Happy Festival of Lights!

Dear those-who-lost-your-way-to-this-blog,

Here's wishing you and your family a very very happy and safe Diwali. 

Early utke nahana, naye kapde pehenna, khoobsurat rangoli banana, achcha khana khaana aur bahut patake burst karna. 

Do take blessings of your elders and stay off Facebook, Email, Whatsapp and spend some quality meaningful time with your loved ones.

While lighting up the Indian skies with festive fireworks, do spend a minute or two reflecting on the air/sound pollution you are causing. 

Also, make a solid resolve to say 'No' to firecrackers produced out of child labor.

Lastly, safely dispose your burnt fireworks. Don't randomly discard them everywhere. 

And, do clean up the streets tomorrow. 

Inniya Deepavali Nalvazthugal. Happy Diwali. Hardik Diwali Shubhkaamnaye.

the HKUST entries: surviving HKUST

We, at Asia's No.1 University, woke up to another email crying tragedy at the subject. One of our freshmen, Poon Kei, a Year 1 student in the Department of Mathematics, died yesterday after jumping off his home in a multi-storeyed building in Tsuen Wan yesterday. From what I could glean off the badly translated version of the Cantonese news article was that the factor that tipped him over was undue pressure courtesy the ongoing midterm examinations. While no one really knows the actual reason, my heart goes out to the family and friends of the deceased and I hope the Almighty gives them enough strength and courage to deal with this unexpected catastrophe.

Meanwhile, to all the living, walking, breathing HKUST camaraderie, please please please do not try aping late Mr. Poon Kei or Ms. Feng Ye or the two dozen other students of HKUST who have taken this ultimate decision to end their lives. Agreed, life is a bitch. Agreed, Professors are morons who overload us with too much work in too less time. Sure, TAs give us horrible assignments which even the smartest Mainlander has no clue about. Last but not the least, the guy who invented the normal curve is the biggest sonofabitch ever to be born on Planet Earth and deserves nothing less than the guillotine followed by a firing squad. But, please remind yourselves these are temporary aspects of life that are going to go away in a bunch of years. Very soon, you are going to be freely walking away from the Redbird and you are never going to come back. These are short-term problems and remember, there are 10,000 of us facing identical, if not worse, conditions and we take it with a smile on our face. 

The fact that HKUST is such a terrible demanding mean mistress is why I love studying in here so much. The seven odd months in a year that we put in here are undoubtedly challenging and stressful. Homeworks, assignments, projects, meetings, presentations, AGMs, EGMs, LLCs, society work, social life...every one has their own cocktail of miseries in life. But, what we need to realize and appreciate is that without hard work, there is no true sense of learning and without learning, there is no sense of achievement. I have personally seen the sense of education in a lot of reputed private universities in India and believe it or not, lecturers lecture because they have to and not because they want to. Students cram stuff and beautifully regurgitate in the exam but ultimately, they have no idea why they did what they did and the whole idea of education fails in such a scenario. But, in HKUST, we are challenged every day, every hour, every minute and only by boldly taking/screwing up such challenges, do we learn. In the words of former US President Abraham Lincoln, only the test of fire makes fine steel. This way we are the finest steel in the region and trust me, if you can survive HKUST, you can pretty much handle everything else this world/life throws at you.

It is extremely easy to write a blog post saying "Challenge is fun. Challenge is cool". But when I'm personally confronted by the heavy workloads common to most students in HKUST, I too would want to kill myself, my Prof and the moron who quoted Abraham Lincoln (in the reverse order). So, here are a few suggestions to cope up with this stress that is so fundamental to our lives:

1) Find someone (friend, sibling, Peer Counselor, stranger) and tell them "I can't take it any more". Let all your frustration out on them (you can apologize later) and start afresh. Talking to someone always helps relieve the mind of tension (Warning: Think twice before you do this with a fellow HKUST student. 99 times on 100, that person is in a worse-off state and is bravely taking it than you are. Every UST student hates when a less busy person cribs about how 'busy' a life he is leading. So do watch it whom you whine to)

2) Talk to your Professor/TA. Tell them you tried your level best but you can't finish the work. Most Profs prefer having a Late Submission to a Late Student. A lot of them are really sweet and will happily give you an extension.

3) If you did horribly in your quizzes and exams and feel that Mayan-predicted End of the World is already here, RELAX. People do way more horrible than you have ever imagined and proudly flaunt it with their friends. Yours sincerely managed a cool 1/10 in his first quiz at HKUST. Put an emo status on Facebook. Go argue with your Prof. Get drunk. Study your arse off for the finals. Do anything but do not blame yourself. You are way more than what your GPA says you are. 

