All that could have been

The photos on my phone
are not images of people, or places
they are memories of a past
where something could motivate me enough
to take my phone out of my pocket
and point it toward things
because things meant something to me
and I did not want to forget them

The photos on my phone
Let me tell you what they are:

Varun Ramesh and Rishab Lala on a bike
two of my friends
agruing about something
Like they always did
I almost forgot their names today
Thought it was Ramesh Lala

Me and my best friend
On top of a college building
eating vada pav, looking smug.
It was valentine’s day
and we had decided
to celebrate our bromance together

A video of a circuit that I made
(for the electronics project)
Explained in a funny voice
for the benefit of my girlfriend
we lasted for three months
but she was very nice

A gif of my elder brother
playing fifa on his ipad
(wait, how did I take a gif?)
he’s wearing an oversized yellow T-shirt
is completely absorbed in his game.
He looks like a small boy.

My sister-in-law and her nephew
sitting on my bed
which is a mess
talking about something serious
but also smiling a little
they know they're being photographed

A picture of another girl I liked
which I sheepishly took
I had been giving her hints all summer
before giving up
She could have told me if she liked me
Why do boys always have to do everything?

The photos on my phone
are filled with alternate universes
where I’m having fun with people
spending time with family
winning inter-college quizzes;
and yet it has to be this way
me, alone, writing a lousy poem
on all that could have been

The photos on my phone
suck.

Vasan sir

I was in eighth standard when Vasan sir became the Senior Resource Person of SPSSEMS (Smt. Parvatamma Shamanuru Shivashankarappa English Medium School). Senior Resource Person was the school's way of saying Bro, you're too old for us to employ you as a teacher, but we can give you this fancy title and pay you half the salary if you really want it. And the poor guy needed the money. Something to do with his son abandoning him or something like that. An Indian TV serial kind of story. He was to stay only for a short time, till they found a proper English teacher, someone who wasn't as old. But they would never find someone as good. Shankar Bidri was awful and Ajrekar ma'am, from what I remember, went about recommending Ayn Rand to impressionable sixteen-year-olds.  

Nobody could do the Mark Antony speech like Vasan. NOBODY. I remember how his hands shook when he said "Ambition should be made of sterner stuff". I remember his eyes. I felt his anger and his frustration. For that moment, Vasan was Mark Antony. I was so blown away that day, I had started crying. And Spoorthi Akka, who was four years my senior, who was sitting in our class for some reason, had gone "Aww..." looking at me and everybody who heard saw me and started laughing. On any other day, Vasan would have been angry at his class being disrupted this way. But not that day. On that day, Vasan was happy that he had moved a student to tears. And that was enough for him. 

The student was happy too, because the most beautiful girl in the school had gone "Aww.." looking at him. I found out much later that Spoorthi Akka was Vasan sir's granddaughter. Which probably explained how she was allowed to sit in his class, how he did not get angry when she interrupted his magnificent speech with a loud "Awww..". 

Spoorthi Akka had become my first crush ever and she was amazing. She had hair like those women in shampoo commercials, she was ridiculously good-looking by SPSSEMS standards and she was crazy smart. In 11th standard, when everybody about her was just discovering this new show FRIENDS (it was a small town), when the most borrowed book from the library was Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone, Spoorthi Akka was talking about Chomsky and universal grammar.  When head girl Megha, who was kind of a bully, told her she did not like Pride and Prejudice, she asked her to "go f*ck yourself". I WAS THERE. It was AWESOME.

For some reason, Sphoorti Akka had took me under her wing. People who would see her coming and not see me walking behind her would go "Where's your assistant?" and I'd feel so proud. Most of my responsibilities as assistant involved being around her and reading the books she asked me to. That was how I first got to know Carl Sagan, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath and so many other people. 
And Vasan sir adored me. He once gave me 49.5 out of 50 on an exam. I believe that is a school record which has not been broken yet. He was so blown away with the fact that I used apathy correctly in a sentence. I think it was like in a letter of complaint about pollution around Taj Mahal or something. Vasan was really close to tears that day. "My boy," he had said to me, putting his hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes, "I'm so happy my boy." Things were going great.  It was like a reverse Rushmore, with the old guy and the girl together competing for a 14 year old's attention. I'm sorry if that got creepy but sometimes, that was exactly what it felt like and I loved it. And then she graduated, moved to Bangalore and I never saw her or Vasan for that matter again.

