Baseless Ramblings

Last post on blogger.... Maybe...

2005-10-18T04:52:00.000-07:00

Moving my blog to http://kunal.wordpress.com ...
Why?
Only reason - the URL I got!!
Ah! Vanity...
As Tolstoy says, “If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.”
I agree!

The one that got away

2005-10-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I realized how ancient my bike is. Vidit and I are lazing along the road and suddenly a BMW zooms past! Vidit got a decent enough look, but me - thanks to my helmet and my good driving skills (I had my eyes just on the road ahead!) - I got just a glimpse of the tail-lights. Hmmm… A car worth crore bucks just goes past me and I don't even try for a second chance!! Yeah, you are right... I'd be nuts not to try. After all what’s a BMW when compared to my just-serviced-and-the-same-day-splattered-in-mud bike? I give chase, in the pukka filmi ishtyle. Oh, not so filmy! No heroines here, it was just the BMW & the bike & its two riders! I and of course the bike and Vidit slowly inched our way towards the car... The distance reduces, now the tail-lights resemble two shining one rupee coins instead of the 25 paisa coins. I pray that the traffic light is red (praying for a red traffic light means either you are following some beautiful girl or following a BMW or a Ferrari, anyways both of them leads only to heartburn)... But alas, it is quite late in the night and the traffic lights are playing i-wink-you-wink-we-all-wink... Suddenly the BMW revs up, and the one rupee coins transform to 25 paisa coins again. Ok, I take on the challenge (although none was thrown at me)... Even I accelerate or rather try to accelerate, I am already going at the max speed of my bike, a paltry 70 kmph! And slowly the BMW faded into oblivion... *boo hoo hoo* :(

Anyways I still love my bike...

Hot steaming coffee, super-fast internet, and lots of time to kill...

2005-10-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well Dravid has been named the captain of the Indian Cricket Team, yet again. I just hope this time it is permanent. Dravid has been toyed around with too long. His worth is still not recognized by the BCCI. He has always been used as a stop-gap arrangement, first he was asked to keep wickets and I have lost count of the number of times he has stood in for Ganguly. Ganguly should have been booted long long back. I don't know for sure whether he is out of the team or not, but I'd love to see him out. Is aggression the only criteria for being a captain? I don't think so... The captain should lead by example, which I think Ganguly has not done in the past two years. His batting is at best medicore (that too when opposition is Bangladesh and Kenya and Zimbabwe) and he is one of the worst fielders in the world cricket.

For me, Dravid has always been a player who flourishes under pressure and when given responsibility. Somehow he reminds me of Steve Waugh, always playing when the team is in a tight situation. When he was given the added responsibility of wicket-keeper, his batting just blossomed. His drives were much more silken, his pulls much more emphatic, the glances much more cheekier and his hooks always ended up in the stands. Being a captain will only improve his batting. Naming him a captain is a good decision, but taking this decision earlier would have made this a great decision. Anyways with Ganguly playing as if he had ants in his pants, this was bound to happen sooner or later.

All the best to Dravid... Hope he gets a team without Ganguly and with Tendulkar.

2005-10-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

How does one come up with the perfect title? I have always faced this problem on what should be the appropriate title for that specific post. I have had titles like '...' and #%*$$&#^&# and ??? and many times I have left the title field empty for want of any idea. I also seem to keep repeating the titles, I have two posts with titles like $$&#^ and two more with Future.

People have perfected the art of coming up with the perfect title. Rocky - after a careless stroll, The life goes on, What's in a Name!!, The One With the Ice Cream; and these are the most recent posts, I have not delved deeper else I would have found even better titles. Utkarsh - Kahani mein TWIST hai !!!, Heights of Creativity or Lack of it .. + Life @ Alpha center, 150-151, North Usman Road, T.Nagar, Chennai. Sreejith - No time to stand and stare, The lost blogger, The beginning of an obsession, "Kick start" life..., Deja vu , minesweeper and mangoes!, Algorithms of life.. and the list goes on. And I have not researched on titles of Paresh, SMR, Jayaram, Nirnimesh et al. I am sure these guys will have more 'good titles' to offer, but if I see any more good titles I will start suffering from inferiority complex.

How do these people come up with a great title, is beyond me. The title should be such that it speaks volumes. Either it should be a pre-cursor to what is coming or it should be so intriguing that people cannot resist it and have to read your post. A title is not just about playing with words; it is about playing with the reader's mind. It should be able to arouse interest in even the most dormant of minds. Imagine what people would do to me if I named such a post as Hierarchical File System... I would be skinned alive!

Right now I am still searching for an apt title for this post, I have dismissed "What's in a Title!!" (that’s plain rip-off from Rocky's titles), "The lost title" (hah another rip-off, sorry Sreejith), "Of titles and titles" (hmmm, this also seems to be copied... oh! why did I not have such a good copying form during my exams!), "In search of a title" (seems like a name for some crappy soap), "Elite title" (play with words and also an AoC hangover), "The art of writing titles" (Yawn!!!) ... Hah I give up! Again this post will be without title, suggestions for an apt title are most welcome. I'll choose the best title and edit my post and keep that title and... and... say thanks to the one who suggested the title!

In quest of a title!

Oneiro

2005-09-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Is there any logic behind dreams? What do dreams signify? Do dreams depict what I want the most? Or are they just related to my day-to-day happenings? How do I interpret my dreams?

For me dreams have been a combination of logic less, pertaining to my day-to-day happenings and sometimes it has been what I want the most. Two days back, I dreamed I am buying a house, a very nice house for just 4 lacs (this is one of the wild dreams people dream about where they get a palace at dirt-cheap price). But the weird part was that I calculated the amount I'd have to pay every month for the next 2 years, down to the second decimal point! When I woke up and checked my calculation, it was perfect! No mistakes... I researched a bit about dreams and found this
"As such, our dreams should be able to give us useful insights into how to solve problems. In this theory, a recurring dream is an example of an unsolved problem."
This is just one of the many theories I came across, but it definitely explains why I used to solve Crosswords in my dream, or how come I solved a nasty Physics question from Irodov in my sleep which had bugged me for 3-4 days. But this theory still does not explain why I bought a house in my dream...

Another theory is "wish fulfillment" given by Sigmund Freud. This still does not explain why I bought a house, although it explains the dream I had last night... And then there is another line of thought, according to which "we dream to forget". Nah, I don't like this theory. Some of my dreams have been anything but forgettable.

Also I came across Lucid Dreaming, which is being aware in a dream that one is dreaming. There are techniques to induce this, including severe sleep deprivation. I had experienced this once, I realized I was dreaming and I woke up. That act was anything but lucid, if people can fly in their lucid dreams, I could also have done something. Anyways I missed that, and I am not depriving myself of my precious sleep just to experience some silly dream.

Enough of dreams, I am off to my favorite time pass - Day Dreaming, it is so much better then normal dreams, at least I know the logic!