4) Lastly and most importantly, do understand Hong Kong University of Stress and Tension is the most overrated description we can give ourselves. A lot of courses in our University is actually pretty chill. Unless you keep procrastinating like me until the very last day, you should be able to handle UST Terror pretty decently. If you are from Beijing, you should actually be like "Bring it on, bitches". Students suffer more in Universities in Mainland China, Japan and USA. So, stop crying and start working instead.

Studying in HKUST doesn't translate to handling all the problems in the world alone. When you are stressed out, talk to people. Only when we hear your problems from you, can we collectively help you. When we read it in the coroner's report, it is too late. Do think of your family, friends and colleagues before you try to go do some cool emo mature stuff.

Once again, I condole the premature death of Mr. Poon Kei. May your soul rest in peace and may this be the last ever time we get an email beginning "We are very much saddened to announce the passing away of our beloved student...".

Sign-off link: HKUST's own version of Gangnam Style. Let's Oppa Engin Style!

live life KING SIZE

iEcstatic!

Hey guys,

Remember the article the fictional Monopoly Club I wrote? Thanks to your overwhelming support on Facebook, I was voted the Most Liked Entry and I received a OMG! Guess what? free iPad 2 :) along with Nitesh and Avishek.

Here's me NOT being the biggest jackass extraordinaire ever(term credits: Sindhu) and thanking all you guys.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR HELPING ME WIN THE CONTEST! :) YOU GUYS ARE SO AH-MA-ZING! :) :) :)

P.S: If you ever want a Like for something, do ask me. :)

OMGGG...Olivia!

Presenting Olivia Natacha, my new found craziest friend. Her reason for this really amazing picture is: Because, I don't wanna grow up! 

Stolen from her Facebook :)

the HKUST entries: ~ oppa live GREEN style ~

Whaddup bitches? :)

How are you guys? Hope you are having a great autumn and enjoying a much-appreciated long holiday(if you are in Hong Kong)

Since my English is still pretty rusty(I can't type a post without backspacing atleast a few million times), I'm going to do a visual post this time. Scroll down to see pictures of the Live Green LLC organized hike to Razor Hill :)

Ctrl+Alt+Del. Shut Down. :)

A really long shot at HKUST

A big huge bunch of housing blocks...Welcome to Po Lam, our promised Land...

Good old Terry Chan..Coordinator, Hall 6 LLCs...fun guy to hang out. Corner of the picture you can see Monkey King.

Po Lam Revisited.

Po Lam Re-Revisited from a greater height.

HKUST & Shaw Center ~

Yours painstakingly...Still couldn't get rid of the Chinese eyes ;) #hatebeingphotographed

HKUST awww...

This is tough. I'm horrible at names. L to R. No idea, Elvis, No idea, No idea, No idea.

Equally clueless but for the handsome one second from left.

Hermann and everyone else :)

Long shot @ Sai Kung...You can see the boats in the distance

Hermann, our guiding light and inspiration-in-chief

You can see Polly, Mona hiding behind her and Terry.

On effin' top of the world...lalalala! You can see HKUST Atrium in the distance.

Sai Kung from the top 

Hermann and Elvis

Elvis and yours sincerely

Attempt 4. Decent picture AT LAST. If I'm in the mood, I can be more picky than Prasho in how I look.

Po Lam. Yam cha...!

Alex.

Why I offered to take Alex's picture.

Wohooo...mission accomplished :) Welcome to Po Lam.

P.S: We missed you, Cho Kam Wa.

StumbleUpon link: Jason Mraz's I'm Yours

Belated Happy Zhong Qiu Festival. 

indian NAZISM

<This post is dedicated to all those wonderful friends of mine, who are girls, and survived the Nazi reign that is Modern India. Come what may, you folks are some of the awesome-est people I know, and life would be very boring without your smiles>

All those neo-Nazis still out there, wake up, you got a new Fuehrer to take orders from. Come to think of it, several millions of Fuehrers to take orders from. Who are they? The cruel heartless 'educated' families of the 20th/21st Century Indian married woman. And just whom are we annihilating this time? The Jews, the Commies, the Americans? Wake up, German volk. We are not talking about eliminating inferior races out here. As we march heads held high into the second decade of the 21st century, let's set ourselves a more nobler target. How about elimination of whole sexes? This is not a call for yet another twisted brainwave seeking the amalgamation of the male and female. On a slightly lower step in the ladder of our imagination, how about we destroy the female sex? Once again, sorry to disappoint you folks, no gas chambers, no Auschwitz or Dachau style extermination. Why wait for the female kid to grow up and then gas her? How about destroying the baby right at birth? You see, no need for machine guns, no need for train wagons, no need for trials. A simple ultrasound scan. If your beautiful bahu is pregnant with a baby boy, indeed it is a Cadbury shubhkaamnaye moment. However, if fate is wretched and she has a baby girl, it is time for a sneak little visit to an abortion clinic. Pay the doctor, get the baby aborted, wash your bloody hands and wait expectantly, for your blessed boy. Welcome, my beloved Hitler Youth, to the mindset of the modern Indian family.

