If you are a guy, you need to be a sissy to feel good about beating girls in running. I am not being sexist or anything. Girls are as good as boys, even better, in most of the things but the bodies are different and so are the physical capacities. So if you are a guy, you need to be a sissy to feel good about beating girls in running. I beat a girl in running today and I feel so good about it.

Though I talk a lot about running and stuff and I run a lot, the fact is that I am a rather slow runner. In short, when it comes to running, I suck. I can run for like one and a half hour even, but I cannot run that much if you ask me to run like a real runner. I never wanted to be a real (read: fast) runner in the first place. I never wanted to be a runner at all in the zeroeth place. It just happened. Reasons are vague. In my final year in IIT, I started believing that I had strong arms. I thought that I had strong arms so I should participate in weight-lifting and therefore I started running regularly. When friends asked why was I running suddenly all over the campus, I would tilt the head at the right angle and in a Sylvester-Stallonish style, answer them – ’stamina da. A sportsman needs stamina’. It really didn’t matter then that I was not a sportsman to begin with. I never played anything in hostel except showing up bare-chested a couple of times in the baski-court and I had never tired weight-lifting before that. So I kept running and kept saying everyone that it was for stamina and every sportsman needed good stamina. Obviously I couldn’t ever lift weight or my arms never became stronger because of running. I did gain some stamina but because I was not yet a sportsman and I didn’t have a girl friend to have sex with then, I didn’t know how to use this stamina that I suddenly had. So I ran more, day after day. After few months, I really had no clue why I was still running and then a road race happened in IIT. I participated. Of course I sucked again. I think I got some 300th place or something. 100 guys must have run in that race. I never really stopped running after that.

Today morning I ran 4.47 kilometers in 25 minutes on the treadmill so that I could beat Push who told me she could do 4.4 K in the same time. It was a good feeling. If you are a guy, you need to be a sissy to feel good about beating girls in running.

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I would have been making a Shitoon right now because I have an idea for a new joke, you know. I am writing this post instead. This is one thing that Salinger does to me. He makes me write. I was reading Catcher in the Rye long back – last month may be. It was a small book so I could have finished it then only. But the pirated version had a problem – it had blank pages. After having read about 100 pages, I realized that every once in a while, a pair of pages would go blank! It was so irritating. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to skip pages just for the heck of finishing the book. It was then that I decided to pick an original from somewhere. I couldn’t find it anywhere – I tried only in the Oxford bookstore though. There aren’t more bookshops in Bhubaneswar anyway. It was only few days back, this Sunday actually, when I finally found out this cute book in the shop and oh boy, did I jump with joy! And it was only few minutes back that I finally finished it. And then I felt like writing myself – this is one thing that Salinger does to me. He makes me write.

Wild Hogs – everyone should watch this movie. It’s not too great or mind blowing or insanely funny or anything like that. But everyone who is planning to do a crazy bike-trip and all should watch it – Wild Hogs. The movie is sweet and cute, you know. There are like four friends, all ageing and all that and getting sick of their lives and then one day they generally decide to go for some bike trip without any plans and stuff and without their wives. Since it’s a movie, very funny things happen and of course in the end it’s all goody goody and all that. I mean I laughed a lot as I saw it being shown on Star Movies. I sometimes felt like crying too even when the movie never really tried to be too senti. But I felt like crying anyway. Bike trips and friends and all that – such things make you feel like crying when you are away from such things, put up in a guest house built on a 10 ft by 10 ft island in the middle of the Pacific. I am not saying that Bhubaneswar is so small and that there’s sea water all around, but it feels nice to crib anyway.

The awesome thing is that I am myself going on a crazy bike-trip in less than ten days. It’s not that I got inspired by Wild Hogs or anything. Hell, it wasn’t even my own idea. It came from Tiwari. Such things come from Tiwari, you know. He is normal otherwise but somtimes he comes up crazy plans and you have to love him for that. I would love him anyway but I like him so much more when he proposes a crazy plan like riding a bike for like ten days. Back in my second year in IIT, this guy proposed that he, me and Anshuman should go cycling from Insti to Mahabalipuram – that was like 80 Kms to and fro. Myself and Anshuman acted like bastards you know – we said yes, yes, let’s go, let’s go and then we never really went. And then one night Tiwari came to us and told us he was coming back from Mahabalipuram. He told us he went all alone on his Hero Hawk a friend’s borrowed bicycle in the morning and returned back alive. Suddenly he was like the man and we felt like pussies. I don’t know about Anshuman but I certainly felt like a pussy you know. I also felt bad that he had to go all alone and all that. So in the next few days – the three of us finally went together cycling to Mahabalipuram – and even made a video with some random rock music and all that after coming back. You know what, we started this trend soon – junta in insti started taking this trip. I don’t know if they still take such trips at IIT, but anyway, it was Tiwari who started it. Such things come from Tiwari, you know. He is normal otherwise but somtimes he comes up crazy plans and you have to love him for that.

