Be Afraid, Be very afraid !!

The last week in retrospect has been a very frustrating week in terms of what I expected it to be and what it turned out to be instead ..

1. I set out for a place with high hopes of finding a particular motor which would satisfy my constraints..reach the shop, who raises the bar of hopes by saying that the particular rpm motor is available and then...it simply exceeds the dimensional constraints and hence, rendered useless. This was probably an omen of things to come, I guess.

2. We set out to "conquer" Mood-I Quizzes/WordGames over the weekend. The quotes have been used for conquer coz I know it would probably be too Herculean a task to win all the events in the purview as the competition was actually fantastic, something which I never expected compared to last year's participation, but getting cash back in return would have done an almost bankrupt man like me a favour. Well, we qualified for the Main Quiz finals and apparently topped the prelims ( a bit of C2D was involved, to tell the truth but we did deserve to get till there is our opinion)..only to be steamrolled in the finals. As for the Word Games event, we did quite decently in the prelims and would have even come back home with cash except for one stupid buzzer round which changed the tide of the finals and we ended up missing the top 3 spots by 5 pt ( as to why the buzzer round was crucial : each question was worth 30 pts and we knew the answer all along and forgot to press the buzzer and allowed the team which beat us to sneak ahead. D'uh,I know, but this was yet another instance for me coming so near, and yet so far :( )

3. Never before has it happened that my ticket in the Tatkal quota couldn't be booked..and this has to happen when I wanted my ticket as desperately as possible !

4. An ambitious project we are working on suddenly goes into Plan-C/D/whatever_the_letter mode due to employees of a certain motor mfg. firm being on holiday. And this news comes right after the firm seemed possible to deliver us the goods, in probably as early as 2 weeks when compared to the normal 1 month standard expected. We must be damned, I must say.

The above 4 sets of events have all seemed as promising to deliver and yet failing. Is this a sign of things to come or has the storm passed ? Have I failed yet again to read the omens or have I read it correctly finally ? I guess only time shall tell me the answer which makes me very scared coz I never trust the surprises, pleasant or unpleasant that the future holds for me. All I can do is pray that the good times have begun (and I certainly don't intend to fly by Kingfisher to Fly the "good times", unless they are offering me a free ticket! ) coz what lies ahead of me is as good as a make or break situation for whatever I'd set out to achieve at the onset of the current academic year.

I have a Dream ..And I bloody well want it to come true !!

P.S. The only set of events expected which I didnt mention earlier were my grades, which for now also seem to give me a ray of hope and expectation and I hope they don't end up the way the earlier set did !

Life Without Walls

I was watching the recent Test match between India and England at Chennai on TV and there flashes the Windows Skydrive ad with the following tagline :

" Windows A life without walls " .. which sets me into thinking .." If we don't have walls, where will we have the Windows ? :P Paradox max Ad !!

It seems with the exit of Bill, the Walls have crumbled around the Microsoft office :)

To B.E. or not to B.E. ?

Hmm, I was going through a certain book on word etymos and something which surprised me was the term, Bachelor -- meaning an unmarried male, in common parlance. Now, I have been pondering on this term for a while coz I have never been able to figure out why is someone is awarded a degree stating " Bachelor of Engineering " , so on and so forth..Do they mean that the poor chap who's awarded the degree is unmarried to engineering,when ironically, he's spent 4 precious years trying to figure out the nitty-gritties of the same and in all likelihood has failed to grasp them!

Now, it's surprising that the Forum for International Feminine Associations (FIFA in short) hasn't launched a scathing attack on the powers that be, to find the Bachelors degree to be disappointingly sexist and thereby launch a Spinsters degree for the females who would have been otherwise awarded the Bachelors degree. But the fact that they won't crib over the Masters degree is evident coz after all, its Mistresses who anyway rule over the Masters in most prevailing conditions. Anyway, here ends the reference to the title of this post. On to more serious issues..

Getting an admit into IIT (not the Illinois one) is a matter of prestige for most of the wanna-be engineers and their parents in the nation. But has anyone wondered about the situation of the fellow post-entry into IIT ? It has become an awkward state of mind for the lad when he returns home (especially, if he is not studying in an IIT in his place of residence, if there exists one). Any allegation on me bearing charges of anti-feminism can be mailed to : thisismankindnotwomankind@grantmeawebsite.org and for those without allegations, can continue reading this post, if they are interested to..Now this guy who comes back has a burden of the IIT tag on him. Yes, I call it a burden coz every move of his is scrutinized by the dastardly elements of the society wishing to prove that IITians are human in as palpable a manner as possible. The funny part is this - IITians never claimed they were superhuman, but have always maintained the fact that they are human. So what's the need to prove someone down in this process ? The problem is, this tag stays with him forever until he retires and comes back as a prof in an IIT coz then, he's living with people of similar backgrounds.