Female infanticide and foeticide is a total eclipse of the India Shining dream. How are we developing if every minute there is an unborn female child being terminated simply because the 23rd pair of chromosomes spell XX? How are we shining if we have such screwed sex ratios all across this nation? Call me thick-headed, but how exactly is this desperate craving for a male kid justified? What are the benefits of a male child?

Agreed, your family surname is going to be continued.  HOWEVER, women change their surnames to coincide with that of her husband as a result of societal norms. Dear uncles, don't pressure your wife to adopt your boring Sharma/Kulkarni tag and your son-in-law might just do that. Aishwarya Rai chose to remain Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan still continuing the Rai lineage. Your surname just a bunch of meaningless characters, and if we can come down a little on the stereotypes, we'll find women are perfectly capable to continue family traditions.

Given, it is a possibility that you might be well taken care of in your final years. HOWEVER, sit back and compare how well your spoilt son is going to take care of you as compared to your lovely daughter. This son included, boys are generally incapable of even making a mug of coffee to relieve their parents' headache. This son excluded, yet these young men are the pillars of strength you parents are going to hang on to in your last years? If you still remain unconvinced, take a leisurely walk to the nearest old age home and strike a chat with the occupants about how they landed there. Atleast then, realization would sink in that a son might abandon his parents in cold blood, but NEVER a daughter.

Even better, you might get a lump sum dowry including a new flat, Toyota Innova and Reliance Petroleum stocks when your boy gets married. HOWEVER, this is a mere extension of the stupid grand Indian belief that a boy outweighs a girl. If you think guys are smarter and worthier, think again. I'm a guy and I have so many girl friends(notice the space between the two words) who are way more intelligent and strong-willed than I ever will be. If you seek further proof, skim through the archives of the Times of India paying special attention to articles on Indian Class X and XII examination results. Every year, since I started taking cognizance of this fact(and grumbling about it), girls continue to outshine boys. Remember, every guy is not worth his weight in gold and every girl is not born to be confined in the fumes of your kitchen.

Those were the most logical reasons I could come up with for the inexplicable Indian craving for a male child. If you remove the logic criterion, I'm sure we could come up with more absurd theories on why female infanticide is acceptable but there you see, these theories come into being WITHOUT the logic criterion.

I conclude this post with an appeal to three sections of people who are most involved in this horrible tragedy that permeates every level of the Indian society.

Dear parents-in-law,

Granddaughters are more beautiful than grandsons. Boy or girl, an offspring of your child is a joy to behold in your eyes. I know grandmothers who cherish their granddaughters and they constitute some of the happiest people I know on Planet Earth. Before you send your daughter-in-law to an abortion clinic, imagine how you would have felt if your mother had been forced to terminate you. Even if your in-laws had been torturous to you, this is no time to seek revenge. Let's all forgive and forget. Let's make this world a better place to live in! :)

Dear husband,

Be a man! You signed up for this when you married your wife. As Aamir Khan tells us, YOUR fricking chromosome decides whether your wife sires a girl/boy. Stop yay-saying to Mummy and learn to love your kid with all you have, regardless of its gender. There are so many couples out there who are without a kid and aching for one. God has given you a lovely gift, don't even think of destroying it.

Dear doctor,

Sorry I couldn't be scathing enough of you. Remember you swore the Hippocrates oath whence you promised to save every life to the best of your abilities. As your ultrasound might tell you, an unborn child has life. It moves, grows and suffers. Society gives you your instruments to deliver life, not death. For heaven's sake, you are a doctor, a mere cogwheel in the huge machine that is human reproduction. Do not play God with the lives of innocent children.

Kudos to all those mothers who have braved abuse to raise their female children. Kudos to all those wonderful families which treat every baby as a wonder by itself. Kudos to all those unknown journalists, administrators and social activists who fight for the cause of the unborn girl.

Give the girl child a chance @ life!

Today's Stumble and the inspiration of this blog entry: Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate - First Episode on Female Foeticide