Ulysses.....

The tale of the adventures of Ulysses begins in Circa 2001...that was the time when great changes were taking place in the world....changes that would be having far reaching effects on human civilisation- like IIT-JEE being split up into two rounds of the impending advent of AIEEE....with the dark clouds of uncertainty looming, our hero dared to defy all odds and furiously underwent immense hardships like memorising that “differentiation of exponential function by x gives the same results”, finally emerged victorious...this war was no less that the Trojan war...he felt smug when thinking wat fools the Trojans were.... “You spend ten years of you life in one small city fighting for a gal who was married to someone else and who was now living with someone else and ......no doubt they got fooled by that wooden horse”....Naaaaah!!!! He was much more smarter....what more, he even knew calculus!!!!....as he set of on the train that would lead him to his , he looked at the sky.... “Set sail...ahoy!!!”...he set ahead, to join the victorious armies which were coming forth from all parts of the countries....
He made his way to the barren and desolate lands of Trichy..... that place had been paradise when he saw on the crystal glass of a computer monitor.....the colours were so vivid then....but this was hell...the whole palace was haunted by horrible and detestable creatures called seniors who would always torture Ulysses in the most horrible manner by not allowing him to wear branded jeans....the shackles were too stiff....the only rosy part of the story is that the girl he found ok-ok on the first day has suddenly metamorphosed into the most lovely maiden on this world....she was the Helen...she had to be Helen....the gal who could launch a thousand bicycles....(P.S. she will be subsequently refereed as Helen.1.1...her beta version ,(ie on the first day) has been erased from the collective memory)...Old Shakespeare said is a rose is a rose whatever its name be...wrong!!!!! a red rose is different from a yellow rose!!! Ullyses sent her 10 red roses on rose day, only to get back ONE yellow rose!!!!!the club people who organised for the roses were shrewd merchants....
By and by Ulysses fell into groove...he and his comrades had fulfilled their assigned tasks....the Gods who resided in the final year hostel had approved their and baring the instance when ulysees was handed 13 tight slaps for his minor deviation of showing his respect to a final year girl with a whistle, life went on peacefully...
Finally the day came....they were welcomed into the fold of the high and the mighty.....by having the food at the freshi party, that ambrosia, they were transformed from mere first years juniors to.....hmmmm well, let’s say to first years....
How time passes.....ullyses had grown up....he passed the island of first year and reached second year....but it was not a simple task, only to be accomplished by fighting a major war with Controller-of-exam as well as several skirmishes like cycle test....by then he had already formulated his first law of human contact, based on his interaction with the not-so –beautiful-girl-on first day-but who –now-looks gorgeous, on which his whole treasure trove of wisdom rests “never take a girl out for dinner if there are 19 other guys ready to do the same....u will lose ur money for nothing”...
However the-beautiful-girl-who-looked-ok-on first day & the girl-who-looked- not-so –beautiful-on first day-but who –now-looks gorgeous....had decided to sail away on a different boat...ullysees was tempted to chases them had he not found his 6th Helen (....(P.S. she will be subsequently refereed as Helen.6.1.b, to avoid all confusion with Helen.6.1.a whom ullysees had met when he had gone to city and whose-ice-cream-he-had paid only to find that her phone no was actually her dads no)...she looked as if she had dropped from heaven...she was one year junior to him and .....and those parasitic first years were all over her....how dare they....this first years din not know how to behave.... they even dared to wear branded jeans when they would secretely sneak outside...how disgusting!!! Ever ready to maintain the the order of the land, Ullysees enforced strict discipline...alas! when has the world appreciated someone who wanted to do something good.........Helen.6.1.b resisted all his noble intentions like taking her out to dinner and finally tied a rakhi on his wrist when he sent her 10 red roses on rose day....but he was happy with the progress he was making in professional life ...”In 12th class we were only bothered about the chemical formula of alcohol without any emphasis on price”
By and by half the voyage was done...by now Ulysses had learnt the art of fighting the controller of examination....it was a worthy opponent....it gave him lots of bruises on the grade sheet but our protagonist trudged on....panting, he reached the island of third year...
There, in the “Grass”land of Ruby hostel, he found his calling.... he had heard legends talk about those fields but he was now there....in the subsequent months, there immense struggle between the army of Ulysses and the bovine forces lead by the treacherous jersey cow... the night were spent in abandonment on the terraces of Ruby which were like the hanging garden of Babylon....by then he was already a lord of the smoke rings....lost in his world, he was unable to decipher what Helen .8 had not like in him when he had asked her to come for a ice cream and told her that he did not have any change...he only sighed and “the world is going to the dogs”...now and then he would have some remote flashes from the past....and for a moment he would feel guilty of whatever he was doing....but he would convince himself that his life was getting topsy-turvy coz of second law of thermodynamics “Disorderliness of universe will always increase” and convince himself that he was not a absolute duffer coz “according to third law of thermodynamics, it is impossible to reach absolute Zero in a finite number of steps”...
While he let himself drift, doomsday was fast approaching....the enemy was much more alert, much more devious and much more agile than old Controller-of-exams......its name was placements..... Ulysses heart went cold when he first heard about it.....he had lost his weapons...whatever he had with him was rusted....at this critical juncture, he decided to make peace with R.K.Aggarwalls books of aptitude and Yeshwant Kanetkars book on learning C...it was a strategic alliance and the ill will between the allies was visible...Cornered, our hero was somehow able to muster his courage of early years...it was greatly aided by the fact that he saw Helen.11, Helen.12 & Helen.13 being more friendly for men having more GPA...it was fortunate that he had given them only 5 roses...
Now the tale takes an unexpected turn...Ulysses got a job in his first attempt....he could not believe his fortune... he has won the greatest battle of all!!!!! He has finally conquered..but alas many of his closest comrades could not join him....but many joined him!!! Now was the time for celebration, for revelry.... Life was never more beautiful............
However, by now Ulysses was a old man....he had seen his son, his grandsons and his great-grandsons......but he still had life in him.....And then he saw her.......she was the Helen!!!! All the previous Helen versions looked Demo models in front of her....But....he knew it was too late.....Ulysses was never supposed to have the gal in the original story....The original Helen had gone away with Paris ....yet he still got the roses for her, only difference being that he smiled when he got nothing back in return.....
By then, the ship had crossed the final landmark of Eight Semester.....their destination was clear....they were sailing too fast...suddenly Ulysses turned back and looked into the eyes of his closest comrades.....everyone, like him, had a tear drop in his eyes.... “Funny, when we all came, we were crying...and when we all are finally close to our destination, we are again crying....during this voyage, i have done things which maybe i should not have done, said thing which i should not have said....Was this voyage worth all this?”
Then he got the answer “It was never the destination, never.....it was the voyage that mattered...The destination was just the reason for the voyage, not the purpose.......Happiness, sadness, friendship...you found everything...whatever you become , wherever u got, you will be never able to forget this journey.... The voyage was a sentence whereas the destination was the full stop....you don’t write a sentence to justify a full stop na.”
He was woken out of his reverie when his ship touched land....everyone leapt out.....it was a new land...it was the beginning of a new adventure!!!! Everything looked so beautiful....Ulysses looked back at the old battered ship and realised that though he may wish it, he can never sail it again....it has done its job.....Now it was for Ulysses to do his job....and he has decided what he was going to do.... grow roses to earn his living.... he has seen the demand for it and has realised that he could make a killing out of it..... He knew he was an intelligent man...after all, after so many years, he could still remember Calculus.....

