Yashas Mahajan's Blog, page 41
February 7, 2017
Word of the Week #45:
I must warn you that if you think this word is weird, you might just reading it wrong… Of course, I do not mean to say that it is not a weird word.
For one, it is classified as literary, in most modern dictionaries, whatever that is supposed to mean, and for another, we hardly ever get to read or hear it in real life, apart from certain very cliched contexts.
You know, those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.
Whatever did remind me of this word, one would wonder. Well, so do I.
January 31, 2017
Word of the Week #44:
Now, considering the current state of affairs, one would be inclined to assume this to be in response to the new POTUS’ new policies, but, well, one would be wrong.
If you had, even sporadically, been following his campaign over the past year or so, this really should not come as a surprise…
If anything, one should feel inclined to applaud him for actually sticking to his pre-poll promises, notwithstanding the repugnance one may feel towards those promises.
No, I am actually talking about the exceedingly unpleasant change of seasons bestowed upon the citizens of my hometown.
One night, you lie under your blanket, shivering, while you seek to assert your control over your bladder, only to have your right cheek singed the very next day, under the scorching sun in a manner highly reminiscent of those tight slaps you were just beginning to forget.
Yeah, we don’t get Spring… It’s a shame, really…
January 24, 2017
Word of the Week #43:
Now, isn’t this a word we’ve been hearing for years? We remember reading about it in school. CBSE even has a subject Democratic Politics dedicated entirely to the idea.
Surely, it would not be wrong to assume we would all know what the word truly represents, would it?
And, surely, it would also not to be wrong to assume that we, as a people, would strive hard to uphold the ideals our forefathers chiseled and cherished for the past centuries.
Of course, most of us have seen enough of the world to know this not to be eternally and entirely true.Now, as one watches the world in the throes of injustice, intolerance, indifference, and worst of all, ignorance, one cannot help but wonder how far we have come, as Sovereign Democratic Republic, and what lies ahead of us.
Upon the eve of our 67th Republic Day, the words of one of founding fathers comes to mind.
“On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality.
In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value.
In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value.
How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?
How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?
If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up.”
― B.R. Ambedkar
January 17, 2017
Word of the Week #42:
It is almost bizarre, if not simply incorrect, that I have not broached this topic in the past 41 weeks.
But, on the other hand, I have not really been writing, the entire time, so perhaps it does make some sense.
Nonetheless, it is a big part of being a writer. Many would agree it to be a necessary part of being a writer.
We wander the world, we watch, we listen. But one would not write facing a maddening crowd, with a bunch of buddies cheering at every successfully executed metaphor, while that one snippy guy jeered at every clumsy turn of phrase.
You know, it is a great feeling, when you are totally immersed into your work, so much so that you completely lose track of time, inadvertently end up missing your meals, and often forget the entire world around you. It is your own personal cocoon, a blissful oblivion.
It is, however, not perfect.
After all, nobody wants to be alone.
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous—to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.
—Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Other Tales
January 16, 2017
Word of the Week #41:
Okay, before we begin, I must warn you that this post is a direct reaction to the recent Sherlock episode, The Lying Detective, so if you haven’t watched it yet, well, stop reading this and go watch it.
Really, I am serious.
The post contains major, I repeat, MAJOR, spoilers…
You have been warned…
Okay, well, not many of you might know this, but over the past few years and across several online forums, I have always been identified by the name Zephyrus.
And, well, some of you might be aware that the Greek name for the personification of the West Wind.
So one can imagine my reaction when the eponymous character was revealed to have an extremely mysterious, extremely intelligent and extremely dangerous sister by the name Eurus, a.k.a. the East Wind.
Okay, it probably does not sound as cool or as creepy now than it did earlier in my own head… That is unless you are already familiar with my own sister, of course…
January 10, 2017
Word of the Week #41:
Okay, before we begin, I must warn you that this post is a direct reaction to the recent Sherlock episode, The Lying Detective, so if you haven’t watched it yet, well, stop reading this and go watch it.
Really, I am serious.
The post contains major, I repeat, MAJOR, spoilers…
You have been warned…
Okay, well, not many of you might know this, but over the past few years and across several online forums, I have always been identified by the name Zephyrus.
And, well, some of you might be aware that the Greek name for the personification of the West Wind.
So one can imagine my reaction when the eponymous character was revealed to have an extremely mysterious, extremely intelligent and extremely dangerous sister by the name Eurus, a.k.a. the East Wind.
Okay, it might probably does not sound as cool or as creepy now than it did earlier in my own head… That is unless you are already familiar with my own sister, of course…
January 3, 2017
Word of the Week #40:
So, it is our first post of the year, and it comes right snack in the middle of the winter, or whatever weak replacement we have to accommodate here in our beloved tropics…
Still, it is too cold to be complaining about that, which could make you wonder to what am I referring…
Well, to begin with, I bring your attention back to Book Two on which I am currently working, presently titled Arrkaya: Immortals, and I can say that things are beginning to heat up quite nice.
This will, in all probability, be the name of one of the chapters…
I have, by my own estimates, moved well past the halfway mark, and now that most distractions and excuses have been eliminated, I can say with some optimism that the manuscript should be complete by the end of the next month.
