My plans are Kaput from the word GO

It was a long weekend ahead with Tuesday being a holiday, I had plans of my own to fall sick on Monday and convert it to a 4 day a-la mini vacation. The mood was not ideal to work on Friday as I had returned from my sojourn in Mumbai to Bangalore. I left early to catch a bus by 1500 and reached Chennai by 2100. I was so happy to be in the midst of Tamils after a brief stint amongst the Manoos. My mom prepared a dinner with aroma tickling my nostrils I geared up to devour some gorgeous food. I retired early to bed after that and I knew a busy day awaited me the next day. It had been some time since I visited Chennai so I had a lot of friends to catch up with.

The next day, being my birthday, dutifully visited a temple for holy blessings and started a whirlwind tour of the city, meeting half a dozen people. How else do I spend a day here? The plan for the evening was to host a dinner for my cousins at ”GRT Grand”. We spent a good time there and headed back home around 2300 before retiring for the day.

Sunday was no different except that I had to visit a friend of mine near Tiruvallur who underwent a surgery and was recuperating. Lending a moral support to him, headed to my cousin’s place in T Nagar for lunch, having never visited there before asked my cousin to pick me from a place where I can reach by train. Soon that followed with watching a movie “Clerks II” in PC and what a horrible mess it was. My cousin kept on rambling about how IMDB ratings are not to be taken seriously after seeing a good rating for the movie. I asked him if there was any worthy movie with him and he started playing “Inglourious Basterds”.

It was half way through the movie that I received a call from my senior manager and ordering to show up myself in Bangalore the next day to apply for a UK visa. I was supposed to travel in another week’s time. I tried convincing him about how impossible it was for me to travel within a short time’s notice but to no avail. Having failed miserably to continue my planned vacation booked a ticket for a bus travel the very night. Promptly after reaching the office, I did apply for the visa. When my reporting manager was informed about this, of course by me, he duly smooth talked his way to the senior manager and made me travel back to Mumbai. It was a rehash of what I had been thinking would inevitably happen and left me bereft for my broken vacation. Now I am sitting in the dingy government office, our beloved customers and my onsite workspace. Not a person to be deterred by these events, I have started planning for a trip with my cousins. Hope there are no conferences planned during that time to be held at some goddamned country whose valid visa I don’t posses.

The above incident is true except that I put myself in my cousin’s shoes to narrate and I am the cousin mentioned to be staying in T Nagar.

Can TN board exams ever be difficult?

Last Wednesday, the daily Hindu carried news with a headline “Mathematics paper difficult, say students” and I guessed they were referring to the ongoing state board examinations. Indeed it was, and I, very surprised to read this since there is nothing you can associate as difficult when it comes to the exams conducted by the Tamil Nadu state board. Guess what they had to say about the question paper. It carried unexpected questions. Since when did question papers were made available prior to the exams for the students to prepare only those set of questions and ignore the syllabi.

The School teachers and the correspondents aren’t left behind in this chaos. One particular guy gave vent to his feelings. He had been conducting many revision tests for his students and this year’s paper has been a blinder. Poor fellow could not differentiate between imposition and revision. An office bearer in one of the prestigious schools was interviewed for his views and he has criticized the board for making the exams tough. I have never known state board exams to be tough which I can assuredly say for the last 15 years. There was at least an entrance examination for professional courses which pushed students to rely on the grey cells, has been discarded in the recent years thanks to political farce played by those in power.

If students can’t be tested on the knowledge they have gained and expect a rote learning, there is no point in having an education system. I have been doing my Masters with BITS through an offline work integrated program which requires me to write only exams and no classes are conducted. I liked their Examinations not because I cleared all the papers, but for the way it was modelled. I didn’t receive any outstanding marks, quite the contrary, average marks but all the questions were application of the concepts given in the syllabus. This kind of education, though I am not drawing any advantage from it, is what would be the best course to be followed across the country and specifically in Tamil Nadu where an obsession of scoring 499/500 or 1195/1200 is ever increasing.

Note: I was not a studious person in schools or college but an average student. But that doesn’t stop me from carrying notions as said above. This note is to pre-empt any question about my academic achievements if any.

SOS - I am balding!

One thing that haunts me day in day out is the rate at which hairs from my scalp taking a dive to the ground. It all started when I stepped in Chennai, till when I was confined to my native, a temple town. It has been 8 years since and what used to be so untidy, wildly unkempt hair is left with nothing but few last ones ready to take their turn. I am still 26 but for sure don’t look like one. In the last 1 month I noticed a lot of patches and this adds to my already boring and dull life. I have been frequenting this Hair Spa at Green Trends Salon believing a turn around and so it looked like for few days but alas, the attempt has failed too.

For the last 2 weeks, I have been growing a beard and I decidedly like it very much. But truth be told, this at the least deflects the attention of people talking to me from few feet away from noticing the shine from the top of my head. What people keep telling me is that it doesn’t suit me, but who bothers. It’s all a matter of pride and that gets shattered when most of the people take me for a person in his early thirties. I have had more than few embarrassing moments with kids addressing me uncle..... arrggg....

My cousin who was facing a similar situation but not in the danger zone as I am in, started showing some sign of improvement. This he attributed to the medication he had been taking and he recommended me to consult the dermatologist he had visited. I am now looking up to him as my hope and have decided to pay a visit in the coming week. Pray, he finds a solution for the troubles on my plate or rather on my head.