Making a mountain of molehill

" Hurry along nithin", my mom sounded impatiently.I was standing rooted to the spot not knowing what to be done.The street seemed deserted which was not unusual considering it was a sunday and it so happened to be the Boxing day, day after Christmas.I looked at my watch 11:30 am ,December 26 2004..I had been having a quite holiday till that morning when the news of tsunami striking the coast flashed all over the television screens.My mom had asked me to accompany her to foreshore estate, which had been affected by the tsunami.So midway through we had to abandon and return.It was then i caught sight of that man talking over his cell-phone animatedly his voice carrying through in the morning breeze. " Yes ,MRC nagar is flooded,people are scampering for shelter;running helter-skelter"..I was bewildered.What on earth is that guy blabbering about, spreading wrong information???

Nevertheless i moved on to keep pace with my mother heading home. A few days later i was relating this incident to my relatives and we were laughing about it. What a great joke that man would have played on his listener.But what consequence it would have had ? This minced-off information would have changed hands many times and someone residing in some far distant place would have been told " whole chennai is wiped out in the tidal wave".Thankfully such a rumor would be too far-fetched and be rubbished thanks to the awareness created by a "responsible" section of the Visual media .

Imagine living in such a world; no news media no internet.Let us hypothesize,the only way to reach out to others is through a human chain.Now researchers have said that it is possible to associate any 2 persons living across the globe by means of 5 intermediate persons.I would nt want to assess the soundness of this theory.But if this were to be true , then there is a possibility( or probabilty) of the information being skimmed off at every link.Thus the chopped off message would have a high probability of being 100 percent contradictory to what was intended.How outlandish???

I am reminded of a comedy scene from a tamil movie starring vadivelu.He plays the role of a desperate bachelor trying to get himself chained( wedded lol...).He will ask someone for a " chombu( jug) of water".That guy would in-turn inform another that" mappillai chombu kekkararu".This minced off information would be further hashed " mappillai chombu kodutha thaan thaaliya kattuvar" ..What would have eventually transpired is but anyone's imagination.The poor bride groom would again be left in the lurch after receiving a proper thrashing..lol..

Perhaps the best rumor mills which has ever existed till now is the one doing the rounds in the

field of show- biz and the tinsel town.Every now and then we hear of a Tom Cruise jumping the couch on Oprah Winfrey, lambasting at a Brooke Shields or an Aamir Khan writing about his dog named Shah Rukh or Little Superstar Simbu opening on his personal life and Nayanthara.Hardly a day passes before they come up with an explanation or an apology that they have never castigated or that they have been misquoted by some " Sections of the media"...phew...Gossips and Page-3 news sell like hot cakes.what better way to rake in the moolah other than rumor mills which churns out spicy tittle-tattle..

Everything is funny until it happens to us.When stories of mole-hills turning into mountains happen in our personal lives, what eventually stems up is disasterous.Personal relations are strained ,images are shattered and good-will is lost;sometimes forever.A single out of context remark or a misplaced adjective can have a catastrophic effect....How many text messages we would have received alluding to some bull-shit and tall claims with request for subsequent forwards to others.So the next time you receive a dubious SMS , ponder for a while if you are ready to partake in a larger conspiracy(lol ..as i would prefer to label it) before believing and forwarding it to others.....

First year in college

Having finished my first year engineering exams i sit back and let my mind wander on the changes and transitions that have occured ever since the time i left school 15 months ago.I am quite surprised to discover how much i have changed since then.One year in college has given me enough freedom and exposure to a mutlitude of things.Exactly 12 months ago i was at cross-roads.I wasnt sure of my future then.I took up a course thinking it was where my interest was,quite like most of my counterparts.It is not that i regret that choice,but the past one year has made me realise our insight into certain things are short sighted.


I find that the transition from school to college is quite discernible and maybe it could be attributed to the freedom that is given in my college.There are a few colleges where life is worse than in a military jail, whose students are subjected to so many silly rules and restrictions that even lamenting about the same is stale.Some of these rules include a blanket ban on boys-girls interaction.The plea given by the management of these colleges is that such interactions are an unhealthy trend , students would go wayward resulting in unpleasant incidents.I wonder how such students would be able to face the real world,stepping out of college landing themselves in their first job.In today's scenario where more importantly than the academic record and personal intelligence,the ability to coalesce with colleagues is of paramount importance.Now this being a post on my college life, i dont want to deviate much.However I am grateful to my college for not imposing such meaningless rules on us till now.This made me realize how much valuable freedom my college gives us,expecting us to utilize it discreetly.I do agree too much freedom would spoil students.However one must understand that freedom always comes with a price and this is responsibility.People may or would have fallen by the wayside.Anyways certain lessons in life are better learnt the hard way and they stay forever isnt that so??


