Traveling in Mumbai's local trains is an experience one must have during one's lifetime. Seriously. Where else would you find 100 people squeezed into space meant for two, and still managing to play card games, shell peas, sell jewelry and even sing religious songs? If you live in Mumbai -- or Bombay, as I still prefer to call it -- you have to have traveled at least once in a local train. Or you're not a Mumbaikar.
I recently went back home to Bombay for a month (well, slightly lesser than that, but who's counting?), and managed to travel in the trains. My parents were dead set against it, mind. They firmly believed that after traveling in the CapMetro buses of Austin, I would find it hard to travel in the chaotic locals of Bombay. (It's actually the other way round, but I didn't want to sit and explain all that -- I had a train to catch!). So off I went to Victoria Terminus (VT), now renamed to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) during the renaming heydays of the Maharashtra government.
There's a train from the place where I live, Vashi, to VT, every 5 minutes. However, I was planning to go at 9am, and at that time, even getting a meter within the train's radius requires superhuman powers. Determined office-goers, chirpy college kids, bratty school kids -- all of them push, shove, kick and elbow their way to the train, so that the mere mortals traveling merely for the heck of it get thrown all the way to the back of the line. There are three start points for trains traveling to VT on the Harbor Line -- from Panvel, Belapur and Vashi. It's insanity trying to even look into the trains leaving from Panvel or Belapur, so I contented myself waiting for a Vashi train.
It came soon enough. The local train system is super-efficient, I'll give you that! I got in, feeling like a bit of a stranger since I hadn't ridden in one for over a year, and grabbed a seat. Now that's another task requiring some show of strength and cunning and speed and agility. You basically hurl yourself into the still-moving train, and, if you happen to spy an empty seat, you use all your wiles to get to it before another person can. In this case, since I was in the women's compartment, I competed with the women to grab the seat I saw. I managed to beat a plump lady wearing enough jewelry to open up a store, and a sharp-faced skinny woman who gave me the evil eye to the seat, and sank down, and immediately shoved the earbuds of my iPod into my ears and turned up the volume loud enough to hurt so I could block out the curses aimed my way.
The train started moving. I actually felt moved when I saw for the first time in over a year the view from the train window. Right outside Vashi station is the Thane creek. It's a thin body of water stretching from Thane all the way to Nhava Sheva, the port. The train bridge built over it was the first to connect the island of Bombay to Thane district, I do believe. I love the creek, and used to hang out of the train to get a glimpse of it when I was a college student. For some reason, I associate the creek with cricket. A crazy thought, isn't it? I think it's because I used to watch cricket matches live from New Zealand just before I left for college at 7:30am (since the country is 7 and a half hours ahead of India, the matches used to start really early). I used to watch usually till the tea break, and then leave for college, and all the way, I'd be contemplating on the various outcomes of the match, even more so if my favorite cricketer Shane Bond would be playing. I think that's why I associate the creek with cricket.
Anyway. Once the creek is past, there really isn't much to look forward to on the train journey -- except for the antics of my fellow passengers. That day, there happened to be a college girl, a loud woman and her sister-in-law and baby, a tired-looking bai (maid), and the ubiquitous macchiwaali (fisherwoman). These macchiwaalis are quite a race. They are the loudest, most voluble of passengers traveling in the train. They carry with them a straw basket, in which they ostensibly carry the fish, though I've seen the fish only once. These baskets are usually dripping with some kind of gray-ish water, so people tend to give them a wide berth. They dress in that style so typical to the macchiwaalis , with the saris drawn between their legs, dhoti-style. The one opposite me had a paan in her mouth, the juice oozing out of one corner of her mouth, making her look like the victim of assault and battery. She had an enormous red tikka on her forehead, her hair drawn up tightly in a knot. She kept talking throughout, though I'm pretty sure no one was paying her any attention (including me -- I had my iPod going). The college girl next to her shot her dirty looks which went unnoticed. What did not go unnoticed was my iPod -- an iPod is still a rarity in India, at least in the women's compartment of the local trains, and feeling numerous hungry eyes upon it, I clutched my precious possession close to me and guarded it like a dragon.
