So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

 

The last few hours have been exhilarating. I feel like really happy now and just cannot stop grinning like the Cheshire Cat!

The thing is I had my maths exam today.

Anticlimactic right?

Maths for me has always been a bit of a setback. For some reason, I never did do well in it. Things just kept getting worse, to tell you the truth. I used to see a sum and freak out. As a result of that, the paper inadvertently went to hell. This happened in class nine, during my ten boards and continued through to last year. Last year, I hit my all time low with my initial score being 14/100 to the score in my final being 9/100.

But not this time.

I might have mentioned that I’ve joined a new tutorial and the person who teaches me is amazing. She doesn’t only make you do sums you see, she makes you understand them. Yeah she has a low tolerance for nonsense but is quite a nice person. I guess attending the classes have knocked some sense into my otherwise nonsensical upper story! Full credit and heartfelt thanks to Ma'am! It’s 99% her and 1% me! 

I find that I am actually enjoying solving sums and somehow I am not getting scared of them anymore. That is what happened in todays paper. I took a stab at the first sum and then just started solving and having fun along the way. I managed to complete the paper with over 45 minutes to go, so I checked the sums and they were all correct! There’s just this ONE sum, a trig simplification that I couldn't get my head around. Ah well, there’s always the next exam to look forward to.

Yeah I said look forward to. Oh and the funniest bit. My old phobia did rear it’s head midway through the paper, like it’s done all these years. Unfortunately, I was differentiating a rather complex implicit function, so I really didn't want to play.

So, sorry man, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to find another guy’s head to mess with. I am not scared of maths anymore. That doesn't mean that I’m going to like ace every exam. That would be like stupid and arrogant.

Mind you, I didn't get as much as I was supposed to. But, no worries. After all, the next exam’s never really too far off! So all I’ve gotta do is

“Keep Calm and FIGHT THE FAIRIES!”

Now excuse me while I tackle my next exam. Communicative English to be precise.

Until next time

The Bilge Master

 

 

Tell me a Story

 

Tell me a story,

Spin me a yarn,

Take me back again

“Once upon a time”,

Soothe these flayed nerves,

With a little rhyme,

Or perhaps you might guide me to

The lands before time?

Around me here, people stare,

Some divide, others rule,

Some choose to ignore and are called fools,

Tell me a story,

Spin me a yarn,

Grow me a garden,

Bubbling with charm,

Let me listen,

To swansong, and give me wings

To rise above this din

Tell me a story,

Spin me a yarn,

Take me back again

“Once upon a time”

This is how I feel, after that night, when my dreams came true. 28.8.2012, Thank you!

 

The Bilge Master

 

So, I dub thee “Unforgiven”

This is a random bunch of entries I had made a long time ago in a diary. I chanced upon them yesterday. I guess you could call it a short story. The title is part of the refrain of “The Unforgiven” by Metallica

5th July
The day my life took a u-turn of sorts. I had come home from work. God knows how I had a job, what with the unemployment rampant due to the war going on. I had barely entered when I saw the letter. I had been drafted. Chosen to fight for my country. The letter gave details as to where and when I was to report for training and ordered that I leave the very next day. My mother tried to restrain me by pointing out that the risk I was taking was immense. I was in my prime, had a job. Why throw it all away, like Father had? She pointed to his portrait gesticulating wildly. I wouldn't listen. I was too excited, high on adrenaline.

7th July

I’m on my way to the army camp. Boarded the train at 7am. Should reach there sometime in the next 4 hours. Feeling nervous, excited and also elated. After all, it IS an honour to serve your country. Am I worth it?

9th August – Base Camp 0500hrs

Two months later, I can hardly recognize myself. I’m fitter, faster and can shoot to kill. I am a soldier. And the icing on the cake is; I have been assigned to my father’s regiment. I sent a few letters during the course of these days to my mother, but she rarely replied. She is still begging me to come home.
Our camp is about 4 miles from the front. It’s a bloodbath out here. We are entrenched and have machine guns covering the perimeter. But nothing protects us from air raids carried out by the enemy. I killed my first man yesterday. Man? He was in his teens. My hands were shaking. I don't know why, I felt a surge of pity. I sort of froze, and he aimed his gun at me. I shot him in the chest and had run on to join my squad. Happened in a heartbeat.

11th August- Base Camp 0700hrs

Trouble sleeping these days. Keep having nightmares. I see that kid’s face. The sarge says it’s just first kill nerves. The camp is under siege and we are trapped. Repeated raids by the enemy. We buried five men yesterday. The hill just opposite our perimeter is our target for now and we plan on laying siege to it. My squadmates and Captain Reily presiding over us to “keep us in line”.  I felt like those soldiers in Tennyson’s poem as I ran up the hill. Our attack didnt work out. They’ve got Panzer tanks covering the area. Once agian we are entrenched. Trapped. We need air support or else all of us are dead.

12th August- Entrenchment 0645hrs

Air support is here. Dropped some much needed medication. People are dropping like flies and our camp is beginning to resemble a cemetary. We lost the Sarge so Reily is now the C.O.
The good news is that the Panzer tanks are blown to bits. We might be able to counter attack now. Waiting for Reily’s signal. Is it just me, or is our C.O. getting cold feet?

