Dilemmas of a nihilist Part 1

My revision holidays are usually divided into two phases. The first one is the one where I open my textbooks for the first time and get totally immersed in the world of automata, semaphores, semantic analysis and other computer jargon that I use as catch-phrases in front of my non-CS friends so that they can remark “Entha Hi-Fi Maraya!!” Sadly, the VTU system is apparently against the notion of freedom of speech (or writing) which means that voicing my opinions about the subject in the examination booklet amounts to a drastic decrease in my aggregate, subsequently resulting in that situation where you end up saving quite a lot of money because you wont have to give that treat for being placed to everyone you have ever smiled at.

Therefore, the second phase is the one where I go through the textbooks again so that I make sure that all the “keywords” are buckled into my memory seatbelt. This painful ritual is lovingly referred to in the education industry as “Revision”, which benefits no one but the mobile service providers who go laughing all the way to the bank as people frantically message each other “How many times did you finish revising?” and getting jealous or more miserable , depending on the reply. There is a third emotion, and that is of exasperation, and that is when you don’t receive a reply at all. This is the method which I dutifully follow, but at the risk of being apprehended the next time you go to college in this way “This guy was studying so much that he couldn’t even reply!!” Well, I am not much of a mobile guy in the first place, so this method pretty much works for me.

Anyway, the second phase gets me so bored that I usually plunge into nostalgia. All the old incidents that I have bothered to solder into my brain come back pouring subconsciously. In computer parlance, you can call it a DMA transfer. I start thinking about all those incidents that have made me what I am now, and relish in its warmth.. Here is one of those incidents that particularly invaded into my study time this time around.

Story 1

Place:  Commercial Street,   Bangalore

Date: Around December 2006

Context: Dr. Rajkumar had passed away and people had found a new messiah upon whose death they would get the chance to again set fire on vehicles in front of T.V cameras. The anointed successor (or so they thought) had just stormed into the lives of unsuspecting neighborhoods with a movie called Mungaru Male which brought a terrifying new dimension to the phrase “Love Failure”.

Background material required for the story : My friend Justin (name not changed), whom I call a cool guy , had this habit of roaming around the swankier places of Bangalore on evenings all alone , just watching the world go around him hurriedly as he strolled by calmly.

Assumptions that you should not make:  Firstly, Justin wasn’t a friendless “loser”. According to him, he went on these walks for some “soul searching”, to put in his own words. Secondly, he wasn’t really the guy trying to live the “Great-Indian-Metropolitan-City-Dream” which involved visiting ‘maals’ and talking to the salesmen in incoherent English and receiving replies in equally incoherent English. If there was anyone who felt at home in a posh street in a metropolitan city, it had to be him because he was one of those guys who would make the so-called self-righteous people to think about African kids who haven’t yet been adopted by a particular Hollywood actress and why these people can’t be of any help to them.

Actual story: Justin was on one of his usual walks, one not so fine evening. Incidentally, there were some road repairs happening on the street on which he decided to step foot on. A road repair in Bangalore would invariably involve a dug tunnel which makes you remember The Shaswhank Redemption, and this one was no less. Justin was more interested in searching for his soul . Just at that time, two women came walking in front of him. They were aged around 20, and their attire was enough for someone to conclude that these women were from some elitist family. Too badly enough, one of these ladies was wearing heels so uncomfortable that walking on them made you fall into tunnels that remind you of The Shaswhank Redemption. This was precisely what happened.  Actually, they weren’t tunnels in a strict sense, but well, I am making sure that the lady gets a fair trial in my court.

Anyway, the lady fell into the tunnel. Wham. And it turned out that her friend belonged to that category of people who neither burst into laughter nor jumped to help but stood like a zombie. A double Wham. So now, the onus was on Justin to rub his hands and get down to business. And down he did, rolling his sleeves and lending a hand which she could use to get out of the mess. Well, the place wasn’t dirty enough for my standards to warrant a bath, and the tunnel wasn’t tunnel enough to warrant someone’s help; even the Hobbit could get out on its own. But Justin still attended the call of duty, only to find that one hand wasn’t enough. The woman was much heavier. So out came the second hand which grabbed her arms upwards of the elbow and finally brought her back to zero level altitude.

