Classroom notes

Over the past couple of years, it has become a habit for me to trace the wanderings of my mind in boring classes, by scribbling on the last pages of my notebooks. Now, as I distractedly attempt to study for the midsems, I find myself flipping to the last pages of every notebook, to see what I've written. Some of the jottings don't make any sense to me, some are quite surprisingly profound. There's a smashing idea for the start of a story in there and several abortive blog ideas. Here are some of them, for you to make of what you will.

The sky had been a sulky gray for days, the ominous silence only interrupted by a few grumbles. Finally, all that frustration burst out in a deluge of rain. But although everything is soaking wet, from the trees to the buildings to me, the sky's anger doesn't appear much appeased...

This was written in a rather blue mood, all the world was wet, I was annoyingly damp and the class just wouldn't end.

There's apparently a difference between logic and commonsense.

I can't remember what happened to make me scribble this, but every time I try to think about it, I get a headache.

Some of my greatest feats of composition have been accomplished in some of my most boring classes.

I've gotta admit, that's spot on.

My room smells of termite medicine. Chunks of the wall covered with gauzy fungus, float down dismally, at regular intervals. A whole bunch of dead insects lay in front of my monitor this morning, probably poisoned by the medicine and somehow thinking of the glowing screen as their salvation... I'm allergic to the fungus, it makes me sneeze. Everything I've eaten has smelled like termite medicine. If I was a bird, I'd be really worried about laying eggs without shells right now.

This was one blue mood. I later made it into a rather more optimistic post.

Everything about Mr. Chatterjee droned boring. His clothes were boring, his voice was boring, even his face was boring. Skin neither fair nor really dark, a bulbous nose and small bored eyes. A thin, greying moustache with short, bristly hairs that still managed to droop. His handwriting on the board was boring. Round letters ran into each other as if they didn't think it worth the effort to spread apart. The chalk squeaked in an excruciating monotone, as he dragged it listlessly across the board.
Whenever I sat in his class, I felt my senses suspend, my eyes slowly close and my mind wander off into far more interesting places.

I thought this was an excellent beginning to a short story, but I could never get beyond this point.

The difference between the elderly and the young- when an older person asks you to email him, there's a hint of triumph in his voice.

She had a tendency to put everything in quotes. So, she would talk about the "strength" of the "forces" being "short-lived". As a result, you never quite believed what she told you.

This scribble was for an interesting character in a short story, somewhat inspired by a prof this sem. For other hilariously inappropriate quotation marks, check out this blog.

I'm back!

It's been nearly four months since I last posted here. There's no earth shattering reason for my lack of posts, I just couldn't summon up the energy to type up a decent post somehow. I have 11 new drafts though. That doesn't mean these haven't been an awesome four months, they have. But now I'm back here in rainy Mumbai and everything is comfortable and familiar.

The hostel walls are still a shocking pink, although thankfully, a little faded now. I'm in a new room, in an opposite wing, but the lizards and monkeys are just as sociable. This room's shocking pink too, and the walls clash horribly with my orange sheets.

The whole hostel's having a seepage problem and a termite infestation. Talk about a homecoming. Until last week, there was a nasty brown line snaking across one wall of my room, proof of termites feeding off the cement. Talk about ewww! The exterminator who came last week told me reassuringly that I needn't mind these little critters, apparently they don't bite. He then proceeded to curdle my blood with stories of other species of termites that crawl over people's skin leaving a trail of rashes behind. Of course, after that I refused to enter the room until they were gone. So a whole bunch of exterminators came in and drilled holes in every available corner and filled them with vile smelling medicine. Now, all that's left of my termites is a light brown stain. But, as the exterminator warned me in his parting shot, they might be back.

I mentioned seepage, didn't I? The termite medicine might have been poison to the termites, but it was like Boost for the fungus. Great clumps of filmy white fungus sprang up on my walls almost as I watched. When I switched on the fan, delicate white flakes flew down to settle on my keyboard.

Stifling my disgust I liberally papered the entire wall- which come to think of it, is quite convenient. Now, all I need to do is look up to read of anything from Michal Phelps' gold medals to picking the correct bathroom tiles.

It's good to be back.