There are 14 stations between Vashi and VT: Mankhurd, Govandi, Chembur, Tilak Nagar, Kurla, Chuna Bhatti, Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar, Vadala Road, Sewri, Cotton Green, Reay Road, Dockyard Road, Sandhurst Road, and Masjid. The last one is VT. At each station there is a seething mass of humanity struggling to enter the train. It's actually fun watching -- unless you're one of the hapless ones caught near the door, in which case you get enough abuse to turn your hair white, and numerous threats of bodily harm, most often, to throw you off the train while it is gathering speed. It's all just bark, though. No one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever actually acted out on these threats.
Another interesting fixture in the trains, at least in the women's compartment, is the various sellers who enter it. They are usually young-ish women, maybe in their late twenties or early thirties, carrying their wares. The most popular ones are the jewelry and vegetable sellers; but other vendors can do good business too, if they're enterprising enough. Once, one of them actually got me to buy a glue stick from China. I was struggling to file my papers (this was back when I was in college), and a few of them kept sneaking out. The sharp-eyed vendor, a girl not much older than me, immediately came over, and tried to impress upon me the importance in my life of a pale blue glue stick with Chinese letters on it. I tried to convince her that I didn't need it, and she tried to convince me that I did. Finally, just to get rid of her, I bought one for 5 rupees. I threw it in my backpack, sure that I'd never need a questionable glue stick (what if my papers dissolved in it?). Strangely enough, that very week, I needed to glue something together, and the stick actually came in handy. And no, the papers didn't dissolve.
I couldn't listen to any of the conversations, unfortunately, for I had Matt Costa going full volume in my ears with These Arms. But it was fun looking at the animated expressions of the women commuters! They tend to have three types of expressions -- the happy, I don't care for anything type; the indifferent, exhausted type; and the belligerent type. These are the ones you steer clear of, incidentally. If you go and try to make conversation with one of the belligerent ones, you're just asking for trouble.
All this I observed with a half-smile on my face (I was hoping that people would think it was because of the song, not because of them), until the train went past Masjid. Masjid looks like the most ancient station along the Harbor Line, possibly because it hasn't been renovated ever since it was built. After Masjid, the train runs along between some buildings, which gives way to flowery patches on both sides of the track, which gives way, suddenly, to an enormous area consisting solely of train tracks -- that's when you know you've arrived! Then everyone on the train gets in a queue, pushing and shoving, though everyone knows that no one else can get off when the train's halted, and everyone is going to get off at that point, anyway. Pushing is the just part of the fun. It's not serious pushing, mind you -- just some good-natured jostling that's part of the daily Mumbaikar routine.
And when the train halts at VT station, everyone gets off in a rush. This is what happened that day as well -- the entire crowd just melted out of the train, and before I knew, VT was deserted -- in a manner of speaking. I plopped my earbuds out of my ears, and went to find a place to stand where I could wait for my friend. I was chased away by all kinds of people -- the ticket checkers, the food vendors, the passengers, the shoeshine boy -- even a beggar! Finally I found myself an inoffensive spot to wait, and did so, until my friend arrived, watching till then the ebb and flow of humanity with the arrival and departure of the various trains pouring in from all parts of Bombay.
And that's what a ride in the local trains of Bombay feels like!
It's almost strange to know that this is the last time I'll be writing the words "back to school." Of course, if I do follow up on a whim on a PhD or an MBA (one of my two career choices), or if I do what my heart wants deep inside, and get a BFA/MFA in Drawing and Painting, then this ain't the last time I'm writing those words. But that remains to be seen, and for the foreseeable future, it's back to school for the last time.
I thought Spring 2008 was shaping up to be the most hectic semester for me, for I'd taken a CS grad course on a credit/no-credit basis, and that's a big no-no in grad school. It won't count toward the Program of Work I'll need to produce in May this year to graduate. But through a lucky string of incidents, this semester has suddenly become the lightest ever, with me having to take only two courses! Well, there's a third one -- CS 398T, Supervised Teaching -- but, as everyone knows, it's a register-and-you-get-the-credits course. For, ladies and gentlemen, meet the latest TA at UT -- moi!
