And I think to myself… what a wonderful world.

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and for you
And I think to myself… what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue, clouds of white
Bright blessed days, dark sacred nights
And I think to myself… what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, saying, how do you do
They’re really saying… I love you.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more, than I’ll never know
And I think to myself… what a wonderful world.

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So I’m sitting in my seat- or at least trying to, with people excusing themselves, thrusting their posteriors into my face as they move into a middle row middle seat and then realizing that it’s the wrong seat and excusing themselves again to move out, giving my yet another chance to look at their fairly unlikeable back-sides, and to smell the odor of cologne, aftershave, sweat, alcohol and everything else that could possibly make the horrible smell smellier than it already was.

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Where am I? In the middle of middle-aged first-time international tourists trying to shove their HUGE Mustafa Shopping Center bags into the overhead compartments, the Singapore Airlines airhostesses struggling to get them to stop doing it- with visibly fake courteous looks, old uncles and aunties muttering under their breath and infants who decide that they need to make the whole situation more chaotic than it already is, start crying… Right. So finally, when the Mustafa bag has been stuffed, the old mutterers have been seated and the airhostesses have made their final attempts at getting people to fasten their seatbelts and the entropy of the flight has decreased slightly, I realize that seated next to me is a little girl- reading a book. With nothing to do, and with my intrinsically curious and shamelessly prying manner (that most Indians are “gifted” with), I stare into the book and read along.

..
It was a big-sized book; as most books meant for people her age are. Pink cover, a lot of pictures, huge-font text that you wish you could use when doing a 9384398 page report for school projects) in her tiny little hands. I somehow felt compelled to stare. Not at the girl- but at the book. (Please note: I’m not a pedophile and I couldn’t care if the girl next to me looked like a horse- though it would definitely have been fascinatingly peculiar to have a horse sit/stand/somehow-be-strapped next to me on a flight) Right, so the book’s about this girl and a prince like most fairy tales are. And it’s set in the time when Rapunzel still held the world record for the longest hair and Snow White for being the fairest woman (actually, according to many conspiracy theorists, she was just a melanin-lacking albino, but we shall chuck that for now).

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So the book’s about this girl who had evil stepsisters and a stepmother and a blind father who couldn’t see the torture because he was too busy doing his “thing” with the stepmother. I think she was dumb too, because apparently her father loved her- but she didn’t have the balls(?) to tell him that her “evil” sisters mistreated her. Maybe she liked being treated like a piece of overly burnt cinder… Whatever. So this one day, they have a ball in town- and her fat, ugly sisters (why are fairytale-evil-people always ugly?) prep up and go to the ball while she’s supposed to fix that leak in the toilet till they get back. She starts crying and (insert-poof-y-sounds-here) her fairy godmother appears from nowhere!

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The godmother, in true fairytale fashion gets her high-fashion clothes, a decent make-up and hair artist and other stuff to make her look pretty. There’s some sort of public-transport strike, so she decides to convert a pumpkin and a mouse (obviously the girl- oh and she’s called Cinderella- doesn’t do a good job cleaning the house- it has MICE for crying out loud!) into a Mercedes and a chauffer respectively. The fairy godmother is old-school and tells her that she must come back before midnight (aah… mothers) or else all her pretty clothes’ll go off (and she obviously didn’t want to have a wardrobe malfunction- or disappearance, as the case is here, right in the middle of the ball, where the paparazzi would photoshoot to eternal craziness and it would probably be all over Youtube!) and the Merc’ll be back to it’s pumpkin-y form. So off she goes- and she looks pretty- precisely the kind of girl you’d find on the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine.

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Obviously, the prince falls in love with her, they dance and laugh all night (her sisters don’t notice she’s there- because they’re too busy eating off the free chocolate fountain). It’s 11:59 when she realizes that it’s time to scram or else be charged for public nudity.  So she runs for it (without giving the prince-guy her number or address or even a goodnight kiss!). On her way out, one of her Jimmy Choo Shoes slipped off (Anti-Fashion-Faux-Pas-Lesson #1: Insist on right-sized shoes, even if your fairy godmother gives them to you), but she didn’t care, because full frontal nudity in front of so many people was far worse than losing a Jimmy Choo!