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Ran across this document which made me smile – they were the good old days before the advent of Vatsap? when I was crazy for people to read my blogs.

I Anshuman Agrawal, declare that I will display the status message “updated: www.amritvatsa.blogspot.com” as my gtalk status message for 36 hrs during next two days (48 hours) starting from 7:00 pm 09.02.2007 to 7:00 pm 11.02.2007 (1 am to 5 am time out). On both days, for any 2 hrs (except prime slot i.e. 8 pm to 11 pm) I have the right to change the status message to anything else. But if the status message, asked by Amrit Vatsa is changed at any other time, this contract will be regarded invalid.

After the end of the above mentioned period, Amrit Vatsa, resident of 345 Narmada Hostel, roll no CE03B051 shall offer me chocolate fantasy in CCD. The expected cost is Rs. 36. Any increase in cost shall be born by me.

Ah – IIT, where art thou? I am seriously going to a CCD in Bhubaneswar today, si there, close my eyes and travel back in time recollecting all the nice time spent with all the nice people in the IIT CCD.

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I met couple of more juniors in insti day before yesterday when I went there in the evening but one thing was clear – without the old folks, insti just wasn’t the same. Yesterday, I could still connect to a lot of things – CCD, CLT, Tiffanys, dramatics, the insti actors, my ex-Shaastra-coordinators etc. Soon, even that would become difficult to do – connecting that is. The number of juniors, whom I know, would have gone down and after say two years, I wonder if I would know any student in IIT. A fresh breed of blood shall be keeping the spirit of the campus alive. I would have become an old blood by then, and the process already seems to have started. Sigh! I thought I had moved on but the way I felt day before, wasn’t a great feeling. Finally I felt like an outsider. Finally I felt like a pass-out – passed out to roam around alone in the world. The relationship with insti was a sweet one, one of the most beautiful ones in my life so far. Day before, IIT indeed felt like that ex-girlfriend who looks the same when you run into her after months of break-up, but who you soon realize is not really the same – not from inside, not the way you left her last. You can so clearly see that she is getting used to a new life – a life without you, and you cannot do much about it. If there is something that you can do, then it is to pack your bags and walk out, smiling at the good old days and accepting that they indeed were the old days – fading, dying, gone – never to return again.

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What is this drama about IIT-JEE? Dean students, IIT Madras thinks JEE should be scrapped! This seriously is the limit. kuch bhi? Jo man me aaya bol diya, aisa?

Let me copy-paste IITM’s director quoted words for the news article and then let me rape him.

I am looking for students with raw intelligence and not those with a mind prepared by coaching class. The coaching classes only help students in mastering pattern recognizing skills. With this, you cannot get students with raw intelligence.

I do not get this deal about generally blaming coaching classes for everything. So dear Diro, do you also think that since so many coaching classes exist for Civil Services Examination, the IAS officers of today lack raw intelligence? What is raw intelligence anyway? Politicians with no intelligence run this country. And someone here has a problem with coaching classes.

Coaching classes do what it takes to increase every students chance of qualifying JEE. I didn’t take coaching. I still qualified. Big deal. Does that mean I have raw intelligence? Bull shit.

What do you teach inside IIT anyway? One course after another. How are you so sure that the kind of skills that coaching classes impart those who attend them, are not enough to take what IIT offers?

So many students go for coaching. So few of them who do coaching, finally qualify (5%, 10%, how much?). How is it that some students develop a better pattern recognizing skill than the others, even when they all go for coaching? Could it be, Mr. diro, that the raw intelligence that you talked about, is responsible for this difference?

Pattern recognizing skills! What pattern does JEE have anway? One year you ask subjective questions, another year you make it totally objective. One year, you include xyz in the syllabus, another year you remove that. One year you take a screening first and then a main exam, another year you take just one. Pattern? Kahaan?