I sometimes feel that maybe, maybe, if I had grown up a little sooner, if I had read some coming-of-age novels a little earlier, maybe I could have been more than a little kid who liked her. Maybe I could have been her friend. I'd hang out by her house while I'd wait for my bus and I'd slump down beside her on the couch and watch TV. If you put all that time together, I have spent DAYS with her, DAYS, watching MTV Roadies and Ben 10. How much I'd give to get back two minutes of that time now. 

The year after they left, I chose my time wisely and called Vasan sir up on teacher's day. I could tell he was really touched. We talked for a while and then he asked me if I wanted to talk to Sphoorthi. I said no, partly because I had nothing to talk about, partly because I was angry at her because all I got for a goodbye was "Hey kid, I guess I won't be seeing you anytime soon again" and "What do you mean why? I have to go to college -- Ma, I'm right here! I'm coming."

I'd call Vasan every year after that. But this time, I forgot. I figured it was his birthday in December so I'll wish him then. When I called him on the day, she picked up. I knew it was her. It had to be her. She struggled really hard to place me but finally remembered when I told her she had lent me her Inheritance of Loss. I had never returned it.

"Oh my GOD, of course. I hate you for that. I looked everywhere for that book. I almost had a fight with a friend over that."
I apologized.
"Did you at least read it?" she asked. I said I had not.
She sighed. "Wait, you thought it was about economics or something, didn't you? Is that why I gave you that book?."
That was true. "You laughed a lot, thrust the book into my hands and asked me to 'Go Read'."

There was nothing else I could think of to say. So I said nothing for the next five seconds and then asked her if Vasan sir was around.

"Oh, no, uh, tatha eega illa kano. He died last month."
"Oh" was all I could say.

When you like someone who's old and you get used to them, you forget the fact that after a point of time in your life, they won't be around but you will be. That shit is scary.

"I'm so sorry," I said.
"It's okay, man" she said. "He died in his sleep. Peaceful and happy and all that. He was also 80 years old, you know. So, it had to happen."
"Yeah," I said.
"We couldn't stop crying, for days. But I think we're better now."

I ran my hand through  her copy of Inheritance of Loss, with love, MKV scribbled on the front page. The V stood for Vasan. Vasan was his surname. He did tell us once what M and K  stood for. But it didn't matter, anyway,

"So, I'm sorry again. He was a really good man," I said.
"Yeah," she said, "And I think he liked you too."
"I hope so. It was really nice talking to you too."
"Yep, same here. Keep calling when you get bored. Always nice to hear from the ghosts of the Christmas past"
"Maybe I will call, Thank you," I said and hung up.

I am not going to call again. That'll be weird. Maybe I'll send a card. Maybe I won't. This is so cruel -  people whom you have spent years of your life with, people who are even responsible for parts of who you are will one day be gone. And there's nothing you can do. But you know what, maybe I'll write about them - it'll be my way of keeping Vasan sir (and my version of Sphoorti Akka) alive. 

Also, this.

A slightly inaccurate and completely unnecessary post I wrote a long time back and took down soon after. Now it seems harmless. All that angst is gone now. Mostly. Nevertheless, I'd just like it to be out there.

***

Supreeth Ravish's A Series of Unfortunate Events - Part 1

I never quite found out why my parents had me 10 years after my brother. I guess they weren't thinking much. I really think they should not have done that. He was 40 years old when he had me. He would be 58 when I turned 18. Don't you think about that stuff before having kids? When you have that big a generation gap, it's hard to get along as friends. I never looked at my brother as a friend. I never shared stuff with him. We never sat on the porch on a rainy day and talked about life and love. Do brothers do that? Well, mine didn't. My parents made my brother out as the exemplary child. So naturally, I was made to look up to him. And in some ways, it was good. I started reading because my parents always pointed out that my brother read a lot and I didn't. I was eight, he was eighteen but they didn't seem to notice that. When JS Mill could learn Greek by he age of three and read Herodotus and Plato by the time he was eight, why couldn't I pick up an Oliver Twist? I'm not saying anything but JS Mill had a very strict father who was determined to make him a genius. I had a father who had barely enough time for me who was determined to make me determined to become a genius on my own. But I had to shut them up so I started reading those children's illusrated classics. And soon, I started liking it. And soon I moved on to books with lesser pictures and then to books with no pictures at all. So that was one good thing which came out of this horrible parenting and I'm really thankful for that.

