They recount that in the city of Kaukaban in Yemen there was a man named Abu Hasan of the Fadhli tribe who left the Bedouin life and became a townsman and the wealthiest of merchants. His wife died while both were young, and his friends pressed him to marry again.

Weary of their pressure, Abu Hasan entered into negotiations with the old women who procure matches, and married a woman as beautiful as the moon shining over the sea. To the wedding banquet he invited kith and kin, ulema and fakirs, friends and foes, and all of his acquaintances.

The whole house was thrown open to feasting: There were five different colors of rice, and sherbets of as many more; kid goats stuffed with walnuts, almonds, and pistachios; and a young camel roasted whole. So they ate and drank and made merry.

The bride was displayed in her seven dresses – and one more – to the women, who could not take their eyes off her. At last the bridegroom was summoned to the chamber where she sat enthroned. He rose slowly and with dignity from his divan; but in so doing, for he was over full of meat and drink, he let fly a great and terrible fart.

In fear for their lives, all the guests immediately turned to their neighbors and talked aloud, pretending to have heard nothing.

Mortified, Abu Hasan turned away from the bridal chamber and as if to answer a call of nature. He went down to the courtyard, saddled his mare, and rode off, weeping bitterly through the night.

In time he reached Lahej, where he found a ship ready to sail for India; so he boarded, arriving ultimately at Calicut on the Malabar coast. Here he met with many Arabs, especially from Hadramaut, who recommended him to the king. This king (who was a kafir) trusted him and advanced him to the captaincy of his bodyguard. He remained there 10 years, in peace and happiness, but finally was overcome with homesickness. His longing to behold his native land was like that of a lover pining for his beloved; and it nearly cost him his life.

Finally he sneaked away without taking leave and made his way to Makalla in Hadramaut. Here he donned the rags of a dervish. Keeping his name and circumstances a secret, he set forth on foot for Kaukaban. He endured a thousand hardships of hunger, thirst and fatigue; and braved a thousand dangers from lions, snakes and ghouls.

Drawing near to his old home, he looked down upon it from the hills with brimming eyes, and said to himself, “They might recognize me, so I will wander about the outskirts and listen to what people are saying. May Allah grant that they do not remember what happened.”

He listened carefully for seven nights and seven days, until it happened that, as he was sitting at the door of a hut, he heard the voice of a young girl saying, “Mother, tell me what day was I born on, for one of my companions wants to tell my fortune.”

The mother answered, “My daughter, you were born on the very night when Abu Hasan farted.”

No sooner had the listener heard these words than he rose up from the bench and fled, saying to himself, “Verily my fart has become a date! It will be remembered for ever and ever.

He continued on his way, returning finally to India, where he remained in self exile until he died. May the mercy of Allah be upon him!

(from the Arabian Nights)

This post is getting kind of late. So was our trip actually. After huge amounts of haggling about dates for the trip (which if you have been following carefully, was a part of our conversation at the previous meet up at Besant Nagar Beach itself), after getting fooled by Gc (please ask me how ) to come this weekend (19th-20th July) instead of the previous one, and various other reasons for not going the previous week itself, we, i.e. Swami, Pk, Damaal and me, finally made a trip to Bangalore and stayed there from 18th Friday to 20th Sunday, July.

At a CCD on Friday

The trip was luckily “on time” for Swami, our very own Purdue student, who had to meet this junior NITT girl who was leaving on Friday night back to Trichy for college. Pk and Swami went to her house and had lunch there before even meeting up with us (Damaal and me). Hot new rumour with old news: The junior girl’s friends in NITT are speculating if their friend has got herself a US maaplai! This rumour is compounded by the fact that the girl’s parents only vaguely remember (in fact very vaguely, if Pk is to be believed) that Pk was also with Swami when they visited their house.

At the same CCD on Friday

The four of us met up in the afternoon later that day and spent time idling in CCDs and roaming around window shopping and what not, near Brigade Road and M.G. Road. We managed to convince Srikanth to come meet us in the evening, and have dinner with us. Dinner at Ulhaas Restaurant in Utility building, was a quiet affair with hardly any crowd on a friday evening. Srikanth of course initially made a fuss about coming, but Pk being in his pursuasive best on the phone, told him there were lots of girls and booze! Though he did not believe it, Srikanth finally decided to come meet us.