13th August- Entrenchment 0700hrs
We are making our move today. We are going to hit those guys with all we got. I’m loading my carbine now as I sip the muck they call coffee around here.

17th August- Hospital in unknown location Time unknown

I do not know what happened. The last thing I remember is charging up that hill with the squad, facing a hailstorm of bullets and wondering if I am going to live to tell the tale. Now I find myself in hospital. The doctor said I took a grenade to the face and have shrapnel in my face. I am now scarred for life. I have also lost sight in one eye. I do not know how I came to be here, or how many of us survived that attack. I hope we managed to secure the sector.

20th August- Hospital 1000hrs

I’m going home. Useless it seems in the state I am in. Got word that we did secure that sector. Some consolation. Reily died but. How many have we lost? I cant remember.

1st September-Home

It’s hell. Everyone looks at me like I am some sort of freak. A disgrace. They wont look me in the eye. Mr. Bracken called me a coward just the other day. They all seem to have forgotten I took a grenade to the face. Hypocrites.
My mother has taken this the hardest. She keeps crying. “Look at what they did to you”, she said when I walked through the door.  All I got now, is that bottle of Scotch. Then they will accuse me of being a drunk.

They all say it’s an honour to fight for your country. They tell you tales when you are young, of the heroes who fell and the battles, conquests. The guts, the glory.

No one tells you what a war does to your mind. That hole it leaves in you.  No one tells you of the fingers they point. I guess, it must be all a “part of the plan”. No one tells you what an utter waste a war is, or how stupid the reason for one is.

Never mind my scars, or that half my face is gone. The real thing is, how do I wash off all that blood on my hands? How do I forget? Will the mothers of those people I killed ever forgive me?

I guess that’s why it’s been a long time since I prayed last……


The Bilge Master

The Joke is on Me

My friend Siddharth Sinha recently sat for the entrance test at Jadavpur University and he showed me the question paper. There was an essay topic there which was something like “True humour originates from sorrow” It got me thinking, and I am going to give the essay a shot.

True Humour Originates from Sorrow

“Life is full of tragedy and therein lies it’s comedy” This was a chance remark I made to my mother just this morning. We have all heard the anecdote about the man who slipped on a banana peel. Our first instinct should be to help him but instead we laugh at him. His pain. Why? It’s because we have all been there. By that I mean we have all been in pain and laughed it off. I guess that is where the term “Grin and bear it” comes from.

Think about this for a second. Why do we laugh when Tom tries to blow up Jerry’s mouse hole and fails or his bowl gets upset by the aforementioned mouse? All the elaborate schemes that Wile-e Coyote hatches to catch the Roadrunner inadvertently end up with him falling into his own trap. All of us have been in splits whenever we see these cartoons haven’t we?

Permit me one more example. There was this serial in the 1970’s called M*A*S*H which was short for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. It was about a team of doctors stationed 3 miles from the warfront. Each day, ambulances, helicopters and jeeps used to flock to their unit containing mutilated bodies. Soldiers who had been wounded. The doctors would operate for days, “meatball surgery” as they called it, desperately trying to save as many of the soldiers as they could. Their unit was nothing but a bunch of 5 odd tents. They had to be ready to move at anytime because there was no telling when the enemy would begin bombing. No proper sanitation, cockroaches, lice, dysentery and of course death all around. In the midst of all this, some of the best one-liners and other jokes I have heard.
Once again, we find this sorrow playing out before us funny. We can identify with it. All of us have our inner demons, fears and struggles to go through in our lives. That’s why we humans need a little something to keep that sorrow at bay. Call it a necessity, or just our instinct of self preservation. You see, humor is not just your friend cracking a joke about something or the other. Even when the joke is on you. Humor is a weapon, programmed into us that helps us forget the troubles, the pain, the loss and just makes us let it go. It prepares us to face the next downslide. Humour builds up a wall, a dam protecting us from sorrow.

To close, let me ask you a question. What if one day, you woke up and found that all the humour in the world was gone? You would be able to see the sun, read the newspaper, tell black from white.

But, would you be alive? Would you be….sane?

The Bilge Master

Insomnia

She watches the day slip away,

And as the shadows draw in, part of her knows
That it will be time soon….
A wraith she stands, while around her everyone sleeps
She can see what they dream of…..
The banker, waiting to go home
The teenager’s baseball spinning past her….
The homeless guy, squatting on the grass
And the watchman with his whistle….
We sleep, when she awakens,
Standing witness, in a cloak of shadows…
Listen well, for she will be there, each day
Watching, protecting, avenging
So make merry, say your prayers….
And when she beckons obey the call…..
For she is the Night, and in her embrace you will see no light…..
But you will be shown a rare sight…..

