hey, I knew that

I sometimes sit back and think about the past twenty or so years of my life that I can recollect at some level or the other.

Of these, the earliest are no more than wisps of memories from Lansdowne, the start of schooling, the cold winters having the longer of the two school breaks, and things like that.

Etched slightly deeper in the back of my mind are the days that I spent after moving to Delhi, continuing schooling, the correct holidays being longer in duration, the friends I used to play with and annoy or a strikingly regular basis.

Next in line are the Rohtak days, with the memories being clearer than the previous two locations, thus including a larger spectrum of things that come to mind. Schooling (again), friends, my first time driving a jeep or riding a motorbike, my first time crashing a car into a pole, my first time falling in love with computers, and thousands of other events that haven't yet faded into oblivion.

Next come the five golden years of my life that are written in ink, but are now slowly beginning to show signs of fading. The KGP days. In theory, these days are supposed to teach you the skills needed to get through your career. Well, don't know about that happening, but I am pretty sure that college does teach something more important than that. It teaches you the skills that help you get through life. And then a lot more. The friendships you forge there last longest, even if the friends are spread across the face of the globe. The things you learn, unlearn and relearn last through life and of-course, you enjoy this period more than any other in life. There are a million things from this time, that if I ever gather the courage to list them down, I would perhaps kill the keyboard by typing too much. Computers, html, c, cars, bikes, formula 1, gaming, one or two academic courses, the hostel, the wing, the wingoos, the sf, the summer training, the job interviews, the bunked lectures, the night-outs, the Cal-trips, and so much more, some of which is already recorded in these pages.

The two years since then seem to have passed in a blinding flash of light, but that does not mean that they are not remembered. The Job, the first few months of no work, the following period of work increasing by the day, Japan, Agra by bike, cameras, computers some more, gaming, and some more job-things.

The one another thing that become clear is when I am lost in these memories is that over the years, I have learnt and known a lot of stuff about a lot of varied subjects. The good part is that I can often recall a lot of it. The sad part is that as I get deeper and deeper engrossed in the things that are happening now, and as they eat up some of the disk space at the top floor, some older things slip away. I used to be proud one to be able to recite the complete specifications of some computer part just off the top of my head that some friend had come across somewhere. Today, it is difficult for me to do that.

And inevitably, more and more things will slip away. I do not want to let that happen. Even if all these things sink deeper and deeper into the folds of grey matter in my head, I want to have some way to get back to them and say, "hey, I knew that".

If I tell you the real reason of why I am writing this new blog, you'd perhaps infer that the Psycho has really gone crazy, so I will stick with the one stated above :P

Revertigo

I wanted to title this post "Associative Regression". However I did not. The reasons for that are two-fold.

1. Someone already has a blog post by the same title. (and it also deals with the same subject)

2. The term is as much made up as the current title of the blog is. And of the two made up terms, "Revertigo" is catchier.

So anyway, with the name of the post finalized, I should at least explain the origin of the terms.

Made popular by the hit TV show How I Met Your Mother, the term Revertigo was coined by a character on the show describing how his wife reverts to her high-school self when around her friend from that time. And the term "Associative Regression" was mentioned by that friend, who is supposed to be some sort of behavioral psych scholar....

Anyhoo, whatever be the roots of these terms, "revertigo" is now quite popular, having multiple entries at the Urban Dictionary. Associative Regression, having many more syllables, hasn't been that lucky.

So after a pretty long prologue, now I come to the actual content of this blog post.

As of today, if I am to sit down and think for a while, mine is a typical bourgeois existence, six days pulling twelve hour or longer days at the office, and then one in front of the idiot box of the twenty-first century - the personal computer (sometimes the twentieth century idiot box also features - usually for formula 1 races - man that was one slick move Massa pulled off today on the McLarens, they could never have seen it coming - too bad his engine blew 3 laps from the finish when he was leading). And thus this bourgeois existence gives you moments when you want to be what you earlier were. Perhaps even from half your life or more ago. And you do get a change of it when you are around someone you knew from that time and are meeting after long. And sometimes not even when really around, the modern means of communication are wonderful triggers of revertigo.

I used to be a big-time blue blooded geek in my college days. Computer hardware was my favorite haunt, especially the x86 and related extended architectures. There was a time when there was not one piece of computer hardware of the aforementioned affiliation that I did not know about.

And in addition to this, I was, since before college, an automobile enthusiast, and a tifosi. Thus, the favored vehicles were the scarlet Ferraris of both track and road kind. Add to those a lot more four wheeled vehicles of varying lineage, and then the two wheeled kind with engines of varied sizes slung in between, and you might be able to paint a picture that would for sure out-stretch any piece of canvas you can get your hands on.

However, being what I am now, there really isn't much time to be a devout follower of the religion of silicon, or that of gasoline - or even diesel - so bloody brilliant diesel engines they make these days that the Le Mans 24 Hours organizers are trying to amend the rules to try and give a chance to the gasoline powered vehicles. Gasoline in your veins is a phrase that perhaps needs replacing lest the spark plug people do something, and do it quick.

However much I claim to be a geek and a auto-afficiando, the bitter truth is that today the amount of knowledge I have about computers and cars is much less than what it used to be at a point in history.

And this is where revertigo, in all its forms, comes into play.

For those few hours when talking with old friends (and even some new ones) about the latest cars and bikes, or even minutes when discussing online the virtues and vices of the newest thing nVidia, Intel, ATi, AMD, Canon or Nikon, I go back. Knowing (or atleast pretending) a lot about computers, cars, bikes, and more recently Digital SLR cameras and lenses is a wonderful feeling that reminds you of simpler times without painfully long working hours and being worried sick about the next vehicle build trials and drawing release dates. Hell I have perhaps gone revertigo twice or thrice in this blog post already.

The good part is, that whenever I am in revertigo, the world feels to be a nicer place to be in. The stress, the worries, the drawing release dates simply fade away. What remain are the things that seemed to matter the most to you back then.

The bad part however is that when you snap out of it, all those bourgeois things are still there, more menacing than ever before, drawing closer and closer.

As of now, I have not been able to decide whether revertigo is a good thing or a bad one. Perhaps your experiences about the same would help me reach there. What I do know for a fact is that revertigo is here to stay with me, perhaps forever. And that I miss the TV show that coined this term, and that they should hasten its return to the old idiot box, so that we can also get it on the newer one. Or, that I should go into a hibernative revertigo and ask someone to pay heed to the Green Day song that goes "Wake me up when September ends.........