In the same article, the following is what the Diro further said:

We must evolve a system where only the top 1% of students from different state boards and CBSE are permitted to appear for the JEE

State board and CBSE? I thought someone was concerned about patterns! You are suggesting use of board exams as a criteria for selection? Is there any other exam in India which follows an extremely predictable pattern than the board exams? Why such contrasting views Mr. Diro, why? Chalo, raped you enough. Ab dean ki baari hai.

Read what the dean student says:

One of the reasons for the poor intake of girls in the flagship B. Tech programme is that parents don’t send daughters for coaching classes. The best way to increase the intake of girls is to have direct admissions.

I don’t know whether to laugh over this or cry. How many professors in IIT Madras are female sir? And how many IAS officers in Tamil Nadu or even the rest of the India female? Hai jawaab?

Girls of today are sensible. Flagship B. Tech programme! Blah! I wonder why these guys don’t give any basis for their statements. Why do these guys who have worked inside the system since long, still talk like those who are outside it. What percentage of girls who sit for JEE qualify? Is it a figure that difficult to obtain?

Educated Indians girls of today have the job security because they are still living in a society where the husband is assumed to take care of his wife by default. So unlike the middle-class boys, they don’t have to fight so badly to get into IITs. Those who really want to do engineering, write the exams. Amongst them, those are good enough, get through. Period.

Go have a look at colleges other than engineering. In fact go have a look at any college where people are not in there because of assurance of a good job, but because it offers the kind of education that they are interested in. Dance colleges, journalism colleges, film-making institutes. You will find enough girls. Many good girls, many smart girls, and at least few intelligent girls.

It isn’t JEE that’s responsible for the lower intake of girls sir, it simply is the lower need to struggle harder than a million ants to study something as crappy as engineering. And believe me they are lucky. They at least have the option to stay out of the stupid rate race. We, the middle-class men, whose fathers don’t run a business, are already tired running it.

Stop frustrating junta by speaking up anything that comes to mind.

I lost my mind after a long time.

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The good news for the day is that papa got a promotion. He now is a scale three officer. The bad news for the day is that papa got a promotion. Now that he is a scale three officer, he will be sent to a bigger branch, away from home. He works in a public sector bank. The new branch could be anywhere, definitely away from the house that he built few years back. There is quite a possibility that his new posting could even be in a different state altogether. Let me not speculate. Let me just wait. For the next news.

The weather here is so perfect (not just in the morning but during any time of the day). The economist, who was working in Bhopal before she was sent here, keeps telling me it’s humid here in Bhuv. I keep telling her that she should see Chennai.

My fourth day in Bhuv. Hmm. I finally ran. Forty minutes. Must have covered a distance of about 8k. Yesterday, when I had some free time, I browsed through the Google map of Bhubaneswar, located my guest house on the map, and traced a route for myself on the National Highway no. 5 (NH5). My guest house is very close to NH5.

When I finally ran today, I ended up exceeding the marked route. Why? Because I had given myself a total running of time of 40 minutes, but ended up crossing my marked boundary in only about 12-15 minutes. I guess I had miscalculated the distance on Google map. So I just kept running away from the guest house after reaching NH5 till I had finally run a good twenty 20 minutes and then returned in almost the same time, completing a total of 40 minutes of running time.

I so want to buy some cool gadget that tells me my speed and all that when I run. These running accessories should come one by one. Thank God, I finally have at least my own pair of running shoes. If you have been a regular reader, and have kept a track of my running escapades, you might be surprised to know that I got myself shoes only after coming back from Andaman, that is in June. Papa gifted them to me after having seen me run 10k in Andaman with his own eyes. Before that, I simply used to put on any available pair lying in the hostel-wing and hit the road in insti. The wing was always full of shoes, some new, some discarded. Man, I have run so much on borrowed pair of shoes that now when I get into my new Reebok, I almost feel like a King. A prince may be.

In this context of borrowed shoes, PD, a branch-cum-hostel junior and a good friend deserves a special mention. They were PD’s shoes that I used for a long long time. I never knew that they were his when I started running long distance back in September last year. I always thought they belonged to Tak, my batchmate cum hostel mate, who had a room next to PD. Every time I would cross Tak in those shoes, I tried my best to walk past him as fast as possible, before he could realize that I was in his shoes. And every time I walked pass PD, I would only smile at him and he would smile back at me. I never knew why I always got such a broad smile in response.

It was only after a few good months, and I guess some time in the beginning of this year, when PD finally told me, smiling, that they were his. I was so shit embarrassed, but smiled back. From next week, I could be seen in another junior’s shoes.  Thanks PD for triggering my running career. And wherever those shoes are, tell them that I miss them.

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