When I was in third year I worked for a website called masti.com as the "correspondent" for my college. I made cool bucks for three months before the .com bubble burst :-) I know I am gloating, but well, what else is a blog for? ;-)

Over the weekend I was reading what I wrote then. Thought I would put it on the blog. I will do so over the next three posts. Some of it is unrevised, unedited stuff, just cut and pasted from my notes:



September Masti

I was in the bogs when I heard the
sudden rush of steps on the corridor and
the frenzied shouts of " run run " in
different languages. My first thought
was that the war had started and someone
had dropped a bomb or something. I
hurriedly finished my toilet and came
out. There were just two guys in the
wing.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Earthquaked da! Did'nt you feel the tremors?"

I had'nt which was too bad. I would
have liked the experience.

But many did and many rushed downstairs
into the open. Most guys went down just
as they were - without chappals or
shirts but some had spent some anxious
moments looking for their footwear
before they finally came down.

Many later admitted that it their
first experience of frenzied,
thoughtless running, of just madly
following the crowd on it's way down.
We wondered how it must be to live in
packed high rise buildings with narrow
staircases.

What could have caused the quake. In
solid old Deccan plateau? The rumour
mills got going. Had Osama dropped a
huge nuke somewhere?

Then the calls from home started
coming in. There was a huge crowd in
front of the hostel's two telephones-
mostly freshies- waiting while people
convinced their families that
everything was alright. Yes, they had
felt tremors but nothing to worry.

Around ten, the news began to spread
that there would be another, possibly
severer quake, later on in the night.
And many a good night's sleep was lost
in anticipation.




The Freshies have just come and mild ragging is on full swing. "
What is one plus one?" is a favourite ragging question. And the range of
answers is truly amazing.

Most freshies think, think, THInk , thiNK , tHINk and THINK before
finally answering "Two".

But you will always find a guy who contends that 1+1=3. " How ?"
you ask. "ONE father plus ONE MOTHER = THREE people " he answers.

Another guy says one plus one is Forty One. His funda? You stick
the plus to one of the 1's so that it looks like 4.
Give up.

What is 1+1 ? " Please first define the funamental axioms of your
field" say the Maths Studs. Usually the Computer Science kind.

Of course, quite a few freshies do immediately say "Two", and
they are the ones who then get ragged the most.



Lagaan - Opinions

* Lagaan probably will mark a beginning of experiments with period cinema.






Writing on the Wall

This year the management is getting
pretty serious about ragging. Not that
there ever was any serious ragging in
IIT-Madras. Nothing like they have in
places like other colleges in India like
RECs or even some of the other IITs.
Just that the management wants to be extra cautious.

The result of all this being that around
six senior students have been punished
for ragging. Some of them even got a
one-sem suspension. Efforts are on to
convince the management into giving the
seniors a second chance.

Apparently, what peeved the management
most was the seniors' contempt for the
ragging rules. When the freshie
concerned threatened to complain to the
warden, the seniors are said to have
scoffed at him, saying "What will they
do da? At most they will suspend us for
one week. And then we will be back."

The management obviously want to set an
example for the rest.

But as I said before, there is hardly
any ragging at all at IITM. It just
amounts to making a freshie
uncomfortable for half an hour so that
he may be comfortable for the rest of
his four years at the institute. I was
speaking to an IITM alumnus a few days
ago. He was sorry that some freshies
tend to overreact when first faced with
ragging. �� There should be a course for
all freshies - Ragging 101 " he
suggests.

All said and done ragging continues to be an entertaining experience.

" What is the feminine form of bulldog ?"

"Express your All India Rank as ' a^b +b^a '

"Sing the National Anthem ' are some of the poplular ragging questions.

But the question which has elicited the most interesting responses this year is:
" What is 1 + 1 ?"

Some freshies think, t