Facebook Flirting

As Orkut Büyükkökten cries over the gradually decreasing popularity of Orkut, the smart users betraying Orkut and desperate attempts by Orkut of emulating facebook, online flirting moves on to facebook.

“Orkut is History…here is the link to my new facebook profile”.

I still remember the day when I started using Orkut and as I created my profile the first thing which I did was search all my crushes on Orkut, but I guess they were enjoying their life. (The more interesting your life becomes, the less time you spend on internet... and vice versa).
It just took two weeks of online activity to realize that beautiful, cute, sweet and hot girls do exist outside TV and Movies and they are real too! And may be accessible ;)

The hunt began…2007 2008 2009 and it is 2010 and the result, I’m still single, next step I have created facebook profile. I have a crush on Google but I’m betraying her as she didn’t get me a single girlfriend.
So far even facebook seems to have no solutions to my problems. I guess the problem is within me. Just have a look at the conversation below:



The girl uses a facebook application to find her next kisser. After getting the result she exclaims that the guy doesn’t even know how to kiss!
The guy having mini-orgasms starts flirting; the friends are having fun over this. The girl asks the boy to learn kissing!

God! Why it doesn’t happen to me? Why? Why?

If this was not enough, now facebook walls are flooded with photos of pretty girls and constant wooing by despos like me who “like” their photo and give inane comments like “sweet pic”, “nice pic”, “looking awesome”…

This time of the year it is more difficult for us-the IIT KGP fellas with Spring fest and Kshitij giving us various types of complexes. It is very difficult to even come out of your room as the campus is full of hot and pretty chicks who are of course not approachable.
This situation is nicely summed up by

“…Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink…”

Taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and also pointed out by Shrey Goyal.

The lesson which I learnt from last two spring seasons is that the best thing to do in fest season is to sleep in your room and be away from that urge to approach a girl and fail in the process. Gosh! We hate failures…the IITians!
Perhaps, this is the only field we are losers.

The level of frustration can be gauged by a simple example; this is the institute which was involved with DPS R K Puram in that infamous MMS Scandal.

Now that Café Coffee Day has finally started its outlet at KGP, the jealousy will decrease as the pairs will get some space which would be avoided by poor singles who are neither blessed with fortune nor girls.

However, this adds to the things which I would miss in my college days, the list is:

1. No Girlfriend.
2. Not went for any date, I’m talking about a real date and not this.
3. Never went to café Coffee day with any girl.

"To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing" ; we live in a constant hope with full enthusiasm waiting for that single girl who will stop us from watching 300 movies a year, 10 seasons of friends 10 times and even more, looking “for girls” in facebook and writing blog posts like these!

Yearnings of Yore- Life Goes on!

This article was originally published in
"Yearnings of Yore"(Volume-VII) given as a souvenir to the alumni present on the occasion of "Seventh Annual Alumni Meet", January 8-10, 2010.


Life Goes on!

It was a day that changed your life once and forever, from just a mere mortal oblivious about this world to a community for which people used to spend half a decade to be in. It was the day your forefathers would attain salvation after getting the big news.



However, you were calm and sleeping in your not-so-cozy but homely bed when your mother wakes you up. You brushed your teeth as you were a mother’s child and had to abide by her morning rules. Wow! You are selected at IIT KGP.

Congrats now you are a KGPian!

The news of your selection spread like wildfire, soon phone calls started coming in if you happen to be selected after the telecom-revolution.

This is the celebrity phase of life every IITian never forgets throughout his/her life.

Life gives you choices and sometimes plays with your fate and gives you surprises. IIT welcomes you with surprises, few bad ones and pleasant ones too. You transform from a teenager to a young adult. It is “Goosebumps-giving” to say that the change IIT did to you still reflects in your personality and you have never changed that much over a span of 4 years other than in KGP. When you put your footsteps here you might be with your dad or mom but in the subsequent 4 years you start doing things on your own. Your first all-alone journey back to home, your first visit to the stationary shop for purchasing stuffs that was previously bought by your parents or elder brothers and sisters, gradual loss of interest in studies, involvement in hall activities and orientation program, etc. all carve out a change in you successively, obviously not in the above order . Here I’m tempted to quote a cliché
“Your hall is your identity. Your hall is bigger than your year, bigger than your department, bigger than your CG, bigger than YOU.”

