Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Govinda...Govinda...

Scene 1:


'In God we trust'

                           - Anonymous

'Chalo Tirupathi'

                          - Mafia


Thus the idea originated. As you all know, mafia never does things unplanned. Since most people of the mafia were rich by that time, by means Indian Govt.Charity of 8000 INR for everybody else, and hard-earned money of an analyst in a private firm for Baille, mafia decided to make the trip a luxurious one.


Mafia decided to entrust the responsibility of planning on the heavy shoulders of Muski, for he has already proved to the world by then his organisational skills - which involved ensuring safety to one and all during Shaastra, getting huge military tankers into the campus for demonstration, with minimal destruction  of the campus property, kicking off the Indian lunar mission etc.


'Come what might, we will all stay together'. Thus issuing a formal statement, the man took up yet another responsibility, a tiny one compared to all the previous ones!

'Gudi ni mingina vaadiki gudi lingam mingadam enta pani?' (transliterates to- for a person who swallowed the temple, swallowing one stone inside the temple is a cake-walk), so expressed the gults in the mafia- their faith in the little man with a burning passion to take up heavy responsibilities. 'We are in safe hands'- agreed the rest.


'Alright people, everybody gives me 800 bucks each today- consider your trip successful' - emailed Muski with humility. The plan was, 800 bucks and we'll have an air-conditioned mini-bus just for ourselves for travel- that picks us up from our hostels and drops us back, free accommodation in a five star hotel down hill, and a free and effortless darshan up hill.



Scene 2:

Somewhere in Benguluru


 Babe bitchy boss (BBB): Are you sure, you want to take half a day off? This will amount to two more sleepless nights of work during the weekend

Baille: I am positive. And ya, people sleep at nights right!This thought completely escaped my mind.


BBB: Alright then, at your own risk! But complete this project before leaving

Baille: Sure mam!

(to himself): Huh, two days of freedom and luxury, away from daily labor. God, here I am coming.


He worked until 1.30 pm- enjoying rather forcing himself to enjoy the last few moments of hard-work , and then set out well in advance making sure he didnot miss the train that leads to freedom- the Brindavan express.  He was optimistic that upon his arrival back, Govinda is going to take away some of his hardships, if not all.


The thought of meeting the rest of the mafia directly at Tirupathi instead of taking a round-trip from Chennai occurred to him. But then why should he be the one missing out on the AC vehicle? Though under-paid, yet he's paid. And moreover, the master said, 'come what might, we will all be together'. Amalgamating all these thoughts he justified this decision to his inner conscience, which might have recognised the omens of things to come.


Scene 3:



'People, due to some technical problems, the bus will not be able to collect us from IIT. We need to go to Egmore, and they'll reimburse us the auto charges,' announced the Fuhrer. The mafia has always been considerate for technical problems. Being technicians, sorry - technical people, apologies again, people involved with technical people, ourselves for so long, this didnot qualify as an organisational error in mafias dictionary. So the mafia set out to egmore, all by itself- with a delay of just 1 hr from the planned schedule. We were supposed to start at 2200 hours, while we took off at 2300 hours, which is 1 in 22 error, completely agreeable for engineers like us.


Finally, the mafia broken an year ago is all set to reunite. Sayan proposed to celebrate the reunion with silence. Mafia's ways of celebration are different. The rest agreed. Nobody says a word when they see Baille. However badly they might want to talk to him, they should control that desire. Practising Bhagawad Gita, it sounded like! The auto stopped infront of hot-chips. Baille, after an hour of breathing fresh air from Adayar river and feeling all nostalgic about the place, was all excited to see the rest. 'Waddap guys?' he shouted. 'Waddap, darling', replied Parida- watering all plans of silent celebrations.



The rest followed, and then Sayan followed.


Scene 4:
The mafia reached the pick-up point at 2340 hours, and was happy that they made it 20 min before the scheduled departure time of the bus. The fuhrer promptly collected the reimbursement from the travel agents. Some hungry people set out to eat at a near by shop, which was almost about to close. The rest had a cold drink, very much aware and excited at the fact that this waiting in hot weather for 10 more minutes would lead us to AC travel for the rest of the trip.