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The prince stared after her… tried to chase her, but she was on the athletics team in school so he couldn’t catch her. And that’s when… the food came and she shut the book and flashed her toothy smile at the sight of the kiddy’s meal that comes complete with a little Singapore Airlines toy and a burger-like-thingy. The book was kept aside (apparently Chinese mothers don’t approve of multitasking), but the story continued in… my head…

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What could have happened? Let’s see… as she was rushing home, the clock struck 12- she lost the clothes- and ended up with a mouse and a pumpkin, was stuck bang in the middle of the road- and probably got violated by some deprived idiots! Likelihood Quotient: Very likely; given her Cosmopolitan-ish looks and skimpy (wha… read as NO) clothing at that moment. Maybe the prince tried to find her for a while, realized that staying out in the smoggy city that was meant for peasants who smell like fish would tarnish his grand crown, and decided to go back- he was a prince and princes don’t really have a hard time finding hot girls to well, umm… fornicate with.

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What else could have happened? Maybe she got home- was seen by her sisters (obviously it’s not ignorable to see a woman dancing with the prince and then suddenly deciding that she feels like going for a jog/run!) at the ball and then got treated even worse by them and their evil-er mother and probably whimpered all her life at how she “could” have been a princess… could… but didn’t.

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Maybe she ran too fast, fell down the flight of stairs, broke her neck and her cranium and passed away. Or worse- the prince, while chasing her, fell down and died and she got charged for causing the death of a prince. And ended up getting beheaded and boo-ed in public for killing his majesty!

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Or maybe the prince really did fall in love with her- organized a let’s-fit-the-shoe-into-the-foot reality TV show and found her; realized she actually looked ugly without all that make-up and didn’t really own that Merc or those Jimmy Choos and dumped her anyway.

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How about… what if… hmm… I woke up! And I looked around. The Punjabi dude in front of me just asked for what seemed like his 8th beer, the wear-your-seatbelt-sign’s been switched on for landing… the airhostess is trying to stop that uncle from taking out the Sony Viao he wants to show off to the Gujarati gang around him from the overhead compartment… the children have another So-You-Think-You-Can-Cry session and the girl next to me is on that page that says “…and they lived happily ever after” Huh? Whaa? She read the whole thing? I slept that long? And Happy Endi-saywhut?! So I decide to talk to the little girl- and ask her how her story was… and she tells me something about the prince-dude having the shoe taken to each and every house in town to find the girl (DUDE… Jimmy Choos are standard size, it probably fitted half the girls in there!), finds her- decides to marry her- she becomes a princess, her ugly sisters become fatter and uglier and she and the prince live happily ever after.

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And I smile at the little girl… how innocent is her world, how pure, how different from the world I know of- with all it’s hardships and sad realities, how perfect… how… unworldly…

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I smile again… and I think to myself… what a wonderful world.

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Yours Cinder-ally,
Kunaal

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*this story, about how Cinderella gets transformed into Pamela Anderson, is fictitious. In reality,  I sat next to a Punjabi uncle who guzzled more Singapore Slings than a Singaporean’s probably drunk in his life, managed to drop his glass of water onto my jeans and snored through the rest of the flight (when he wasn’t drinking or dropping stuff). FML.