***

Indian education follows what is commonly called the "10+2+3" pattern. The first 10 years of your schooling is divided into primary (first to fifth standards), upper primary or middle school (sixth to eighth standards) and then secondary (ninth and tenth standards). Then you have senior secondary (eleventh and twelfth or plus one and plus two or First PUC and Second PUC, PUC being Pre-University College). And then come three years/four of college which gave you a bachelor's degree. And before all this, you have the Pre-Primary, the Kindergarten stages. And there, we had two divisions - The Lower Kindergarten and the Upper Kindergarten (LKG and UKG). But you know that. I just wanted to show you how ridiculuous it sounds when you spell everything out like this. So far, I've done the 10 + 2 part. 

***

Somewhere between LKG and UKG, my brother disappeared. No, he didn't die. My parents just sent him away to study in mysore, a thousand miles away. There're two different tales as to why this needed to be done and I'll leave it to the reader to decide which one is sadder. The official story is that they wanted him to complete his high school (secondary i.e. Ninth and tenth standards) in Karnataka so that he would be eligible for the Karnataka quota for a certain competitive examination for entrance to engineering colleges in the state. The unofficial story is that they caught my brother helping a classmate copy in his final exam.

So my father came in and shouted at the teachers and threatened to sue them and the whole thing was very embarrassing so he decided to put him in a different school . Wait, what? you must be thinking. Son cheats in exam so dad yells at the teachers? This is where it gets interesting. You see, my father did not believe that my brother cheated and felt he was being wrongly accused. So did I, until yesterday, when I asked the brother before writing this.

My brother had, in fact, thrown that crumpled sheet of formulae at his friend. And that was the truth. But he couldn't tell that to my father. The reader needs to understand that my father was not an evil man. He was merely ... old fashioned, old-fashioned being a euphemism for he could sometimes get unreasonably anal about stuff. See, my father always maintained that theft was the greatest of sins and all other sins were derivatives of theft. When you kill a man, you steal his right to life. When you lie, you steal his right to truth, he used to say. Oh wait, I think that was Khalied Hosseini. Sorry, my bad. My dad was anal about people lying. And he had a bad temper. He didn't get angry much but when he did, you would not want to be in a 500 metre radius. 

So my brother had helped someone copy in an exam. Strike one. He had got caught. Strike two. Now imagine how he must have felt when my father knelt down and held him by his shoulders and asked him if whatever he had heard was true. This was his last chance. His do or die moment. And he didn't back down. He closed his eyes and swung hard. "No dad I didn't copy I just saw a scrap of paper lying down and I thought it shouldn't be here and so I was going to throw it out of the window when the teacher saw me she must've misunderstood I didn't do anything I swear". Any other father would've gone Seriously? That's the best you can come up with? Do you take me for an idiot? But not my father. My father believed in his children. Because his children didn't lie. Because that was how he had raised them and they knew lying was wrong so why would they do something wrong if they knew it was wrong? *cue vicky's my logic is undeniable from I, Robot*

So he dragged my brother into the school, pushed him in front of his teachers and asked him to tell them the same thing he had told him. And my brother, always the dutiful son, repeated the tale. And the supervisor objected, saying that she clearly saw him ... "Listen ma'am, I don't know what kind of education you give YOUR children but MY children have been taught enough to know the difference between right and wrong. And my sons would never lie to me".

They had decided to withold his results. As to why it got to this point, I'll never know. This whole thing should not have taken long; an apology, an appeal to the student's academic record (which was supposed to be quite good), a mention of some of the prizes he had won representing his school (which I'm told were many) and a polite question on what should happen to his future, his career, should they do this was probably all that was required. They should've cut off a few marks from his paper, given him a warning, let him go. But that was not what happened.