Cluttered thoughts

2005-09-29T02:25:00.000-07:00

I took Paresh's advice and tried to put up a post about all the things that came into my mind in the last 2-3 minutes. The result:

December, shock, work, project, AAI, strike, sensex, money, cricket, gmail, blogroll, message, investment, JSP, Java, future, post, payday, cricinfo, firefox, friends, afraid, tensed, worried, rain, results, home, bike

Hmmm, I sure am confused!

Hyderabad still rocks...

2005-09-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

In Raipur I drive in my subconscious. I start from place-X, need to go to place-Y, and I reach there without even thinking about the road I have to take, the shortcut through the alley, I avoid the potholes without even looking at them, I slow down automatically at the speed-breaker, I don't have to look in all directions at once... It has happened many times, that I reach my destination and then I realize Oh! Yeah, I drove till here. I have had countless daydreams while driving there.

Earlier in Hyderabad, when I did not know the roads etc, I had to remember the roads; I had to lookout for potholes and speed-breakers. But after driving in Hyderabad for so long a time, even traversing through Hyderabad had become a part of the subconscious. But now, it seems there has been an explosion of vehicles in Hyderabad or because I am a part of the rush hour now, I feel that way. Earlier the journey used to be from one place to another, now it is from one traffic-jam to another. But still when there is less traffic, I get into the cruise mode and let my subconscious take over.

This weekend, for two days I drove in Bangalore. Leave aside the subconscious, even when fully conscious, it is a nightmare driving there. You have to look ahead, look to the right, look to the left, look in the right rear-view mirror, and look in the left rear-view mirror and that too all at the same time. If there is a gap of about 6 inches between your bike and the vehicle ahead, the army of vehicles behind you sound off war - they keep on honking until that distance has reduced to 6 mm. A small gap appears in the traffic and even the bus starts creeping into it.. And I saw a strange kind of bus at Bangalore. Two buses connected together through a rubber tube kind of thing (similar to two railway coaches joined together). Each of the part of that weird bus has a mind of its own. The second part seems to move on its own accord, irrespective of the first part.

But the good thing about the Bangalore traffic is that, it restored my respect for the Hyderabad traffic. I thought that traffic in Hyderabad could not get any worse, now I know. Traffic in Hyderabad is good!

September 27th, 7:25 pm

My variable is qryMgr instead of queryManager

2005-09-22T05:20:00.000-07:00

The sms culture is catching on. I get mails with content as –
"hi thr, hw r u? m gr8.. hrd abt blah blah.. btw xyz is @ blore.. njoyin thr. u tc, c ya.. b in tch"

The chats have frequent reference to 2day, ystdy, msg, hlp, thru etc etc. Ok asap and afaik can at least be termed as acronyms (sort of), but what are msged and 2mrw. Oh sorry (sry), I wasted two (2) letters when (whn) I wrote "and", it could (cud) have been just (jst) n!

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:" If someone were to write this quote today, it may very well turn out to be "2 b or nt 2 b: tht is d ques:". This would surely make Shakespeare turn in his grave.

This culture has me too.. Many times while writing an official letter, I tend to write u, r, ur etc. These days I generally run any letter I write through a spell-check. But even the spell-checks are into this culture. "How r u?" does not have any error in it! All my English teachers would be fuming if they saw any letter I have written these days. Everything would be marked in Red with sp written in the side. Oh, how I wish someone could proof read my letters, instead of running them through the stupid spell-check.

This sms lingo sucks!

I have heard that a cat has nine lives, I know for a fact that Andy Blignaut has at least 5 lives. Five dropped catches, three of them on consecutive balls. It seems the Indian team had lots of butter during breakfast and then they forgot to wash their hands! The slip cordon and the keeper would certainly make a nice team for any hand-wash ad campaign...

September 22nd, 5:49 pm

A view from the blue skies...

2005-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

My college.. Four years of my life... IIIT - Hyderabad
Courtsey: Google Earth and Sandeep.

@#!@#% Murphy @#$%!*&

2005-09-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

Why is that the first version of your program runs perfectly, you make some changes - the program does not run, and when you comment your changes, even the first version has stopped working?

2005-09-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

Every day starts with a challenge. A challenge so arduous that every other task pales out in comparison. Every night I sleep, dreading, that come morning I have to climb Mount Everest once again. I wake up, but I hesitate in getting out of bed, not because I am sleepy (ok, that’s half the reason) but because I'd have to face it.
Every day, I dive deep into the clothes pile and come up with clean clothes for the day! No no, don't laugh... When I say dive, I mean dive. This pile consists of almost all the clothes we own. We have two heaps to boast of, one of washed clothes, the other - to be washed. The contents of these two heaps just keep on rotating, maintaining the law of conservation of clothes. I don't think even Larry Page and Sergey Brin would be able to make an optimal search algorithm for this, leave alone optimal any algorithm would do. The searches I have applied to look for clean clothes are:

Fishing: Just dive headlong into the pile, put you hand as deep in the pile as you can, get out all the fishes you caught; choose by elimination. For the brave.
Sidestep: Start flirting with the edges of the heap, look for the appropriate colour, snatch when seen. For those who preach caution.
Top-of-the-Heap: The name says it all. For the lazy.

But alas, everything boils down to brute force. Pankaj has further compounded the problem. In his cleaning spree the last weekend, he tried to segregate the heap into three smaller heaps. Although successful (we have now three heaps of clean clothes) the problem is I am faced with scheduling problem. Which heap to dive in first?

Any solutions to my dilemma?

September 15th, 3:40 pm

Monday!

2005-09-12T06:11:00.000-07:00

Ah! It is Monday again. Had heard so much about Monday ('Manic Monday', 'Monday Blues' et al.) that I was afraid of it even before I encountered it. But Monday, till now has been welcome for me. At least I go ahead in the day with something to do. During the weekends I am bored beyond boredom. Given the gift of time, I am at a loss on how to spend it. I have often heard people say, manage time, save it. It’s a good advice; just don’t follow it for weekends. I have too much time in my hands to manage it! When I started on the job, I thought, “Ok, weekends would be fun!” Now I know the truth, weekends are boring! Anyways what is one supposed to do at weekends? I have roamed around Hyderabad a million times, there is no fun left in roaming in the malls and movies take a lot and lot of patience (if I am not watching a movie on mplayer, if I cannot seek, it is crap). I could always go to college, one would say, but I have gone to insti so many times that Jawahar Sir may be considering giving me MS as a visiting student. I have met him more then many guys there :-) If I continue going there as frequently as I do, I would not be surprised to find all the MS guys completing their thesis etc in twice the actual time. So from now on, there will be fewer trips to IIIT. The only thing that I still look forward to at a weekend is a trip to any bookshop. It seems to be the only worthwhile thing to do. This weekend got three more books :-) At this rate my library will be pretty well stocked in a year or two.

