A Different Ghatam

   The writer is a self-obsessed, narcissistic egoist with a lot of time at his disposal. He takes pride in Googling his own name (at first) and later fine tuning his search keywords (a lot of times) so that he can check out his own facebook profile or blog in the search results, thereby deriving great pleasure from it.

   For instance, if you Google "Prasannaa Venkatesh", it reports a spelling error, courtesy my mom's numerous numerology experiments (Double 'n' and double 'a' does it). Of course, the search and image results point out to various namesakes who a)have either accomplished a lot more than me b) are Mudhaliar/Iyer boys on matrimony c) are simply jobless wannabes, managing multiple profiles in various social networking sites. I'm nowhere.

  "Prasannnaa Venkatesh Pot" would have also lead to ego demolition if Google+ hadn't been owned by Google and therefore not entitled to show up first in the results. Disappointed and hurt, I typed "Pot Jamming Sessions" and prayed for some spirit uplifting. The result was entirely unexpected.        

"A blog's a pot jamming session waiting to happen..."

   Jubilant cries of victory ricocheted off the small walls of my room as I thumped the air, looking at a page which seemed to be appreciating my blog. I couldn't believe that my blog was actually being perceived as an epitome, a benchmark which other collegiate blogs would follow and strive to achieve. I read on eagerly.

   The paragraph continued, "... The one who's gonna light, is the one who will care enough to get the OCB, the raw materials, the stuff..."

Wait, What?

"The one who lights, who gets the raw material is the blogger. The raw material is the blog content. The blog is passed on... If you try reading some other post, it's a beauty overdose. And so it follows..."

   I would probably get arrested if I print any more of that shit. It took quite some Googling of those 'technical terms' to understand that the idiot was talking of a whole different pot altogether and not the Ghatam and definitely, definitely not my blog. It's like being put through The Total Perspective Vortex in The Hitchhiker's Guide. I guess it took me the mother of all coincidences to figure out that simply put, I was not the center of the bloody universe. Injured but enlightened, I sat down to study ES-I.   

Catharsis

   So the mess rep/sec elections took place with a number of fretting and fuming batch-mates, having been forced out of their afternoon slumber by candidates and cronies, coming out to vote. The first years were cursing them too, but very, very quietly. And I was at my irritated best, or worst, whichever way you want to put it. But yes, I did exercise my right and did do my part to keep this democratic farce's flag flying high. Anyway, my wingie won. He didn't treat us for it, but promised us better food, which was the need of the hour. The mess food was never something to write home about, and there is only a limited amount of jaggery-laced Sambhar, artificially colored Dhal and poisoned cabbage sabji which one's system can take without going V for Vendetta over it.
   As I was walking down the corridor, I saw the newly elected mess-rep crouched, squinting at his computer screen over a word document, a couple of friends around him. "Areyaar, naya menu bana raha hoon. Items Batha", he said. His friends nodded, fixing their gaze at me. "What do you think I should change?" he asked me, jovially. "I would rather you maintain status quo and I crib about it for the whole year", I replied.
Multiply that statement by 675 million registered voters. Whoa.
    I'm not trying to get the reader all guilty or something over here. It's just that I felt cool for making that supposedly apathetic, indifferent statement and later felt bad for feeling cool about it later, when the next day's paper arrived. In any case, the food is better than SV mess, where its either cabbage all the way or a week's worth of Aloo, Paneer, Aloo-Paneer, Paneer-Aloo and Aloo-Aloo and other contorted permutations which only Descartes can think of.
   Hey, Google has changed Blogger's interface. It looks all Google plus-esque now and is supposed to be neater and cleaner. Of course, If you have learnt anything about the writer from the lines above, its that he did not like change at all and immediately wanted his old interface back so that he could crib about it.
I paused. I thought about it.
  Poor Google, trying so many new things. Trying so hard to bring about change. In its products, in its brand and in its image.
  I kept the new interface.You're welcome.