Today

“Son, I never told you this- but I love you and I’m proud of you,” he said. “I’ve never held you tight and told you that I love you; I’ve never patted your back whenever you won a soccer game as a kid.” “I’ve always bawled out on you and told you that you could do better- but never did I tell you that I was proud… I was proud of not what you had achieved, but of what you were. Today, son- I tell you that I’m the proudest father ever. Today- I tell you that I love you.”
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Today, I was woken up by a father’s loving caress instead of a drunk man’s ranting about how useless I was and how I was a disgrace to the family- and how I was responsible for everything- for my mother’s death, for his drinking, for our being poor and even the foul weather. Today was different. For the first time, it felt nice to be there- to have lived that moment with my father. I paused for a moment to allow “today” to settle in and started preparing for work.
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“Ah boy- I was thinking. You’ve lived in my house for 10 years now. And you’ve been so much more than a tenant. You look after my garden for me. You run me errands. You collect the rent from the rest of the boarders. You console me when I think of my dead daughter. And I haven’t ever…” said Mrs. Smith as I walked down the staircase “I haven’t ever thanked you for being like a son to me” “All these years- I shouted at you for rent- never once understanding that you had to pay for your mother’s treatment; I never understood you.” “But you always smiled at me- a radiant smile that told me that you understood every bit of the un-understandable irritation I had. You understood my pain and my helplessness.” “You’re special- and I thank you for that”
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Today- I was greeted by a grateful woman’s affection instead of an irritated landlady’s anger on my way to work. Anger at how I paid my rent a few days late, at how I didn’t walk her dog long enough, at how her garden didn’t bloom well and about her dead daughter. Today was different. Today was even slightly peculiar. For once, I liked myself for being liked by Mrs. Smith. I smiled and went off to work.
.

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“Benjamin- I’ve been looking for you. You didn’t turn in for work yesterday” I started to explain about… but I knew he’d never believe me- so I listened silently. “There were orders to be placed- meetings with bankers and clients. The Viz-mart deal was to be closed in…” and that’s where the you-can-get-fired part usually comes in. “…and that’s when I realized- you’re our backbone, you’re important for the firm. I’ve always told you that you aren’t working to your full potential- and that I overpay you- and that you slack on the job. But I never praised you for all the weekends you came in for, for all the extra load you were handling, for doing three people’s work for the salary of one, for loving the company and for being the diligent worker you are” “Yesterday made me realize this, Ben. You’re an asset to the company and you’re getting a raise. Thanks for being my best employee.”
.

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Today- I entered the office to a genuinely impressed boss’ praise instead of a string of harsh words telling me how useless I was and that I was the reason for the losses, for the guy in the next cubicle not turning up for work, for the printer being jammed and for the client someone else lost. Today was different. Today was unbelievable. I liked today- I liked the job I had hated for the last 3 years and the life I had hated for the last 30.
.

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“Hey Bennie, dude. I want to tell you something.” “I admire you, man! And I love you; not in the wrong way, though” he said, walking towards his BMW, while I prepared to walk home. “You’ve been the best coworker I could ever want” “You helped me with my work- despite being overworked yourself. Not only work; you’ve helped me with my life, all my problems. You’ve been more than just a co-worker. You’ve been a brother to me” “Thanks for being there- always.”
.

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Today- as I walked out through the parking lot on to the pavement, I heard a coworker tell me this instead of the usual “see you tomorrow” grunt. Today was different. Today was worth living. Today, I “lived” instead of just lived. Today, it felt good to be me. Today… I smiled at the thought of today. I walked past a row of offices; on to the main road and through the park, bouncing and springing, singing a happy tune, for of course, today was a happy day. That’s when I saw Papa and Mrs. Smith… and my boss and all my co-workers. They were crying. But that didn’t make the mood less jovial. For today was a happy day. Today… was my funeral…
.

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…and the happiest day of my “life”.

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This is dedicated to a special friend and brother, Sanstav Paul. He taught me a very important lesson. Something that we all know as children- but we all forget or become too embarrassed about as we grow up- to show that you care. So, to all the people you care about: friends, family, teachers, colleagues, helpers- go to them, hug them, tell them you love them, tell them that they’re special, tell them that they’re precious and tell them that you care. Make them want to “live” the life they live. May Sanstav know that we all care. May he “live” forever. Amen.

Yours “Livingly”
Kunaal

Love and Poverty.

She sat on the curb… wiping her tears with her tattered-soiled sari blouse. She couldn’t cry. She wasn’t allowed to. Married women don’t cry. She was 13 and too old to shed tears. She was to foster children and be the backbone of a family and had to be mature and strong- they had said. They… who had read to her stories about Cinderella and made her dream that her prince would come… they… who had sold her to her husband for one thousand rupees. It’s not that they didn’t care- She was their rani beti- their princess. It’s not that they didn’t love. It’s just that they were poor and poverty often overshadows love.