Conclusion: Weekends suck! Monday rocks…

September 12th, 6:50 pm

Wicker Park

2005-09-08T21:52:00.001-07:00

Have you ever had the feeling of thrill, of foreboding or of plain dread while seeing a romantic movie? You are not sure what is going to happen the next minute, who has negative shades to his/her character, you are on the edge of your seat... You are confused, what is happening in here? But slowly, the pieces start falling in place; the picture becomes clearer, you relax, recline on your chair and you think that ah! After all it is just a plain boy-chases-girl story. But suddenly another flashback pops up, and you are again on the edge on your seat...

A love story that is a thriller. This is the only way I can sum up Wicker Park.

Cricket + Tennis

2005-09-03T05:39:00.000-07:00

Thanks to England, my interest in cricket has been revived. Australia had dominated cricket for so long, that it had lost its appeal. There just did not seem to be any competition. Even when India played, although I have always been a die-hard Indian supporter, there were always doubts. But Ashes-2005 has changed it all. Simon Jones with his reverse swing, Flintoff and his all-round performance, Hoggard and the impeccable cover drive he hit, Pietersen is having a dream debut series and Vaughan is at his commanding best. McGrath predicted a whitewash before the series, and most people concurred. Even if not a whitewash, it was supposed to be a one-sided contest. Australia had mastered The Art of Winning. Now they are struggling, it is not as if they are caving in. They are still fighting, owing largely to Warne and Lee. But it is England who is winning. It is winning that matters. There is a quote that goes something like ‘Winning does not matter, it is the participation/spirit that counts.’ Who so ever said this, probably never won any game. If you play a game, you have to win and that is precisely what England is doing. Although they are just scampering through, but they are winning and that matters. It seems that the Australian dominance chapter is coming to an end in the annals of cricket.

--

As one leading sports journalist pointed: “Sania Mirza's serve won't win any awards for design and her toss is so high you can have a cigarette waiting for it to come down. She is a few biryanis heavier that an elite athlete can afford to be and her acceleration on court is more Ford than Ferrari. But no big deal; this you can teach an 18-year-old. What you can't is chutzpah, and toughness, and Sania Mirza has both.”

In the last-16 at the US open. Quite a journey from being an ignomity a year back to the rising star having a higher TPR rating then most of the seeded players. At Wimbledon she played at Center Court, a huge honour and now at the US open she has played at the Grandstand and the Armstrong and is all set to play on the Arthur Ashe court. Hoping she makes Sharapova bite the dust.

September 3rd, 6:45 pm

From tea to coffee

2005-08-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

Those were the days, when I would drink 10-12 cups of tea in one day. I think 10-12 may be a conservative figure. Probably the tea-guy with his register to refer to, would give a much more accurate figure. But these days, tea is a luxury! To be precise, good tea is a luxury. I hate the flavored tea they have here in the vending machine. Owing to this I have shifted my loyalties to coffee. Espresso, Mochaccino, Cappuccino... a wide variety of choices here. I tried all the flavours, and ultimately settled on cappuccino. So from 10-12 cups of tea, it is now 10-12 cups of cappuccino every day. Although cappuccino is good, it does not come anywhere near a good hot steaming cup of tea. Cappuccino is refreshing, it is not as simulating as tea. I can drink 4-5 cups of tea at one go (my record is 6, but whose counting?), but with cappuccino 2 are as much as I can take.

In short, Tea rules! I am yearning to shift my loyalties again, but first give me a hot cup of well made tea.

August 30th, 8:17 pm

P.S: There may be another reason for this transition. Java & beans... :D (I know a very bad PJ, but could not resist)

Raipur

2005-08-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Today I was in for a surprise. I have known it forever that Raipur is not clean, but at least considered it better then most metros. I was wrong. Today's TOI had the following news:

The country’s most polluted city is Raipur, Chhattisgarh’s capital. On Monday, the environment ministry ...

Yeah, I agree that Raipur is dusty, has more then its share of industries around it and more vehicles then most places the size of Raipur, but the most polluted city! Thats preposterous! We have proper supply of clean water, the residential areas are clean, we have numerous parks - although small in size, but they are there and the roads are cleaned every morning. People do not die there because they drank dirty water or inhaled polluted air. I know Raipur is not that clean, but I beg to differ with the enviroment ministry who proclaim that it is the most polluted city. I ought to know, I have lived there my whole life. I have eaten bhel, samosa etc from most of the hawkers there, and am yet to fall sick because of that. No matter what, Raipur is my home and I love it...

August 23rd, 10:03 pm

Even the pizza tasted better

2005-08-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

The day started innocently enough. All the alarms blared even though it was Saturday (Yeah, we have 4 alarms. Even they are unable to wake us up completely in the morning) It is difficult to get out of the bed on a normal day, and alarms ringing on weekend! That sucked. Eventually got out of bed, searched for my cell as I had heard beep-beep some time earlier. Hmm two messages in the bloody morning.. I read the messages and suddenly the day turned rosy and the birds start chirping. Yeah in lieu of all my blood and sweat, I had my first pay! Ok, ok there was no blood and definitely no sweat (the air-conditioners here are awesome) but so many of my grey-cells had lain down their lives for specifically this. My hard earned money! Have many plans on how to spend it... DigCam, i-Pod, a new cell. But the only major expenditure till now has been the house-rent. Oh yeah, I almost forgot our home!

It is great.. A huge hall, two bedrooms, no water problems and one computer with 200 GB hdd holding over 70 movies and Joey and Wonder Years etc. But the best part of the house is the roof. A huge roof with a beautiful view and the incessant cool breeze. One of the best places to just sit and talk. Courtsey Rocky and Maddy I did not have to search for the house and ended up going there directly from my train.

Have met many new people over the last 3 weeks. My first impression of most of them has been "Nerds!". And I have been right.. All the people here are so brainy and many of them are absolutely brilliant. Hopefully I can fit in.

August 2nd, 8:15 pm

PS: Even I completed a year of blogging and also this is my first post from my office :)

Friends

2005-06-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

For the past two months, I have been doing nothing but catching up with all my old friends. Almost daily we school friends are freaking out. Eating at all the old places, discussing our class girls and reminiscing about all the great times we had in and out of our classroom. But the one thing that stuck me about all the guys who have not lived here for the past four years, is how they have changed! Even the guys who have been here have changed, but not as much as the guys who have spent four defining years of their lives in hostels, eating crap food and staying away from home.

The guy with whom I was closest in my school life, I cannot find topics to converse with him. The guy I rarely talked to in school life, these days I spend the major part of my day with him. With some of the guys it is as if I have never lost contact, while with some others it is like meeting strangers. People have changed, I have changed. It is strange... The friends I took for granted are no more there for me.

But, whenever about 5-6 of us meet, we lose all inhibitions and it is again the same group. We have all those senseless and baseless talks. The leg pulling (even now I am a preferred target), the match making etc etc. We get together and go to Chetan's thela to eat the barf. It is still as tasty as it was four years back.. :)

28th June, 12:43 am

World War II

2005-06-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

Just completed reading "The Winds of War" by Herman Wouk. An awesome book about an American family caught in the storm of the World War II. For the first time in my life I was genuinely interested in WW-II. Whenever people around me talked about it, I just shut my mouth and tried to understand what it was all about. Always I was unsuccessful.