At a CCD on Saturday

The next day was slightly more eventful. Pk and Swami had gone to Jayanagar to see a house for rent for Pk. The house turned out to be a disappointment, mainly because, they wanted Pk to be married. This partiality towards spinsters for getting houses is definitely regrettable. After all, in Bangalore, the women are hardly different from the men in terms of disruptive behaviour. Some are even known to bite!!

Soon after, we went to Garuda Mall, where while roaming, we accidentally bumped into my relatives. After quick introductions, we parted ways, and I steered us away to put maximal distance in between. We soon went off to a CCD (now statistically, our favourite hangout place in Bangalore) where we witnessed a group of 2 girls and 3 guys willingly and completely embarrass themselves, with the guys doing things like baring their chests and proposing to the girls. Yechchh!! I know you want pictures, but Swami, not being Quickdraw McGraw with his camera, missed all of them! My apologies too.

Dinner time beckoned and this time we elected to eat Chinese at “Chung Wah” near Utility building.

At Chung Wah

This time we managed to garner more company. BharathS and Manish agreed to come all the way from their house to eat with us. Sowmia, also turned up, desperate to have some better company after a long time. Dinner was good fun. We were pretty noisy, and the staff looked slightly worried about it, but it was ok.

We were intially planning to go to Wonderla on Sunday, but lazy as we are, that plan borked. Sowmia was nearly in tears . Finally, we settled on some movie, that too in the afternoon. Sowmia was going to book tickets, but found none were available, so we finally decided to just have lunch in Transit, Forum Mall. I manged to finally convince Ashwin to meet us there. We turned up rather late and found the place terribly crowded. Luckily ECE people had organised their own reunion on the same day in the same place, and as expected of them, they were well prepared and had lots of tables. We poor Compscis (+Ashwin+Damaal), finally got the tables that the ECE people left! And so after ages of waiting we finally ate. Satya also turned up. My T-Shirt and hair, especially my hair, excited plenty of comment.

After food at Transit, we went to a nearby Corner House and had huge amounts of ice cream. BharathS has still not gotten over the DBC he ate there. Today he is still raving on Gtalk: “If I must die, then let it Death By Chocolate.” In the meanwhile, Sowmia got into chicken fights with some ECE guys and girls, and had to be restrained! Soon, that was over, and we were left with huge amounts of time to kill.

After all sorts of “good attempts” and “well trieds”, and giving up with locations such as various

CCD on Day 3

peoples’ houses, Lalbagh and what not, we decided to go to good old CCD. If we throw a stone in Bangalore, it is pretty likely to hit a CCD. Thats how easy it is to find one, and we soon walked in. Being terribly full, most people only ordered light teas or sodas. I was dumb enough to order a Tropical Iceberg and could not finish it. Sowmia paid the bill off with coupons, and many of us were regretting that we didn’t order more! We broke up in a little while and went home.

After thoroughly breaking my diet regimen over this weekend, I thought that I had put on couple of thousand kgs, but after carrying the huge amounts of stuff I had (mainly sweets and stuff from relatives) to the station and on the next day to home, I managed to make up for the weight I put on. Now, after my medical checkup today (for my institute), there is nothing too embarrassing on the weight line .

Well that was our thoroughly wasteful and relaxing weekend!

Picture credits – Swami’s Cam.

This was one of the bigger get-togethers since we got out of NITT. It happened at Besant Nagar Beach, Chennai. Having started their jobs already, Wally and KKS had come from Bangalore. We were meeting Gc and Viv after a longish time. The rest of us (the regular meeters) included Damal, Swami, Pk, Balli and me.

I was the last one to turn up and from the sight of things nothing much had happened other than some lighthearted hazing like the kind that always happened in our hostel. Of course, with Viv and Gc around, most of it was concentrated around them (because GC has a girlfriend, and Viv, who works over 12 hours a day in the office, tries his best to play it down). The usual victim of such hazing, Balli (for his speech-spam aka mokkai, chaat, etc), was spared!