Beyond all this serious talk, college has provided me a new environment and a chance to meet new people,friends and acquaintances.I remember how one fine monday evening last august,i was returning home in the college bus after the Orientation Programme ,i was summoned by the seniors to the last row of seats in the bus.I shuddered at the thought of being ragged.There was mild ragging which included singing,speaking punch dialogues,proposing to a fellow first year girl (She rejected it obviously..lolz...) etc.This sort of ragging continued for quite a few weeks and i was initially apprehensive of this.But soon it dawned on me that all this ragging was done only to acquaint the juniors with the seniors .My seniors were really responsible people and never once did they indulge in the excesses that we hear of in medical colleges and IITs ,time and again.

The past one year in college has brought me more friends and acquaintances than my high school life.I would rather say i was able to come out of a shell to which i was withdrawn into during my high school days .It was not that i was a loner in school, but my circle of contacts were quite limited to my closest friends. In any relationship small squabbles and petty misunderstandings are bound to arise and i have had my small share of them with a few of my friends. But i have learnt that it is possible and necessary to shed my ego whenever and wherever mandatory.However i feel i have kind of not performed upto my potential on the academic front and surely i do have a few regrets about them.Here again i have beffitingly learnt my lesson and i now look forward to correct myself in the upcoming semesters.Most important than anything else i feel i have quite matured a lot and grown up as a person.I am no longer the bleary eyed school kid , i am now filled with some kind of purpose.I have three more golden years to spend alongside my friends in college and i am eagerly looking forward ......

Board Exams

As we are into the last week of february(this year blessed with an extra day) it is examination time again.The public examinations for class 10 and class 12 students will commence from the first week of march.For thousands of students across the country,this is the lifeline and holds the key to a better future.It is the time of the year when quite a lot of students would be facing examination blues.As i am writing this, my mind travels back in time to last year when i was in a similar situation about to sit for my class 12 examinations.I remember how much i had slogged hard( though i cant really say i burned the midnight oil..). I had used my study holidays effectively, paying equal attention to all the subjects so my preparation was upto the expected level.However i was nervous like any other student and i recall how little sleep i managed the day before the first exam( physics!!). The next morning my eyes were red from lack of sleep and spent a few anxious moments before the breakfast worrying if i would drop down asleep while writing the examination(lol). After reaching the examination center, i was surprised to find out many of my friends had experienced sleeplessness the previous night.

After the customary prayer and the last minute brushing n reviewing of concepts,graphs and formulae we proceeded into the exam hall. The question papers were distributed and we were given extra 15 minutes in the beginning ,for going through the paper. This was and is a open gift to all the students and helps in simmering down the tension. Ten minutes into scanning the paper i had worked out the the way i was going to answer the most of the questions.There wasnt any big surprise in the question paper and the questions were of the expected standard;neither very difficuilt nor very easy.The two practise papers which i had solved prior to the exam helped me to manage my time effectively and i managed to finish the paper with 15 minutes to spare.Coming out of the exam hall i became aware of the glaring mistakes i had made in the paper. I was a bit disappointed with myself for i had put in good efforts.

It was time for me to move on and i was more than happy to put physics out of my mind for the time being. I still had four more to go.The next exam was chemistry and there were 4 days for the preparation.There was just about sufficient time for me to complete studying( i had wasted a lot of time!!!) .However i found the paper to be like a stroll in the park(!!).From that moment i had only maths to think about which was the fourth one.Meanwhile english exam got over and the ICC world cup had commenced.From that moment my attention had drifted from maths to cricket. Analysing the scorecards and the statistics had taken maths out of my mind; more than half way through the study holidays( 13 !!)i started preparing sincerely wishing it gets over soon. Maths was again very easy and by that time Team India had been knocked out of the world cup .Four exams were over and the last one was computer science .There was a break of 2 weeks in between ,and it proved to be quite counter productive. I spent majority of the 2 weeks in attending classes for entrance examinations( which i regret doing now!)that it was only towards the fag end i started preparing anything.The break seemed to drag on forever and finally the exam got over.For me it was the end of an ordeal , 35 days from the commencement.I was no longer a school kid anymore and i had a wonderful summer to look forward to or so it seemed.....