Aaah, yes. I couldn't post for a long time thanks to the ordeal that's Code-named " Mech 5th Sem, IITM " . I'm not much of a coder, but I did do C well ( as per one of my colleagues, who somehow managed to get my number and text me her coding problem coz she thought I was some stud !Aah, it's human to err )
Now, coming back to this blogpost material, lemme give you a brief of what kept me busy so long ( and oh, before I forget, I tried to blog sometime a couple of weeks back by trying to write my first senti blogpost only to crash off while typing it :P)
1. "The Spirit of Engineering " -- now, don't jump to conclusions that I was very enthu about my 5th sem, but the first ISO certified student organized festival in the world -SHAASTRA. I write it in caps, coz I believe it deserves to be. The tenth edition of Shaastra combined with the Golden Jubilee of IIT M was a treat to experience ( the spons treat we got after that also was :P )
2. Lit-Soc -- the earlier typoed "Lit(e)-Soc " suddenly got into me some infinite enthu, when for the first time in my 3 yrs, I attended all the events in the sem gone by..something I never even attempted to do in my earlier sems. And it saw me surprisingly participate in events where I've never ventured to do so in the past 5 yrs ( Well, I somehow lost all kinds of apprehensions of making a fool of myself on stage. After all, this world's a stage and if I'm the comedian in it, no problemo ! )
3. Mugging -- Aah, for once I saw myself mug like never before ( well, probably mugged better for JEE but this concentrated activity for 8 days during end sems finally ended my coded ordeal )
4. Fussball -- One of the better things to have happened to Jam in the last 3 years. Tottaaaaaalllllllllly loved it !
5. Misc : Hmm, this would describe all the TNR ( totally not required, for the uninitiated) activities that one could do in life ). Fine examples would tripping ( there were a certain trio who called themselves "brotherhood" amongst my fellow spons coords who were at the suffering end of this for most of the time :P), crashing ( but this was any day lesser than my normal crashing :( ), putting fart ( which reached a peak during classes with our otherwise boring profs somehow giving us enough content to come up with quotable quotes !) , etc....
Now that you, my dear reader, have been briefed up well about what I am going to write about, have the option to read the last line of this blogpost ( X marks that spot) and follow it or continue reading this post ..
Shaastra -- those 6 months from the beginning of May this year to this date, have given me the most cherishable experience in my life so far.. I've no words to describe it coz I'vent mugged for GRE yet, but scaled down versions of those words would probably be - kickass, phenomenal, fantabulous .. When I set out for work as a Spons and PR coord, little did I know what was in store for me ( apart from caling in orgs to get the moolah and if lucky, end up meeting them or at least the probably hot HR female or receptionist, none of which sadly happened with me !). With situations changing real-time and moods fluctuating unperiodically, this literally made me see some of the highs and lows of life ( ya, getting bumped and proposals getting rejected can get very painful until the cash flows in, trust me !) And if I thought that my whole affair with Shaastra 08 would be spons-ish, I couldnt have been more wrong ever. Like every twist in the tale, this journey too had one, although a bit predictable from the start, except that its magnitude was unprecedented -- The Golden Jubilee Conclave. Well, it wasnt the best a man could get but then, attempting something within a span of 2 months which other organizations take years to achieve, that too completely student-run ( who also have their acads to take care*) and yet managing to pull off the presence of a couple of members from the politburo and an eminent author (Ramachandra Guha, FYI) , who addressed an audience comprising top-notch company heads, alumni and of course, us :)
On a personal note, the icing on the cake for me was the presence of the Renault Formula One car, driven to victory by Giancarlo Fisichella, at Shaastra. This was one of my dreams at the onset of working for Spons and my joy knew no bounds on the day I received a confirmation of its presence. The fact that it's ambience wasn't all that flashy may have been a dampener, but then getting a REAL F1 car to be displayed for the first time in Chennai is also something to be proud of, I guess. Although, if my sources are to be trusted, another F1 display is on cards, this January at IITM courtesy, Force India or should I say, Kingfisher, to be apolitical !