Wally being the only working guy who had got paid, cheerfully treated us and Planet Yum. Thanks dude! Conversations generally centred around jobs, finding houses for rent in Bangalore, our planned trip to Bangalore in the near future, and lot of other boring stuff .

Things improved after we were all fed and watered. I’ll try to reproduce some of the juiciest bits:

Gc: Dei, its getting slightly late, so I guess I’ll leave?

Viv: Dei chay wait! Whats the hurry anyway?

Gc: No da, I just have to pick up a pair of shoes and the shop may close. Its for Uncle.

Viv: Thoo, where do you think he is going to go wearing shoes today and that too now?!

Pk: Viv! Don’t da! He is talking about HER father! [referring to Gc's gf's father]

Viv (mock expression of concern): Oh shit! Dei, sorry da!

Gc (very flustered and red in the face): Podangu! I meant mom’s brother’s shoes da! [everyone shaking with laughter]

Pk (almost cutting in): Her MOM’s Brother’s shoes ahhhh!!?!

Gc: Dei… [laughter cuts him off!]

In any case, Gc is convinced to stay on, but we slowly start edging towards the car parking area. Once we stopped on the footpath conversation continued about taxes and other even more boring stuff. Viv got under some pressure though:

Wally: Dei working 8 to 11 allam romba over da..

Viv: Dei, in my team everyone is working so much da!

me: Yeah da! Its too much! Why can’t you finish it within 8 hours and then relax?

Viv: Dei, even you guys in your intern at google worked 12 hours da!

Gc: But, we knew that, that was only for 2-3 months. But this is all your life!! How can you handle it like this?!

Pk: Yeah, that intern is like a 100 metre race which they want to finish with a sprint, but you are trying to do a marathon like a sprint!!

Gc: Or is it like, you’ll leave for your startup soon?! [general laughter]

Me: I realized a while ago that we can’t really work 12 hours daily.. Its just too much!

Viv: Dei, I’ll also slowly realize da..

Me: In fact dude, you’re working FIFTEEN hours a day! Yappa… Hopefully when I meet you after a year, you’ll have a life! [more laughter]

Well, if you are one of those who know us, you probably understand this post a lot better. I can also hear you exclaiming, “Goddamn hypocrites!” Well yeah, lol. Only for the sake of all this fun!

Yeah I mean they had at that time. But one can never predict the weather! And so it was that a few days back I got an offer of admission at the Indian Insitute of Science, Bangalore to their ME program in CSE in the department of CSA. After a couple of days of turmoil, worrying over which is better, I decided that I really prefer to study at this point! So IISc, here I come!

The campus I am told is really big and green. Hope I am going to like it. At least its in the middle of Bangalore and quite close to many of my friends who will be working there:

View Larger Map

Naruto manga is really moving fast after the long drawn out battles that went for months recently. The latest one available at onemanga.com tells about the wars and battles that are to be expected. Uchiha Madara at his sinisterest Enjoy!

Ok, but does anyone know what the hell is happening in Naruto Shippuuden Anime? I hardly recall all that fighting being there in the manga with the chaps who steal the coffins of the Guardians! But its been terribly slow, and getting duller by the week. :’(

What I mean is that I have finally decided what I am going to do for the next year at least. I am going to be working for amazon.com! The news that I got placed there came a few days back, but I have got the offer letter only now. My job location is Bengaluru!

A big Thank you for your support and well-wishing! I am very grateful and happy to have such friends!

Having passed out of my college, I am already missing a lot of friends. I imagine I will meet them sometime in the future, but if that time takes really long in coming, will I be able to expect what I see?

So to answer this important question, I will write down my thoughts about what I expect I will see, if something really weird happens and I get to meet each friend only after 10 years!

PK

Well, it’s highly unlikely that I won’t see him for the next 10 years because we are very likely to become room-mates in Bengaluru. In any case, as I see him today, I think he will be a pretty successful hardware/chip design engineer at some company, maybe even Sun Microsystems! Besides that, I think he will be happily married to civil someone and with a kid!

