It is a chilly December once again, and I am a year behind on my promised journal. To jump right to it then: the PAF's are long past, the summer rolled by in a tedious and long (not quite, some might tell you. I was there: it felt like eternity) internship, followed by a longer and more eventful holiday. Then came the semester (quite the worst ever) and now: whiz-bang!
Hail the season of placements! Of interviews and GD's (patience, all shall be revealed), shirts and ties. Suit up and dig out the old comb. This be the season to be weary (If you are in the final year, that is (and have refrained, unlike a wise friend of mine, from the temptation of sitting the whole thing out). Otherwise, it's just the season to be merry.)
I have the rather (un)fortunate handicap of sitting behind my keyboard and a pile of novels (Midnights' Children and The White Tiger to start with), far removed from the action. For you see, Fortuna smiled upon me once again. Suggestively, I might add. She has delivered me from the arduous business of all the self-loathsome grovelling and bare-faced lying (read: facing interviews) that graduates seem happy to undergo. In short, she has landed me a job. (People usually rejoice at the sudden and interminable work sentence, but I think there's something obscene and sacreligious about celebrating this. Instead, I mourn the death of my former joblessness.)
And now I get to play bard. I can chronicle the toils of my fellow batchmates from afar. I rather think I shall enjoy it.
. . .
Forward to March. Immersed in books, I clean forgot about this post. So I begin again, scratching my chin, wondering what to fill it with. The placements are certainly on still but they proceed so slowly that a few sentences would suffice. Disastrous. Actually, a word did just as well. To elaborate slightly, half the folks graduating this year will be officially jobless, given the current status. I am told the other colleges fared much worse. Either way, I choose escapism and a general philosophy of disassociation. I have resolved to enjoy my last semester here and that's the last you'll here of placements from moi.
Oscar month just ended and as always, I watched each movie before the big event, finally waking up at an ungodly six in the morning to catch it. Red carpet theatrics were followed by more theatrics, courtesy Hugh Jackman. (Oh why couldn't they have let Jon Stewart host it?) This time, I'd specially printed out IMDB's Oscar Ballot to see if my predictions were on target. They were, for the most part. The Best Foreign Film was a surprise (I had expected Waltz With Bashir or perhaps The Class to walk away with the little gold man) and the two Oscars for Sound and Sound Editing felt misplaced, but the rest was exactly as I'd expected (and in some cases even hoped for). True, I'd have thought the best song was O...Saya rather than Jai Ho, but methinks Rahman couldn't care either way.
Which brings me to the great chest-thumping Indian element. While some think it sweet that the two Indian recipients on stage, acutely aware of their nationality, chose patriotically to acknowledge their roots, I found myself cringing ever so slightly at each speech. It was less about people and more about race. On the other hand, Sean Penn and Winslet spoke fittingly well and I couldn't have asked for a better choice in either category. Heath Ledger quite deservedly took away a posthumous Oscar and no-one was surprised. That makes him the second (I think) posthumous awardee after Peter Finch (for Network (1976), a true gem of a film - perhaps more relevant today than ever before).
I managed to catch all the short animation film nominees this year and House of Small Cubes was definitely the best. The Academy chose well. All in all, I find myself wishing I'd bet on the outcome - would've made me a great deal richer.
. . .
And now to that third, ever-looming element: nostalgia. I have an annoying habit of soaking (simmering, I should say) in it long before its time. Truth is, I already miss IIT. I've grown to love the place: the sylvan walks; the dilapidated hostels; the sixties architecture (strangely reminiscent of Dharma Initiative stations); the uniquely opprobrious slang; the vacuous mess-table conversations; the infrequent tum-tums; the fervent spirit of the PAF's; the flyers on the bathroom walls; the cows, dogs, cats, frogs, snakes, crabs, bats, worms and insects inhabiting each corridor; the midnight escapades for dosas at Hostel 13; the gymkhana moonlit at 3.00 a.m.; the hermetic isolation; and the people.
The people - all of whom I've now grown so accustomed to that to leave would be to lose all those fragile friendships, those eyebrow greetings and the predictable, corny jokes. But most of all I shall miss the LAN - source of my cinematic education, weekly television doses, wikiddiction fixes and all the music I could possibly hope for. And there is of course, routine, the first casualty of change. Blissfully comfortable, carefully tailored, perfectly honed routine: you are going to be sorely missed.
