die and The Zahir .)

The last few days have been a complete waste of time for me. My minor tests are starting soon and still I lack the much needed enthusiasm to study. Only two courses are interesting this time. Finally, to create the atmosphere of anticipated minors and to redirect my grey cells to maggai I cut down on my book-reading and movie-watching time.

For some time now I have been downloading movies in large number from the LAN. It is a peerless source of excellent movies which range across most of the conventional as well as non-conventional genres. Classic, cult, noir- you name it and it is there. Many downloaded ones are exceptionally bizarre and off the beaten track. But there is one small hitch. The LAN may have a huge never-ending collection of movies. But my search is restricted to only the notable ones and they are being consumed with a huge pace. And those benevolent spirits which supply me those movies rest in some fourth year guys who will pack up after the majors and bid us good bye. Naturally, I have to keep my eyes and mind open to keep on checking whether a movie is available or not. Generally, at different times of the day one is bound to get different results owing to the presence of the particular source.

Moreover, there is lots of music ranging from hard rock to classical, to be downloaded too. Besides, my taste is slowly evolving to accommodate more number of bands and singers. It seems that I have a huge preference for boy bands over girl bands and singers. I downloaded Dixie Chicks and Led Zeppelin. Clearly, the latter was much better. Perhaps by the end of the majors I should be able to amass a great amount of stuff. May all my desires be fulfilled…. I have also been attending quizzing events. In one of them the quizmaster asked a question related to Ed Wood Jr. He is famous for directing the most pathetic and shadiest movies in the history of cinema. The shadiest movie was to be identified. Somehow, I recognized the poster shown, at first instance. So I told him the answer promptly and won points for my team. While giving more information about the movie he mentioned that he had a copy of the movie. I immediately became interested in possessing one. Overcoming all unwarranted hesitation, only recently I approached him. He said that he will try his best to arrange a copy for me. Soon it may work out that I come to possess the worst movie ever….Pure luck!!