I watched many movies on WW-II, but they were always regarding one specific incident, one specific battle, never the whole war. "Enemy at the Gates" was an awesome movie, but what was the Battle of Stalingrad? I never knew the details, I even tried to read some books on WW-II, but none held my interest. This was the first book that had my full attention.

A part in this book had the German perspective of WW-II, why Germany lost the war, what were the mistakes made by Hitler etc. I'd like to read more about WW-II, especially the German perspective. I'll search for books online. But I have no idea which are good books, which are not. So people, help me out. Do tell me some nice websites and nice books from where I can know more about WW-II.

June 7th, 12:47 pm

Did I get a good deal?

2005-05-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

I am in B'lore Central along with my cousin and her friends, browsing through everything. We spot a pair of pink shorts, of course meant for girls. Out of the blue, I am challenged to wear them and roam around a bit. Okay, so I ask them, what is in it for me? I am offered dinner at any restaurant of my choice. Nah... I am not interested. They change the wager from dinner to a shot of tequila. Hmm, this just got interesting, I may even do this. I ask them to increase the odds and now it is two shots of tequila. So, I do it....
Some moments of embarrasment is compensated for by two shots! I think I got a good deal. What do you say?

May 28th, 5:20 pm

Summer at home!!

2005-05-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

Awesome food :P
Slow computer – PIII and 64 MB RAM
Slow internet – 33.6 Kbps line :(
A guy who has been toying with computers for more then four years sits down to repair his home computer and fails abysmally
Delicious food :D
Demotion from my dear bike to a vintage Bajaj scooter :(
Promotion from the bike to a car :)
Awful traffic jams
More food
Sitting in front of idiot box – All day long songs and movies albeit not of my choice
Insufferable commercial breaks
Frequent power-cuts
And some more food :)
Very hot weather
The cool breeze of the cooler
And food!

This sums up my summer holidays!

May 19th, 4:30 pm

2005-05-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

A post has been due for a long time now...

I hate parties

2005-05-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

The way I see a party...

Put on a fake smile
Say 'Namaste' to every other person
Shake hands with all the remaining ones, even if you don't know them
Ask them about their well-being when you don't care a shit about it
Say "I'm great!" even if you are critically ill
Make small talk
Say you had great food when you have had better food in your mess
Say "See you soon!" even when the next meet could be in heaven/hell

I hate parties!

May 4th, 12:00 noon

It's an art!

2005-04-26T03:33:00.000-07:00

Blogging is an art... Blogging is sometimes pure instinct, somtimes it is the result of days and days of thinking and sometimes it is plain ripping stuff off net :) To blog properly the ambience has to be just correct, the right song has to play, you have to be in the mood, with no-one around to disturb you.

Blogging cannot be done everywhere.
Blogging is an ART!

Apr 26th, 4:08 pm

10 MB is too less!

2005-04-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

So what if we are becoming alumni?? If Gmail can give so many GBs, why are we being given a paltry 10 MB in our inbox. 25 MB too was less, but manageable. But now 10 MB!! How am I supposed to post pics on my blog? Tried Hello, and said Bye to it. Tried Flickr, and my bulb fused off. What do I do? Anyways trying out Yahoo Photos. But it is not the same thing as having pics on my blog. I am just posting the link and then you can see the pics, but this sucks. Someone teach me how to use Flickr?? Hello works fine for single photograph, but for multiple photos...

2005-04-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

I am very confused right now, so if you do not understand the post and if I jump right off the track while writing, and you lose flow, welcome to the club. I am the founding member :)

I don't know what to write in here. It is just that so much is happening so fast around here. One minute I am without any care in the world, all brazen and assured and the other minute I am remembering everything, getting all woozy and reserved. For the first time in my life I am not feeling like going home.

I have lost count of the nights I have not slept. I have had consecutive 10-12 night-outs now, I believe. Every night I am doing something I have done for the past four years, the only difference is that now I am a crazy guy who has nothing left to do. I've no assignments, no submissions (abhinav and majji and rocky are taking care of BS), no tests, no exams. Ok, I agree I have not done any assignment or any project properly for the past 3 years and I have not studied until the 11th hour for any damn thing, but the point is almost always something was there to "not" look forward to. Now I've nothing. Nothing in the world left to do expect play some CS, play some Quake, then play some more, and then watch movies like it is apolcalypse and this is the only thing left to do. I have dedicated the previous nights to reading a novel, playing monopoly like a 10 year old kid, watching movies, playing CS/Quake/AoC, going out (yeah at 3:00 in the night we were having tea and mirchi bhajji at Hi-Tech-II), surfing the net in the reverse chronological order (is reverse chronological == chronoilllogical??) and this night I am blogging. All the nights end the same way, tea outside the gate at 6:00 in the morning and then blissful sleep. Even the yahoo status messages are nostalgic. Sreejith has the message - "Every beginning has an end!". I know that this end had to come, but I hate it. I don't know whether I should be happy or sad that I've passed out of college. Now I think I should not have stayed the last few days here, saying Goodbye to all. Instead I would have loved to have everyone say Bye to me. But this past week has been one of the best in my life. I have freaked out so much that it'll take days and days for my adrenaline level to come down. It'll be weeks before I have a normal schedule, and start living like a sane person. But this is not the end...

I've lots to look forward to. I am looking forward to a life where I won't be uncomfortable with thousands in my hand, a life where I am responsible for each and every action of my mine - no matter how stupid it is, a life where I won't be dependent on the monthly deposit from home, a life where I'll be taking care of my family, and not the other way round, a life where I'll cook and eat the burnt/half-cooked food and still deem it tasty, a life where I'll be independent. Yes, it will be difficult making this transition from student to a professional, but I don't care. This don't care attitude of mine has helped me till now everywhere and I know I'll be ok even ahead. I'll adapt. But first of all I'd like to change Sreejith's status message to "This end is the beginning...".

Apr 14th, 2:52 am

Am I Graduate yet....

2005-04-07T22:38:00.000-07:00

Just gave the last exam of the last sem. Wrote crap for seven pages on Globalization & Economy.

So.... Am I Graduate yet?

Apr 8th, 11:09 am

What I want to do...

2005-04-06T04:35:00.000-07:00

Some of my dreams, my aspirations. Many of them are very far-fetched, many of them may be not possible, but what is the harm in dreaming? I dream, and I day-dream a lot. Dreaming is fun. :)

A small list of what I would like to do:

To climb the Mount Everest
Hitch-hike across the globe
Learn how to fly an aircraft
Learn how to ride a horse
Go to moon (and come back)
Write a book
Live my life with my family
That special someone (Googling for her...)
Have a house on a hillside
Have a swimming pool in my house (some selected people know why I want it.. :D)
Own a very-well-stocked library
Try bungee-jumping
Jump off a plane, of course with a parachute
Win some prestigious award (A Nobel prize would be ok, Ignobel I don't know)
Visit South Pole - I can't hitch a ride to there :(
Play proper tennis and golf
Visit even the remotest corner of India
Go on another trip to Goa with my friends

Hope I am not just a dreamer...

