IIT-JEE- the battle lost !

Well...the first words after looking at the screen which stated- “You have not qualified in IIT-JEE 2011” were- “FUCK YOU, stinking sardar”. If the bastard had not wasted my 5 minutes, I would have got through. This is what I think in my “make-believe” world and indeed this isn’t surely the case. I couldn’t get thorough because all year around I was popping here and there like a cork on soda bottle.  Partying with friends (none of them could get through either), playing Play-station at home, giving frequent FB updates, talking on phone (which I kind of don’t regret) and writing articles to HT.
Hmm...a lot of reasons for not being able to break the ice-cover of JEE !
Well, Results are the worst part of exams if you have done pathetically and at the same time ‘the best’ part of the exams if you have done well. Its simple, but IIT-JEE result is like none of the above. You wish you got selected even if you saw the cut-off marks are way above your reach. That’s what happened to me, when I saw the cut-off marks I was badly fucked up, as I calculated my marks to be somewhere around 200 to 205. But could someone in their wildest dreams imagine 229 would be our cut-off. Hell NO ! But yet I murmured all the ‘mantras’ I knew and entered my roll no. And ‘not to my surprise’ I didn’t make it !

 
Poor parents, who try but fail to understand (like mine are and majority of my friend’s) why their kids who were doing wonders in coaching suddenly doomed in JEE. Not there mistake, I should say.

Suddenly, all the fun you I in the past year taking break from books has started appearing to them as humbug and time wasting propaganda. The home has turned house and everyone in the dining hall makes faces seeing me chew my food shamelessly. Well, today the newspaper was full of guys and gals who got selected, which even worsened situation at home, everyone was in a hurry to wake me up and make me guilty conscious by making me look at the paper where I was nowhere to be seen !

Hmm...to all those friends who’ll be IITians I solemnly congratulate you people.
And to those, who couldn’t (like me), people life is big and the world is small, we shall overcome this blow someday and that too “in style”. So I hope know one suicides(which I know no one will...you shameless creatures :P) or lowers their morale, because as we read in the poem “ode to the west wind- by shelly” in 10th grade (where we scored wondrous marks)- “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” we should be aware that winters have passed and its time we wait for some time for flowers to blossom and world to bright again.
And my dearest juniors, the same goes for you. Study well but don’t be a creepy geek because in that case if you even get through IIT you’ll suck, BIG TIME !..All the best guys I know you’ll be better than us J

Wish everyone “all the very best” for EEE and PET (commerce and humanities guys, I’m sorry i don’t know much about your exams). Hope you do extremely well and my facebook friend-list is full of big time achievers !

Hasta La Vista people J

IIT-JEE- the final frontier

The hot wind blew steadily out of the window and the morning air was moistly steamy. Nothing moved acrosss the room. Under the high ceiling fan everything seemed frozen and desolate too. Over everything laid the silence of death.

But emptiness I knew was an illusion. So,was desolation and silence. Only the question paper infront of me was real, a bunch of 32 pages which could decide what's in store for me in my future. 

Every small noise apeared to be coming from a jet engine. The girl behind me read the questions aloud- a manner in which only female sale's executives from shopper's stop utter on phone to lure you into shopping your heart out for them. A phat ass sardar on the right appeared to be overloaded with stationary, which he dropped evry few minutes (besides he smelt like a spoilt potato). The invigilator looked as if she's been called from Scotland yard to invigilate and I was the terrorist she's been looking for a long long time. Resolutely, desperately alomost, I crushed down all the creepy song's which my sister played in the car on the way to the exam centre. "Chaar baj gaye lekin party abhi baki hai" didn't seem to leave my mind when i stopped reading the question and proceeded to check the correct option.

I wanted to forget evrything except what I had studied for 2 years at my coaching but mind seemed to be working for my enemy.

Fianlly after the first question which I confidently tick marked the bikini babe from the movie "F.A.L.T.U." left my brain. I remember nothing from that time onwards (except for the sardar who carried the stationary market with him and forgot to bring a rubber which he asked for, evry 2 mins). Coming to the end of the exam I wished I had not wasted my initial few minutes and done a few more integer type questions. Alas nothing could be done and the invigilator (scotland yard detective) snatched away my sheet :(

Well, to all my seniors- kudos to you. Its hell of an exam

        to all my batchmates- I hope you people did extremely well.

        to my juniors- You'll know what it is like in a few days. :P

If anybody read it. Thanks !

And to those who found it boring. Sorry guys, it my note :P

JAPAN- A LAND OF HOPE

Can Japan triumph in tragedy? Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has described the catastrophic combination of earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear meltdown as the biggest crisis the country has had to face since the end of World War II which was brought to an apocalyptic end with the atomic fireballs mushrooming over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs - codenamed Fat Boy and Thin Man - took a death toll of between 1,50,000 and 2,40,000 human lives; nature's fury has claimed over 10,000 victims, showing that at its very worst the destructive force of the natural world is far surpassed by the deadly ferocity of man's violence against man.