10 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes... no sign of any pick up vehicle. The fuhrer sought to clarify things with the travel agents. This delay is intolerable according to the mafia standards. I mean, just look at the error. 30 min delay for something that's supposed to start at 0000 hrs. That is 0.5 in 0, ridiculously high. Not just the mafia, no engineer is going to tolerate that.

Adding to the fuhrer's fury, the travel agents have silently disappeared. Every thing in and around the locality is locked, leaving just the mafia on the hot Chennai roads. With some hesitation, Parida thought out aloud what every one was thinking silently. Does this mean we lost our 800 bucks?The fuhrer, enraged by this, said 'Don't you worry. I'll chase these people in their dreams too until they take us to Tirupathi'. He vowed to get physical if things go bad. He cooled himself down and inspired others by saying ' we are all together. Thats the bottomline'


These words comforted the mafia. They were especially convinced of the fuhrers ability to get physical with people- considering his build. Slowly, but surely the mafia spotted one more batch waiting just like they are doing. When inquired, it was known that even they were headed to Tirupathi in a similar kind of private arrangement. The mafia was more comforted at the fact that if cheated, it has got more company.


Scene 5:

Finally finally, after a long wait of one full hour a mini van came to pick us up. We were told that due to technical problem again, both our batches- the mafia and the non-mafia should travel in the same van. Sharing with others is considered a privilege by the mafia. Added to the fact that technical problems are the ones which the mafia doesnot consider as a problem at all, we all agreed. Guests first, yet another mafia principle. So we allowed them to occupy seats first. We all arranged and adjusted ourselves inside the bus. Everything seemed so perfect. The AC was working.


The bus started. So started water dripping on the last seaters (3 people from the mafia, including the fuhrer), and on Chaitu sitting somewhere close to the driver. For a moment we thought this is the 4th dimension effect of feel, that they show in 4d movies. The organizers wanted us to 'feel' the AC. But soon enough, we realized that this is yet another technical problem, which requires people like in the mafia to solve. The fuhrer got all busy for some 2 hours along the ride, trying to stuff paper into the holes from which water was leaking. He did that, not just for himself, but for all the 4 people of the mafia experiencing the leak. Fuhrer vs. water leak, was an interesting contest. Both never gave up. While the fuhrer was busy fixing up the problem, the rest of them took it as fate had given them. Infact, Baille dreamt of taking a bath in the holy akash-ganga, in disguise of a technical problem.

Scene 6:
'Get out fast. We have arrived', said the driver barely after the fuhrer won over the leak and every one was having a nice nap. Everyone got down, expecting to find themselves going into a big five star hotel. Instead they found themselves going into a place where tickets are issued. The free-tickets to the darshan, I mean. It was then that the terms of the travel agent, free and comfortable darshan, became clear to the mafia. When cribbed a bit, the organizer promised a hotel stay immediately after getting the ticket. The mafia agreed and went inside the counter where they issue tickets. There was no queue at all. The first great news of the night. Immediately followed the news that, the tickets will be issued from 5 am onwards, whence the time then was 3 30 am.

Drowsily the mafia spent the next 1.5 hrs on the holy floor, infront of the counter. When we closed our eyes we dreamt of sleeping on a five star couch in a five star hotel; when we opened them, we were brought back to the ground reality of sleeping on ground. This cycle continued for sometime, when the fuhrer declared to cheer us up  'People, all eez well,  we are all together. And thats the bottom line'.


Scene 7:

As soon as the mafia collected their free tickets for a darshan at 2pm, they were taken to the hotel as promised. The hotel looked - not upto mafias expectations but ok to get some sleep and proceed for darshan. As and when we stepped inside the hotel, we were given rooms, asked to fresh up and leave within the next 30 min. Too drowsy to protest, the mafia conceded. The fuhrer was sleepy. So were the rest and Sayan and the other batch. While the rest of the people took bath, freshened up and prepared themselves to listen to more terrible things to come, the fuhrer- tired after waging battle against the leak, crashed off.

