...in the inter-hostel Light Music competition. If there are enough singers from my hostel already, I will sing as a non-comp. I don't sing great, but I am sure no one is going to throw chappals or rotten eggs at me when I hold the microphone and do vocal exercise on stage.

It so happened that yesterday, I came to know that there were only three guys from my hostel participating. The upper limit from every hostel is five. Now, this was bad. So, I decided to go ahead and increase Narmad's count. Heck, I would enjoy doing that as well.

However today, two secon yearites suddenly popped up. So, now there were three guys who wanted to sing. Ah. The social-secretary said he would have an audition to select best five singers. LOL! That's weird because I am no singer. I had decided to do it for fun. But I had indeed practiced a particular song quite a few times. I had also roped in a studd tabla player to play beats for me. So, one thing is for sure. I shall be singing.

What song do you ask? Heh, if you know me, you should have guessed that only a post-event video can best answer that. :D (Anyone willing to shoot me? :P )

Update: Event postponed from 29th Oct to 30th Oct. Also, dear friend Prasun has agreed to shoot me and KG seems to be serious too. :D Great going.

It rained the whole day today. Chennai was cold after a long time. Cool winds kept blowing (it's late night now, and I am sure they still are blowing outside).

Running, if nothing else, is a good stress buster. And to run today meant running in the rain. I had done it before. I asked Caesar if he would like me to join. It was about half past four in the evening. It was raining fairly well. After little hesitation, and a lot of persistence from my side (which included the cliched use of lines like "be a man"), he agreed. 'I haven't done this before, but what the hell, lemme fuckin do it', he said something similar after he had made up his mind to join me.

We ran like kids. We felt like kids. It was fun to run through small water pockets that had appeared on roads, splashing the soily water in all directions.
We screamed at times, like the thirteen years old do, when they kick their first goal in a football match.

As we ran, Caesar thought he had grown taller. As I ran, I could listen to the trees asking us to keep running and since they couldn't they would cheer us up. Trees actually cheered us up. Everytime we passed underneath trees, the drops that fell down were thicker and made a strange sound that in some vague way made me believe that the trees were clapping and cheering. :)

'That looks lovely', Caesar pointed to an approaching car whose headlight was on. I had a look. The yellow rays from the headlamp, passing through rain drops indeed looked fascinating; reminded me of numerous movies where in such rainy weather, and on lonely roads, such cars stop and then something happens.

'Reminds me of I know what you did last summer', I replied to him. The car had past but we continued our discussion. 'What if a half-dead body had been thrown out of the car when it passed us?', I questioned him. Before he could think of an answer, I further made up the story, 'We would go near it, and soon you would notice blood all over my hands and then you would scream, dude lets just run away, and then I would scream back at you saying we can't leave a dying man alone and.....'.

'What if such a thing really happens, what will we do?', he had something to throw at me finally. I had no answer. And before I could think of one, he shouted, 'see there, another car's coming'. And both of us giggled. And kept running.

Today for the first time, Caesar actually ran all the way back to Gc. In fact we ran further till Tiffanys, found Mishre there, and made him pay for our coffee. The way everyone (and that included a lot of girls) stared at the two of us in Tiffanys (a food joint on top of female mess in IIT Madras) was funny. It was awesome to have coffee after having run about six kilometers in rain. It was just fuckin awesome. Since it still was raining, there was no question of walking back to hostel. Both of us would have fallen sick. So we ran again. I gave him company till Jamuna (his hostel) and continued running to Narmad.

Caesar's left knee was fucked up. He had over-run (though I had under-run; I take another longer route to cover few more kilometers when I am running alone). I adviced him to take hot bath and things would be fine. He did that and I guess it worked for him. I took a hot bath too after like centuries.

This certainly was my best run ever. I am sure it's true for Caesar as well.

It was a light drizzle yesterday night when I decided to walk up to Tarams to get a fag. I had just left my hostel when it started raining with an increased intensity (no, not strong to be called a downpour, but fair enough to wet you slowly).

I met a hostel-mate who was in the weight-lifting team. I asked him the result. He had got a silver. He was in the next higher cateogry than mine. Another hostel-mate who was in the highest weight category had won a bronze. My sports sec, who was in a category below me missed a bronze by one place. He had lifted 47 Kgs in snatch and came fourth.

Finally, I asked him about what happened in my category (62-69 Kgs). He told that the guy who got bronze, lifted 45 Kgs in snatch. 'You actually had a chance', he added. I could only smile back at him.