Of course, I cannot comment on how much longer it would take to bring it to the stores. There are far too many variables beyond my control, after all.
But anyway, why the hurry? Let us just wait for it, shall we.
Arrkaya: Immortals, coming soon…
December 27, 2016
Word of the Week #39:
Well, this might seem like an unusual word to be spoken about, on our forum.
However, a quick look at the timestamp on the post will reveal just how significant it is…
Yes, there are times when you get so lost into your own world that you literally lose track of time, until it is almost too late.
Well, almost, perhaps, but not quite…
Once again, having a clear, calm on my shoulders comes to save the day.
Well, that and a vigilant friend… And no, I am not talking about Batman, although that would be cool…
December 20, 2016
Word of the Week #38:
Well, I think I shall keep this one short; though any of these explanations are quite certain to end up like a stray seed buried in the Sahara.
It will, in all probability, bear no fruit.
Nonetheless, what stops us from trying one extra time, eh?
With 10 days to go, let us take a quick, objective look at the demonetisation gimmick that continues to envelope the country.
On 8th of November, currency notes roughly worth ₹14.75 lakh crore were declared void, with the explanation that a significant proportion of these were either black or fake.
Now, reports dated 1st of December state that more than ₹11 lakh crore have already been deposited into the banking system.
Other reports claim the total deposits may actually far exceed the initial estimates, and go as high as ₹17 lakh crore.
So, how successful was this gimmick, and where did all the black and fake money go?
I wonder…
December 13, 2016
Word of the Week #37:
So, we’ve had a pretty eventful week, here in Delhi, and as one can imagine, we do have a lot of topics to discuss and experiences to share.
We should probably begin with the best, and perhaps the most important, news of the week.
And, of course, you cannot expect me to just come out with the greatest comeback story since that of Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV, without narrating the events of the entire week to build the right kind of atmosphere, can you?
Additionally, I may alter some specific details of the story, for dramatic effect, but this is largely based on true events…
Okay, so, let us begin the story from the night of Sunday, the 4th. After having just begun work on our respective cosplays, we—my sister, my cousin, two friends of ours, and I—ended up doing the one thing we all have come to associate closely with most group projects: we dozed off without actually having managed much work.
The next morning, Her Highness missed the train to Ludhiana, which caused an hour-long scramble to get her there, with no cash on hand. She might blame me for this one, but I continue to vehemently deny any culpability… Of course, this, along with a few other misadventures, wore me out for the day. Hence, as one would assume, no work was done that day.
This, as expected, led to a frantic rush to get the costumes ready for the weekend, and we had to run around the city to acquire the rest of the materials, so that we could finish everything off in time. Thus went Tuesday. And then there were five…
Now, on Wednesday, I was being a good boy. Despite not having slept at all, that night, I worked hard through the day, and we finally seemed to be making some progress. Things were, momentarily, looking up.
So, come Thursday morning, and the all important dress is delivered at the door, and, in the rarest of the rare events, it managed to heavily disappoint us in every single way possible. Like, literally, nothing about it was worth salvaging. Still, we do, just barely, have the time to remake the entire thing. Luckily, we still do have some reliable, and very skilled, friends to guide us through.
Friday morning, and we can see that none of the costumes are even nearly ready. In fact, true to Murphy’s Law, everything that could go wrong, did, beginning with our stitching machine and ending with, well, it simply did not end… The moods grow caustic, and and tempers ran high. Yeah, you don’t want to be around me or my sister when things aren’t going our way. It can get ugly.
Saturday, and things are not much better. Well, we are working hard, and things are beginning to improve, but it just feels like we have run out of time. We do still take a run at unveiling my costume, and, well, despite our efforts, it is just plain horrid. Still, the warm response by random strangers did buoy my spirits.
So, with less than 16 hours to go, we choose to spend a major chunk of our time doing something rather unorthodox: we clean the entire place.
It takes us about ninety minutes, but the impact is immediate. The simple joy of a clean room is something that cannot be explained. You just have to feel it.
As a direct result, we can feel our minds running clearer than ever, in the past week. Some tough, but necessary, choices are made, and my cousin and I get to work, while my sister takes a quick nap. Spending hours and hours discussing the best way forward, we finally conclude that the very first idea we discussed was actually the most viable. And, finally, at 5AM, we get to work. And there is this one thing you need to know about my bloodline: though we may take a while to get going, we are pretty much unstoppable once we do.
Case in point, we actually finished the task at hand in barely an hour. Another hour or so, honing the structure, and we are fairly done with the bulk of the work.
Fast forward to 12 hours later, skipping another bunch of hurdles we had to cross, just to get to the venue, and we have in our hands the results of Delhi Comic Con, ’16.
[image error]DCC ’16 Winner [Anime and Manga Category]So, what was this mystery element that brought us back to life? I really cannot say…
Did it all work out, in the end? Well, pretty much…
Did the hardships make the victory even sweeter? Oh, hell no! I’d take a plateau over this cotangent wave any day!
Still, the point being, we won!