Hail the season of placements! Of interviews and GD's (patience, all shall be revealed), shirts and ties. Suit up and dig out the old comb. This be the season to be weary (If you are in the final year, that is (and have refrained, unlike a wise friend of mine, from the temptation of sitting the whole thing out). Otherwise, it's just the season to be merry.)
I have the rather (un)fortunate handicap of sitting behind my keyboard and a pile of novels (Midnights' Children and The White Tiger to start with), far removed from the action. For you see, Fortuna smiled upon me once again. Suggestively, I might add. She has delivered me from the arduous business of all the self-loathsome grovelling and bare-faced lying (read: facing interviews) that graduates seem happy to undergo. In short, she has landed me a job. (People usually rejoice at the sudden and interminable work sentence, but I think there's something obscene and sacreligious about celebrating this. Instead, I mourn the death of my former joblessness.)
And now I get to play bard. I can chronicle the toils of my fellow batchmates from afar. I rather think I shall enjoy it.
. . .
Forward to March. Immersed in books, I clean forgot about this post. So I begin again, scratching my chin, wondering what to fill it with. The placements are certainly on still but they proceed so slowly that a few sentences would suffice. Disastrous. Actually, a word did just as well. To elaborate slightly, half the folks graduating this year will be officially jobless, given the current status. I am told the other colleges fared much worse. Either way, I choose escapism and a general philosophy of disassociation. I have resolved to enjoy my last semester here and that's the last you'll here of placements from moi.
Oscar month just ended and as always, I watched each movie before the big event, finally waking up at an ungodly six in the morning to catch it. Red carpet theatrics were followed by more theatrics, courtesy Hugh Jackman. (Oh why couldn't they have let Jon Stewart host it?) This time, I'd specially printed out IMDB's Oscar Ballot to see if my predictions were on target. They were, for the most part. The Best Foreign Film was a surprise (I had expected Waltz With Bashir or perhaps The Class to walk away with the little gold man) and the two Oscars for Sound and Sound Editing felt misplaced, but the rest was exactly as I'd expected (and in some cases even hoped for). True, I'd have thought the best song was O...Saya rather than Jai Ho, but methinks Rahman couldn't care either way.
Which brings me to the great chest-thumping Indian element. While some think it sweet that the two Indian recipients on stage, acutely aware of their nationality, chose patriotically to acknowledge their roots, I found myself cringing ever so slightly at each speech. It was less about people and more about race. On the other hand, Sean Penn and Winslet spoke fittingly well and I couldn't have asked for a better choice in either category. Heath Ledger quite deservedly took away a posthumous Oscar and no-one was surprised. That makes him the second (I think) posthumous awardee after Peter Finch (for Network (1976), a true gem of a film - perhaps more relevant today than ever before).
I managed to catch all the short animation film nominees this year and House of Small Cubes was definitely the best. The Academy chose well. All in all, I find myself wishing I'd bet on the outcome - would've made me a great deal richer.
. . .
And now to that third, ever-looming element: nostalgia. I have an annoying habit of soaking (simmering, I should say) in it long before its time. Truth is, I already miss IIT. I've grown to love the place: the sylvan walks; the dilapidated hostels; the sixties architecture (strangely reminiscent of Dharma Initiative stations); the uniquely opprobrious slang; the vacuous mess-table conversations; the infrequent tum-tums; the fervent spirit of the PAF's; the flyers on the bathroom walls; the cows, dogs, cats, frogs, snakes, crabs, bats, worms and insects inhabiting each corridor; the midnight escapades for dosas at Hostel 13; the gymkhana moonlit at 3.00 a.m.; the hermetic isolation; and the people.
The people - all of whom I've now grown so accustomed to that to leave would be to lose all those fragile friendships, those eyebrow greetings and the predictable, corny jokes. But most of all I shall miss the LAN - source of my cinematic education, weekly television doses, wikiddiction fixes and all the music I could possibly hope for. And there is of course, routine, the first casualty of change. Blissfully comfortable, carefully tailored, perfectly honed routine: you are going to be sorely missed.