The decison to hold back his results was harsh, uncalled for. To father, this was OUTRAGEOUS. Because his son was being punished for a crime (yes, it was a crime, there was no doubt about that. pfft.), a crime he most certainly DID NOT commit. And it got on his nerves when the teachers kept insisting otherwise.

My father was a very simple man. Johnny Lever made him laugh, Anil Kapoor made him cry and somebody accusing him of not having given his son a proper moral upbringing insulted him. And being insulted made him angry.  He came on to them like a polar bear on a school of trouts, charging into the middle and ripping them apart left and right. And just when things were about to go out of hand ("I REFUSE TO BE SUBJECT TO THIS KIND OF TREATMENT"), the nice lady who taught history and lived on the same street and knew my parents interrupted and told them how this was probably a mistake and that he was a good kid and was very sincere and etc etc and so they finally let him off with a warning. But my father was not happy. He had wanted the teachers to apologise for being wrong about his son and for wasting his time. But that didn't happen. What had happened was that he had been insulted. And he wouldn't let his son be in a place where they did not respect him (as to whether the pronoun refers to the son or the father, I'm not quite sure). So he decided to move him to Mysore, where he was put up wit his uncle and aunt. They got him into a school which was nearby. It was also supposedly a  reputed high school, whatever meant. And they were mighty pleased with themselves in the end.

What surprises me most about this story is that I was not even part of this decision. Maybe I was but whenever I'm told this story, I don't figure. It's like I didn't even exist. And so my brother went away and I stayed on, to continue his legacy. The good legacy, I mean, the one where he got prizes and stuff. The bad legacy was soon forgotten. And so was my brother. He just became this Gorakhpur waale Chacha kind of figure who visited once or twice a year and brought sweets. And mom would be in a good mood and dad would come home early and we would all play cricket together. And fifteen days later, he'd be gone and mom would be cranky and dad would come home late and tired and switch on the news and I would sit in my room and play chess by myself.

Just one little thing before I get back to calculus.

I met a friend today whom I had not seen or heard from for a really long time. There are about three people in this whole wide world of seven billion people whom I would not mind sharing a room with for more than 24 hours. What I mean by that is that for some reason, I'm comfortable around these three morons, and they around me (or at least I hope so) and that we know each other well enough to not be surprised at any of our idiosyncracies, which might upset someone who is any less acquainted with us.

This friend, I'm pretty sure today, is one of those people. The two of us are complete opposites, though it might not look so on the outside. When we're in our comfort zones, I'm extremely loud and often tend to draw attention to myself, whether by choice or not, I'm not so sure. He, on the other hand, is extremely quiet. He's also quiet when he's uncomfortable but that's a different kind of quiet. In fact, I can tell you how to spot the two:

If he's sitting next to you and saying nothing but looking into the distance, he probably likes you.
If he's sitting next to you and saying nothing but looking down, at the ground, he wants to leave.

There are some other things I've noticed. If he's excited when he meets you and high fives you or does something stupid, he thinks you're cute - guy or girl, doesn't matter. If he just walks up and stands beside you saying nothing, he thinks of you as a friend. He rarely laughs at a joke. He just chuckles. Not in a cute way, though; he chuckles like he has asthma. Which he might, I'm not so sure.

That he hangs out with you is no sign that he actually likes you. How do I know he likes me? He's told that to me, multiple times.

In terms of facial muscles, I believe he compares to Imran Khan, the bollywood actor, in that he has exactly two and a half emotions. There's the happy face, which you can only notice when he's goofing around. I do not know if he's really happy when he's doing that, like happy in the Buddhist sense. But I'd like to believe he is. There's the at ease face. That is the face I'm familiar with the most. I believe I saw that today when he introduced me to his girlfriend. Or maybe that was just me projecting. Then there are the half expressions of discomfort/sadness//anger, none of which cannot be separated enough from each other to form distinct entities. They co-exist, always manifesting together, just in different ratios.

I do not believe he knows how much I value his friendship. I've only known him for about five years, which is actually a really short time. But if you had to give me a questionnaire with a thousand multiple choice questions asking what my friend would do in a given situation, I'm pretty damn sure I'd get each and every one of them right. If fact, I'm willing to bet it would be the same the other way around. I perhaps cannot say the same about the other two of the three people I mentioned earlier.