'Have some 'free' breakfast now, and then we go to visit Alamelumangapuram', announced the organiser, as if a jailer makes his announcements to the prisoners. 'Can we skip that and sleep in the hotel room?' asked one of the mafia members. 'No', was the instantaneous reply. Without any further arguments, the mafia too lazy to protest, proceeded towards the breakfast.

Barring incidents of finding a lot of uncleaned plates, and hand full of what seemed like clean plates, and a few people of the mafia sharing plates due to the same reason, half the mafia not eating breakfast due to unhygienic and the rest half not liking what they've eaten, the breakfast was a huge success.

Undettered by the heavy rain, lazy to protest, the mafia set out in the same vehicle to Alamelumangapuram. Huge stationary queue at 6 in the morning in open space implied Gods were not satisfied with the amount of water we used to cleanse ourself in the form of taking bath. We drenched in rain, enjoyed it for a change, and got a darshan at 9 am.

We quickly ran out of the place with a false hope of going back to the hotel and taking a quick nap. The fuhrer, being the wise man he is, never came inside the temple. Instead on pretext guarding our slippers, wallets and watches inside the bus, he had a two hour nap. Chalo Hotel, was our plan. The organizers , however, had different plans for us. All throughout the trip, our wavelengths never matched. Mafia's wavelength never matched with anyone else', anyway.  They dropped us in a bus stop and said, 'now take an RTC bus, pay 25 bucks and go up hill'. The driver and the organizers needed a nap; hence they went to the hotel.

Scene 8:

The mafia reached uphill by around 11. They were asked to come back to the same hotel by 6 in the evening, so that the return journey may start soon. So the mafia decided to explore Thirumala a bit before joining the darshan queue. Exploring included eating samosas, idlis etc.. on the top of the hill. While enjoying the exploration, the fuhrer realised that he left his tickets down hill in the bus. He called the organisers. They picked up the call and summoned him down hill. The fuhrer ordered us to join the queue while he went down and got his ticket. The worst of the fears had come true. The mafia  was broken. We were all no longer together.

Scene 9:
The mafia entered the queue separated from their leader. They felt some force is strongly testing the mafia, like they show in the sati-savitri kind of movies. For the first time in the history of mafia, the mafia began to pray for their victory over the evil forces. The mafia never prayed for its victory. Its victory is sort of a law of nature. Stationary queues again and, the coordinates of the only open space in the entire domain of the free darshan ticket holders was occupied by mafia members. Evil forces at work ; it started raining. Quite heavily again. The mafia prayed harder. God's not listening. The mafia prayed that their leader be not affected by rain. They prayed that he gets his tickets and joins the rest soon. They prayed for the victory of unity of mafia over the evil.

They prayed prayed and prayed, well, that will be an exaggeration! What really happened was, they prayed, some times forgot the fact that their fuhrer went missing, and prayed when they remembered it again, got drenched, explored ways of drenching other people - not being able to digest the fact that the only people being drenched were the mafia, shouted Govinda Govinda, and finally kept moving forward in the queue for the next 4 hours. They prayed, got darshan, came out and found their fuhrer following them.

Victory . God heard the prayers, or evil gave up or whatever. Mafia won, providing no opportunity for the opportunists to disprove the natures law that mafia always wins. As in nature follows it; how can anyone want to change it?

Scene 10:

The fuhrer on the other hand, took a ride down hill; went to the hotel, woke  the driver up, got his tickets from inside the bus, took a bus uphill- realised buses go slower and he should take a ride again; got down the bus and took a ride half way down the up-hill; took shelter in some shady place while it started raining, took the same bus that he left for the want of a faster journey, paid 25 more bucks , came uphill; and joined a moving queue in some shady place again, not wetting a single part of his body.

Well, the rest of the mafias prayers have been answered. The fuhrer won over the evil forces.  As said in a famous movie, 'when a good friend fails it hurts, when he gets the first rank- it hurts more'. The fact that the fuhrer, didnot even experience an iota of our pain, hurt us more.

