Sunday, April 19, 2009

Ghonchu, his Soul Mate and the Professor

Ghonchu was tired and upset. His assignment to Professor Strictu's course was due (it was 10 minutes to midnight) and his code wasn't working. He had a brainwave. He decided to ask Professor Strictu by mail for an extra day to complete the assignment.

The next day, he entered the lab after lunch. On checking his mailbox, he was relieved to see that the Professor had granted his request albeit reluctantly stating that this should not become the norm ... you should maintain deadlines and other such nonsense.

He sat down to debug his non-working code. He opened the terminal and wrote './run benchmarks'. The terminal said Segmentation Fault. The same had happened the previous night; Ghonchu being the eternal optimist had hoped his code would have corrected itself overnight while he was sleeping.

After half an hour of tinkering with his code and cursing Professor Strictu 36 times during that period, he wrote './run benchmarks' again. The terminal said Segmentation Fault again.

Frustrated and thirsty, Ghonchu decided to drink a glass of cold water. On his way to the water cooler, he saw a beautiful girl. Suddenly, Ghonchu's eyes told him that the girl was speaking to him. Ghonchu's ears told him that the girl was asking him if there was any place on campus to eat something. Ghonchu decided that he would have to drink a cup of hot tea to quench his thirst. He heard himself saying that he was on his way to Tea Board and would love to escort her.

Ghonchu, his code already forgotten, walked jauntily to Tea Board along with his soulmate. He had fallen in love on previous occasions. However, despite having fallen in love 17 times previously, he felt this was the real thing. Some people might say Ghonchu could give Bingo Little a run for his money.

However inevitably, a calamity was waiting to happen. At a distance of around 50 meters, Ghonchu spotted Professor Strictu coming towards him and on the same side of the road. Ghonchu cursed Professor Strictu for the 37th time in forty minutes and thought of his options :-
- Ignore him totally
- Just wish him 'good afternoon' and walk past
- Hide behind his soulmate

Problem with option 1 and 2 was he remembered his code and the Professor's mail about adhering to deadlines. He knew Professor Strictu well and knew that he would derive a sadistic pleasure in stopping Ghonchu and asking him about his assignment. Option 3 wasn't feasible.

However then he suddenly spotted bhOndOO walking towards him on the other side of the road at a distance of 20 meters. With the cunning of a jackal, Ghonchu decided to crossover to the other side, talk to bhOndOO on some pretext, greet the Professor from the other side of the road and then catch up with his soulmate later on. He told his soulmate he had something important to discuss with bhOndOO and asked her to carry on to Tea Board where he would catch her.

Ghonchu executed his plan to perfection and started talking with bhOndOO keeping one eye on the Professor. As the distance between them grew closer, Ghonchu smiled (more like baring his teeth like a wolf) at the Professor. He then realized that the Professor was paying no heed to him. Surreptiously, he followed Professor Strictu's line of sight and realized that he was busy staring at his soulmate.

The Professor passed Ghonchu and bhOndOO without even noticing them and continually looking backwards at the diminishing sight of Ghonchu's soulmate. With evil thoughts, Ghonchu cursed Professor Strictu for the 38th time in forty five minutes and compared him with a poisonous snake.

After the poisonous snake had passed, Ghonchu got rid of bhOndOO quickly (who was unaware of all that passed), and quickly rushed to Tea Board. His eyes searched for his soulmate and finally found her already walking away from the Tea Board with a packet of Kurkure in hand. The distance between them was already 30 meters and increasing.

Dejected, Ghonchu gave up the chase, walked back to the lab and started debugging his code.

3 comments:

  1. Well interesting......i thought Ghonchu was escorting her "soulmate" to Tea Board......but with the "talking to bhOndOO plan" he tells his soulmate to carry on to the Tea Board....
    Excuse me she doesn't know any eating place in IISc :P
    Good one though :)

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  2. greed, one of the 7 deadly sins, brings everything to naught. see if ghonchu weren't so obsessed with getting straight As and Ss in his course-work or a journal paper or a reco, he'd submit a sloppy half-done assignment on time and get away saying that's the best he could do...

    and none of this would happen...

    and ghonchu would probably be out renting a tuxedo for the big day right now rather than telling us his sad story...

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  3. lol ... thanks for the advice Maneesh...
    I will pass on the advice to Ghonchu.

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