There are three magic words which I believe every person, irrespective of who they are, would like to hear the most when they're going through hard times - I get you. That is actually perhaps the most underrated sentence of all time. I wish this idiot would know that sometimes I feel a little happier just knowing that he exists and that if I talked to him, he would understand exactly what I was going through. I wish a lot of things.

Of course, he's not a perfect human being. Not anywhere close. Like, if perfection is Ladakh, he's somewhere near Hyderabad. I wish he shared more. I don't know what goes on inside his head when he's alone. I don't think I've ever actually seen him rant at anything. I wish he weren't so snobbish at times. I wish he were more sensitive - there are better ways to tell people that you don't like their idea than "This sucks. You're going to fail". I wish he'd read books other than Advanced Engineering Mathematics and Sherlock Holmes. I wish he'd watch more movies.

But those are nitpicks. I like him for who he is and if tomorrow all of the above came true and he somehow suddenly became Ben Wyatt from Parks and Recreation (who is my idea of a perfect man), I don't think I'd like him any more - I don't think I could like him any more. Because that would then go beyond the realms of platonic attraction and would just be weird.

Anyways, I met him today after a really long time and he seemed to be very happy. He has a girlfriend now, did I tell you that? Someone I finally think I approve of. Someday, far into the future, when I'm long dead and he's seventy years old with two kids, I hope he reads this. I hope he reads this and remembers me and that I always wished well for him.

I'm going to live blog Apostol's Calculus.

Why?

Because WHY NOT, that's why.

Introduction

Part 1 - Historical Introduction

1.1 The two basic concepts of calculus

1. "Calculus is more than a technical tool - it is a collection of fascinating and exciting ideas that have interested thinking men for centuries". Uff...
2. "These ideas have to do with speed, area, volume rate of growth, continuity, tangent line."  Tangent line? That sounds weird.

1.2 Historical Background

1. Method of exhaustion: "Given a region whose area is to be determined, we inscribe it in a polygonal region which approximates the given region whose area we can easily compute. Then we choose another polygonal region which gives a better approximation, and we continue the process taking polygons with more and more sides in an attempt to exhaust the given region." Wait. What happens to the "easily compute" part once you start taking more and more regions?
2. It was used successfully by Archimedes to find exact formulas for the area of a circle and few other special figures. Holy shit. You get pi if you keep on doing that? How?

1.3 The method of exhaustion for the area of a parabolic segment

1. We're going to do that shit now, aren't we?
2. So, archimedes says that if you draw f(x) = x^2, then the area under the curve you get is equal to one third the area of the rectangle you draw by putting two random line segments at x = 0 and x = b. Which makes sense now, because integral of x^2 is (x^3)/3 and x^3 is nothing but the area of the rectangle with sides x and x^2.

.Technical stuff follows, convincing me that Archimedes had to have been a first rate genius. 

I'll be back with more (I'm on page six now, by the way). See you soon, blog.

UPDATE: I realized this was a terrible idea two days later. Not doing it anymore.

Movie Review: Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman

After watching Masaan, I decided I was going to explore bollywood more. Maybe there were great movies being made every year and simply because not every production was slick as this one, nobody learnt about them. And as a starting point, I began with the 90s, specifically Shahrukh Khan. This was perhaps not very wise from an academic point of view but I had always had a boy-crush on SRK. I know his movies have not been particularly great but he is SO much fun to watch on screen, if you just let yourself go a little.

At least watch till the policemen start dancing

I watched two good movies: Kabhi Haan Kabhi Haan (1994) and Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (1992). K2H2 was an absolute delight and while Raju kind of loses itself in its third act and becomes weird and unintentionally funny, Shahrukh and Juhi deliver such brilliant on the spot performances that make you almost forget that. 

Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa was a good movie. It was written well, the director knew where he wanted to go with the movie and took it there, cautiously, with just the right pace, Compared to this, Raju is a trainwreck. But Raju is also the one I remember more. There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are bad movies which could've been so good. They're the ones that bother you the most. Raju is one of those movies. And not to mention, it was also the Khan's debut movie. I refuse to acknowledge Deewana.

