The Wanderings....

Last weekend I saw an altogether new and a trifle baffling spelling for my name. It was Suijith. This was the "Mother of all Sujeet - related" spelling mistakes. I have seen various mistakes over the years, but they were mostly to do with the second half. This was the first time I have seen a first - half error. Followed by this spelling mistake was yet another entry into a quiz final. Its become a kind of habit entering a business quiz final and coming fourth odd in the finals. I hope the jinx will be broken soon.

The new mess hall in IIT Madras has opened. Its one real humongous place. For the first couple of days all the guys were out on a fault finding mission to this place. From measuring queue lengths at various times to commenting about the light bulbs to complaining about absence of TV et al. And for guys like me, for whom eating is just another activity to be ticked off thrice a day in the to-do list, operational functioning of the mess hall is a bigger curiosity than the food itself.

Digg is one really interesting news aggregator. Recently, through the RSS feed on my blog, I came across this rather amazing picture . The comments following that picture are also very enlightening.

Last weekend was the deadline for filing nominations for the Hostel Council Elections. The amount of hectic parleying we indulged in to stick to certain posts, to bargain some others, define a ratio for post sharing, and all this for a voluntary post!! I ll think twice before cursing the politicians now!!

The Chennai heat is definitely on now. Its really just the teaser, May - June will show the full power. To think that I had not used a fan in my room during my engineering days, where temperatures never went beyond 34 C really tells me how fast the times change, some day you are here, next day elsewhere. Wandering.

Mind Your Language

Its been around 8 months that I have been in this place and I cannot help but wonder and feel irritated about the fact that Tamilians (Tams) are so obsessed with their language that they literally put you down linguistically. I cannot fathom why in the presence of 4-5 non - Tamil speaking friends, suddenly 2-3 people start in chaste Tamil?

I can understand that they are proud of their beautiful language. To be frank, even I love Tamil. It is really very sweet to listen to and speak. But, come on, there is got to be a limit. Whats the point of conversing in a language that 4 guys around you do not understand?

I have been amidst Telugu speaking population at school, but never did they speak their language when amongst a non-Telugu speaking group. And its not that some of these Tams do not know any other language, in which case their speaking Tamil is unavoidable. They do know other languages, say English (without loss of generality). But still they prefer Tamil (or should I say Tamizh). I have walked out of many an interesting discussion with my friends when Tamil became the working language.

May be my feelings are due to the fact that we Kannadigas, ourselves are very, what shall I say, unchauvinistic (for want of a better word) about our language. May be its because I have never seen myself as a person for whom language he speaks is an integral part of his identity.

I will not go as far as to say that linguistic chauvinism reflects xenophobia. But, the power and beauty of a language lies not just in its grammar but in the abilty of its speakers to parse their thoughts in a manner understood by all. Speakers maketh the language.

Movie Time

After much deliberation I decided to watch a few of the Oscar nominated movies this time. I have been consciously avoiding most of the Oscar nominations ever since I slept through Cold Mountain ( starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger) and labored through last year winner Million Dollar Baby. But I must admit this time the platter laid out was mouth watering.

To start with Spielberg's Munich was a slick movie. It could never have won an Oscar, no matter how much more real or fictitious it had been. The Academy seems to like something closer to home and present day reality than a 1972 Olympic Village shoot-out and the ensuing assasinations.

Syriana was an almost true-to-life depiction of oil politics, boardroom corruption and Islamic indoctrination captured beautifully through the tribulations of a young Pakistani working in the Persian Gulf. The best part of the movie was fast changing scenes that took the viewer from Langley to Washington DC to Spain to Geneva to Beirut (some portions shot in Hezbollah controlled compound) to Tehran to the French Antibes. There are far too many threads in the story that do merge efficiently in the end, but were definitely avoidable.

Crash deserved to win the Oscar ( I guess it will be reinforced after I watch Brokeback Mountain this week). The racial tensions amongst the LA blacks, whites, Mexicans, Iranian immigrants and their paranoia brought out through solid cast is well worth watching. The convergence of the apparently disparate story lines in the movie, towards the end is simply fabulous.

Ornière Créatrice

Its one of those times again when I am in a creative rut. I have written two entries in my blog over the past two days and deleted them both. They were painful to read.

This is my third attempt at writing. I am following the "First Principle of Batting" for a batsman who is badly out of form - just stay at the crease and the runs will follow. My pitch is this WYSIWYG editor. I am simply writing without any purpose. My worry is content and not form, for the moment. I need to oil my blog machine once in a while. I need to play each thought on its merit. I cannot put down everything here. I may get out!!

I know this is not getting anywhere. Kindly bear with me.

Comfortably Confused

What is truth? What is a lie? Is truth better than a lie? Why is it bad to lie? Why is lying sometimes good? Why is truth better? Why is truth bitter? Why is truth truthful? Why do not people always trust what you say? Is truth always trusted? What makes you believe in truth? Do you believe because you are supposed to? Who asked you to believe? What is belief? Is truth a belief? Why do you believe? Why are your beliefs different from mine? Why are you the way you are? Who are you? Are you because you think? What if you do not think? Will you not be? Is thinking, being? Does being imply thinking? What if you stop thinking - do you stop being? What if you doubt? Does it mean, " I doubt, therefore I might be"? Is doubting bad? Why is clarity good? Does clarity mean perfection? Is clarity subjective? Do you decide the subjectivity? How objective is your subjectivity? How muddled is your clarity? How clear is your muddle?

Why am I asking you all this? Am I confused? I AM confused.I AM comfortable. I AM comfortably confused. Does that mean I am comfortable in confusion? Am I confused when I am comfortable? Do I know what being comfortable is? Do I know what confusion is?

Do YOU know what being comfortably confused is? Don't ask me.