Another embarassing situation arrives when this lad is introduced to some friend of his parents as " My son studies in IIT-X*" and there falls the sky on his head. And God save the poor chap if this Mister whom he's introduced to, has a son/daughter aspiring to be an IITian and is probably preparing for the famed JEE ! It's not that he doesnt wish to help out but it's just the fact that he wouldn't want to be pestered with people asking for advice. After all, coaching classes are meant to be there for the same reason. They too have ex-IITians as some of the faculty members. Well, my interaction with students of other IITs has been limited but from what I have gathered, life at almost all IITs, remain the same, except for a bit of grading differences and maybe certain facilities and probably, ragging. But this fact just doesn't sink into other aspirants, moreso their parents I would say. It's good to be concerned about one's ward's future but excessive advice seeking never did anyone good unless they were going to start up their own firm with a database of these advices.

Now, it's the time for this IITian ( let's call him XY, poor fellow will have a name ot identify with his chromosome at least )--ok XY goes to a nearby mart whose owner (O) has known him for the past 6 years. Seeing XY after a long hiatus, he enquires about his education and the conversation is as follows :

O : So XY, coming back from a long vacation huh ?
XY : No sethji, just came back on a vacation from college.
O : College ? waah, badhiya hai. Which college ?
XY (with a sense of pride) : IIT - Delhi ji..
O : Arrey, ek ITI toh apne Mulund mein bhi hai na, yeh dilli-willi kyun jaana ! (Mulund- a suburb on the outskirts of Mumbai)
XY : /*Damn, this fellow doesn't know difference between IIT and ITI*/
XY : Arrey nahin, IIT , like the one in Powai..IIT Bombay..suna hai na ?
O : Oh achcha, like that bolo na..toh why Delhi beta ? Powai mein donation dena tha kya ?
XY : /*Damn, no point explaining him. Next he'll ask me my CET score and tell me that I could have got in VJTI itself( VJTI-- is the "best" engineering college in Mumbai, if IITB is not considered into picture) */
XY : Haan, that was the case. Chalo, I've work to do. Will come later.
O to another customer : Poor fellow..was a brilliant chap but couldn't get a seat in Mumbai itself. Had to go to Delhi of all the places !

This above conversation is not a myth but a morphed version of the real one which I encountered last summer. And I thought IITians were famous. No wonder, the political party floated by a certain group of IITians ( I think it's called Lok Paritran ) is a disaster !


Above all this, there's always the fact that your friends,( those who are fortunately/unfortunately not in IITs despite deserving to be so) will view any statement made by you with a prejudiced attitude, unlike the times before you cleared JEE. It's a part and parcel of this process called life that you move on from one time period to another and in this process, I think it's humanely impossible to keep in touch with anyone and everyone you knew well prior to joining IIT. And once you come back to your residential town and if you dont call up these bum-chums, they would think of you as "another IITian who doesn't care about us now that we aren't fellows in his league ". A popular misconception, I must say. I agree that it's a bit difficult to maintain the same bonhomie prevalent earlier and getting that spark back again does take time; added to the fact that every damned person has some expectation or the other from this XY that he's totally confused as to what to do and gets pained by trying to please everyone ( but in the process, ends up pleasing none coz he's worried about the statements he makes which become a bit formal over a period of time as he's unsure as to how the world shall react to them--once again leading to the Pre-IITian and Post-IITian schools of thought :( )


All said and done, I guess the only way to sort this thing out would probably not consider IITians as geniuses; at least don't be prejudiced in judging a person's statements, whether he's an IITian or not, coz we are all human after all, and mistakes or correct decisions are never decided whether a person is an IITian or not.

** There do exist female IITians but I have never been in their shoes to corraborate the same into my post.
## I hope this post is not considered with prejudice as an IITian's post or else, my whole purpose would be dissolved !

Long Time, no C !

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 !!

Saarang LVC !