Apr 6th, 5:35 pm

Future

2005-04-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday our seniors came to help us make a transition from students to professionals. What would be expectations from us, how to be profssional, should we switch jobs, when to do that, ethics and all that stuff. But the gist was do something which makes you happy, do something that makes you content.

After listening to Adapa, I was almost convinced not to do a job. But Prasad and then Adapa again changed my views. To be or not to be, that is the question. In the end I realized one thing, that something that makes you content, satisfied would make you stick to a job. Even though I may not like the job I'm doing, I may stick to it if I am satisfied. Again Prasad put up a good point, how do I define satisfied? For some satisfaction would be money, for some it would be that someone cares for you, but for me, I have decided, satisafaction would be earning respect. If I am respected, if I am appreciated at the job I do, I'll stick to whatever job I do no matter what... Ok, I agree money is a criterion right now for me, but again the funda comes of long-term vs short-term goals. What is my long-term goal? Do I have to be the CEO of a company to be satisfied, do I have to weild power, do I have to be earning the most? Honestly, I don't know... If I had to choose right now, I'd say money... No I think CEO... Ahh I am confused.. I'll decide when I have to make a choice. Till then I am happy with who I am, and how my life is going on..

Apr 3rd, 1:27 pm

Awesome Pics...

2005-04-02T01:30:00.000-08:00

Check this site...
http://www.stevemccurry.com

Apr 2nd, 3:00 pm

Farewell

2005-03-31T05:41:00.000-08:00

And now the time has come. We have been given the pink slip by the profs and the juniors. We hace been kicked out.. :( Well not exactly kicked out, but that is how I feel. Bruised and battered, smarting that I won't be able to talk for hours and hours with Adi, Vidit, Abhinav,Parry, Piyush, Majji, Rocky, Poppy, Khare, Maddy, Parivesh.. ahh the list goes on.. , I won't be able to go for the cup of tea at 5:30 in morning after another useless and unneccesary night-out, I won't be playing CS with my new clan - Unni, Majji, Bedi, Rajjo, I may not again sleep in the class, I will not be able to read the novel in the last bench, I won't be fighting over facts of Friends with Piyush and Khare and Parivesh, I won't be defeating the Undecided anymore, Deadly, Jayaram, Sam, Shetty, Khare and Vidit, I won't be able to talk cricket with KG, Malik, Sushant, AC, AU, Kaka, AP, Majji, I may not go to Ice-n-Spice again, I'll not be sitting at Durgam-Cheruvu for hours with Vidit, Abhinav, Adi discussing our futures, I'll be not coming back to lab at 3:00 in the night just to watch a movie or just because I feel like it, I'll not be having any more Coffee, Tea, Mazaa, ButterMilk, Lassi, Sprite, Coke or Limca, I won't be sitting for hours doing nothing, I won't be carrying the earphones in my pocket anymore, I'll have to keep my wallet with me coz no one would sponsor me in case the need arises, I won't be having any more discussions on "What is Love?" (Abhinav and Piyush's fav topic for debate), I won't be giving(to Abhinav) or taking(from Adi) pointers on how to woo a girl, I'll miss the sucide bombings of Imran - he made any game fun, I'll miss just sitting in lab, listening to songs, arranging 3-4 chairs and falling asleep, I'll miss going to library to study and instead reading all magazines there, I'll miss the times when we chose seats so that we can see some girl, I'll miss the fads here (short hair, long hair, goatees, bald), I'll miss all those strategies we made before any match, and the aftermath of any match, we relived the match ball-by-ball, frag-by-frag, the analysis of every single player, what I did right and what I did wrong, I'll miss the the CS wave that would engulf us, one by one all systems would stop working on useless things and move on to useful things like CS, and then when the match would end Vidit's war cry, "Coffee Time!!", many people learnt this war cry from him and soon Shetty, Rocky, Khare, Ranta, Majji, Bedi all had just two words to say -- Coffee Time, I'll miss the loads of senti that did the rounds when something needed to be done, I've been on both the receiving and delievering end of heavy senti stuff, I'll miss "Its okay...", I'll miss Vidit's choice of songs for me, I've liked all songs he has chosen for me, I'll miss mistrusting Vidit on all his movie choices, I'll miss the romantic comedies I'd watch with Abhinav and then both would say "Girlfriend chhahiye..", I'll miss the big "Hi" with a killing smile from Dixit, I'll miss the "I'm not drunk!!" dialogues from Piyush, I'll miss all the discussions I had with Adi over ice-cream or coffee, I'll miss all the portal matters I discussed with Parry, I'll miss Jayaram's horrendeous phattas, I'll miss Majji calling from behind and then showing the finger, I'll miss Poppy's "Darling!!", I'll miss going for that special tea with Parivesh, I'll miss playing with Osama's name and defeating Maddy, I'll miss Bedi's cry of anguish or the victory cry coming from behind, shouting "Abe halbs bana!", I'll miss having tea with Rocky, I'll miss watching CS videos and solving Friends trivia quiz with Khare, I'll miss guessing the episode number of Friends by just watching one scene, I'll miss the horrible food of our mess, I'll miss Parry's long complaints, I'll miss making fun of people, I'll miss being the scape-goat lots of times, I'll miss the parties we used to extract from unsuspecting people, I'll miss the goldfish effect by Jagan when he used to play quake, I'll miss the lab, I'll miss the hostel, I'll miss IIIT, but most of all I'll miss all my friends...

Mar 31st, 8:01 pm

Yesterday's best dialogue
Scene: Farewell, only few people have turned up, even though it is half an hour late
Sangal Sir - Lets start with snacks and end with speeches, so that the people who turn up late suffer...
PJN Sir - Lets start with snacks and go on till the snacks last...

Its official...

2005-03-28T23:38:00.000-08:00

I have represented all teams of our batch in the last matches and have lost all of them. With the loss to Dotts yesterday night, we are out of the CS tournament :( My gaming career screeched to a halt yesterday. I desperately wanted to win, maybe because of that I was not playing as I normally do. I sucked, my score is a testimonial to that.

I hate losing. I still like Keith Miller's philosophy, I know it is only a game, but still - I hate losing.

Mar 29th, 1:20 pm

Losing sucks..

2005-03-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

Our dream run ended, and it ended badly. CSI lost to Titans in aztec - in the winners bracket finals, losing was bad in itself, but the thing that irked us the most was the way we lost. They were lots better then us in terms of accuracy, but we prided ourselves on our team work. All our victories till now have been based only on proper coordination and team work. But defeat in three/four rounds and all our team work fell apart. But I'm sure we'll come back strongly in the losers bracket finals.

Till now I always was a good loser. I always took it in sporting manner. I liked the philosophy of Keith Miller. But losing two games in a day, first in cricket and then in CS was bad. I think I'll hold the record of losing all the last games of IIIT from our batch :( It started with football, then volleyball, next was basketball, then came cricket and now CS. I have been in all these teams, and we have not won any tournament this year.. But CS is not over yet.. We'll try our level best. We have a genuine chance at being the IIIT champions. I hope we win...