Yes, I've been appointed as a Teaching Assistant this Spring. I'll be TAing the course CS 349, Contemporary Issues in Computer Science -- one of the coolest courses offered by the CS department this Spring, one that, had I not been TAing for it (and had it not been an undergrad course), I might have well registered for it. It deals with the legal issues, ethics and moralities related to computer science today. Enticing! I've always been very interested in all that. I sat for two of the classes, and they were both interesting enough to keep me captivated, in spite of being the last class at the end of a very long day! I even know some of the students -- some of them are members of the UT chapter of ACM, and hang out in Taylor basement most of the time. They're a brilliant bunch, these kids.
I'm also registered for CS 388L Intro to Math Logic (boring!) and CS 386S Network Protocol Security (security! Yay!) I love security, and don't even need to strain to understand what's being taught in class. IML, on the other hand, is one of those courses I'll probably end up straining through. Sigh! Thank goodness I have only two courses to concentrate on.
And, that's the round-up for the first week of school. Let's see how the rest of the semester progresses! With IML studies to keep up with, and assignments for the undergrads to be graded, it definitely ain't gonna be a walk in the clouds. It's going to be an interesting last semester all right!
An all-nighter is something every grad student goes through. It's an essential part of the grad school experience. I firmly believe that you haven't really graduated from grad school unless you've pulled an all-nighter. And that's what I'm doing right now.
So what is an all-nighter? As the name suggests, it's spending the entire night in school, working in some way. You might be coding (which is what I do during my all-nighters); you could be studying; you could be working for your professor if you're an RA or a TA. You could be doing a bunch of things, but essentially, you need to spend an entire night doing that. And some of the things essential for a night-out include:
(a) A friend. It's absolutely unbearable doing a night-out alone. In fact, you probably can't. Attempting to do one is exactly what the name suggest: an attempt. It's highly unlikely it will be done.
(b) Food. When your stomach growls at 3 in the morning, and you realize that Wendy's closed by now, and the only option is Kerbey Lane Café well over 15 minutes away, you get a newfound appreciation for food. At this point, even Doritos seem appetizing.
(c) Coffee....lots and lots of coffee. When I do a night-out, I need about a gallon of coffee to survive. Unless I need to turn in the code the next day, and I've got maybe 5 lines of code written on the screen and nothing working, in which case the fear of getting an F is enough of a caffeine shot to keep me awake till the deadline (I do not recommend this though, because the next day in class you look like a zombie, and the professor and the TA both catch you napping in class).
(d) Music. I find music does wonders to stop you from tearing your hair or hurling your hapless laptop to the ground. I need to have my trusty iPod by my side to feel even half-complete. Then again, there are bad moments. When your code suddenly fails after all the blood and sweat you've spent on it, and you hear Muse howling "This is the end...." in your ears, it doesn't really do wonders to your morale.
(e) Your blog. Yes. Your blog -- writing into a blog can do wonders to help maintain your sanity. If you don't have a blog, then hope to have some friends online in some remote corner of the globe with whom you can chat to stay in touch with the outside world.
(f) YouTube. After you've coded for ages, and your code is stubbornly refusing to compile, you can relax a lot by watching ridiculous videos on YouTube, like this one. God bless YouTube.
And those are my pointers to spending a successful night out in Taylor (though, of course, this can be applied anywhere else). I have to start playing around with some Graphics code, which needs to be shown on Monday to the TA and the professor. I just saw another of my Graphics classmates, a boy called Stephen, coding away furiously in one corner of Taylor lab.
I'm not actually in Taylor lab right now. I'm in Sandhya's office, Sandhya being my roommate and one of my best friends. Ruchica, another of my friends, is talking to me right now (and probably getting annoyed because I'm responding to her answers with grunts, concentrating instead of getting this entry out tonight). We just returned from dinner at Kerbey Lane, and I think the waitress gave a small sigh when she saw us. We really must be infamous among the late-night restaurants here in Austin!
Anyway, I shall return to my code, and hope to get something more than a white blob of cloth render on the screen. Till then, adios!