Anyhow, declared the fuhrer ' we are all together; that is the bottom line'


Scene 11:
With an unfinished agenda which shall be explained in a moment, the mafia rushed back to the hotel well before 6 pm (taking laddus ofcourse). Mafia had boycotted the dinner session at the hotel following the mornings disaster and inspired by the agenda. Sharp at 5.50, mafia occupied all the good seats in the bus, leaving all the dripping ones to the other batch. Well, that was the agenda. Also, the best solution to any  problem is, you not being a part of the problem itself.  That is one more of mafia's principles. So now the technical problem of water dripping has been effectively solved by the mafia, by it not being a part of the problem itself.

Also, the mafia's principle of 'guests first' has not been compromised because after so many interactions, the other batch no longer qualified as guests. Having enjoyed their dinner, the other batch walked into the bus rubbing their tummies, just to find that all good seats have been occupied. They protested. They didnot want to travel anymore. The mafia was adamant too. We were ready to unleash our fuhrers terror on them (by getting physical as he promised on some other occasion). Sensing that the situation might really need him to get physical, the fuhrer proposed a compromise equation, to which the other batch agreed. This involves 2 people from our side and 2 people from their side sharing the bad seats.

Scene 12:

Soon after  the return journey began, the AC in the bus stopped working- no longer qualifying it as an AC bus. On the brighter side, the water also stopped dripping, because there was no AC. Further into the journey, the bus stopped working. 'ENGINE FAIL', announced the driver.

In the forests of Pakala, the mafia thought they'll be spending the rest of their life. Good thing is ' we are all together', announced the fuhrer yet again.

Scene 13:
The engine repair took some 2 hours. The mafia was counting the number of buses on the highway, enjoyed Ghalib singing, and thought it should head out on a forest night out some day in the future. After the repair, the mafia got inside the bus and got to the institute at around 2 in the night, when even Basera closed. They ate the laddus to satisfy their hunger, and the fuhrer closed the trip by remarking, ' God's with us. And we are all together. That is the bottom line'

Scene 14:

A week after that the BBB from scene 2 was fired. So, something good for Baille to take home. But his labor still continued and continues.
Muski was spared from getting bumps, because the rest were afraid of him getting physical. Well, to tell the truth, the rest were afraid that the impact of some ordinary leg on his bum can make him fly away

Scene 15:
Mafia ruled ever after. Fuhrer kept remarking that we are all together and that is the bottom line.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Long time, no cribs. Well, Baille left the institute, Sayan very busy as a coass- and about me, there is nothing meta that took priority in this long gap. But this time, I would like to crib- more out of helplessness; I am not going to inspire anybody by presenting my case here, but I'll just let my frustration go away. Anyways, for the big guys who sit in DISCO's and who take decisions, how do my views matter? They are big guys after all, who want to prove their might by punishing the people who donot have the right to speak, the dumb ones- I mean. Apparently they are legally eligible to do so. Big guys, again- who cares about legality and eligibility. Big guys, again and again- logic and justness, huh- just forget it.

Let us go back to taking my frustration away. A humble beginning in this direction would be to call these 'Big guys', idiots- really big idiots. So ladies and gentlemen- let us begin the story:

Once upon a time there were four males, lets call them D1, D2, D3 and D4 because they were all dumb and didnot have voices that somebody would care to listen to. All of them along with a female lead in the story, were traveling in a train. A bit of qualification to the train, it is an Indian train in which there is no distinction between female toilets and male toilets.

Now the interesting part. Female lead L, went inside the bathroom and locked it, or may be she forgot to lock it. How does it matter? Let us not play the blame game of blaming L for not ensuring that her bathroom door was closed. At that time, D1, D2 wanted to pee and D3 was somewhere near the door. Very coincidentally they found out that the bathroom door was open. This was their first mistake. No problem- we can put the entire blame on D1, D2 and D3 because they are dumb and they are males! They went back to their seats and told their finding to the very closest of their friends. This was their second mistake. They should have acted not-human and suppressed their tendency of sharing it with good friends. Because gossip mongering, I suppose is a human tendency and I swear by God that people who taught me professional ethics (the science of it, I mean) told me that rumors spread fast.Apparentely it's proved and all. If you donot believe me please contact Dr.Sreekumar. So let us rephrase their second mistake: being the pioneering 'spreaders' of the rumor.