The Bilge Master

You’ve Got Mail!
“Inbox (17)”
That’s what greeted me when I opened the up my mail today. I was like “Phew!” Then I spent the next few minutes checking every one with a fine tooth comb (or mouse comb if you prefer). Funny things letters. We don’t really pay them much heed. But, they have their own charm.
A father bids his son a good journey. He is off to Darjeeling to study at a top school. No cell phones, no Facebook, no laptops or Skype allowed. What’s the first thing the father packed? A bunch of envelopes and lots of paper I bet. And thereby hangs a tale…..
 Think of the olden days. The father of the girl hates your guts. So you woo her through rolls of parchment, that you stuff into tiny envelopes and send off either by hand or carrier pigeon. She gets them, replies and those letters, tiny sheets of paper, they mean the world to you.
You’ve just completed college and gone to a major MNC for a job. After a gruelling interview, they send you home saying they’ll be in touch. Somehow things are not the same till that letter arrives telling you that you’ve been approved. Hey presto! The blues are gone, you hit the town, you mom tells Mrs Singh, who brings the whole neighbourhood over to shake you by the hand.

Remember Shikari Ali? He was this man in a chapter I read in class eight. Ali was old and was desperately waiting for a letter from his daughter. Everyday he used to go to the post office and wait for his name to be called. He died, but his spirit used to come to the office for his letter. And one day, the letter came. And Ali was at peace.
Let’s not forget how Harry got to know about magic now. A letter of course! Odd isn’t it? The power a little page of paper with some words on it has?


The Bilge Master

Riding with Vampires in Volvos

When I walked into school on the first day of the session way back in July 2010, the first thing I heard was the word “Twilight”. Homing in on the source of this word, I stumbled across a group of four, who were praising it. Later that week, I found “Twilight” in our library, amidst many other dust covered tomes. (Paradise for a bookworm like me). This is my honest opinion of Stephanie Meyer’s first book in the saga.
A little footnote. I did not like the book all that much, so I did not finish the saga. I don’t know if I have missed something by doing that, but “Twilight” was an unusual read.
The story opens well enough with the protagonist Bella (short for Isabella) arriving in Forks to live with her father. She joins school, but all about there is a sense that all isn't well. I liked the way Meyer described the town of Forks. I could almost see it in my mind’s eye, as if I were walking in Bella’s shoes.
In school Bella meets Edward who at first seems friendly, but has unusual eyes. Gold I think they were. Pardon the lack of memory, but I read said novel a long time back. Edward, at first is quite likeable. He behaves like a regular teen and has this air of overdone self confidence about him. But the one subject that sort of sends him into a trance is his family. He doesn't talk much about them. In fact he doesn't talk about them AT ALL, though they are studying in the same school! (Cliché number one).
Then somehow, Bella finds out that Edward isn't human. He is a vampire. A killing machine who pretty much has humans with cups of Earl Grey tea in the morning and fine vintage port near a warm fire at night. Is she scared? Does she try to defend herself against this? Maybe make a run for it? No. She tells herself that she’s in love with a vampire and goes peacefully off to Dreamland. (Cliché number two).
As the story progresses, we get to meet the Cullen family and my favourite character in the book, Carlisle Cullen. I liked the back story that Meyer gave on him, and in my opinion he is the most deeply researched character in the book. We also have Alice, Eddie’s sister who can tell the future, Jasper, who can control feelings and Emmet who is a giant, with a very soft core. (Kind of loveable really). Another thing is Edward’s music collection which I found odd for a guy who is rumoured to be at least two centuries old.
Edward and Bella get closer, despite Carlisle warning them that their liaison is not one without it’s perils. (Yeah I mean, your boyfriend likes to eat your species!). Thankfully (or not), nothing like that happens and they are by far the perfect couple. We then discover that instead of burning up in the Sun, Edward is immune to it and sparkles. (At this point in the tale, I had to fight the urge to throw some thing at the wall).

Then, though the exact reason for it is unclear, the reader is told that a vampire pack is in town, cutting through the Cullen family’s backyard. And the punch line is that the Cullens and Bella just stand there while these guys march in cool as a few cucumbers and threaten to kill Bella. (Edward of course does nothing. None of them do anything. Why? We will never know. Cliché number three!).
Oh and in between this vampire human love story, there’s the werewolf pack who live on the outskirts of Forks. Jacob Black and his family loathe the Cullens, but they have some sort of treaty worked out. Hence there is peace. Jacob takes this as a license to check out Bella whenever he can, and ask her out too. Bella is cool with this. (Edward once again has no comment on the matter. DUDE. Your girlfriend is getting hit on by another guy. DO something!!!!! Cliché number four.)
I could go on like this forever, but it would not really be fair on my readers, or to fans of the saga if I kept badmouthing the books.
Suffice to say, that as a supernatural love story, “Twilight” is an epic disaster of mammoth proportions. As a love story, it hits most of the right notes. A little passion, a little pain and a lot of problems. It is written well, though the execution of the core idea is very bad. The characters could have done with a little research. In the end it leaves you a little wanting. “Could be loads better” a friend said to me. I agree.
To wrap up, in all honesty, I am not impressed with the book. It strikes me as one of those ancient B’wood rom-coms. You know the ones I mean. The old Anil Kapoor, or Salman Khan starrers. You like to watch them, but you don’t really wanna keep them……
Well, that’s it then. Until next time people.

The Bilge Master