March 28th, 12:15 pm

The Rumour

2005-03-25T06:31:00.000-08:00

These days it is widely known among my school friends that I proposed to a girl, lets call her ABC, way back in 10th. But I am unable to understand one thing, how come I did not know about this for seven whole years!! After all if I had proposed to her, I belive I would remember such a thing.. :D And wait there is more.. She said no, and so I started talking rudely to her from then on.. Well this too is news to me.. And guess who the perpetrator of this news is? One of ABC's closest friend.
I have this wild theory that maybe ABC left her spectacles at home, someone else proposed to her and she thought it was me.. Hmmm seems to be a nice theory...
I think on going home this time, I'll propose and see what happens... :P

Mar 25th, 8:18 pm

The four kinds of bumps... (Proper Data Mining Techniques Applied)

2005-03-25T05:37:00.000-08:00

There are four kinds of bumps-

Mishits: These are the ones that land where they are least intended. The champion of the Mishits turned out to be Imran. Three out of five were offmark. Bedi (He lived up to his name - BadAccuracy) also was a Mishit. Although all of Bedi's kicks (I believe about four of them) were Mishits too, but Imran wins out in quality. So I crownImran the champion of Mishits.
Shouters: These are the ones that land bang on target, echo around the room and a scream escapes you. You dread them, you anticipate them, but there is no escaping them. A swift kick and AHHHHH. Visesh wins hands down as the winner of this category. Although he had stiff competition from Parivesh, but thankfully Parivesh honoured me with just one of his kicks whereas Visesh went on a rampage. I remember about six kicks of him, after which I lost count.
Silent Killers: These are the ones that land bang on target, you won't even hear the kick on contact and not even a scream escapes you. All your insides are rattled, you want to scream and then you realize that even your voice has deserted you. While Shouters were swift, the Silent Killers are slow. The Silent Killer lines you up properly, gets everyone out of the firing range, sizes you up, takes aim, mocks a kick, tries another practice shot, grins for the camera, and then BOOOOOOOM you are hit. You have lost your tongue somewhere in the larynx... The winner of this category was Jayaram, he just outdid Ranta. Both of them hit two kicks each. But Jayaram did it with better timing. He had the last laugh, the last kick. They both were intent on more kicks, but thankfully God appeared in form of Abhinav and Aditya.
Also-Kicked: Rest all the people fall in this category. These are the ones that are the most irksome. People keep on coming back to intervene with the Shouters and Silent Killers. They add Ghee to the fire. As compared to the above kicks these are nothing, but on a stand-alone basis these too are more then enough. The undisputed champion of this category was Ramneek, based only on the number of kicks he deployed - about 10 of them I'd say.

I was a witness to all of them from the worst vantage point. Hanging in mid-air, supported just by two pair of hands..... Ah, it was very painful!

So what I did on my birthday?
12:00 midnight - Played football. Unluckily I was the football
12:30 am - The Holi celebrations started early this time
2:00 am - An awesome choclate cake with the most innovative icing (Will upload a photograph asap)
2:30 am - Back to Lab and working on FYP. Demo at 3:15 (Just over 12 hrs left!!!) Work.. Nap.. Tea.. Work.. Tea.. Work.. Tea.. Tea.. Work.. Tea.. Majjj is a maniac. How can someone work that hard, for that long a time!! Hey its demo time already!
3:15 pm - The long wait begins.
4:05 pm - Majjj and I enter the room. Give presentation. Give no demo. Kamal Sir screws us.
4:45 pm - We leave the room, definitely screwed but happy that at last it has ended :) A smile on my face for the first time in the day.
5:00 pm - CS time.
7:00 pm - Pizza time! With Abhinav off to Domino's
9:30 pm - More CS time
2:00 am - Blissful sleep!!!

So "The Adventure of 23rd March" ends... Thanks to all for making it one of my most memorable days at IIIT.

Mar 25th, 7:57 pm

In the dumps

2005-03-21T00:49:00.000-08:00

I have never felt more in the dumps. It seems to me everything that can go wrong is going wrong and something more too. Murphy's Law seems to be the Universal Truth to me these days. I hope I'll be out of dumps soon and then will get back to normal blogging.

Mar 21st, 2:25 pm

What does Steve Bucknor have against India ?

2005-03-18T05:58:00.000-08:00

In Brisbane, season 2003-2004, Sachin Tendulkar is given out by Steve Bucknor when he was clearly not-out. The same series, Steve Waugh's last test.. Justin Langer is adjudged not-out twice to Ajit Agarkar when he was plumb both times, Damien Martyn is again given not-out to Murali Kartik. The umpire in all these wrong decisions was Mr. Bucknor. These decisions ultimately affected the outcome of that test, denying India a series win against Australia in Australia.

And now again today, when Sachin was on a song, playing more fluently then he has done in months, when the 35th century seemed imminent, Steve Bucknor comes up with a shocking decision giving Sachin out, when the gap between the bat and ball was visible even to a blind spectator sitting in the last seat in the last row.

Mr. Bucknor, I would request you to make this 100th test of yours the last test you ever officiate in.

Mar 18th, 7:30 pm

CSI Rocks....

2005-03-18T04:50:00.000-08:00

Ok Jayaram, I agree I am gloating but I can't help it. Cloud number nine, the seventh heaven, euphoria... :) For the uniformed I am talking about the awesome match we won yesterday against the Dotts. Those who have no idea about CS, may stop reading this entry.

In the CS tournament we are having, organised only due to Majjj's and SlipStream's efforts, we had a crucial match against the Dotts - this match would decide the finalists of the Winner's Bracket. We started as CT in dust2, our only aim as CT was to win at least 5-6 rounds. Even on losing two rounds quite idiotically, we managed a score of 7-5 in favour of the Dotts. Sreejith started bad, but covered up astoundingly well to end up with the highest score. I was the second highest :D In one round I killed 3 people who were standing together, and ended up with health 100, armor 100. :)) Saki sniped very well, Bedi (He played by the name xXx and the Dotts were, hence, afraid of him.. :D) was awesome with pistols and Shrek was his usual reliable self.
So the score line is 7-5, we need to win 8 rounds to win the game. Sreejith says it'll be very easy, Majjj (our coach) says it'll be easy, Shrek and Bedi are of the same view, but I am a bit apprehensive. It won't be a cake-walk, winning 8 games against Dotts. But how wrong I was... It was a cake-walk. We defeated them 8-0, and won the match 13-7. Sreejith again led the scores, and again I was the 2nd highest :D AK rocks!!

After the match we met at the Canteen, all of us basking in self glory. I saw the demo again just now with Khare, and it seemed to me that we were playing better then yesterday night... :)) Ok, ok I'll stop. Enough of "Apne muh, miya mithho..."
Another point to note - This match attracted the most number of spectators till now of any match in IIIT.

