Hot N Cold

In case you are expecting to read something about the song “Hot N Cold” here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_N_Cold. In other words, this blog is not about how Katy Perry chose her costumes or why she chose to ride a bicycle when chasing the guy in the song. This post is about, well, read on.

Relativity applies to physics, not ethics” – Albert Einstein. Not that I consider myself wise enough to debate Einstein’s view, but I really don’t think ethics is not relative. In general everything is relative, in my opinion. Now, this is not some theory I made up sitting at home with nothing to do but ponder upon life. I am too sleepy for that kind of thought process. It was something I learned the hardest possible way, through physical agony, psychological defeat and wet eyes.

It was a sunny day and the plan was to go around the city with my cousins on motor bikes. They had some things to do across the city and I had nothing to do at home.

Just before we started,

Cousin 1: “It is too hot and humid today.”

Me:”Hey, common. Don’t be that tender. I have lived in far humid places and never felt a thing.”

Cousin 2: “Yeah, try not to change your opinion by this evening.”

Me: Silly boy! See for yourself

Two hours later:

I was soaked from head to toe in sweat. My cousin was not to miss the chance and he retorted, “Everything is relative. You may be used to humid places but it only means that it takes a little longer for you to feel tired under the sun.”

It was time for lunch and we decided to eat at a place that was pretty much nondescript. All of us ordered fried rice. Just when the waiter was about to leave, we all shouted after him, extra spicy. We were all pretty sure we could handle spices and that this was not relative but absolute. My cousin told me that every rule had an exception and that everything was not relative. We all could eat up practically anything no matter how spicy it was. We were all men, you see.

We started eating the fried rice and soon after the third spoonful of rice I ordered the good old coca cola. It was unbearably spicy but I did not show it on my face (Ever heard of ego?). I had to find a solution and hence I ordered coke. A while later we all had finished half a bottle of coca cola each. On the other hand only a third of the rice was gone. We did not talk any more. We were staring at each other and I could see their ears go red. Yet no one spoke a word. We did not admit it was damn HOT!

Napkins were fast moving commodities on our table too. My eyes and nose leaked water with the heat. My throat was confused with the hot rice and cold coke. A gulp of the damn spicy rice and 50 ml of ice cold coca cola was making my throat go numb. My stomach made noises as it was screaming at me stop.

One of my cousins was almost crying and the other one was already half into his second bottle of coca cola. The waiter had to restock the napkins and water frequently. We could not keep our mouths closed. To dissipate the heat we all had our mouths open. We were all rolling our eyes frequently and looked as if we were about to die. Yet we did not complain about how spicy or hot it was.

Afraid he might have to deal with dead meat in a vegetarian restaurant, the owner came to our table and placed a bowl full of sugar on our table. We forgot the whole world around us and fought like serial killers for the sugar and devoured it. Once our mouths, throats and stomachs got what they needed we looked at each other and our tears gave away all the words that we had not spoken. We went mad with relief from the sugar and we started laughing looking at each other like nobody existed around us. We fell off the chairs and literally laughed rolling on the floor, partly out of relief and partly at our stupidity.

After a while we realized that everybody in the room was looking at us and we just ate up some more sugar, paid the bill and fled the place. On our way back, we all decided that we finally found a rule that had no exception. “Everything is relative.”

I know I might be wrong in saying that everything is relative, but after what happened my brain refuses to change that opinion. With all due respect, Mr. Einstein, you are so wrong!

Two Minutes

Managing course work, working part time, living in makeshift homes, skipping breakfast and hanging out with friends are the things one would think of when referring to student life. Although these are the primary ingredients of a student’s life, it is not just limited to these. For instance, staying awake until 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. every night (or should I say morning?) is one other aspect that is so obvious and yet misses the list.

It was one such night and I was trying to study something I would rather not get into the details of (I don’t want to write a book, I am happy with just a blog). I was studying with two of my buddies and we were sweating it out for three straight hours. We had dinner that night before we started studying and yet found ourselves starving. Thinking about it now, it was probably an escape mechanism generated sub consciously as we were not able to understand a thing.

Whatever the reasons, we decided we had to eat and I rummaged through the refrigerator for food but in vain. Just three hours back we had devoured almost everything that was edible! Just when I thought my escape mechanism had failed miserably my friend found three eggs, to our delight and misery. I say delight because he found something to eat and misery because, well each of us were capable of eating at least thrice the amount of food we had found.

Something, they say is better than nothing and we began making omelets. My friend unable to stand the starvation went first and in haste he tried making an omelet with the burner at its highest and ended up making charcoal out of it. My other buddy went next and this time he had turned the burner down and yet managed to make charcoal. It was because he did not wait long enough for the pan to cool down. Anyway I went next and mysteriously instead of an omelet what I made was a rock solid tasteless piece of $#!@. It was so hard that we could not break it into three so we could eat. Anyway, the three eggs ended up in the trash and our faces were as burnt as the omelets with disgust and hunger.

I knew all along that I was bad at cooking but I could not believe I was so bad. People usually give up after failures but I was more determined than ever to cook something to eat. Or am I giving myself undue credit? Yeah, it was just that I was so hungry that I had to eat something or die! I chose the former. Fortune, it is said, favors the brave. I was brave enough to cook something and luckily I found good old noodles. On it was written what made noodles so famous: “Two Minutes”. And I thought I was the luckiest guy on earth.

I did not want my friends to spoil the simple noodles, so I told them I would cook and I did not want them in the kitchen. Reading cooking instructions was extremely silly, in my opinion. I mean how difficult can it be. Definitely not as much as what I was studying. So I just started cooking intuitively and I was done not with noodles, which I had intended to do in the first place but with noodle soup/paste/pulp which killed our appetite even before we tasted it because I had used at least five times more water than what was necessary. It turned to be a pulpy fluid which made you throw up if you looked at it for more than 10 seconds.

That is not the worst part of the story yet. I know you might find this hard to believe but the whole procedure took me 30 minutes. I was considering suing the company for falsely stating that all it took was two minutes but my friend told me it had the general public in mind when it said that and not retards who did not know how to read the instructions.

I did not go back to study that night and I went to bed because I knew what my friends would have me read first. So there is one more thing about student life that does not make it to the list: “bad cooking”. But people miss it intentionally as it is kind of embarrassing. Although people miss it, that is the first thing that comes to my mind when talking about student life. Unforgettable! I must say.