I paid for my fag, finished it and walked back. It still was raining, but suddenly I felt good about all the fight that I had put for weightlifting. If nothing else, it made me fitter, made me fag less and gave a lot of stuff to blog about. :D Not bad at all!

Yes. I finally have my own domain name. www.vatsap.com

Dear Feed readers, please change your feed settings so that you don't have to miss my posts. :)

My heartful thanks to Dr. Arunn Narasimhan for setting up everything for me and giving me space on his hosting server. He rocks!

So this post, officially is my last post here on blogspot. A good thing is that all the earlier posts will still show up on my all new site!

I was gloomy yesterday. I was feeling lost in the crowd. I didn't want to take the bus to home. I didn't want to go anywhere. I anyways waited at the bus-stop. Waited for the bus. I really was lost. I didn't want to take the bus.

The bus came. I didn't have to board it. It was totally full. I thought I would go visit the nearby Gaduda Mall. I roamed around inside the air conditioned building. Purposeless. Direction-less. I had only twenty bucks in my wallet. So I didn't buy anything.

I knew I wanted to take an auto. I was not ready to face a crowded bus yesterday. I wanted a little peace. After a little struggle, I got an auto. I thought I would stop at some SBI ATM on my way to home, and withdraw cash. So that I could pay the auto-valla.

The traffic sucked.

Midway, the autowallah stopped his vehicle. He had a good news to offer. The auto won't run anymore. There was some problem with the gear. The meter showed 35 bucks.

You will have to take me to some ATM. I have only 20 bucks!
Aiyyo sir, this auto won't run. And there really is not ATM close by. But I can find another auto for you.
Ok then. Ask the other autovalla to pay you remaining cash. I will pay to him later.

This worked. To my relief! In about fifteen minutes, he could find another auto, whose driver paid him fifteen bucks from his own pocket. The new trip began. I spotted an ATM after a while. I asked this new autovalla to stop.

I was inside the ATM, when I took out my wallet. The ATM card was not there. What?? Yes. There was no ATM card! I paused for few seconds. Then came out of ATM.

There is no cash in here. Chalo, I will pay you when I reach home. Let's go.

Finally reached home. Borrowed cash from cousin.

The bottomline: I have fuckin lost my ATM card!! I have fuckin lost it when I am in Bangalore and not in Chennai and when it was the only source of money I had. Total fuck.

Made this design for Proto.in, the second edition of which is coming up in IIT Madras on July 21-22 2007. And yeah, did all of this sitting in office since I really didn't have any work to do ( I still don't have). You can get gyaan about Proto.in here on their site.

Also made this badge:

Remember I talked about shooting a video at uncle's place when he cooked Chicken Biryani? After giving up on using a firewire cable, I finally did the video-transfer using USB and then edited it yesterday (basically to bring the whole thing down to less than 10 minutes).

By the way, don't watch this video if you are hungry right now and you are a non-vegetarian and you are sure that you won't be getting to eat anything for at least quite some time. I say so, because this video will definitely bring water to your mouth and make you twice more hungry than you are.

And yeah, the Biryani was mast! :) Enjoy watching the video (it's in Hindi).

Let's meet. If you are from IIT Madras and you are in Bangalore and you are jobless this coming Sunday (3rd of June, 2007), come, catch up. Even if you are a pass out, you are dearly welcome! Let's fart and bring the IIT Madras charm to this city (of gardens?).

This is the proposed plan but you are welcome to suggest changes.

11AM-2Pm: Beer at Mojoz Mojo's
2AM onwards: Lunch (we shall decide the place once we meet)

So those who want to join the get-together, leave your information on the comments section of this post.

How to reach Mojo's: It is on Residency Road, opposite the Hyundai Showroom, Near Ballal Residency. You can come down brigades, take the left, and then the first right again and BANG, you are at Mojo's!!

Most of you already know about the cable incidence. Those who don't, check that out before you further read this post.

Yesterday I finally decided to buy the 'original' JVC cable which came for 350 bucks. But this time, I was a man who had learned from his past mistakes. I took my laptop along. And asked them to let me check if the cable fit properly. Well, they didn't mind me doing that. And well, the cable fit.

The first thing that I did after reaching home was to connect the video-camera to the laptop using this new 4pin-4pin firewire cable. The camera detected it, but the laptop still didn't. Now, this was too much. This was frustrating. Since the camera detected it perfectly each time I would connect, the cable couldn't possibly be bad. So the problem lied with my laptop.

A long-tiresome-frustrating internet research began which started yesterday and continued till I decided to give up a few moments ago (sitting in office). Many many people out there have faced similar problems. Their laptop doesn't detect their cameras when connected by firewire cables. Only few claimed that trying out different cables solved their problems but for most of them, the fault was never with the cable. Out there, I could find a lot of frustrated people, (like I am right now) who could do nothing but give up.