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He loved her too. That’s why he paid for her, married her and brought her to the city. They lived in the slums but he told her his love for her would make them overcome. He conjured images of bungalows, of motorcars, of riches and of a happy family with two boys. One day, she discovered that she had in her- the fruit of their love. A daughter. He made her laugh and dream and smile and love… and now he made her cry; just as they had. It’s not that he didn’t love her anymore. She was his dearest- but he needed a son- for sons earned money and girls needed money. It’s not that he wouldn’t have wanted their child. It’s just that they were poor and poverty often overshadows love.

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It was probably past two in the morning. The world isn’t perfect- life isn’t always a fairy tale and the good don’t always live happily ever after. They all lied. She wasn’t Cinderella; she wasn’t a rani. She wasn’t his love and life; she wasn’t anything more than a homeless poor woman. Just then, a young boy walked by. He looked at her- a look of concern and care. The same look that they had once upon a time… that he had once… and now this young boy had it. He stuck out a 10 rupee note towards here. “This is all I have right now” He was obviously from a rich family. The gold chain he wore around his neck told her this. Maybe he was the prince-Maybe he would make a family with her… Maybe dreams do come true… Maybe the world isn’t too bad a place. Maybe… She thought. No.

.

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The gold chain. It was certainly worth a lot of money. The lust for money was too much. It was money that had taken all this away from her. And now she had a chance to take some money. She stared at the pool of blood- the remorse slowly faded and she smiled. It’s not that she didn’t love humanity. It’s not that she had anything against the boy. It’s just that she had finally learnt; that she was poor and poverty often overshadows love…

.

Yours Unapologetically,

Kunaal

It’s Official: UCLA Bruin

University of California Los Angeles

Computer Science and Engineering

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First this…

Dear Mr. Wadhwa:

We have received your application to UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science (HSSEAS).  Your application is among those which I consider highly competitive.  However, it is still too soon for admission decisions to be announced. To learn of the official decision…

…Having reviewed your application, I want to congratulate you on your fine work in high school.  I look forward to seeing you in person on April 4.

Warm Regards,

Richard Wesel
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs

And then this…

Dear Kunaal:

Congratulations! It is our great pleasure to offer you admission to UCLA for the Fall Quarter 2009. You have been admitted to the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science with Computer Science and Engineering as your academic major.

You were selected from the largest pool of university candidates in the nation—more than 55,000 applicants. Your academic achievements and personal talents are exceptional, and your intellect and imagination will thrive at UCLA. We want you to join us in the Class of 2013.

The New Bruins Web site provides access to your next step: your formal acceptance of our admission offer. It also includes information about important deadlines and your housing application. For your reference, your UCLA Student ID is shown above. Additionally, please review your Provisional Admission Contract to ensure that you will continue to meet the provisions of our offer of admission.

For now, enjoy this moment—it is the beginning of one of the most exciting and memorable chapters in your life. Of course, you are going to learn a lot about the world at UCLA. But more often than you might imagine, UCLA will be where the world learns about you.

Welcome to UCLA!

Sincerely,
Vu T. Tran, Ed.D.
Director    UA01050

Yours Bruin-ly,

A Californicated Kunaal

Ridiculously Ranting Raffles…

The history of Singapore retold with a satirical take on “Singlish”- the brand of English they speak in Singapore.

Prescriptum: If you don’t know what Kembangen or Tampines or Murtabak is, you probably won’t understand this. So, instead of wasting your time here, go have a laugh here! Or if you STILL insist on reading and trying to “comprehend” this esoteric text, you can use this and this! (:

My name is Sir Stamford Raffles,
And I like chocolate waffles.
There was a storm- and did I shudder.
Wah lau, I landed on this island- where the mutt said alamak, siah lah brudder!

I asked for steak, they gave me murtabak and char kway teoh,
I was mildly disappointed- but in the end, I said CAN ALSO LIAO!
I called that place Singapore,
cuz it sounds cooler than the stupid THEM-A-SICK before.