You know how there are these exams that just make you wonder why you're even alive? Well, I had one of those recently. It was the Graphics final exam, and those who've been following my blog would know that I'm not exactly getting straight-A's in the course. Let's quit kidding.....I'll be lucky if I even pass the course!! I've really had issues with it. And if all that wasn't bad enough, a few days earlier, we had to take the dreaded final exam in that.
The first page actually didn't give an inkling as to the terror the rest of the exam would be. I felt quite happy on seeing 5 true-false questions, and sat about solving them with a pleased smile. It was after I turned to the next question that the real fun began. And please note, I'm being heavily sarcastic here.
As I read through the next question, I had that vague feeling of dissociativity, and a slight buzzing in my ears. You know, the type you get when you switch on your computer one morning only to find an insidious virus deleted the entire operating system? That kind. I stared at the paper. I squinted. I tilted it against the light. I may even have smelt it, I was so flabbergasted at the question. I stole a glance around the class. I shouldn't have. Most of the students looked quite pleased, and were busy writing into their papers. I looked at the TA, perched on the table at the front of the class. He looked quite pleased with himself, whether for setting us a horrendous paper, or for some other reason, I'll never know. I groaned silently, and turned back to the paper.
I squinted again at it, hoping that something might spring out at me. I think I even silently considered heating the paper to see if any invisible ink stood out, something that would make a little more sense that what the question was currently making. But apart from the fact that there was no heater in the room, I had to finish the paper in 75 minutes, so I didn't spend any more time planning my obituary, and instead, tried to tackle the paper.
Note the use of the word "tried". I think I finally managed to put some kind of strange symbols on the paper, hoping they'd be correct. I then flipped to the next question. It made a little more sense, so I started off. But even as I scribbled the answers, I knew I had nowhere near enough time to complete the paper, so I started sweating again. Please, God, at least let me complete a third of the exam! I thought desperately. I somehow managed to write something before the TA called out time, and collected back all the papers.
I was actually mollified to hear later that everyone had a torrid time on the exam. All the same, it's an experience I'd rather never repeat again!
I have a crush on the cutest boy in UTCS.
His name is....well, never mind. I haven't let him know yet that I have a crush on him, and I don't want him to find out through my blog! But he's tall, and blond, and athletic, and just all-out gorgeous. I hadn't noticed him until recently, and when I did -- whew! It was like one of those anime reactions, where your jaw drops lower and lower, and your heart goes, as in the mangas, 'doki doki'. (I believe that's Japanese for a pounding heart). Since then I've been absolutely stalking the poor chap!
Well, not really. I haven't been hounding him at his apartment, or standing outside his classes (I don't even know what classes he's registered for). But whenever I get a chance to steal a glance at him, I do so. He's a graduate student like me, and I've taken to inhabiting the graduate student lounge a little more than I like, just so I can run into him. I can't believe myself -- I've never really been this serious about a boy before. But this one is something all right!
I saw him today, just before my class. Graphics is a class I'm not 100% keen on, since I don't really have an aptitude for it (security is more my thing!). I was groaning and leaving Taylor, when he passed me. I did a double take, and then did my usual stare act. He didn't notice me staring, thankfully. He smiled vaguely, and my heart gave another leap, and I spent the next 75 minutes in class replaying the smile in my mind and sighing in the most lovestruck manner imaginable!
And before I give away any more clues as to who he is, I think I should end here, and hope that I can actually summon up the courage to talk to him sometime instead of just stealing glances, sighing, rabidly drooling over him, and just going crazy!
The train started moving. I actually felt moved when I saw for the first time in over a year the view from the train window. Right outside Vashi station is the Thane creek. It's a thin body of water stretching from Thane all the way to Nhava Sheva, the port. The train bridge built over it was the first to connect the island of Bombay to Thane district, I do believe. I love the creek, and used to hang out of the train to get a glimpse of it when I was a college student. For some reason, I associate the creek with cricket. A crazy thought, isn't it? I think it's because I used to watch cricket matches live from New Zealand just before I left for college at 7:30am (since the country is 7 and a half hours ahead of India, the matches used to start really early). I used to watch usually till the tea break, and then leave for college, and all the way, I'd be contemplating on the various outcomes of the match, even more so if my favorite cricketer Shane Bond would be playing. I think that's why I associate the creek with cricket.