So why is D4 dumb then? What was his mistake? Well, he along with D5 to DN (all less important characters) was a part of a game in which friends sing songs to generally mock the behavior/characteristics of other friends- all male. Our female lead 'felt' they were mocking her. Shh...before you could reach any conclusion- it is not at all her fault. Why should these people sing songs which indicated an extremely unlikely possibility, nevertheless a possibility, of her being mocked? Ofcourse, it was D4's mistake.Tomorrow if the girl dreams that she is going to be stabbed by D4, he needs to be jailed. She 'dreamt' she's going to be stabbed. It is far beyond doubt, a great threat to her life.

This girl complained to the big idiots and the case has been registered under 'sexual harassment'. Btw, 'sexual harassment' is a phrase in some native African language, that has a deep meaning attached to it, and all the above mentioned mistakes qualify as 'sexual harassment'.

As already said, this is the chance for the big idiots to prove their might. Ofcourse they donot have the balls to speak out on some real issue of sexual harassment- incase it happens somewhere. But here they need to deliver a judgment, that should set a precedent for the non-repetition of such incidents. So, they conducted a disco, a biased one. Our female lead complained to the disco some 1 week after these incidents have happened. So the big idiots have assumed D1-D4 would have really troubled the female lead all throughout this week- actually adhering to the english sense of the word ' harassment'. Well, idiotic assumptions and rumors in their case is justifiable. It's after all, human nature! The bias began much before the hearing. For some strange reason, the burden of proof was on the dumb people. Just that they didnot know what they needed to prove; rather disprove.

Well, the twist in the story comes here. Our female lead is ofcourse smarter than the dumb guys. Perhaps that's what I meant by calling them dumb. She copied in an exam and adeptly got away with it. The dumb guys were too dumb or perhaps too altruistic to grab their chance, and they will wait throughout their lives for the female lead to realise their altruism- reestablishing their dumbness. Ofcourse smarter mistakes and the smarter ones go unpunished. The dumber ones compensate for them. There is by the way a law of conservation of punishments, especially those given by such DISCO's.


The judgement will come soon. The idiots know that IIT students follow Gandhian way of protest, perhaps blogging like this, and are too weak to beat them up, unlike in other local colleges. Gandhian ways obviously donot impact adamant egoistic fools. They are legally eligible to mess up with people's lives on the name of creating precedents.

And hence, I rest my case here.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Finally the META TRIP is over. The much awaited event for an institute metallurgist, the paid holiday, the booze carnival, the meta-bonding not to mention the educational trip got over. Was it fun? Hell yes. And for all those who were busy getting their cousins to marry or working on their vote banks or the most stupid of them all, busy with the “over” burden of courses, I wish I could say this trip could have been more fun if you were there too. But sorry guys, I am just not the kind of guy who fibs to make a few little happy. And to juniors remember 'There is no such thing called free booze'

Here we post a few pics of the trip ...

and the trippy ones


And the one not from the trip but mafia was warned not to post pre-elections ..tada


Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Mafia in the elections !

Mafia tried its hands in the institute elections. Result: Huge margins of victories and a non-male unan BC (NUBC). Apart from the serious side of the elections, there have been some lighter moments that the contestants and the campaigners had. A few of them are here. Additions can be made to this:

1. Our NUBC goes to a certain amalgam core to put him fundaes on what he intends to do as the BC. At that time the core was taking a holy bath (a bath after nobody knows how long). NUBC walks straight into the bogs and calls out the core's name. Reply he gets from inside: 'Fuck you'. Thus started his successful attempts of making himself unan.
2. The mafia contestant's letter to the dean describing and regretting his inability to attend the Jamshedpur trip reads:
'Dear sir,
Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am afraid I may have to drop the Jamshedpur trip.' !!!
3. A mafia campaigner while campaigning for a contestant: This guy is the most amazing guy in the entire institute. Put Shaastra in his hands and he'll make it interesting.
4. This is a GTalk conversation between two of the mafia campaigners immediately after the results are out.
Camp 1: He won
Camp 2: Aa?? How come? Who says?
5. A mafia contestant runs into one of his two opponents, (initially he had two opponents, Lays and Pappey) and starts speaking to him. At the end of the conversation, he bids good bye to him and asks..'OK. What about Lays?'
His opponent replies 'I am Lays.'
6. A mafia contestant (MC 1) after his landslide victory goes with sweet packet to meet the empty head (EH). Here's how the conversation happens:
MC 1: Sir, I won the AAS election. Here's the sweet.
EH: Oh, congrats. Btw, what is AAS (EH was once upon a time a 6/5 in IITM, meta)
MC1: AAS...Hmm, sir, MC2 won as the co-aas.
EH: Bulb bulb bulb.