Next second, she slapped him.

A fifteen time Wham from my side.

On the face.

In a place where a lot of people watch Puneet Rajkumar movies and are desperate to become heroes and where their only chance to become a hero is to beat up guys who have done something so horribly wrong that their “sister” slaps them, getting slapped on the street by strangers isn’t a great idea.

To be fair, nothing of that sort happened. What happened was that the woman remarked to her friend in Hindi (I will roughly translate it)” Yet another of these desperate low-class guys ever so keen to get his hands on an unsuspecting woman’s body”. This was the final blow. The parting shot hit Justin where it hurt the most and that place was not the reddened cheek.

Justin made a really big deal out of this incident, which is evident to you by my explanation of the incident in such graphic detail. I stay more than 400 km s away from him, but I heard so much about this incident that I can make WordPress ban me for exceeding my allotted memory. It became a very big thing in our friend’s circle. Personally, I thought he was just making a big deal out of it.

End of Story 1

P.S: No, It is not what you are thinking. That guy had no reason to enjoy touching some random lady on the street, if you know what I mean.

Story 2:

Place: Jyothi Bus stop, Mangalore

Date: 2 days before the first exam of my fifth semester (S.E Exam), December 2008

Context: The infamous pub attacks were still a couple of months away, so people were still indifferent to women who wore “western” clothes and followed “pub culture” which was obviously not a “good culture”. Mangalore is also a city which is mentioned in tourist brochures as a city where people will fight over each other to help you.

Background Material required for the story : Nothing much, except that you should know that whenever I am alone, I will usually be debating with myself about some issue of grave national importance with the criteria for what is nationally important being decided by me. That issue maybe something like whether it is ethical to convert my dog into a vegetarian.

Actual Story: I had gone to a classmate’s place to “teach” Software Engineering to a few classmates. After a pretty tiring day on which I had to speak nonsense continuously for a few hours, I had come back to the Jyothi bus stop to take a bus back home. It was around 8 in the night and it is the time when there are more cars on the road than people in the street. I was waiting for the bus when I saw a couple of girls armed with a boy who were walking across to Goldfinch, to obviously have a good time. The boy showed he still had what it takes to be Indiana Jones by crossing the road even when there were Express buses with literally hungry drivers on the prowl.

The girls decided that the bus drivers could have their dinner peacefully at home and not in the lock-up so they kept walking ahead. But one of the girls had other ideas and promptly fell into the small pit which had been made maybe for road repairs. The pit was right in front of me.

And…? I suddenly remembered Justin. I looked at the girl. Her attire was one which told you she came from one of those elitist families. She was wearing a sleeveless top which meant that any safety mission required some “sensitive” part contact. She was also wearing heels which were so uncomfortable that they made you fall into tunnels which reminded you of The Shaswhank Redemption. And I did it.

What? I just stood there. As if nothing had happened. I could feel Mother India wiping off her tears as one of her sons had just trudged along the Path of Evil. I looked around and found that there were a few more people there. All of them staring. One of them bent to see her cleavage by the way. And finally it was her friend who took her out of the mess.

Again, it wasn’t much of a pit. Even the Hobbit could get out without any help. But that wasn’t the point. The point is that I denied help to some one based on heuristics. Based on past testimony of a friend about a slightly similar incident long ago, that too with different characters. I was shocked by my actions (or rather, my inactions) and Software Engineering was relegated to a corner as I spent an insane amount of time thinking about it. Well, I found the reason why I did it. But then, I don’t have a passport which means that I cannot go to London to receive the Guinness award for the longest blog post so I will leave that explanation (not justification) to another post which will come soon. The explanation will enable me to show you a bigger picture, which is why I wrote this post in the first place.