To Ends, and new Beginnings

To Vikrant, Mansi, Sudeep, Shashwat, Abha, Nidhi, Tanaya, Sritulasi, Sowmya, Parul, Sumedh, Shashank, Karan, Tanvi, Sourabh, Smiti, Raghu, Mohan, Rohit, Jitin, Madhuri, Vybava, Divya, Priya, Hema, Madhuree, Viraj, Ameya, Rahul, Gauresh, Nikhilesh, Palash, Prerna, Niranjan, Pushkar, Niyati, Aviral, Tarun, Madhavi, Vanishree, Joshi, Simran, Pralav, Modi, Sharan, Henish, Hitesh, Shilpi, Inchara, Fabio, Zafeiria and last but definitely not the least, Ritika.

To Mario, Eddie, Songwu, Lixia, Paul, Adam, Mani, Deborah, Yuval, Miodrag and Eliezer.

To many others I may have missed to mention.

To UCLA.

Go Bruins!

Peace.

The Meaning of Lite

Yes! You read it correctly. The title reads 'Lite' and not 'Life'. Well, the the latter would have made a very good philosophical discussion, some of which is dealt with here, but today is the time for the former. Chatting with a friend just today, I was being told how her non-bitsian friends were having trouble understanding the numerous contexts in which she used the word 'lite' and what it meant. We decided to mutually publish a blogpost which clarified the use of "lite" for all the unenlightened folks out there.

Let's explore the use of 'lite' in various scenarios.

After a test, I met a friend outside the classroom. He asked me how my test was. I replied, "Liiiiite." Note how the 'i' was long and exaggerated. This basically means that the test was very simple and straight-forward. "It was very lite," would also mean the same thing.

The next day we had another test. (This was a particularly annoying week) Again, I met the same friend and asked how he did. He replied, "Lite only." In this context, he meant that it was pretty difficult and he could do nothing but take lite.

Which brings us to the third use of the word, as I used it in the previous sentence. "Take lite," means to not give something too much importance. So in the above context, since the test was hard, all my friend could do was to take lite, which would be to not give it too much thought.

Another similar use is when you ask someone to not fret about something, or to let go. For example, suppose you get into a fight and are about to punch the daylight out of somebody. One of your friends might come up to you and say. "Take lite, man. It's not worth it."

So here's four usages, and this is how the word is used a majority of the time. If other bitsians would like to add more to the list, please leave a comment, and I'll add to the post.

The End of House

I just heard that this would be the last season of House MD. I've been a fan of a lot of TV series for quite a long time now. House MD was one of the early series I began following. I remember watching it as long ago as my second year at BITS, probably even before I had watched even a single episode of FRIENDS. Gregory House was very well portrayed by Hugh Laurie, and I had great difficulty accepting he had been a stand up comedian before stepping into the role of the enigmatic and brilliant diagnostician. I had to actually see him act in "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" to believe it!

I can (proudly) say that I've watched every single episode of the series, starting right from the mysterious doctor who never saw his patients, yet diagnosing them correctly with his team of excellent multi-disciplinary doctors to accepting his Vicodin addiction and checking himself in to get better, to getting into a relationship with Cuddy (only avid fans know how long they had to wait to see it happen) and finally crashing a car into her apartment as an outburst of emotion and thereafter serving jail time.

The makers of House were successfully able to keep the audience hooked to the series with offering insight into new aspects of House's life with every new season, but that could last for only so long. After Cuddy left the series, it just wasn't the same anymore, with the new team not bringing enough to the table as Cuddy and Cameron did, and House running out of facets of his life to enthrall the audience with.

As with many other things, sometimes the best way to show that one cares is by ending something at the correct time, when things are still good, than wait unnecessarily and impose oneself till things turn sour. I'm glad that the makers of House hit a sweet spot with respect to when to end the series. It was about time when the series was growing quite repetitive and monotonous, with no real character development to speak of. Ardent fans still followed it, but there really was nothing new or interesting happening. It was nice to see that they cared enough to end it before it became a drag like some of the series that started around the same time.

I'll always remember House MD as one of the most inspiring series I've watched, with interesting, well thought out characters and an amazing storyline, right till the end. A big thanks to everybody who contributed to the making of this series.