Monday, October 22, 2007

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

The professors want to call it a student mutiny. But, the mafia calls it 'the first war for justice'. A war between ego and enthusiasm, callousness and human rights, tyranny and freedom. The ways of the mutiny were Gandhian. But who had ever expected the professors to be worse tyrants than the white men who ruled us 60 years ago? Who had expected the role of the ego factor, a natural consequence of the doctorate degree, in the incidents to follow.
The mafia said 'why not make the allotment as it was all along the previous years?' The tyrant said 'I am the tyrant. I make my rules.' His sycophants started digging out for logic in the decision. The students pleaded:'Take our interests into consideration', thus exposing the big hollow in the so-called research interests of the tyrant and his sycophants. This boosted the ego factor of the professors. They said ' Screw the subjects. They have insulted us.' The subjects had no other way to go but to voice out the protest and protest. This resulted in all the more improvement in the ego factor of the tyrant and his boot-lickers. The students said, 'We didnot mean to hurt you. We just wanted to say we are against your policies.' This further enraged them. But this time they resorted to thinking. History proved that Gandhian ways have always yielded results. The tyrant and his sycophants wanted to water the mutiny. They played the divide and rule game. They said 'we will allow for horse trading.' This split up the students as self-interests come before the community interests or long term interests. Slowly, the yielding began. The revolt shattered. The repressed souls compromised. History also proved that the divide and rule policy never failed. The rebellion was watered.
As if what happened was not enough, there followed an aftermath, like how Germany had to sign treaties after losing world war 1. The professors played 'offense is the best defence' game. They started reading the interest coefficients of the students in terms of the delay made in starting the project (as though they were not a party to it) and embarrassed them. The students ,now under the complete mercy of the professors, could say nothing. The sycophants blamed the students, turning their bravery in fighting injustice as something illegal. One of the aged boot-lickers commented,'he had never seen a batch as fussy as this one in his experience of 40 years, again subtly shirking his and his colleagues' responsibility in the fuss that happened.'
Ultimate result: Ego won over enthusiasm, indeed killed it and filled it with apathy. And, then there were novel discussions about, why is there an increasing apathy towards the branch. Funny, isn't it?
However, a few facts remain and even the professors know them(though they never accept them).
1.Horizons of the department expand, not merely by changing its name.
2. Interest in something needs to be created, not enforced.
3. It may be good to the society if atleast sometimes the preachers of the Bhagavad Gita and Art of Living, try to follow them.
4. If E.Chaitanya lost his interest to app, if Shanti hated the department all the more, if Tingtong gave up on the department, if more than 60% of the students are not apping in a dept with nice app prospects, it is thanks to our dear professors.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