Then they founded this school and and hospital and hotel on my name.
It’s got my name lah, of course got fame!
Then came along; the kiasu L-K-Y.
He got start the “foreign talent” policy, the heartlanders got stress and cry!

Then Singapore got all the money-
So they like to play mahjong and drink Tiger, that’s not funny!
Then they all have the condo-credit-car and all, so now they sian.
So, out of boredom- all of them become ah beng and ah lian.

Aiyah- now they say I ang moh, I foreigner.
I frustrated already, they got come and say- aiya, go relak one corner.

Monotonously Yours,
Kunaal Wadhwa

Disclaimer: If this just wasted your time and you found it boring/offensive/lame/unfunny/wt*-inducing/(insert-other-possible-negativities), Kunaal Wadhwa is NOT to be blamed and holds no responsibility whatsoever. If you’re still dissed, you may propel/strike the lower-extremity-of-the-leg-beyond-your-ankle at high momentum towards your voluminous posterior. (basically, go kick your own arse). (:

A rather boring post…

What follows is a boring rant on boredom written by a bored teacher (intern) of a not-so-boring subject while getting bored in a lecture on a boringly boring topic (Binomial and Poisson Distributions… it really is very boring)…

What makes boredom so boring?

A rather boring topic for discussion- even for bored people. Now, I’m really bored right now. So the bored me will just bore you guys by boringly ranting on  the boring topic of boredom (can’t believe I’m that bored), Anyways- back to the topic (we don’t want you to get bored- do we now?) of boredom. People say that they’re bored when they have nothing non-boring to relieve them of their oh-so-boring lives and their boring thoughts. But these bored people should just think of how not to be bored- just thinking of things that are not-so-boring is pretty not-boring itself. But alas- a few boring people like me choose to boringly sit and think about boring things like why boredom is so boring- and we end up boring ourselves (just like I did… bored bored bored… bored s’more!) and others listening/reading (aka you… but I guess you must have a pretty boring existence to come and  randomly land yourself on this oh-so-boring blog.) So, we see that just thinking of boredom is boring- and therefore, boredom is intrinsically boring. So- in a nutshell, the entire topic of the boringness of boredom is very boring and you shouldn’t touch on it even if you’re really bored! Are you bored of reading this boring post yet…?

Yours Boringly,

Kunaal

PS: If you’re still bored, do leave a comment!

PPS: Still bored? Go count the number of “bore“s (and derivatives) in this post!

An MIT Applicant’s Rant-Rhyme…

(I dedicate these forty lines of awesome nonsensical rhyming to everyone who’s clicked “Submit” on my.mit.edu this year!)

It’s been 27 seconds and my EC hasn’t replied to my e-mail yet.

So what am I waiting for- of course it’s time to fret!

I’ll desperately write to Matt and I’ll comment on the blogs-

It’s MIT admissions we’re talking about; there mustn’t be any clogs.

Presenting to you an MIT-applying Bot’s life-journal,

All g33ky and hose-y and mathematical…

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I now go unto College Confidential,

and my username’s “Indefinitely_Hopeful_Integral”

I ask them whether I stand a chance-

And they blindly put a “High Reach/Reject” after a glance.

They say MIT’s a crapshoot, there’s no guarantee-

Especially with a SAT score of merely 2370.

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You’ve won Olympiads, done research, have Wikis and do math on glass-windows;

But “obviously”, you won’t be selected just because of those!

Apply to some LACs and safeties, son; it’s MIT after all.

“You suck! Absolutely no chance!!” Now that’s obviously a troll!

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I’m doing my application now.

Intense expression, typing away, sweaty brow…

I’ve proofread it once- and again and 3i times more- still not satisfied.

It’s not MITish enough, I think- needs more of my geeky side!

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Next comes the achievements part-

I can only list 7 out of my e^498247921, of course I’m aghast!

Something I’ve created- they ask, in true MIT style;

Umm… Will the cure for cancer I found when I was 6 sound too juvenile?