*- One industrialist, who's apparently world no. 2 for Renault suggested that we guys take a two month holiday to prepare for the Conclave, to make it look pseuder than it actually was. T for him, is what we have to say, as though all that we have to do is Conclave. God Save IITians ( and their jobs :P) if that happens !
Lit-Soc -- Well, as indicated earlier in one of my posts, this year was a year of maajar responsibility undertaken by Lit-Soc secs of Jam to win the Lit-Soc shield for the first time in the past 11 yrs (if my trusted sources are to be trusted) and despite all detractors, I guess we have been able to put up a good show thus far. But to quote SRK in OSO " Picture ab bhi baaki hai mere dost ! ". I wish I could see the future but I just hope that it holds something great in the near future, which I would love to take back when I become an alumnus of this insti. This was the first year that I took part in any speaking event at Lit-Soc, one which involved Light music ( light ra mama, for its details - in typical IITM lingo ) and the other was Debate which to me and my teammate's surprise, fetched us the 2nd place :) Not bad for a half-hour fight which we put before the event ! As usual, our Drams performance was a display of spectacular acting skills ( although, the actors themselves were not too satisfied with their performance !) and our lit-event performances have been on a constant rise over the past 3 yrs which makes me hope that they reach their crescendo this season ( there are people who'll try to deng me for this and possibly try and convince me that Jam's not going to win Lit-Soc, but I'm not going to believe it until there's no mathematical scope left !! )
Mugging - lesser said about it the better :) ( I hope my grades are good, that's al; ! )
Fussball-- What do you do when you have a project worth 20% of your total course weightage, have 10 lab reports to cog off and are just 6 hrs from its submission time, have loads to mug for a lab-viva but have no enthu to do either of the above ? -- You play Fussball !! ( but of course, you must be privileged enough to be a Jammie or have good contis, who'll let you play here :P ) Kickass fun and totally unpredictable ( unless, you are playing against me and my teammate, who'll be better than others :P )
Misc -- If truth be told, this misc time was more than the time spent on mugging or Fussball ! Tripping came but naturally to me ( or so say the people who get tripped on :P) and farting is an essential quality which needs to be acquired to set one's insti life in order. So both of the above stuff, were needless to say, comprising max of my misc time although my trippiness has reduced for certain unforeseen and unmentionable reasons. I guess I'll save those reasons for a later post coz mentioning them now would involve tripping for the same reasons I shouldn't and that would become a paradox then !
All good things must come to an end, and similarly " All painful sems in Mech must also come to an end :P" which is applicable now, as I'm typing exactly 28 hrs after my sem has officially ended -- meaning the time from which I can't eat in mess ( not that I want to eat there! ). And similarly, I must end this post as well, but not without the mentioning of a few memorable quotes :
1. "Derivation of Mugged Expressions "-- the expanded form of a paper acronymized as DoME but which essentially stands for Design of Machine Elements :P Thanks to Alok for this one, considering the fact that it was w.r.t. an arbit max paper full of derivations which were at least 4 pages long but worth just 8 marks :(
2. " Choose a prof whose daughter is good looking and younger than you, for your BTP ( BTech project in short) " -- SKD, the Gawdest of profs to have taught us.. and then he mentioned his daughter's age to be 24 ! Just to ensure that we idiots dont pain him for BTP's I guess :)
3. " Yes, we can " -- I bow to thee, Obama ( or should I thank his strategist ? ) for the tagline of a century ! I had to keep one in this list which wasn't trippy and yet too stud to be ignored !
X - As indicated, X marks the ending line of this post. For those who scrolled down without reading the post, as per the earlier deal, thou art ordered to go through the same ordeal as others, who went through the above fart :)And yes, the title of this blogpost is referring to the long gap in my career with respect to coding. Hoping to do some useful coding in the coming winter :)
Dasvidaniya !!