The kingdom of Aiaitee flourished on the banks of river Daryaa, during the nanolithic age.The subjects of the kingdom were exposed to novel concepts like democracy, fraternity, freedom so on and so for. There were also divisions and subdivisions in the society, owing to its huge size.The people could be broadly classified into two communities: Taff and Tudent, Taff being the more privileged section. Privileged meaning, their voice would ultimately prevail in any decision making. People in other kingdoms used to envy these, looking at their prosperity. They wanted to emulate these people in any respect. Aiaiteeans, as their society may be called, was an ideal society.They were rich in business, science,technology, sports, entertainment, and above all brains and muscles.The birth of a new idea or a concept or a game or a strategy could be traced back to this kingdom.
The subdivisions of the tudent community were based on their geography and intellectual capacity. Geography as a factor, the community was divided into 16 provinces, and intellectual capacity as a factor, the division was into 16 classes again. People used to show greater patriotism towards their province than towards their class. However, people of the Tema class stood as an exception for this. The diversity among the Temakars was obvious. They had the giants to protect their class from external intrusions, they had cute little tiny people. They had the literary pundits who represent the kingdom, they had people who can sing for the kingdom, they had people who can play and they had the most influential people in the kingdom. With such a diversity, they all were really chauvinistic. Ask them,' who are you'; the reply would be 'I am a Temakar (to be read as meta rocks)'
The administration in the kingdom demonstrated a perfect example of a federal fabric. So, in this regard, once upon a time, elections were being conducted to the various classes. People would elect their leader, though a secret ballot; actually a technologically advanced secret ballot called the 'Moctuperised secret ballot.' Elections were perhaps the only time when the temkars show some split up; for it is a natural human tendency of conceit dominating the feeling of unity. So, the time had come for the temakars to choose their leader, popularly called a councillor, for he would be a member of the tudent representative council.Almost everybody thought they were eligible for the post, and hence wanted to file their nomination. But this was the time when a bunch of good samaritans who have grouped themselves as the tema amafi (meaning the protectors of tema in a local indian language called creeta) had to come into the action. They were there to ensure the sanctity of the class. They were there to ensure that people donot deviate from the very principles which the class symbolises. Their ways were non violent. They were Gandhians. Their involvement, boiled down the number of contestants to three, the giant and the other one and the other other one; two of them from a province by name Patati and the other one from Maaja. One of them had the credentials of working on the commercial aspects of the class' development. The other one had had the credentials of having extensively worked on the technical aspects of the class' development. The other other one, because of his gargantuan size was one of the two pillars of the class' security.
So, there promised an interesting battle on cards, purely democratic and completely in the purview of the tema's principles. The tema amafi was a neutral spectator, though individually the members had some opinions. Then started politics. One of them claimed he was the best, the other one said the other one may be the best but this one was the god.Another one ruled out these claims saying those two were blowhards. Everybody wanted the support of the tema amafi. One of them who didnot want a competition, as he claimed, wanted the other two withdraw their nominations. Being in the same province as that of the kingdom's political bigwigs, the pamaris, he didnot want to waste a chance. The Pamari factor is a huge political factor in the kingdom. People who garner the support from the pamari group would definitely win the election. The pamaris obliged and guaranteed their help to this one. Consequence being an immediate withdrawal of the nomination of the other Patati contestant. The tema amafi was a silent spectator. It was watching the happenings. 'He is a compliant person. Having got carried away by the provincial patriotism he declined to contest against me,'said the other one.The tema amafi recorded this statement. It guessed it all, though. So, the other one had one more job to do. Make the other other one, withdraw the nomination. Some trials have been made, and the other other one complained to the tema amafi that the other one in an informal meeting of horse trading said he was useless and anyway going to lose the elections. But the latter didnot want to take a chance, hence wanted this one to withdraw. The amafi recorded this statement too.'If these are true, they are ridiculous bugaboos. Be defiant. You are eligible to contest decided the amafi', said the amafi.
The manifestos have been made and the contestants started reading them out. While one of them was too shy to speak out his credentials, the other one was too banal in his speech. 'If he is so shy to speak out about himself, how can he represent the class?' said the people about the other one; and about the other other one, 'Not really efficient', these ones being too less in number compared to the other ones. It is all a number game and finally ended in 97-27, the pamari factor definitely showing it influence. As a matter of trivia, the factor also had shown its pronounced effect on the prospects of a member of amafi, who contested in the elections to the tudent community as such; for the amafi didnot take any sides and didnot heed to the pamari's pressures.
And then came the good days when the temas again stood as an icon for unity; whence the councillor announced that the portfolio for foreign trade, a very important post indeed, would go to the other other other one who had to forfeit the councillor post because of provincial patriotism. Yes, the amafi guessed it.

Disclaimer: The meta mafia doesnot claim any responsibility in case the readers decipher this post and understand it completely.
Credits: This post was inspired by a certain anonymous' (whom the writer knows) article on the insti elections to 'Sabre', the official narmad magazine in the academic year 2004-'05.