Mar 18th, 7:02 pm

Time Machine

2005-03-17T00:25:00.000-08:00

During lunch today, we - Piyush, Abhinav, Vidit and me had a pretty good discussion about Time Machines. Abhinav wants to make one :) This has had me thinking for the past hour. What I would like to change in my life if I had a time machine.

I went back as far I can remember. I started with my school life. In the initial years I was the teacher's pet, I'd be the quiet guy sitting in the corner. The guy who gave importance to studies and rarely played anything. And in the latter part of my school life I remembered all the times when we used to stand outside the class doing the Snake-Dance :) and then some teacher used to come running from the staff-room and scold us for our misbehaviour (our classroom was visible very clearly from the staff-room) , the time when we deliberately did something that would make the teacher send us out, all the times when I went to Principal begging her for the Volleyball - 90% success rate :) , all the hot afternoons after each exam when we used to play cricket for hours and all Sunday mornings when all of us friends just used to meet and then decide on what to play. Then searching for the grounds to play Cricket (Sundays used to be very busy, all the grounds would be filled by 7am with many people playing..), almost every week clashing with the 15-year guys (A bunch of people who claimed to have played at a ground for over 15 years. We always reached earlier then them and always we used to fight with them..) ... I remembered all my crushes and all my talks with some of them (Not to be disclosed here :D) All the times I adviced Gaurav and Abhay and Shibu about their love lives :) I was good at advices...

Then the 4 years here. I remember a talk I had with Abhinav regarding how our main topics of conversation have changed over these 4 years. In the first year we used to ruminate over the past, the second year the topics changed from past to present. We started living by the day, without any thoughts about what happened yeaterday and what is going to hapen tomorrow. All our conversations dealt with current issues, things that affected us today. The third year our talks were a mixture of present (with a touch of philosophy, we used to analyze even the smallest detail in detail :D) and future. For present our favourite topics were Amalgam and Felicity. The time and effort we put into them and their successes and then we got thinking about Job/MS/MBA. To everyone his own dream. Then the final year starts and we get placed, and then our conversations always came around to our future. What am I gonna buy with my first salary, how much tax am I paying, where am I gonna go from here (Not Chennai plz!!), who would be the first person to get married (I still think Poppy will be the one), what kind of house would I like, where should my house be and lots and lots of questions... Almost all unanswered, everything in murky waters.. But the excitement is there along with the dread of starting a new life. Where would I be 5 years from now, or for that matter 5 months from now, no one knows. But the point is these 4 years have been phenomenal, every day a new adventure. We all have changed in the past 4 years and for good.

So the point is I would not like to change anything in my life. There is not even a single moment I would like to change. I don't need the Time Machine. Ok, if Abhinav and Piyush and Vidit make it I'd love to go back and relive my school days and I'll love spending time again at IIIT, again having all those weird and refreshing discussions :) And I'd play some more matches of Quake and CS ... And I'll eat some more ice-creams ... And more matches of Cricket and Volleyball would be nice .. And some more night-outs .. Some more episodes of Friends, some more Movies.. And of course I'll revisit our beloved mess ...

But I'll change NOTHING.

Mar 17th, 2:57 pm

#&%$$&#^&&%$&#*&#

2005-03-16T03:14:00.000-08:00

I am with Piyush, Abhinav, Adi and Rocky having lunch. Even though the lunch was not edible, we were enjoying; until Khare comes along. His first dialogue on joining us, "All of you take my gmail id and give me yours so that I can remain in touch with you". And then it hit me, I am not going to see many people here, only 20 days or so are left. For the whole day I thought of nothing but my life after IIIT, life thru IIIT. How I have changed, how I have grown. I am getting more nostalgic by the minute. Even on reading Jayaram's and Khare's blog, I had been ok. But now I know the torpedo and the nuke they are talking about. I felt it too. Ahhhh... Screw you Khare for your intended-to-be-funny comment..

Mar 16th, 5:49 pm

The mornings...

2005-03-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

6:30 am -> Sunlight comes into my room. I wake up, see the ungodly time and try to go back to sleep.

7:30 am -> Ahhh, the early morning sun is too hot!!! I can't sleep any more, get out of bed, wake up others in my wing (It is fun waking up everyone early morning.. :P).. As usual Abhinav and Vidit go back to sleep. Piyush, Adi and Parry accompany me to the breakfast. Genearlly we'll find many guys there, no they are not the ones who woke up - they are the guys who did not sleep... We'll start the talks with CS, move on to movies, sometimes cricket, then maybe some serious talk like economy, politics etc (Courtsey the guy who brought the newspaper), then come back to CS... The breakfast would generally last about an hour.

8:45 am -> Yo!!! No more sunlight streaming through my room's window. I can go back to sleep again!! Yawn!! Good night again... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mar 15th, 1:55 pm

Can I do it ?

2005-03-14T05:34:00.000-08:00

I have been bit by the literary bug. I am reading a lot and want to write a lot. Have read seven and a half novels in the past 10 days. But only reading is not enough for me... I want to write... I want to write a book that will be on the best-sellers list for years!!! :D .... Ok I know I am not that good a writer, but I want to write. For the past few days I have been thinking of writing stories - short or long, that does not matter. I want to pen down all my thoughts, all that is happening around me, I want to make a blog dedicated to all the stories I write :) Vidit even had me thinking on Journalism.. :o
The problem is I am unable to choose some subject to write about. I'm not sure on what to do.. how to start... Maybe I'll just chuck out all these doubts and just start writing. But on what?? What should I write about....

Mar 14th, 7:21 pm

Another Friday...

2005-03-09T00:10:00.000-08:00

This Friday would be not a normal Friday for me. Maybe it'll be the most important Friday in my life... Yeah I am having the IIM-A interview.. Keeping my fingers crossed!!

So no more blogging till Sunday...

Mar 9th, 1:42 pm

XLRI Interview

2005-03-07T04:58:00.000-08:00

After a hiatus of a week I am back. Just read all the blogs and I have been thinking of nothing but Love and God.. Don't worry I am not gonna bore you with my philosophy.. :) For today I'll just recount my experience at XLRI. (For future use.. I don't believe I'll be joining this time...)

The 'bundle of nerves' I mentioned in the previous post which was not me had surprisingly transformed into me. I was scared shit. I had no idea what I was going to do.. Anyways calmed down somehow before the interview. So here goes..

