Of 10s and IIT

Ten things I hated in IIT in no particular order:
1) The academic section and anything that involved getting a letter cross-signed by Fac-Ad, HOD, Officer in Charge, Dean Students, Registrar all on the same sheet of paper (Go Green IIT!)
2) Tendency of groups working on a particular thing to form closed cliques recruiting and working only within that clique.
3) Elections and all associated savagery. In the end if you look at it, nothing much comes out of it in terms of new buildings or different ideas.
4) No parking space for local students (is it so difficult to open up an area and CHARGE for parking instead of asking to pay fines?)
5) Himalaya, Mess Grub coupons, associated signatures. Miss the bonhomie of our first year.
6) Vetti pseud putting junta (associated point 2).
7) IIT Smart card, never use it and pay 500 bucks if you lose/break it. Now there's a deal!
8) Computer Game addicts (nothing against the games, just that you shouldn't get addicted... please)
9) Wing politics (there also ah!!!)
10) No interaction with the society around us. We could've designed so many things for people in villages/poor localities/infrastructure etc, but its not been on our agenda. No one's fault though.

Berhael

Of cooking and learning...

Exams are over, my university is decided, I am free till August.. I have been using my time in the mornings to practice my cooking. And it is improving by leaps and bounds if I may say so in my humble opinion.
I can now make 7 different standard vegetables, 3-4 sambhars, whatever whatever spice combos to make rasams, some 1-2 thohails. Now it's time to switch to the variety rices.. puliyodharai, tomato rice, fried rice, lemon rice and other stuff like upama and pongal, so on. Let's hope that clicks. :) I must recommend the book by Viji Varadarajan's Samayal its a wonderful book for one who does not have too much time to browse through detailed recipes. However you are sure to grow out of it, as I am starting to find out, but a good book to get u started.
For now, here is a sample of my cooking :)



It's Murungaka sambhar, potato mixed curry and kothavaranga karamadhu. It tasted pretty well too!
--Berhael
PS - THANK YOU MOM :)
Update : Viji's Site can be found at www.vijisamayal.org

Of India and Maps

I happened to come across this erstwhile Map of "India" while browsing Wikipedia for the Sino-Indian War.. The red regions are British-occupied territory, the yellow represent principalities and independent territories, interesting isn't it? Let's see if anyone can figure out which period this map belongs to. What first struck my mind was that this is where we came from and this is how we were organized once upon a time, how do we feel about ourselves today? Where do our allegiances lie?

Berhael