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Aami Axomiya

26th January is not a good place to be in Assam. The days leading to Republic Day were fraught with bomb blasts in Guwahati, one after the other. Not that it made much difference to the people there – except for yours truly, whose plans to go to Shillong were scuttled by two panic-stricken parents who calculated the probability of a bomb blast in the immediate vicinity of their son as a clear 1 out of 1. Seems the ULFA had been quite busy in January, demanding some X crores of rupees from ONGC and IOC ( where X is a figure that would give normal men heart attacks), and refineries, pipelines and key installations were on high alert for quite sometime. By high alert, I mean that if you were a group of young men out on a picnic, there is a fair chance you might have gotten arrested on charges of being suspected terrorists.

(The interesting thing I noted about one of the bomb blast was the total filmy set-up – someone threw a hand grenade in front of a police station. One person was hurt, and then half an hour later, a high-intensity blast occurs in the SAME PLACE. The funda being that the hand grenade had been used as a lure for policemen, senior-level ones to arrive at that place to “take stock of the situation”, while the actual bomb had been planted much before, and was timed to go off half an hour after the grenade blast. These terrorist guys are getting smarter everyday.)

One good (umm, kind of) thing that happened because of these is that when we went to watch Rang De Basanti on the first day, the theatre was empty.

Most people in Assam weren’t really bothered by the bomb blasts or threats. The topic which would send Axomiya Ryze ( that’s “folks from Assam”, for the Axomiya-challenged) into a frenzy would be “Debojit”. Ask around, and the people everybody would want to choke to death in broad daylight would be either Adesh Srivastav or Himesh Reshammiya. ( Ismail Durbar was being considered for canonization, last I heard) Reliance, about the only GSM service that’s of any consequence in the North-East, had put up hoardings saying “Vote for Debojit, son of the soil”, posters that were huger than the ones that are displayed whenever a new Rajini movie is released, the ones where you can count the number of teeth in His Grinning Mouth. They also brought down SMS rates to twenty paise. Which means that most people, including my uncles sent about 40 SMSes every day. “A matter of honour”, they said, when I pointed out that this was technically cheating.

For people who were clueless about the above paragraph, it was about this series on Zee TV called ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’, which once upon a time used to be a musical talent show of much repute, with very serious contestants and judges and a presenter who dripped sugar and honey. Until all these other TRP-friendly shows like Indian Idol took away much of viewership, because of which SRGMP decided to reinvent itself as a vote-show, and a clash of music composers’ “apprentices”. There was some major controversy to do with this particular segment of the show, detailed here and here.

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Gratituous self-promotion in the name of nostalgia deptt.

I used to draw and paint, once upon a time. Even went to art school when I was a kid, and found out that watercolours was the only medium I had some amount of control on. Until of course, I discovered the joys of pen and ink and trying to imitate John Totleben’s artwork.

After buying a scanner ( along with the computer I bought my parents the other day ), I spent some time scanning whatever of my samples I could find.

Scans

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A Zinda Guwahatian Oldboy

“Radishes”, my mother exclaims, “You loved radishes, didn’t you? You there, how much are you selling those radishes for?”

“Maaaaa, no radishes. Whoever said I like them?”, I reply.

“Radishes 8 rupees a puwaa, baidew”, “Only 7 rupees a puwaa”. “The freshest ones right here, baidew”. A puwaa is 250 grams, and baidew is Axomiya for elder sister.

“Alright, squashes then. Squashes are good for health.” She persists.

I make my best windpipe-slit-by-samurai-sword-noise, a kind of wet gurgling that peeves her completely, as she looks at the radishes, and dismisses them, and prods at the cabbages. Cabbages are safe, she decides, because I do not react at all, and proceeds to buy two huge ones.

The shopkeepers look resentfully at the radish-hater and his mother as they exit from the maze of shops. I try my best not to look guilty.

* * *
I tell my parents I am buying a computer for them. My mother, who painstakingly writes out five copies of a question-paper for her tuition students every other day, could do with a printer – she even did an MS Office course thingie a couple of months back, just before my old computer decided to conk out for good. My father who warily circled the old computer until I showed him that it could play movies too, and how, was just getting used to it – I was kind of getting used myself to the phone calls asking me how to make the Windows Media Player fullscreen when a video was playing.

So this time, I tell them I am buying a new computer, and also point out that an internet connection would be good, now that BSNL has these broadband schemes. Somehow my father detects that note of hesitation when I talk about the internet. “What is it?”, he asks me, “A lot of bother? Forget it then.”

“Not really”, I tell him. “It’s just that if you aren’t careful enough, you might get viruses and I am a little worried about how you guys would handle it.”

“No, no, we will be careful. I will make sure nobody’s wearing shoes inside the computer room.”

I love these guys.

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Heads-up from Guwahati!

Right, so I am at home and chilling out good and proper. I am chilling out so much that I cannot go to bed without wearing a sweater and socks and two mattresses. Brrr.

So you can download the quiz I did at IIM Kolkata, I was conscious enough after the late-night/early-morning revelries to upload both the powerpoints right here. The prelims are about 3 MB, and the finals are 8.7 MB.

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ANNNNNNNND

The quiz is done.

I am conducting the lit-arts quiz for this year’s Nihilanth, the annual ( well, sort of) inter-IIT-IIM quiz festival, due to be held on the 14th and 15th at IIM Kolkata. This is one of the rare times when personal stuff has taken precedence over question-setting, and I had to stay back late at the office two days before the quiz to finish setting all the questions. I have never cut it this close, and I will be glad, really really glad, if the quiz is well-received.

Reasons behind this lateness: my recent move from Bangalore to Hyderabad, and the fact that I have not unpacked any of my books/CDs/DVDs and my computer. Why? Because I am off, right after Nihilanth, to Guwahati, for a well-deserved two-week vacation, and I didn’t want the hassle of reorganising and dusting the preciousses after I get back. A lot of furniture-buying and room-reorganising are in the pipeline once I return. Also, had to do some major work-related revisions at the office, so not too much time to access the Internet there. The All-Important Call for which I was doing so got over about two hours ago, and I could rush through the final touches to the quiz. Another reason was that my roomie’s internet connection seems to have conked off for the past three days, leaving me unable to do much at home post-office.

The plan for the Guwahati trip is to listen to all of John Zorn’s albums ( a gigatorrent of which did whatever all well-recommended gigatorrents tend to do), and re-read the first couple of books of a series that I plan to finish after I am back. ( What series? I am not saying anything. It might be a question in my quiz, heh) If I am lucky, my sister and brother-in-law will also be at home at the time, on a brief trip from London, where both of them are working at the moment. If I am really lucky, my sister will be able to spare luggage-space to get the 28 volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub at one go, along with assorted signed books.

And in other news, I bought a washing machine. Haier, fully-automatic, 5 year-warranty and all that. Now if only those lazy salespeople would come and set the thing up….

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