Raj Malhotra (of course) A.K.A. Raju is a small town engineering graduate who comes to Bambai, the Bada Shahar, with dreams of making it big but instead finds himself lost, like you're apt to when you walk into Mumbai to start a new life armed with all of a degree in Civil Engineering and a visiting card of Sharmaji (I think it was Sharmaji). He meets Nana Patekar, a wise, bearded, middle-aged, benign-looking man, a modern day socrates, the only difference being that he asks people for money after his philosophizing. That is what he does, he performs, on the street, for a living.

It is kind of an underlying theme of the movie - that to survive in a city like Mumbai, you need to perform. You have to be occasionally not who you are if want to bring home the bacon. And it is all about whether Raju can do that, pull of the balance act between who he is and who he needs to be in order to make a living. At least, that is what I think the idea was in the beginning. 

So Raju is lost in the big city and Nana Patekar's Jai takes pity on him and gets him to his chawl. Chawls provide great settings for the one big bollywood family kind of scenes. An added bonus is the kind of songs which come naturally with it -  "Aaaj Hamari Basti mein mach gayi dhoom..."

Raju keeps getting rejected in interviews and girl next door Juhi Chawla, whom raju finds the most disagreeable person on earth, gets him a job at a library. Is there any bad person in this movie? Oh, right, Mr. Chhabria of Chhabria industries. Never mind him. 

Juhi Chawla is fucking brilliant. Did I mention that? Juhi Chawla is fucking brilliant. She almost steals the show with the little she has. She had amazing comic timing and the screenwriters are idiots for not having exploited that more. You can see bits of Shahrukh the star in the making in Raju. The amazing intensity, the sheer energy and commitment he brings to his characters... he just gives it everything he's got. The only person I've seen who probably outdoes Shahrukh in that department is Johnny Lever. No wonder King Khan says he was his favorite costar to work with. But Juhi ... Juhi Chawla is another thing altogether. And together, the pair are an absolute treat to watch. In fact, my favorite bollywood pair of all time, not that that's saying much.

Further readings:

1. Banke Tera Jogi - Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani (2000)

2. Main Koi Aisa Geet - Yes Boss (1997)

That's it for today. I'll see you soon.

  

Book Review

Starter for Ten - David Nicholls

Ta da!

Brian Jackson is beginning his first year at university; he hopes to get a lot of out of it.

I want to be able to listen to recordings of piano sonatas and know who's playing. [...] I want to understand complex economics, and what people see in Bob Dylan. I want to possess radical but humane and well-informed political ideals, and I want to hold passionate but reasoned debates round wooden kitchen tables, saying things like 'define your terms!' and 'your premise is patently specious!'...

And then, he tells us what's really inside his heart -

At some point, I'd like to have an original idea. And I'd like to be fancied, or maybe loved even, but I'll wait and see.

Brian's a sweet kid. Like every eighteen year old, he has been told College is supposed to be an experience. But to Brian, college perhaps means a little bit more. The only clear memory he has of his father, Brian tells us in what ends up being one of the most hilarious and moving scenes in the novel, is of the two of them watching University Challenge, a quiz show, together. After being prompted by his father, when Brian answers a difficult question correctly, he receives a surprise token affection - a pat on the head and a compliment: You'll be on there one day if you're not careful.

Of course Armstrong, Jesus, Cambridge answers it correctly too but Brian enjoys the studio applause as much as Mr. Armstrong. For the first time in his life, Brian feels smart, worthy of applause, a feeling which every quizzer remembers all too well. These students with their crazy hair and ancient clothes are regarded by the Jacksons with pure unadulterated wonder -

This wasn't trivia - it wasn't about feeling smug and complacent about all the things you knew, it was about feeling humbled by the whole, vast universe of things about which you had absolutely no idea; the point was to watch in awe, because it really did seem to me and Dad as if these strange creatures knew everything.

In other words, as far as the Jacksons are concerned, this is da shit. And thus, young Brian makes a decision subconsciously that he wants to be on University Challenge.

Five minutes in the novel, I recognized the voice. David Nicholls is most certainly a student of the Nick Hornby school of writing. The self-loathing, the sexual frustration, the incredible capacity for humor* and the piercing honesty - the whole package is right there (where it was records for Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, it’s quiz trivia for Brian) and it's absolutely brilliant.