Well, LVC here doesn't stand for Long-Visual-Connect but Long-Verbal-Connect (Note that the earlier statement is only for insti quizzers who would be familiar with LVC like terms. If you aren't one, pardon me but if you aren't and yet know about it, Good for you ! )

The following is my entry for the Newsletter Ed's application for Saarang 2009. Hope you enjoy it ! (The theme also is provided below )

Connect :- Saarang-AJ-Time Machine- Lace-Angelina Jolie- E=mc^2—ACM Turing Prize-Booze-Why so Serious ?

The connection is as follows :-

The preparations had begun in full flow for Saarang 2009 with the people in charge of it slogging away ( in some cases like the Design Team, cogging away). Lace was also one of these guys( and gals) trying to get some sleep as he was trying to fix up the loose ends; the fix here being that he could not tie his own Lace ! But as they say, the Saarang Spons Saga was Lace-d with many such instances, with one of them involving him to order a spons coord to approach the ACM Turing Prize panel to donate the prize money as a Sponsorship amount towards Saarang 2009; as cash resources and time, both were running out. Meanwhile, Lace’s co-Core/C(h)or was being his reSPONSible self ordering AJ on how to go about handling “Public Relations” (read- “How to make their Relation Pub(l)ic “).

Now, it so happens that Alan Turing was known to have a Homo-Genius mix of orientation towards Computers and homosexual practices* (of which I daren’t speak of !)

*Quote misquoted from www.uncyclopedia.org

Hence, the ACM Turing Prize Panel, in accordance with Turing’s final wish, wanted to support homosexuality. Aaand, when they saw the logo of Saarang 2008, they were simply turned ON by it and gave away a huge chunk of the prize money as Sponsorship towards Saarang ’09 only to find that the same money was spent on booze, snuff,etc... So, now that we had cash, Akanksha tried to create a PR stunt by proclaiming to the media (read ‘Newsletter junta’) that AJ was coming to Saarang ‘09; the only glitch being that this stunt flopped worse than Han-Cock. The reason was pretty clear that she didn’t know that she was (in)famously known as AJ^ in IITM whereas the AJ she referred to was Angelina Jolie (or probably Angelina Jolie ‘Pit’t, by the time this piece goes into print).

^- AJ doesn’t stand for Akanksha Jain, but Arrogant Jackass !

This flop disillusioned her about Saarang 09’s look to the public and she was about to resign her Core-ship and offer it to me*** but she was somehow convinced by N2 that even ‘E=mc^2’ was proved only after years of 'hard work' and the same is applicable to Saarang. Well, trust AJ to goof up the simplest of things and she took N2’s words to be as “Hardly working” towards her goal and started boozing until she became a Bo(o)zo !

*** To me, coz she had the best TIME of her life in the most unique TIME machine I gifted her, to create her Moods as per her convenience (now do you get the Time funda ?), on our 7th wedding anniversary .

My friends, That’s the way Saarang 2009 crumbles ! Here I’m, Heath Ledger, Chief Correspondent, Crappy News Network (CNN), signing off . BTW, Why so Serious ??

Pleasant Jerks ver 2.0

TTN has become a bit serious with his teaching nowadays ( read, telling lesser PJs per class) but yet we have another gem from his class here :

" I went to a restaurant which had buffet style dinner offering me dal, roti and sabzi kept in different rows. Now, while being served, I got Roti first, which was hot. Hence, good. Next, I was served Dal, which was also hot and hence, that also was good. But. when I was served Sabzi, it was cold. Temme why ? " ...............

"Well the answer is that it was picked up from the 'Sabzi-Row' " :P :P

Well, I know one thing for sure now that I will take up an elective in Industrial Engg. next year if it's continued to be taught by TTN.

Pleasant Jerks !!

Well, finally I'm dedicating a post to someone -- Prof. TT Narendran (TTN in short). What makes this post special is that I've not sat in a single class of his and yet I'm posting some of his delectable quotes (thanks to my choice of Minor, but well I never knew TTN rocked like this :( ) Following are some of his PJs, not in any particular order :-

"Which element in the Periodic Table can make you feel poor ? " ...... Antimony !!!!

"Which is the only creature apart from human beings having emotions ? ".....Sentipede !!!!!!!

"There were 2 scientists ;- Highf & Daw " Didn't get it ??? It's High-Funda !!! (Pun Intended)

More are to follow as his classes go by ! Wow, now there's a Prof. in IITM who can keep a class going :)