Swami

The Swami is currently going to study abroad. After 10 years, I think he will be a proffy at some big university. Definitely married, and that too, to a Tam-Bram-Bombshell if not a certain person from an island on the Indian Ocean! He’ll be zooming around in a car, with a laptop that still runs the same distro of Linux as he first used in college (lol, ie if the distro survives that long), and for some reason telling his 3 year old kid that MSWord is a brilliant piece of software!

Balli

I will really miss this guy from in my best friends circle, if he decides not to join Sun Microsystems. If that happens, in 10 years I expect he will be an academic person, though I can’t imagine in what area. No body really knows what he is interested in, even himself! My safest bet would be on something mathematical and perhaps related to computer organisation. Otherwise, I don’t expect his mannerisms and mokkaidom to change much . What I am sure of is that, he will be very sure of himself and will be quite assertive. The Balli from college who used to be a virtual punching bag in any conversation, will be no more. The Balli then, will be a person who returns every dart that is thrown at him, if not with more darts following. Except of course his mom. She is likely to be the only person who kicks his butt even then!

KKS

Or should I say ‘Paper’ Karthik Srivatsa? Actually heaven knows what name will be appropriate for him in 10 years! But I expect two things to happen. One is a Ph.D and the second is a lot of tiny KKSes running around the house! Yes, KKS has already charted out family plans. There are of course, the following questions that immediately come to mind:

Does he still say that he is not a fruit?

In vain, yes.

Does he still act like a kid?

I really doubt it for his sake, but it’s possible!

Srik

Srik is well, Srik. One of the most witty persons I know. In ten years, I think he will have become quite an established film and music critic. His blog about cinema is growing really fast, as he keeps updating often! I won’t be surprised if he becomes a source of good content for papers and magazines; I am sure he has the potential. Though I don’t know much about his professional side, lots of his classmates say that he is among the best at NIT Trichy, so I expect him to be nothing short of being extremely successful.

Damaal

Damaal is quite damaal. I doubt he will hear of this post until multiple people tell him that he is one of the stars in it , and give him a link to it as well. He is going to Virginia Tech and I really fear for his safety! The fact is that, being absorbed in something like math, computers, music or electronics, he may not hear a gunman behind him! Assuming he learns some survival skills before he is off to the States, and I meet him after 10 years, he will certainly be a successful engineer, but thats the unimportant part. In ten years he will be married. I am sure of it. He has sworn to me about it and is working very hard towards that end. His classmates tell me that he has started in earnest, with the girls in his class. LOL.

Venkat

Venkat is another smart chap (the other two being Srik and Damaal) from EEE at NIT Trichy, the 2004-08 batch. This guy is going to study M.Tech at IISc! So, it’s not difficult to say what a hard working guy like him will become in 10 years. A learned man definitely. Rumours abound about the Babe Magneto and his லீலைகள் (Leelaigal – antics), but only time will tell what actually happens. But we can expect something interesting!

I’ve been waiting to see the Naruto Shippuuden Movie for quite some time. Its finally out. Admittedly, the Naruto movies have not been impressive (except the first one I think, I found that pretty entertaining), BUT, I’m more or less addicted to Naruto to watch it anyway! But it does seem like this movie is pretty good.

Shippuuden’s animation has been good. But the series is terribly slow. A new arc has just started and though I have read all the manga, I don’t seem to recall what happens in this arc. Bizarre. I hope its fast though. The new Director has probably got enough hate mail for the speed of the series. Damn him.

Anyway, here is some nice cosplay:

To all you believers only though. Have fun or whatever you all do on these occasions, ya filthy animals:

EDIT: Ok, I just figured out that the tamil font support is rather bad in wordpress! Sad. [Its not my spelling!]

This is my new blog! The views here are my own and are subject to change too

I’m a Naruto fan! The picture that is on top of my blog at the time of writing this, is of Akatsuki – the group of evil genius ninjas in Naruto comics.

So, why this blog, when I already have this one? I’m going to reserve that one for my more geeky moods. This one is more general.