This is learnt by you and you are made to learn things which leave transcendental changes in you. Hall seniors and the stationary shop owner of your hall are the people you have to be subservient to for obvious benefits!

Within 6 months, you have loads of activities to do and you get a hang of the less happening life outside KGP campus. Cheddis, Tikka and other eateries give you relief from the mess food and excuse to do “Bhaat”!

“Bhaat” is really an activity which forms an indispensible part of every KGPian throughout his stay here, be it the personal problem, IIT issue or national and international issues, a KGPian has a point of view on every topic under the sun what he refers to as his “funda” or “fundae”.

Every KGPian subconsciously believes that he/she gets paid not for his/her technical expertise rather the “fundae” giving capability he/she inherits from his/her seniors. The explicit mention of photocopying centers deserves a mention as it is the prime reason for making you an IIT graduate. People say getting in to IIT is tough, try getting out! (another cliché). Academics take a backseat in most of the KGPians’ priority list. Life goes on, you graduate and after 5 years or 10 years or whatever may in your case, you feel like returning once again to this mother of all the IITs. The students of KGP also wish to welcome their seniors again and relive the moments again. Being an alumnus of IIT KGP you might get nostalgic but the feeling of nostalgia is also quite serene and surreal.

PS: This was the first time I got bylines for any article and I was very happy to see my name in print for any article for the first time!

Yes, I have read the book!

When this controversy started though I was able to empathize Chetan Bhagat but I decided not to write any post related to this on my blog but after this...(see the video below)



I made up my mind that my favourite author and my college senior deserves a mention of this in my blog. The question is not whether the movie is 30%, 50% or 100% copied from the book but it is about moral responsibility of the eulogizer of Gandhigiri. I agree that an artist can't epitomise his creation but this is an extreme case.

What is the point Chetan Bhagat is trying to make?(see the video below)



The bottomline is that this is a typical example in which the writer is not being given appropriate credits. However, the first battle is won by the writer concerned here due to his cult following and media contacts. It could have happened to a less known author and very likely his voice would have been suppressed.

The controversial part of the contract:[view image below]


Courtesy: http://www.vinodchopra.com/agreement.pdf


Read what one of the Aamir khan fans has to say on this, which he posted as a comment in his blog:

"2104. vinayb79
Posted on Jan,02,2010 at 11:48 AM

My simple point is why did the makers get into the contract with
Mr. Bhagat if they 'loosely' wanted to base the movie on the
book or if they only wanted to use '3 to 5 % ' from the book...Do
script writers need 3 to 5 % ? what about the rest 95 0r 97 %?
For that 3 to 5 % the movie makers needed to get into a contract
with the novelist , for what? probably for PUBLICTY because the
book was already FAMOUS?

Could that 3 to 5 % similarities not be avoided and a Original
movie then would have come to the fore...then there would nt have
been a need to making a contract then in the first place...and
once you base movie from a novel, the originality is lost in the
sense of the story whether it is 3 or 5 or 7 or 70 or 50
%...secondly it surely is much more than 3 to 5 %....."


What is my take on this?
I don't want to speak politically correct; the team "3 Idiots" has failed to acknowledge the fact that no matter how successful his film becomes he has to give credit to the person who originally created the characters much before Abhijat Joshi or Rajkumar Hirani thought about Phansuk Wangdu, Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad and Virus.

Rashmi bansal has a valid point here

"Ultimately, Simon Beaufoy won an Oscar for 'best adapted screenplay. And he did not forget to thank Vikas, even in his acceptance speech... "

(Slumdog Millionaire is an adaptation of the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup.)

I think this matter will die within few weeks but the man who will gain maximum out of this is ironically Chetan Bhagat.

If you chronologically follow the proceedings you might think this to be some PR stunt. The film gets publicity, chetan bhagat gets his name mentioned in newspaper and news Channels, the looser is no one!

I do not know the truth and don't want to talk more about this but if you are interested watch this Star News coverage and if you strongly feel that Chetan has moral as well as legal advantage if the controversy goes to court, know what IP practitioners have to say on this

All is well!

PS: Happy new year 2010 to you, may this year bring loads of pleasant surprises for you :)