scribblings

This afternoon, a friend of mine and I were sitting in the first wing onlooking at the path which leads to the second wing of narmada hostel.*

When the middle of the path, there was Snehalatha Reddy, trying to catch something that was moving. I am sure she was hungry for she is still in the trauma of loosing all her three kids she had delivered recently and is very very weak because of frequent pregnancies. She first thought she had catch it and was trying to do something with, only later did she realise that the lizardish thing had moved off. Not giving up, she moved slowly and steadily and got hold of the thing and gave it one death blow, after which we expected her to swallow. She did not. She probably was pained by the thing and left it right there and walked off. The thing was later picked up by a crow is how the story eventually moves...

Coming back to the heroine, Snehalatha Reddy is the presently the only female resident of third wing. Being the rightful consort of Mr Reddy of our wing, not to mention the affairs she is having with many other of the inmates of the wing, she has been pampered a lot by all those who live in the wing. She is fed with biscuits, chocolates, sweets, savouries. She gets a share of anything got in the wing. This has made here quite lazy to not go and earn her food. Now that almost all the people who live in the wing have left, she is left to earn her food and has nobody to feed her. Last night, I was so considerate of her condition and fed her with biscuits for the first time, adding to her laziness. What is more important is that her activities and food habits have changed quite a lot and she does not what others of her kind usually do.

Mr Reddy and all the other men who had affairs with her have left the hostel for good. She is now having a rather gloomy future, hope she changes for the better...

* To understand this line, you have to know the geography of Narmada Hostel IIT Madras. We have a couple of parallel corridors facing each other with a playground (called the quadrangle) and garden in between. These two parallel corridors are connected by the Dining Hall on the one side and by the common room and TV room and the TT room on the other, not to leave out the Hostel Office. Each corridor(or the wing) is numbered sequentially for easy reference. The path mentioned is divider between the quadrangle and the garden connecting the two entrances of the hostel on either side.

Obligatory Infobits:
Given Name: Snehalatha Reddy
Close Relatives: Lion, Tiger et al
Species: Felis silvestris
Family: Mammals
Kingdom: Animalia

The obligatory photograph of the person, which is put up, when articles on a person are written.

Sneha sleeping with her kitten

The following is a piece from the letters to the Editor section of The Economic Times dated 31st May 2005.

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Presidential snub?

THE President during his visit to Switzerland took upon himself the role of an Ambassador of India’s scientific progress. In his speeches he extolled the visionaries and the Institutions that has made India a leader in Science and Technology today. The institutions that found mention were the IISc, the BARC, the TIFR, the DRDO and of course the ISRO.

But what about the IITs? They found absolutely no mention anywhere in his speech. This is interesting and very intriguing. Why did the erudite sage of Raisina Hill choose to exclude the IITs?

Considering the career paths the IITians are predisposed to taking, does he see the IITs for what they really are: subsidised teaching shops producing demi-gods for the developed world? The issue is indeed serious as the President is the Visitor to all IIT campuses. It is time the IIT directors and faculty took the cue, buried the media hype, suspended all notions of exporting the brand and really did some introspection.

R KRISHNAN BY E-MAIL, MAY 29
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This is available on the indiatimes website. The original presentation and the speech are found on http://presidentofindia.nic.in

I somehow feel this is indeed true and I should give a serious thought as an IITian. Well, people argue that this man must be one of those who did not get thro' into IIT and hence is making the noise while another arguement put forth is that, all the places mentioned here have people produced by IITs working for whatever it is worth.

there have been a thousand visits made to my blog since the day a hit-counter was set. A Benchmark to be noted, i guess.

The Month of April was quite eventful. With a bouquet of Wing Treat, Hostel Nights and all else, i ended up eating dinner at the Hostel Mess for not more than 5 days. Each day was at a different place, different person spending, different food... Just that i did also spend quite a bit on some of those ventures or on travel.

This trend has been continuing in the month of May also. The purpose of this post being the last two dinners. On thursday, me and kamesh had been to Treat. I had known this place for quite sometime but did not venture to eat there till then. The place is rather small but the food was good and the suggestion of the man at the counter were actually good and he just saw to it, that he suggested the good stuff so that, we would consider going back there again. Though we ended up spending a bit more than normal, we considered it was worth the money we spent.

Yesterday, i had been to a music concert of a friend of mine at T Nagar. Being a good friend, he had offered me to join him to his house and then later to dinner. I did accept, for who will not accept an offer for free food. When we actually went to this rather well-known restaurant in R A Puram. The place known for its food, was quite full and we thankfully got some place to sit. We were ordering routine food and then the person who waited us asked, " Sir, do u like fried items? There is this new dish we have made, we fry Idlis and make a dish by sauting it with onions and tomatos and some spices". It was rather tempting to eat anything as we were very hungry. Then our orders were served. This 'Kadai Idly' was looking red all over and tasted rather bad. We just managed to take half the idlis in the dish and then called it off. After the food, when the bill arrived, we were rather taken aback. Of the ~200 bucks bill, this stupid dish costed about 40% of the whole thing.

yenga poi sollikardhu...
(translates to 'where to go and tell all this?')

My association with the Guidance and Counselling Unit (GCU) for the past couple of years as its Chief Co-ordinator came to an end 10 days ago, with handing over charge to my successor. This has been in the coming for a long time and I have been kind expecting this to happen.

My work with this particular unit of IIT Madras has been something different from the way it functioned earlier. I am concious of the tall claim this is. Being a counsellor for an year before taking up this post of the Chief Co-ordinator has given me enough courage to stake this claim. I can take pride in formulating the present set-up of the GCU. Setting up something, from scratch is not all that easy.

The brochure which was prepared by the GCU for the Freshmen, was completely re-written. Its size, shape, contents, looks and all that could be associated with the brochure was changed from what it was. Though the brochure I made, with the help of some frnds, was not a very good one, it was a welcome change from the stale one which the printer had been printing for the past dozen years with just the names changed. Well, just that it was different and better than something to which it better not be compared is not something on which one should rejoice or take solace.

Then one had to go thro' the rituals of allocating fresh-men to counsellors, collecting them from the Railway Station putting them at the hostels.. First meeting and all the follow-up sessions at Hostel common rooms during roll call and all that did happen.

This time there were even efforts to conduct tutorial classes taught by seniors to freshies who had problems in understanding the subject and/or solve sheets and et cetra.

The year went interesting with some challenging and interesting cases coming up and to get in terms with people suffering is the most monumental thing. Being a part of the official conselling body, to maintain confindentiality is the foremost things to maintain and hence I dont think I should talk more about the specific problems.

Though plans for some lectures, workshops and some sessions were planned. I probably was getting more busy with work and just could not organise things.

It actually wasnt all that easy as it sounds when you read it. The number of times i was put into problems and how i had untied myself out of them are very valuable lessons for life. It was nice to be with GCU for two years. It is far more better after laying down office. Well I guess thats what life is all about...

I wish BEST OF LUCK to the guy who has presently taken over from me.