Gg - Good guy
Bg - Bad guy
Tg - Tech guy
Pg - Poor guy (Me)

I enter the room and wish all of them. Bg pounces upon me like a caged tiger on a tiny sheep. What is IIIT? Are IIITs serving their purpose? Are you contributing to the country? Well I patiently explained about IIIT and the service we are doing to the country etc.. The guy was doing nothing special except trying to pschye me out. Asked me why am I shifting from tech field to HR? Unluckily I had been a bit pschyed out and said that maybe I can add a new aspect to HR.. (Why in the God's name did I say that??) So the Bg sees his opening and tries to beat me black and blue. How will you use technology for betterment of HR? I say something about automation.. He lands another blow, says something negative amounting to that I am an idiot and asks me to be more specific about the automation funda asking me to corelate "Family Background" and "IIIT" and "XLRI". Ok, this is getting weirder by the minute, what am I supposed to say.. I can't say "I don't know" since it is I who opened this can of worms. Hmmm.... Let me think... Ok, I get some small idea and try to sell it big. I say take all the information regarding the studies done by all the family members and check the trend. It is likely that ..... blah blah .... What I said I don't remember and I did not even understand what I has said, but these guys seem to be expert. They understood what I meant to say, I got my idea thru... Hurray!!! But not so fast... Wait... Bg lands another blow. A right hook. Bg - "What ever you said is bullshit.. This is all clerical work... I don't want all this to be automated.. Basically you are an idiot and moron who is not fit to be here.." Ok, that was not what he said, but I heard it loud and clear. The only good thing about this phase of the interview was that I managed to present a smiling face through out. I just kept reminding myself that this is just a small stress interview, but the enormity of the situation seemed to be getting the better of me most of the time and I was totally pschyed out by the end of first phase. I was ready to bolt from there...

The second phase starts, Gg - "Where will you take me to visit, when I come to H'bad?" What the hell is this... Am I tour guide? Is this not an interview for a reputed B-School. Anyways it is better then the previos abstract questions, at least I have something to say here. So I give a virtual tour to Gg, taking him to all the usual places and tried to end it with a touch of humour in the end, by mentioning Paradise and the tasty Biryani and something more... The reaction he gave me, it was as if I were talking with a block of wood. Come on, the faintest of smiles would have lifted my spirits but no. It seemed to me a plague of locusts would have been more welcome there then me. :( But at least this guy was not asking stupid questions.. More questions on GK and current affairs..
Gg - Why is Raipur called Raipur?
Pg - I don't know Sir.
Gg- Why is India called Bharat?
Pg - King Bharat etc etc
Gg - Jharkhand problem...
Pg - I add some information.
Gg - When and how did this same thing happen in AP?
Pg - I don't know Sir. (Did something like that really happen??)

So the 2nd round too ends.. The 1st round in favor of XLRI, the 2nd round shared equally by XLRI and me.

3rd round begins... This is the Tech round. I had not studied anything for tech, actually had not expected it, so am caught unawares.. without any prep... Starts with Tg asking me about my courses, I name many courses stressing on DB and DW/DM. And Tg asks, "What are materliazed views?" Hehe.. I get my opening and land a sharp jab. This is my field, I have done a project on this.. (Thanks Vidit for making me take up this project) So I explain the whole funda to him as I would explain to a 5 year old kid. More questions.. He wants to set up a new DB, what kind of schema should he use? How should he materialize views? Should they be normalized or not? etc etc... More openings.. More jabs and hooks... :) I answer everything satisfactorily.. Finally I am in the game.. Another question, "What is DSS?" Ooops what is that... "I don't know"... But I am satisfied with my overall performance in this round... Round 3 to me....

What I felt after the interview was they were just checking my body language and confidence and how well can a person handle pressure. Through out the interview only one person was asking the question and the other two panelists were noting the body language. All they tried through out was to stress me out. But only the first guy suceeded, others did not seem expert at this kind of thing.

Round 1 - XLRI
Round 2 - Draw
Round 3 - Me
So that makes it all even.. Who has won?? I have no idea... I hope I win, but I feel that maybe I missed the bus. I could have and should have done better.. Will surely do better this Friday..

March 7th, 7:30 pm

A week's break..

2005-02-28T00:54:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I won't be blogging for a week. Am leaving tonight for XL interview.

Lets see how my interview goes? Am not exactly a bundle of nerves, but a tad apprehensive. I'll just take the interview as it comes and try my best to guide the interviewer to my fav topics. Else I always have the answer, "I don't know...." :) Hope I do well!!

Yesterday was great, with the trip to Runway-9 and all other things. Will post in detail about it later, when I am back.

Feb 28th, 2:34 pm

Books

2005-02-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

Just two days back I had went with Vidit to buy some novels, I liked almost all the books but why the hell are books so expensive?? So that day I reframed my resolution; earlier it was to devote a month's salary every year to buy books. Now it is to use up 15-20% of all money I make to be splurged on books.

The list of books I'd like to have:
(I'm just putting up the name of the authors since I want all their books)

Jeffrey Archer
Arthur Hailey
John Grisham
Alistair Maclean
Agatha Christie
Michael Crichton
Arthur Conan Doyle (I have this :) Yeah all of them...)
Mario Puzo
Dan Brown (I'm not sure about this, since I've read only one book)

And then Biographies and Autobiographies of:

Boris Becker
Louis Armstrong
Sachin Tendulkar
APJ Abdul Kalam
M.K. Gandhi
Hitler
Lee Iocacca
J.F. Welch
and many more people...

There were some other books, the names of which I don't remember. But I'll buy all of them someday...
If I have forgotten any good writer or some good book, do remind me.

Feb 26th, 11:28 pm

Which one shall I follow ??

2005-02-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

"Laziness is the worst enemy of humans. . . "
- Jawaharlal Nehru

"Humans should learn to love even their worst enemies...!!!"
- Mahatma Gandhi

Since both are great people, I think I'll follow both of them and I'll love laziness. Wait a sec, ain't I lazy already??

Feb 25th, 12:00 noon

Review --> Yeopgijeogin geunyeo

2005-02-24T02:55:00.000-08:00

What is this movie that I am talking about ? Well it is "My Sassy Girl". One of the most romantic movies I've seen. It is a Korean movie and I watched it with sub-titles.

The movie starts with the hero being forced to help the drunk heroine and going to the jail in doing so. The next night he again stumbles into her and gets very intrigued by her. They become friends and slowly their friendship blossoms. The movie which was going more like a comedy till now, evolves into a romantic movie. Ok, I agree by reading this you would be thinking, "So what is special about this?". This is like any other romantic movie. But what is unlike any other movie here is the heroine. She says what she believes in. She is brash, she is rude, she slaps the hero around, she writes wacky stories and expects the hero to read and praise them, she exchanges her high heels with the hero's sneakers, she wants to know the depth of the lake and so pushes the hero in. But she is also vulnerable and is very sweet. Just for the sake of heroine I can watch the movie many times more.

One of the better romantic movies. A must see. Right up there with "A Walk to Remember"..

More Reviews -
Rocky's Review
Khare's Review
On Net

Feb 24th, 4:51 pm

Mid Sems

2005-02-23T01:33:00.000-08:00

Exams are invigorating!! (I think I got the spelling right, Vidit corrected me, I was about to write invirogating) Just before the test I was very sleepy, very tired. Was walking around in a deep stupor. And just wanted to sleep badly, but now after the test, no traces of sleep exist. I am as refreshed as I'd be after 10 hrs of sleep. I have found my calling.... CS here I come...

Feb 23, 3:05 pm

Library

2005-02-22T05:26:00.000-08:00

From 9:40 am to 6:15 pm. Yeah this is the time I was in library today. Trying to study for the LCS mid-sem. What a waste of time! