Acronyms :
DAV JVM - My school. Did my +2 frm here.
NOP/SOP - North/South Office Para (colonies close to my school)
PS: occassionly words in brackets describe inner feelings..bhawnaon ko samjho..
Ranchi is close to my heart, more than any other place on earth for sure. It surpasses my affection for evn Godda, my hometown. I did my +2 (DAV JVM) and then Engg. (BITS Mesra) frm this place, which means the better part of my higher education. My love for the place goes to the extent tthat I can simply roam around the places, the market, the Shyamali colony thr and that too evn alone [not that I wud prefer roaming alone]. Climate s good, ppl are lively, girls are pretty n to top it all it has lil in common with its state next door Bihar.
Enough abt Ranchi I guess.
(Soch rahe hoge description to aise de raha hai jaise Swiss land ho)
Getting back to the topic. Its an unusual topic for sure. Has just four names. Who are these four, forming the centrestage of this post. These four were ['are' rather, m sure they are still alive] my seniors (immediate ones) at Ranchi who I came in touch with. Each one of them being distinct different, weird and unusual at the same time. I will talk abt each one of them in the order they come into picture. First comes Sandeep Singh, my HERO [well no sarcasm meant!!] in many a ways. I alongwith my friend Kunal had come to Ranchi for the first time after we had got ourselves admitted to this prestigious DAV JVM, 11th Std. We had thru our seniors got a room booked at one of the houses at NOP since NOP was close to Shyamali colony; where JVM was located. At noon we approached the landlord and said we were the ones who he'd been xpecting. He led us to a set of two interconnected rooms, one of which wud be ours. After seeing our room we tried to enter the other room. But we had to knock as it was locked. The door was opened by a sleepy fellow. I looked at the watch. It showed 12.15.
(pata nahi kaisa insaan hai, insaan v hai ki nahi)
Anyhw, he introduced himself as Sandeep Singh.We kept our baggage and left for a frend's place who had already been at Ranchi since past few days. We got back to our room the next day. We tried entering the next room .
Locked.
Knock knock.
A sleepy Sandeep Singh opens the door. Time 1 pm.
(Wah beta avi v so rele ho.. jiyo!!)
We said sry for the disturbance and got back to our room. It was only in the evening (around 5 pm) when Sandeep Singh has had his full quota of sleep that we had a full formal talk wid him. We told we had come frm Godda and had got admissions at JVM, 11th Std. He on his part said he was frm Ramgarh (a place close to Ranchi - 3 hrs) and is in 12th Std, at DPS.
(Kahi ye Thakur ke khandaan se to nahi..Are nahi, iske to dono hath salamat hain!! )
Sounded good so far xcept the Ramgarh thing which I found filmy.
Next Monday - 7 am.
I am getting ready for the school. Just when I was to leave, I saw Mr. Sandeep Singh still sleeping.
(Abe kumbhkaran ab uth v ja..)
I gently tried waking him up showing him the clock.
(Kahin Kumbhakaran ko gussa na aa jaye...)
He reluctantly pointed a finger at the wall. I followed his finger and saw that he was pointing at the calender.
Me: 'what r u showing.?? Its no holiday today.'
Sandeep Singh: 'See there will be a star marked on todays date'.
I closely observed the calender. There was actually a star on todays date.
Me: 'Yes thr s a star, so'??
Sandeep singh : 'On days that are star marked, dnt wak me up. I dnt go to school on these days.'
(Haan haan, jaoge v kyu, saal bhar me 6 mahine sona v to hai..!!)
I took a closer look at the calender. And I saw that nearly every alternate day was star marked. I left for school wondering hw he managed his attendance.
On getting back frm school around 1pm, I saw Sandeep Singh still sleeping.
(Shabaash, keep the good work going!!)
When he saw me , he finally woke up.
(Aakhirkaar sharam aa hi gayi..!!)
After the usual enquiries abt my first day at JVM, I asked him how he went abt his lunch n dinner. And he said it was Raju the tiffin wala who brought meals. Naturally we joind Raju, We enquired more bout this tiffin system and he gave us his first sermons on life at Ranchi. He taught us the 5 commandments :
1. Never to give advance to Raju beyond a sum of Rs 100.
2. Never pay the rent until Bhaiyya (the landlord) asks repeatedly for it.Try delaying it for as long as u can.
3. Live life ur own way. Girls, sports , padhai..Do watever u like as n when.
4. Always watch night shows. U'll never hav to tak tickets in black.
5. Do not join the trio of Navendu, VK and HariOm for tuitions. They are all crap.
Having had this gyan, we followd rule 1 right in the evning when Raju came, passing him a 100 Rs note as the advance.Time to follow rule 3. We playd indoor cricket in the evning, and were happy to see a few pretty faces watching us frm the balcony of one of the flats in the apartment opposite. And we wasted no time to try out rule 4. We left for the night show, late in the evening. Time passd on and in due course we followd rule 2 n 5 as well, though I found the 5th a bit odd considering the trio ruled the teaching circuits..
A week passd . And then came back frm home Sandeep singh's roommate - our personality No. 2, Sukhiya. This wasnt his real name, which I dnt rmmbr anyways. He was the most unusual being on earth, I have ever known. He used to study for atleast 8-10 hrs a day but still failed in most if not all of the subjects. And equally unusual was his mode of studing. He wud study for a couple of hrs and then wud sleep for sum odd half an hr, and this continued in loop, through the night. He wudnt tolerate the slightest of noise/evn music while studying. Many a times he wud skip his dinner to save money, thriving on biscuits. And this when he had a figure that wud challenge the best of female models. Actually it was his thin frame that had earned him the nick name Sukhiya. He was a regular to school unlike his roomie Sadeep Singh. Sandeep singh made fun of him all the while and we too chipped in wenever we saw a chance. His xploits earned him lil respect frm me n Kunal. We cared lil if he was studying or watever. We played music whenever we wanted.
This annoyed Sukhiya no end and he asked his friend to gimme a threatening. Came his friend one evning - enter our 3rd character Gaurav Thakur. Tall fair handsome but lean. He entered my room in gravity and asked me y I disturbed his frend while he was studying.
(Apne chomu dost ko samjhate kyu nahi..Music se disturbance nahi hota..)
I said, 'I dont purposely go out to disturb ur friend. Its just that he cant stand music at any hr of the day for his so calld study' (putting stress on the words 'so calld study'). He changed his tone and said , 'look we all know of his ways to life. More than the disturbance, its just that he needs some respect to be shown, evn if he deserves none'. His maturity at handling this struck a chord. We got along well since.
And since then some water problem at his flat made him come almost daily in the evning to our flat with his schoolbag which never during the two years carried books/notebooks or evn a pen or pencil. So wat did his bag contain. Clothes, comb, shampoos, and a hell lot of cosmetics. He wud spent hours b4 the mirror. Ok taken that he was a smarty but he went overboard wid his acts. And one day Gaurav brought wid him his flatmate, the fourth character - Shailesh. He went str8 to the bathroom and shouted 'Baba, yahan to mast paani aa rela hai'.
(Bechara, lagta hai sadiyon baad paani dekh raha hai..)
Shailesh gave perfect company to Gaurav wen it came to gettin their looks right. And then began the first of their numerous tales of how they had proposed their last girl and how things were on a roll and how they were so close to the final hurdle.
(Fenk to aise rahe ho jaise Salman Khan ho..!!).
Incidently Shailesh n Gaurav both did idolised Sallu. But they for sure had the best database on all the hotties be at JVM , DPS , NOP or SOP.
One fine day on getting back frm school, Sandeep singh askd me an unusual ques :'U kno Aparna jha ?' i say an unusual ques. coz Sandeep singh used to talk lil abt girls. Nor had he ever talked of his exploits with the fair sex. Probably he knew his limitations and was grounded unlik his two mates. So the ques. came as a surprise. This was a sort of ques. that was expexted frm gaurav or Shailesh. Anyways I answered a dumb NO. He exclaimed saying wat the hell was I upto at DAV. How come I had not seen/evn heard of the hottest thing at JVM. He finished the topic saying me to find out the cynosure of all eyes.
So did I meet her or did I not..? Oh come on, sure I did..!!In the sequel to this post.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
English Drama [b4 a Godda audience] - A tribute to Miss Jommy!!
Like the Science Congress event, this one too leaves a mark in the minds of the batch in general , and those who orchestrated it in particular. This again is about 'US', the group of highly talented people [atleast WE believed so totally], who could not SING, couldnot DANCE, PAINT, RUN lik a sprinter, wern't xceptional at SPORTS, werent xactly Aamir khan in their heydays, werent the ROCKERS either who could flaunt their Guitars in public, but still thought were SECOND TO NONE.
So just when you thought we were one amongst those ordinary losers, the likes you see in the novels of Mr. Bhagat, second yourself. The stage is set not just for the regular song and dance nos, there is sumthng calld Theatre and Drama as well that it's so renowned for. And if sumbody in the old sleepy town of Godda still took interest in this thing calld Stage Act , WE were the ones.
Being grown up having watched our good old hindi movies, we have sumhw at times felt that we too can act. We sumhw hv had this pseudo belief that acting comes naturally to us. Our belief strenghthened by the fact that we had so far done quite a few stage acts by now and we felt the air of being a pro in the field. So when Miss Jommy planned this stage act with WE the actors in mind, we were only happy and ready to oblige at first instant , unlike the Science Congress case which we did under sheer pressure.
Miss Jommy, the phonetics guru that she was, had come up with the idea of an English play. I still distinctly rmmbr the day Miss Jommy had her first class at St. Thomas. She had come to take English for us, the then 5th standards. As she began in her usual phonetic tone, the class burst into laughter. A lil nervous and conscious, she asked me was sumthng wrong.? I said , 'Nothiung really Ma'm. Just that the students are not habituated to this kinda accent'. And since that day our chemistry with the new English teacher was incredible. English never remained the same for us after she left the school wen we were in 8th std.
Cut to the moment. She came to us and narrated the theme of the Act to us. It was a play with George Washington as the protagonist. The play had the backdrop of the slavery system that was order of the day in the then US society. History gives no mention of a full fledged movement against slavery by Washington.But he did oppose it in his later yrs. Anyways, the play had a scene in which a b'ful girl was to be auctioned in public. Miss Jommy told us to find a girl frm the class who wud do the role. Naurally every good (read pretty) girl declined. We didnt approach those who were ordinary looking, the reson being that the script demended a b'ful girl. So we told Miss Jommy to find some junior who wud do the role. We proposed Sapna's name for the same. Sapna agreed. This enthused (most if not all) members of the group.
So started the job of fitting people in their respective roles. I was so happy that whenever during the rehearsals, sum1 cudnt get their lines and look/expressions right, I wud be calld to demonstrate the scene. That also meant I was the lawyer one day, Washington's brother-in-law the next and Mr. Washington himself the day next to it. Sumhw every1 started fitting into their roles. I finally took the lawyer's role. Divya Prakash was the one who had to do the auctioning of Sapna the slave.
All thru the rehearsals evry1 waited eagerly for the auctioning part of the act, barring Divya Prakash ofcourse. He used to turn pale doing the auctioning act b4 a crowd which at times included members of staff and at times Father himself. The lines to be be spoken at the auctioning made his life evn more difficult and ours evn more entertaining. He had to go lik : 'Hello gentleman. Here you have at ur disposal this incredibly b'ful slave who can be all urs at just a few bucks. Just look at her face . She s all Mona Lisa. Look at her legs - Marble will take a beating.....'
With lines as provocative as this the audience was bound to go hysterical.
As a result of this auctioning sequence our play was already becoming a hit with the audience. So after weeks of rehearsals came the day whn we actually had to present the act. But suddenly for some reasons unknown to us, the venue shifted frm our school to the 'Town Hall' . We unanimously declined to go ahead with the act. We knew the crowd wudnt endure a word in English. The very thought of audience senpresenting an English play b4 a Godda t shivers down our spine.But repeated assurances frm the Principal and the authorities made it a yes. So we went ahead. Initially there was a bit of restlessness, which only grew wid time. The situation had come to a point where missiles would soon be targetting us. But to our fortune the auctioning scene just started, generating a loud rage frm the crowd. We sumhw felt bad for the poor Sapna but it was important that crowd didnt get overly impatient. Or else hell cud break loose.
Life was more important than a bit of cheap applause.
And thus ended the dangerous English Act b4 a Godda audience.
That was the last english act we ever did. This near life saving incident always brings back memories of Miss Jommy and her accentuated English. Was quite an xperience.
Ma'm wherever you are [m sure you are doing fabulously well and are happy], I on the behalf of the class just want to reiterate (in case we never earlier did) that we have all the way loved and admired you. You had been such an influence on us as kids, and today as grown ups we wish we have had more of ur lectures. Thanks for being the lovely English teacher you were. Wish we meet sumday.
So just when you thought we were one amongst those ordinary losers, the likes you see in the novels of Mr. Bhagat, second yourself. The stage is set not just for the regular song and dance nos, there is sumthng calld Theatre and Drama as well that it's so renowned for. And if sumbody in the old sleepy town of Godda still took interest in this thing calld Stage Act , WE were the ones.
Being grown up having watched our good old hindi movies, we have sumhw at times felt that we too can act. We sumhw hv had this pseudo belief that acting comes naturally to us. Our belief strenghthened by the fact that we had so far done quite a few stage acts by now and we felt the air of being a pro in the field. So when Miss Jommy planned this stage act with WE the actors in mind, we were only happy and ready to oblige at first instant , unlike the Science Congress case which we did under sheer pressure.
Miss Jommy, the phonetics guru that she was, had come up with the idea of an English play. I still distinctly rmmbr the day Miss Jommy had her first class at St. Thomas. She had come to take English for us, the then 5th standards. As she began in her usual phonetic tone, the class burst into laughter. A lil nervous and conscious, she asked me was sumthng wrong.? I said , 'Nothiung really Ma'm. Just that the students are not habituated to this kinda accent'. And since that day our chemistry with the new English teacher was incredible. English never remained the same for us after she left the school wen we were in 8th std.
Cut to the moment. She came to us and narrated the theme of the Act to us. It was a play with George Washington as the protagonist. The play had the backdrop of the slavery system that was order of the day in the then US society. History gives no mention of a full fledged movement against slavery by Washington.But he did oppose it in his later yrs. Anyways, the play had a scene in which a b'ful girl was to be auctioned in public. Miss Jommy told us to find a girl frm the class who wud do the role. Naurally every good (read pretty) girl declined. We didnt approach those who were ordinary looking, the reson being that the script demended a b'ful girl. So we told Miss Jommy to find some junior who wud do the role. We proposed Sapna's name for the same. Sapna agreed. This enthused (most if not all) members of the group.
So started the job of fitting people in their respective roles. I was so happy that whenever during the rehearsals, sum1 cudnt get their lines and look/expressions right, I wud be calld to demonstrate the scene. That also meant I was the lawyer one day, Washington's brother-in-law the next and Mr. Washington himself the day next to it. Sumhw every1 started fitting into their roles. I finally took the lawyer's role. Divya Prakash was the one who had to do the auctioning of Sapna the slave.
All thru the rehearsals evry1 waited eagerly for the auctioning part of the act, barring Divya Prakash ofcourse. He used to turn pale doing the auctioning act b4 a crowd which at times included members of staff and at times Father himself. The lines to be be spoken at the auctioning made his life evn more difficult and ours evn more entertaining. He had to go lik : 'Hello gentleman. Here you have at ur disposal this incredibly b'ful slave who can be all urs at just a few bucks. Just look at her face . She s all Mona Lisa. Look at her legs - Marble will take a beating.....'
With lines as provocative as this the audience was bound to go hysterical.
As a result of this auctioning sequence our play was already becoming a hit with the audience. So after weeks of rehearsals came the day whn we actually had to present the act. But suddenly for some reasons unknown to us, the venue shifted frm our school to the 'Town Hall' . We unanimously declined to go ahead with the act. We knew the crowd wudnt endure a word in English. The very thought of audience senpresenting an English play b4 a Godda t shivers down our spine.But repeated assurances frm the Principal and the authorities made it a yes. So we went ahead. Initially there was a bit of restlessness, which only grew wid time. The situation had come to a point where missiles would soon be targetting us. But to our fortune the auctioning scene just started, generating a loud rage frm the crowd. We sumhw felt bad for the poor Sapna but it was important that crowd didnt get overly impatient. Or else hell cud break loose.
Life was more important than a bit of cheap applause.
And thus ended the dangerous English Act b4 a Godda audience.
That was the last english act we ever did. This near life saving incident always brings back memories of Miss Jommy and her accentuated English. Was quite an xperience.
Ma'm wherever you are [m sure you are doing fabulously well and are happy], I on the behalf of the class just want to reiterate (in case we never earlier did) that we have all the way loved and admired you. You had been such an influence on us as kids, and today as grown ups we wish we have had more of ur lectures. Thanks for being the lovely English teacher you were. Wish we meet sumday.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Woh stupid lamhe....
This is one of my personal fav. tales.
Act I , Scene-1
Sr. Shalom enters Class IX
(There s hustle-bustle among students. Those who were talking imeediately stop.)
So class, this is a circular regarding the science Cong. event to be organised at Distt. level and then at the state level. I, like always am here to see two groups volunteering themselves ; one each from boys and girls. Girls, stupid as they have always been since the days of Eve raised their hands.
Boys suddenly seemed to have found one hell of an important business. They had their bags searching for the ingenuous piece of formulae they had just derieved.
Boys , dnt be under the impression that u can get away..
[Boys : No we are under no such impr. Sr.]
So if u are not volunteering, I will have to tak names.
Vikash, Pranay, Kunal, .....you guys have to to get it done.
One of you come and get some docs frm me.
Scene -2
Being in a foul mood, we sent our genius boy Pranay for collecting the docs/papers .
And whn he returned he made us proud abt him being a genius.
He told us hw he had managed to convince Sr. that we needed time away from classes to be able to do this work. Sr. having faith in our genius approved.
Act - II, Scene - 1 2 3 4 5...
And then began our days of fun..We sure were the new studs in the class. Making a mockery of the entire classs routine thing, we lived our own life. But finally we had to do sumthng. And it had to begin with the slection of the topic. We let our genius boy stuggle with the papers and docs in choosing the topic. All that we instructed Pranay b4 each one of us went on to make hay was 'Pranay beta DO NOT by any chance (particularly under the influnce of those girls) be under the impression that we are interested in this crap.You know y we are doin this. So do sumthng very cheap(we didn mean quality here)'. Sumthng very economical . Our country really needs that kind of innovation.
So getting our genius boy at work, we went after what we were made for..GIRLS.
Hours later, our genius boy came up with a truly genius selection of topic for the Congress.
And the topic was . I will quote in Hindi,I rmmbr the xact words:
"Kam laagat ya bina laagat wale khiloune".
Reading the topic you would made some calculation of how genuinely dumb our genius boy was and what superlative degree in stupidity did each one of us deserve.
Trust me you are grossly mistaken. For our genius boy was wakai a genius having made it to JEE and is now in US. and the idea was truly rocking. Believe me.
Act- III, Scenes -1 2 3 4 5 ....
Next began the work for the Congress. Our lazy, undirected, imperfect, non- committed work.
We began collecting small little inexpensive materials for the scientific principles displaying toys that we had set out to create.On the contrary once in a while whenevr we took a look at what the girls had done so far , we felt truly ashamed of the work we had done so far.
I remember one particular incident during the congress. I was doing some drawing sitting there in the chemistry Lab and so was one particular girl. Now it is anybody's guess girls are better at these stuffs. Anyhow, she came up to me and asked me how much of drawing I had completed, She said she had a lot of drawing pending. And what did I say- with so much of work pending we better continue drawing right..Man that was a cardinal sin to have said so..She quietly went back to her work. And I cursed myself.
When the preparations were to a close, girls definitely looked a better team in approach and in the work they had done. Girls being girls, they spent lavishly on their designs, got the costliest water paints for their models. We on the contrary hardly had models to decorate.
One day I caught up wid Pranay in a melancholic mood.
Pranay : Yaar do u think our so called scientific toys are presentable b4 the audience they are actually gonna be presented b4.
Me: Dnt wry yaar God will do sumthng.
Pranay : No, God will do nothing. U got to do sumthng. Its u who has to present.
Me : What!! But when since did I becum a presenter.Who on earth saw those skills in me? I cried literally.
Pranay : And do know that Mr. Sarkar and his bunch of profs will be there to hear you.
By now , I was more worried than Pranay was.
'Pranay, we've got to get some solid stuff man'. But Pranay was like "What?".
Anything, that would give us a bit of integrity.I already had sumthing cooking in my mind.
And it was called Kaleidoscope. Its an instrument kept in Physics Lab and has some physical principles behind it, plus it can be made to give the look thatwe have designed it.We just needed to ask for this favour frm Mr, David. We had terms with him. We knew he would oblige.
The D - DAY
So off with our final salvo (read Kaleido.)we were to the venue of the competion.
Limited by our expectations and grounded by our efforts, we truly stood no chance.
Girls were all bubbly showing their colourful models to whosover approached them.
They looked pretty and so did their models.WE looked ugly and so did our work.
But wait, I was the lead, I wasnt meant to be saying so.
I sumhw tried to liven up the spirits foolishly.
Amidst all this one particular gentleman happened to ask me abt my team's project.
And I tried my best to flaunt some technical words, which were anyways limited in my vocab.Dn kno what impression I made on him, but he did say both of you guys and girls are gonna win..
'All the best', he said.
I thought poor fellow. He didnt kno our gang was a KILLER one; that too of the highest degree.
What he meant then, I was to know in a couple of hours.
So began the presentations, Girls group first :
Aprajita takes centre-stage.Gets a sophisticated stick.
Starts slowly but concisely about the topic. The modes/submodes of polln, % share of various modes in air polln, various experimental data validatin their claim, various models, charts, bar-graphs and everything else possible. To sum it up they went for the kill.We were in mid of the clap when some moron spelled my name.
I took the stage, the sophisticated stick.
I began with a brief introdn to our theme, the idea behind the theme and then individually on to these toys . The scientific principles governing these toys and their implications in science and technology. Having covered them all one by one, it was ques-answer time now.
My eyes searched Prof. Sarkar's..His had already found mine.
Prof Sarkar : U kno momentum.
Me: Defined in words n then mathematically P = MV
Prof Sarkar : That was linear momentum.You just said this instrument of yours is based on angular mom. So what is that.
Why on earth did these profs have to torture the kids with everything angular- angular momentum, angular motion, rotational dynamics (the father of 'em all)
I sumhw took my best snapshots of Resnick Haliday n Walker, which some moron had made me read at that tender age and tried saying sumthing : mass multiplied by the cross product of distance vec. and velocity vec. I also added its a conserved quantity. I knew the next line too 'it remains conserved unless acted upon by an applied torque' but never said this. Didn want to give him more technical fodder to screw me.
I thought I had done reasonably well; Dr. Sarkar thought otherwise .
Dr. Sarkar then went into the realms of conserved quantities.
Naturally I had to quit.
Prof Sarkar : What is relative density and which ins. do we measure it with?
Me : Sir, R.D. is the ratio of the density of any substance to that of the water taken in same units . But I am not sure abt the instrument we measure it with.
Hygrometer was the answer he was looking for I guess.
Prof Sarkar asked me a few more questions which i tried answering, without making him any happier. How much I loved Mrs. Sarkar, the pretty woman our former Maths Teacher and how much I now hated her husband - this demon like angular son of a moron. Anyhow Mr. Sarkar asked one final question, a question that puzzles me till date :
Prof. Sarkar : Why is this instrument called Kaleidoscope.?
He had tricked me I felt. This wasnt a valid question. This CANNOT be a valid question. But I had to answer. I looked on the faces of all my mates, beginning my genius. NO clues. None. I felt like the player who had missed the all important penalty, he was so required to convert.
Crestfallen I replied in low voice : Sir, its named after its discovery by Sir Kaleidoscope. My mind could only go this far.
And with that, the presentation ended. People including girls of my class clapped. Atleast their claps appeared genuine. Rest seemed to be mocking us. I moved away from people for water. I had seen the reality the hard way. But to be fair to us, Prof. Sarkar had been unfair to some 9th Std kids. I had understood one thing today : If you dnt work hard and try n still make it to a league, DEMOLITION and DISGRACE follows.
Minutes later my group came in and leaped me in the air. I wondered what consolation had struck these fools. Girls group came and congratulated. I said thanx and all. And then sum1 told me that we had managed a second spot. Girls group came first. Well they always deserved to be ahead of us and by far. I congratulated them.
The two leads from the two teams had a snap together. And we returned happily to the school, having won the Dist. level to gear up for the State level. Amidst all these if you forgot abt the man who I had met b4 my presentations and who had told me that both of us we guys and gals wud win, letme tell you he was no fortune teller. Just that he knew since then that only two teams had arrived for the event. Teams from other schools had not made it. We laughed our hearts out on knowing this since it was this kind of orchestration that could get us [the boy's team] a medal.
What happened for the State's meet is another interesting tale..
Some other time.
Act I , Scene-1
Sr. Shalom enters Class IX
(There s hustle-bustle among students. Those who were talking imeediately stop.)
So class, this is a circular regarding the science Cong. event to be organised at Distt. level and then at the state level. I, like always am here to see two groups volunteering themselves ; one each from boys and girls. Girls, stupid as they have always been since the days of Eve raised their hands.
Boys suddenly seemed to have found one hell of an important business. They had their bags searching for the ingenuous piece of formulae they had just derieved.
Boys , dnt be under the impression that u can get away..
[Boys : No we are under no such impr. Sr.]
So if u are not volunteering, I will have to tak names.
Vikash, Pranay, Kunal, .....you guys have to to get it done.
One of you come and get some docs frm me.
Scene -2
Being in a foul mood, we sent our genius boy Pranay for collecting the docs/papers .
And whn he returned he made us proud abt him being a genius.
He told us hw he had managed to convince Sr. that we needed time away from classes to be able to do this work. Sr. having faith in our genius approved.
Act - II, Scene - 1 2 3 4 5...
And then began our days of fun..We sure were the new studs in the class. Making a mockery of the entire classs routine thing, we lived our own life. But finally we had to do sumthng. And it had to begin with the slection of the topic. We let our genius boy stuggle with the papers and docs in choosing the topic. All that we instructed Pranay b4 each one of us went on to make hay was 'Pranay beta DO NOT by any chance (particularly under the influnce of those girls) be under the impression that we are interested in this crap.You know y we are doin this. So do sumthng very cheap(we didn mean quality here)'. Sumthng very economical . Our country really needs that kind of innovation.
So getting our genius boy at work, we went after what we were made for..GIRLS.
Hours later, our genius boy came up with a truly genius selection of topic for the Congress.
And the topic was . I will quote in Hindi,I rmmbr the xact words:
"Kam laagat ya bina laagat wale khiloune".
Reading the topic you would made some calculation of how genuinely dumb our genius boy was and what superlative degree in stupidity did each one of us deserve.
Trust me you are grossly mistaken. For our genius boy was wakai a genius having made it to JEE and is now in US. and the idea was truly rocking. Believe me.
Act- III, Scenes -1 2 3 4 5 ....
Next began the work for the Congress. Our lazy, undirected, imperfect, non- committed work.
We began collecting small little inexpensive materials for the scientific principles displaying toys that we had set out to create.On the contrary once in a while whenevr we took a look at what the girls had done so far , we felt truly ashamed of the work we had done so far.
I remember one particular incident during the congress. I was doing some drawing sitting there in the chemistry Lab and so was one particular girl. Now it is anybody's guess girls are better at these stuffs. Anyhow, she came up to me and asked me how much of drawing I had completed, She said she had a lot of drawing pending. And what did I say- with so much of work pending we better continue drawing right..Man that was a cardinal sin to have said so..She quietly went back to her work. And I cursed myself.
When the preparations were to a close, girls definitely looked a better team in approach and in the work they had done. Girls being girls, they spent lavishly on their designs, got the costliest water paints for their models. We on the contrary hardly had models to decorate.
One day I caught up wid Pranay in a melancholic mood.
Pranay : Yaar do u think our so called scientific toys are presentable b4 the audience they are actually gonna be presented b4.
Me: Dnt wry yaar God will do sumthng.
Pranay : No, God will do nothing. U got to do sumthng. Its u who has to present.
Me : What!! But when since did I becum a presenter.Who on earth saw those skills in me? I cried literally.
Pranay : And do know that Mr. Sarkar and his bunch of profs will be there to hear you.
By now , I was more worried than Pranay was.
'Pranay, we've got to get some solid stuff man'. But Pranay was like "What?".
Anything, that would give us a bit of integrity.I already had sumthing cooking in my mind.
And it was called Kaleidoscope. Its an instrument kept in Physics Lab and has some physical principles behind it, plus it can be made to give the look thatwe have designed it.We just needed to ask for this favour frm Mr, David. We had terms with him. We knew he would oblige.
The D - DAY
So off with our final salvo (read Kaleido.)we were to the venue of the competion.
Limited by our expectations and grounded by our efforts, we truly stood no chance.
Girls were all bubbly showing their colourful models to whosover approached them.
They looked pretty and so did their models.WE looked ugly and so did our work.
But wait, I was the lead, I wasnt meant to be saying so.
I sumhw tried to liven up the spirits foolishly.
Amidst all this one particular gentleman happened to ask me abt my team's project.
And I tried my best to flaunt some technical words, which were anyways limited in my vocab.Dn kno what impression I made on him, but he did say both of you guys and girls are gonna win..
'All the best', he said.
I thought poor fellow. He didnt kno our gang was a KILLER one; that too of the highest degree.
What he meant then, I was to know in a couple of hours.
So began the presentations, Girls group first :
Aprajita takes centre-stage.Gets a sophisticated stick.
Starts slowly but concisely about the topic. The modes/submodes of polln, % share of various modes in air polln, various experimental data validatin their claim, various models, charts, bar-graphs and everything else possible. To sum it up they went for the kill.We were in mid of the clap when some moron spelled my name.
I took the stage, the sophisticated stick.
I began with a brief introdn to our theme, the idea behind the theme and then individually on to these toys . The scientific principles governing these toys and their implications in science and technology. Having covered them all one by one, it was ques-answer time now.
My eyes searched Prof. Sarkar's..His had already found mine.
Prof Sarkar : U kno momentum.
Me: Defined in words n then mathematically P = MV
Prof Sarkar : That was linear momentum.You just said this instrument of yours is based on angular mom. So what is that.
Why on earth did these profs have to torture the kids with everything angular- angular momentum, angular motion, rotational dynamics (the father of 'em all)
I sumhw took my best snapshots of Resnick Haliday n Walker, which some moron had made me read at that tender age and tried saying sumthing : mass multiplied by the cross product of distance vec. and velocity vec. I also added its a conserved quantity. I knew the next line too 'it remains conserved unless acted upon by an applied torque' but never said this. Didn want to give him more technical fodder to screw me.
I thought I had done reasonably well; Dr. Sarkar thought otherwise .
Dr. Sarkar then went into the realms of conserved quantities.
Naturally I had to quit.
Prof Sarkar : What is relative density and which ins. do we measure it with?
Me : Sir, R.D. is the ratio of the density of any substance to that of the water taken in same units . But I am not sure abt the instrument we measure it with.
Hygrometer was the answer he was looking for I guess.
Prof Sarkar asked me a few more questions which i tried answering, without making him any happier. How much I loved Mrs. Sarkar, the pretty woman our former Maths Teacher and how much I now hated her husband - this demon like angular son of a moron. Anyhow Mr. Sarkar asked one final question, a question that puzzles me till date :
Prof. Sarkar : Why is this instrument called Kaleidoscope.?
He had tricked me I felt. This wasnt a valid question. This CANNOT be a valid question. But I had to answer. I looked on the faces of all my mates, beginning my genius. NO clues. None. I felt like the player who had missed the all important penalty, he was so required to convert.
Crestfallen I replied in low voice : Sir, its named after its discovery by Sir Kaleidoscope. My mind could only go this far.
And with that, the presentation ended. People including girls of my class clapped. Atleast their claps appeared genuine. Rest seemed to be mocking us. I moved away from people for water. I had seen the reality the hard way. But to be fair to us, Prof. Sarkar had been unfair to some 9th Std kids. I had understood one thing today : If you dnt work hard and try n still make it to a league, DEMOLITION and DISGRACE follows.
Minutes later my group came in and leaped me in the air. I wondered what consolation had struck these fools. Girls group came and congratulated. I said thanx and all. And then sum1 told me that we had managed a second spot. Girls group came first. Well they always deserved to be ahead of us and by far. I congratulated them.
The two leads from the two teams had a snap together. And we returned happily to the school, having won the Dist. level to gear up for the State level. Amidst all these if you forgot abt the man who I had met b4 my presentations and who had told me that both of us we guys and gals wud win, letme tell you he was no fortune teller. Just that he knew since then that only two teams had arrived for the event. Teams from other schools had not made it. We laughed our hearts out on knowing this since it was this kind of orchestration that could get us [the boy's team] a medal.
What happened for the State's meet is another interesting tale..
Some other time.
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