A stupid thing is that I already have done this video transfer from camera to computer. I know that it works. So I am all the more frustrated that right now, when I so desperately want to edit videos, this whole damn thing is not working out for me. Eh, too much! The last time I did the video transfer, I didn't have a laptop though. I had a regular desktop. The CPU did not have a firewire card by default. So I had to buy one separately when I purchased the camera. It was a firewire card with two 6-pin slots and came with a free 4pin-6pin cable (the 4pin end would go into the camera and the 6pin end would go into the firewire card). And it had worked amazingly well then. The video quality that I had got was really really awesome.

Today is the first time that I am disappointed with my Dellruba. I was so happy (while ordering her) to know that, she came with an inbuilt firewire card. I didn't know that this card won't have a six pin slot like the one that I got for my CPU. Dellruba had a 4pin slot, exactly like the camera. So the earlier 6pin-4pin cable was of no use. And now finally after having 270+350 bucks on buying a 4pin-4pin cable (and blogging about it), I still CANNOT transfer videos!

For the time being, I will continue to transfer using USB cable. Something is better than nothing. And anyways, my readers wont be able to notice much difference in the video quality because on youtube, you anyways don't get great quality (ah, what a nice way of consoling myself).

Saw this happening on TV a couple of days ago. Himesh Reshammiya is supposedly on Ejaz Lakdawala's hit list. It was funny to hear the Don speak himself to the news channel. What a drama!

Now all of us know why these Mumbai-ka-dons (better known as Bhai's) threaten celebrity lives. For money! But I guess in Himesh's case, something else happened:

Don: Hello, Himesh?
Himesh: Yeah, who is this? Look if you are some singer, try approaching me through Indian Idol. I really don't have any time. Don't you know that I am also doing one stupid movie? I really don't have time.

Don: No, I am no singer.
Himesh: Then who are you?

Don: I am Don. I am Ezaz Lakdawala. I kill celebrities for money.
Himesh: Oh, so you need money from me.

Don: No.
Himesh: No? Why did you call me up then.

Don: I wanted to make a request to you.
Himesh: I don't believe it. Ezaz Lakdavaala is making me a request.

Don: Yeah. I am fuckin fed up of your voice. Wherever I go, I find your songs playing. You make nice music, alright but your voice totally sucks. I beg to you. Stop singing. I will give you money for doing that. Tell me your demand.
Himesh: No money can stop me from singing. And I am anyways making enough money, thanks to my God gifted talent (read God gifted nose).

Don: I won't ask again. You are the only celebrity who is getting money from a Don! You dare refuse me.
Himesh: I can pay you some cash. But please let me sing.

Don: I will pay you double of what you can offer. But please, stop singing. Entire India is fed up of you and your nose.
Himesh: I'll prefer dying than not singing. I am sure that many people who kept listening to my voice for a long time must have died a painful death. I guess it's time for me to payback. Kill me if you want to but however much you give to me, I wont stop from torturing the world.

Don: You are a dead man. Right now, at this very moment, I am putting you on top of my hitlist. Sing as many songs as you can, before I save the world from your atrocities. That will be the only good thing I would be doing in my entire life as a Don. I am hanging up now. Gotta call some news channel to give them this happy news. Because I am sure, a lot of people out there will be delighted to know that they wont have to bear you shortly. Chal bye.

Here I am, sitting on aunt's laptop at uncle's place. Half an hour ago uncle and myself were out on street, getting drenched in the massive downpour that has subsided moments ago. We had gone out to get samosas and got caught in the rains that errupted all of a sudden. It's good that I won the AMD t-shirt earlier today so that I didn't have to change to my uncle's tee after getting back. But of course he had to lend me his pyjama. :P

The rain was lovely. I feel so fresh and so does uncle. He will soon be making mooli-ka-parantha for the three of us. He cooks good. Good for me. Good for Aunt. :) This Sunday rocks.

While coming back from Forum, I had run into two insti guys. One was a branch senior who had passed out last year; has been working in Bangalore since then; and now going to IIM A. The other guy was a junior who is the current Academic Affaris Secretory of the insti. It feels great to run into known faces. Though for a matter of fact I had been wishing all the time while in Forum to run into yet another known face. That never happened. :( But then this was real life. Not a movie, right?

A routine life shall begin once more from tomorrow. And in all liklihood, some real work should begin. I wish life weren't real. I wish life were a dream.