My phone - The I-phone!

There! I've said it aloud. Now don't mock at me for announcing that my greatest fantasy is not some Hollywood celebrity woman with pink lips. Its the I-phone. To make things worse, the I-phone just got released in India. Unfortunately for me, the price is a little high for my budget. I am exactly a 30,870 rupees short. Fine yes, I have only a hundred and thirty bucks in my wallet, and I owe a couple of friends frugal amounts too. I was helpless. See, when the I-phone 3-G came out in the international market, it cost a little less that dirt. In today's rate of dollar conversion, it came to somewhere around nine thousand. I was like 'Whoa, that phone's mine'. I took all the massive price drop, stock exchange, dollar depreciation and all into account and calculated the Indian market's price to be close to atleast ten grand. And then it all happened.


Vodafone and Airtel are cheats! They promised the world's equivalent of goodies, but they never said they would take half your inherited fortune in return. The prices speak for themselves. A whopping 31,000 bucks for the 8GB and just a five grand extra for doubling your memory space. You Oh-so-clever people, now who will even go for the 8GB one? They would always pay that extra surplus and get the 16GB one. Extra revenue for those fashionable Indian tycoons. They should have just informed us that the I-phone's entry would be only for those Forbes India Money Minters' hot daughters and punk sons. The normal humans like us can keep fantasizing. And how!


The standard nation wide survey conducted by M.P.P (Murali's Poll Plaza. Its an international critically acclaimed psychological survey scheme that scans people's faces and deduces answers. Its 97% accurate.) shows that 80% of all I-phone users do not have any clue about 70% of the I-phone's applications. This point, yes this very point shows why people have money and they don't know what to do with it. Lets take a quick example. This business magnate whose name I refuse to mention, was one of the first who queued up to buy the I-phone. (It was actually his driver who stood in the queue all night, but this guy just took his place in the morning to pose for the daily papers.) He picked up the phone, unwrapped it so quickly like one of those toy-train sets to eight year olds, and then switched it on. The glee on his face spoke for itself. Then the stand up comedy started.

1. Muthu, where is that pen thingy which you press on the screen with? (He was referring to the stylus, which the I-phone does not provide.)

2. How do I make a call? The green button is not there! (To which the driver said 'It needs activation saab')

3. Can I atleast play games? Where is Snake? (Three onlookers were giggling so loudly, they could hardly suppress themselves.)


Then the man left, much to the relief of the Airtel office staff. This is why I wonder how money saturates in the hands of people who never know what to do with it. They either buy fancy cars, bikes or gadgets which they can never imagine complete utilization out of, or stock it in banks and multiply the amounts so they can start wondering what to do with it afresh. I really hope Dad increases my pocket money. If I start saving by tomorrow, maybe by 8017, I would have bought the I-phone. Donations are welcome.

The Educational Block.

The title is supposed to be an intended pun. They built a brand new block for our department. Its huge, tall, spacious, breezy, attractive and unfortunately far far away. Its already quite a mess that we study in an institution that is placed a comfortable 38 kilometers outside the city limits. Now they want us to walk inside the campus too. We did not deserve this. They promised us air-conditioned labs, spacious classrooms, stunning architecture, great upholstery and a whole new approach to technical education. They just chose to hide the own blatant fact that could generate oodles of anger and frustration from an already disgusted batch of students. They built the block a mile away from the bus stop, a mile away from the canteen, and the biggest blow to this huge mishap - a glad two and a half miles from the main college gate. For all those foodaholic obesity endorsing KFC loving friends of mine, their attendance just took a bullet to the temple. They choose to bunk college rather than walk the extra mile which brings about disastrous after-effects like elongated classroom sleep and cruciating ankle and joint pains.


I do not blame my college. I can't do so anymore. If there were any more accusations that I could file, the book would be fatter than the bible. Sometimes if there is too much of something, you just wouldn't know what to do. In the case of my college, its area. Acres and acres of land are stagnating in and around, they just don't know what to do with it all. So they hatch a cunning ingenious plan - Start scores of new courses, build huge blocks in far away locations, and let the students walk to their misery. The block is just a fancy looking three-storeyed-so-far brick and concrete structure, with six acres of barren land for neighbors. Occasionally cows come right into the block, establish proof of their digestion and walk out with elan. Amidst all this, we students fight our way to grab some amount of education.


The block is not even completely constructed yet. There is still work going on, and occasional lectures are interrupted by deafening sounds and crunching noises that come as a boon to both the students and the lecturers. The lecturers, with no clue what they were teaching, could cover up saying they had said it right and that we had heard it wrong. The students cash in on the opportunity to slyly gossip amongst themselves and call the teachers names, with no worries about being questioned for the same. Sadly, there is a minor glitch to the whole plan. Just when you think you have come up with the coolest comment about the teacher, and you are yelling your heart out like you are atop a lighthouse, all the construction work will suddenly stop. Not just one or two of them; All of them! And your voice will echo all around the classroom with that sense of pride and establishment while the dumbfounded teacher will stare at your face like it were made of pure spotless gold. The rest, is all but a few breezy walks to the dean's desk and back.


Altogether the department has not gotten a makeover or gained a touch of class, as they promised us. It has just moved a few hundred meters away, is just as bad as ever and has only managed to generate a lot more dirt than it usually did. It was usually just in our brains, but now they are emphasizing it by showing live samples outside our block. It sure sounds like fun, to walk a mile a day. But for people with already caving in figures, and minimal enthusiasm to institutional education, this block is proving to be quite a block for and to academics. They misunderstood the phrase 'The Journey to Education'. God help them!