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I dream, wonder-eyed- If I get selected, ah- the elation and the glee…

Even though I know, 2 years at the ’tute and I’ll be screaming “IHTFP!”

I dream of lectures and UROPs and all the geeky “fun”

And I know each building-name by heart- my favorite’s 3.021!

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I dream of brass rats and fractal-buildings and clever, funny hacks-

So much so, I did one with some other prefrosh cracks (no offence)!

We spoofed mitadmissions.org, ‘twas fun;

So now you can read posts by both, Rabindranath and Yan!

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Results gonna be out soon; oh- the anxiety.

Let’s go check the countdown at didigetintomit!

From Chris’ Tokyo trip to Yan’s food entries.

We sit there, clicking, waiting for an update- more alert than posted sentries.

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I hope I get in- If I don’t, maybe I’ll cry (or die?)-

But you know what, I’ll be happy for the experience and at least I gave it a try!

Red Alert! Red Alert!! At mitadmissions, Snively’s written another post, I trust;

Adieu! I better go comment before someone else writes “FIRST!”

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Yours Poetically,

Kunaal

PS: (Time for the fine-print!) This post is not intended to target, ridicule, blame, ostracize anyone or hurt anyone’s sentiments in any form (solid, liquid or gaseous!) whatsoever. The sole intention of this rant is humor and to share a common sentiment I think we all applicants feel. I, too, get all excited whenever I see a new MIT Admissions Blog post come up- I, too, check the site every 3-4 hours! I, too, was amazed by the Prefrosh Hack and I’m very sure the slight references in it were also made in good humor- just as this rant is… Hope ya’ll like it! Kudos to the prefrosh-hackers and best of luck to us all- MIT Applicants ’13 FTW!

PPS: To those who found it lame/un-funny/boring- Well, just refrain from coming to this blog next time then…

PPPS: Whoa! That’s a lot of Ps there!

EDIT: Just to clarify- I DO NOT have a 2370 SAT score, nor was I involved in the “hack”, nor have I won international olympiads. I wrote this rant as an average MIT applicant- I’ve tried to put in a li’l bit of everyone’s experience… not just my own!

A-not-so-random first post…

So, finally- after registering x blog names and after x! people asking me to get a blog (where x –>∞), here I am, finally starting my very own web log! So well, it’s the day after Valentine’s- and I’m sitting at a Burger King outlet (shamelessly using their WiFi since 3 hours after buying the cheapest thing on the menu) and stoning around on Facebook- here’s a “random” thought: recently (to be read as: since Facebook came about), the word random has been overused!

“Random Photos”, “25 Random things”- and the funniest bit is- all the photos seem to be the same (weird faces, weird places, weird (almost uglyish) expressions) and most of the “random things” seem to be the same about how people love a certain something/someone/some-whatever-it-is, about how people love to eat a certain-something, about LOLing a lot- among other common things that I wouldn’t really care much about…

So you can kinda expect what you’ll be reading/seeing; and when you can expect what’s coming, it ain’t random n’more! So to people who randomly like to throw around the word- RANDOM, be more err… random when you do it!

And anyways, nothing in this world is truly random.  Ranting on about the topic of randomness; even NASA is searching for a true random number generator. The word random is thrown around so flagrantly in many circles. I could write an algorithm to spit out numbers, conceal the code and show someone just the output. Some may say that they are seeing a random number generator. Yet, there is an underlying order to it—namely, the algorithm producing it. I am not convinced that there is such a thing as randomness. I’m beating a dead horse with this, but I still hold onto the belief that if we perceive something as ‘random’, it is in fact orderly…however, we (mankind- including the MIT Gods…) are just not intellectually mature enough to see what’s truly going on. Should we define ‘randomness’ as something that may have order, but is beyond human thought? I don’t know. (’twas just a “random” rant…) 

“Random” fact- It’s weird that most people spell weird wrongly. I’m serious! A lot of people I know spell weird as wierd!(or maybe the people I know are just n00bs! )

http://songweaver.com/conspiracy.html <– Something Random (it works on a generator) and Funny!

Randomly Yours,

Kunaal