Catch 22.....

It has been some months since i read that amazing book, Catch 22!!!! jus thought i would share my feelings with all....
I had been told that it was a great book..but somehow or other i had been putting it off...Yossarins story is the story of us....individuals caught in the cross fire of history and who steadfastly refuse to sacrifice their "Lower cause" (ie sanity, petty selfishness etc etc) for the sake of the "Greater" cause!!!!
It has humour as it has pain....it has sense as it has "non sense"..the beauty is that everyting is so seamlessly weaved together that ones loses track where he is standing at the particular monment...u laugh out aloud when you read aabout someone being killed....u ll feel like crying when a dog is being beaten!!!! the book does not philosophises....it merely asks questions, that too very subtely....
It makes a mockery of the concept of war, with all its noble ideals!!!! as our hero puts it beautifully - it does not make a difference to a guy who is dead as to whoever wins the war....I felt Yossarin is the common man....there can be nothing noble, nothing honourable in death!!! it is plain and simple death....anyone will lose all feeling of chivalary if he had to hold the strewn bowels of his comrade, watching him die without you being able to do anything....
I could go about talkin about the book but i request everyone to read it....many people wont like it.... its overtly lewd and at times amazingly crass!!! but in Yossarin's story, everyone will identigy with....it is the story of a single individual fighting to maintain his common sense against a world that is hell bent on proving him wrong!!!!

This was where it began.....

long long time ago, in a place far far away....................someone wrote the first blog!!!!
Blog...hmmmm never thought i ll get into it...but i m now trying....my first post...there is a lot to be written about...there is a lot to be discovered....infact there is a whole new world to be discovered out there!!!!!
since the time someone drew on caves with charcoal....since the time someone took the first quill and ink pot....even now when somewrites with a gravity-defying ballpen-which-can-be-even-used-in-outer-space-but-of-which-i-see-no-other-use-to-justify-its-price, people have been trying to reach me...ME, yes i said me......for that, everyone of us as an individual....through my blog, i will try to reach to each and every individual......how to be born or how to die is not in our hands....what is in our hand is how would we be remembered......