First day at university, Brian meets Rebecca Epstein.

[…] a heavy black coat, black tights, a short denim shirt, and a black soviet-style cap, pushed back behind an oily black quiff. I give her a 'mind-if-I-sit-here?' smile and she gives me a 'yes-go-away' smile, a tight little spasm, and there's a glimpse of tiny, sharp white teeth, all the same size, behind an incongruous smear of crimson lipstick.

And then he meets Alice

I turn around and I swear she is so beautiful that I nearly drop my can of lager.

Here’s Rebecca, second year law student, who is obviously brilliant. Rebecca, who could make Oscar Wilde blush with her sarcasm. Furious Rebecca and her team of fuckingangryactuallys** rallying against apartheid, class divide, Tories, english boarding schools all simultaneously. Rebecca, who Leo Tolstoy was talking about when he said that nothing was so necessary for a young man as the company for intelligent women. Rebecca, who actually, for some reason, kind of likes Brian. And yet, all Brian can think about is Alice.

I don't think I've ever stood this close to anything this beautiful. There's beauty in books of course, or in a painting maybe, or a view, like on that geography field-trip to the Isle of Purbeck, but up until now I don't think I've ever experienced true beauty, not in a real live, warm, soft human being, something that you might be able to touch, in theory anyway. She's so perfect that I actually flinch when I see her.

Been there, done that. Like Rebecca says,

You boys, you're sooooo predictable…

I think I'm in love with the idea of Rebecca Epstein. She's independent in a way the character of Alice never is, when ironically, it is Alice who keeps using the words. Rebecca is a boy's girl and a girl's girl. She's smart, passionate, funny, she can keep a secret, even when doing so won’t necessarily mean good things for her; she’s sensible, and she’s strong, in the literal sense of the term; Having trouble in school with a bully? Call her and she'll beat him up for you.

If you ignore the unnecessary back story, Rebecca Epstein might just be too perfect a character (and there’s the fact that she’s played by Rebecca Hall in the movie.)  Why does she go for our guy at all? Maybe it’s the boyish Hugh Grant awkward charm. Or maybe, even with all his flaws, Brian is still a good guy. Personally, I prefer that argument the most. Brian's funny, he’s kind … he has brief moments of insecurity where he does stupid things but who doesn’t?

The more I think about it, the more I know this is true – Brian Jackson is the quintessential quizzer. He confuses his ... non-insignificant retentive abilities with intelligence; He mistakes his academic achievements for learning. It takes all of us lot a while to realize that at the end of the day, it’s just a silly game, that you can answer every single question and win your tournament and still be a moron at everything else. It takes all boys a while to understand that, in the words of the immortal Lindsey Weir, just because a girl is pretty doesn’t mean she’s right for you. (As it happens, a similar quiz competition (mathletes (remember mean girls?)) is also setting for a nice F&G episode.)

Thankfully, Alice is not a stereotype. She's smart too and she's incredibly nice to Brian, even when he's being a creepy despo. Alice's parents on the other hand are a different story. For some reason, they prefer staying naked when they're indoors. This is taking the liberal parents gag a little too extreme; it  feels contrived but at the end of it there’s an absolute killer of a joke, probably the best joke in contemporary fiction. It is not something I could have expected in a million years. The author basically cooks this whole scene up, two pages worth of unconvincing material just so he could insert this one joke. Is that the mark of an immature writer or a genius? I guess I’ll never know.

As I write this, I feel a strange affection for the characters, an unfamiliar sadness stirring inside me. I could feel it even as I started reading. I was laughing hard, covering my eyes saying "please don’t let this happen" while I knew exactly what was going to happen. I knew this because these were my characters too. This “hilarious and painful coming-of-age novel about the geeky adolescent beginning college in all his awkward glory” – This was supposed to be the novel I was going to write in ten years from now! And yet, here it is, all of the ideas in my head fully formed, in my hand. And it’s a dozen times better. Oh well. Thanks anyway, Mr. Nicholls. I had a good time. 

Oh, I love you all. Even you, hepatitis.

*Parting ways after a hysterical date, Alice swiftly kisses Brian on the cheek and leaves and Brian says "It's pretty quick, like a cobra strike".

** Brilliant, isn' it?