The economic loss caused by destruction of property and infrastructure cannot even begin to be calculated as yet. In the midst of this appalling devastation it might seem like an obscene joke to suggest that a tragedy of this magnitude could possibly be turned eventually into a triumph.

Yet curiously enough, time and again, not just the human spirit but also the laws of economics have proved amazingly resilient in the face of the most terrible of adversities, when widespread destruction has been taken as a challenge and an opportunity to rebuild with renewed enterprise and determination. The Gujarat earthquake of 2001 is an example. Surat, which was almost totally destroyed in the quake, sprang up out of the killer earth in a rejuvenated avatar, cleaner, better planned and more prosperous than ever before. Indeed, some might attribute the rise of Gujarat as an economic super-state more to the seismic upheaval than to Narendra Modi.

In a paradox that is both cruel and kind, destruction spurs reconstruction and acts as a stimulus for economic enterprise. Surveys have shown that, more often than not, stock markets which crash immediately in the wake of a catastrophe tend to gain new highs shortly after as work of rebuilding begins, generating large-scale production and employment.

History reveals many such examples. The great fire which destroyed almost all of London in the 17th century - an eyewitness account of which is vividly presented in Samuel Pepys's famous diary - turned out in the long run to be more of a blessing than a bane. The conflagration scoured the city of the filthy, crowded hovels which were inevitable breeding places for plague-carrying rats and other disease-bearing vermin. Rebuilt, London came into its own as one of the biggest and richest cities in the world. The gilded Monument in the City of London commemorates the Great Fire and its triumphant aftermath.

Similarly, the great fire that engulfed Chicago in 1871 - caused according to folklore by the twitching tail of a cow which knocked over an oil lantern and set ablaze a pile of hay - was seized by the 'City of Broad Shoulders', as poet Carl Sandberg would later describe it, as an opportunity to recreate itself in a new, innovative image. Their thriving city of cattle stockyards and grain silos reducing to smouldering ruin, Chicago's civic leaders invited architects from the world over to submit their most imaginative designs for its rebuilding. That's how what was billed as the world's first 'skyscraper' - at that time, a building 10 storeys tall - came up in Chicago, renowned today both for its robust local economy and the elegance of its architecture.

Japan itself - the only country in the world to have been the target of not one but two nuclear attacks - rose phoenix-like out of the ashes of a world war and went on to become a globally acclaimed 'economic miracle', the Land of the Rising Sony, a synonym for inventive industry. Today, Japan is once again a deeply wounded victim of malign forces. Will it once again overturn disaster into remarkable victory? It can and it will, because it must. Not just for its own sake, but for the sake of that single fragile and yet indestructible bond that links humankind together: a bond and a lifeline called hope. 

WE ARE NEVER GOING TO BE BHOJPALIS!

Initially when the topic sprouted at the Bhopal Sthapna Diwas i was taken aback. I felt my identity as a Bhopali was under a deep threat, the name of my city, my “Bhopal” was going to be changed to some old fashioned 11^th century town name. With this identity crisis I wrote a letter to HT but fortunately it could not be delivered. The two days after that changed my opinion about the whole name changing buzz. With BJP supporting the cause and congress opposing it, the general public should not get so involved in this affair as it another political gimmick happening around us. The celebrations of the reign of raja bhoj completing 1000 years have turned sour because of these stunts of our politicians. It was a time when every person irrespective of religious and political differences should have proudly come to look upto raja bhoj as the greatest king of his time. But things have taken a bad shape as the parties have taken up the issue of renaming the capital.    

What difference does a “J” make to the name of our beautiful city when it proudly celebrates the integrity of Hindus and Muslims for the past 3 centuries ? And also, Why is raja bhoj being painted as a Hindu ruler rather being given the status of a king who created the largest man-made lake of that time at Bhojpur and also the most important source of water in the state capital ? These are certain questions unanswered, well unasked too !

Well my dearest ‘Bhopali’s; by rejecting the proposal of ‘bhojpal’ we are disrespecting a great king and his achievements which are far above narrow confines of religion and political opinions. And for those who love everything about their city including the name like I do, we are never going to be “bhojpalis”, don’t worry!

It’s just the way Bombay has never changed to Mumbai, Bangalore has never changed to Bengaluru, and Bhopal is and will always be Bhopal in our hearts. Leave the dog fight to the politicians and let them decide what they call is the name. Let’s welcome anything coming our way, as once said by the great shakesphere “what’s in thy name”.

I am a 17 year old proud bhopali and will be an equally proud resident of “bhojpal”; as it’s just a name and to me,  my city’s beauty, heritage and ingtegrity is far above ‘what poltician’s call name”

Manas Pratap Singh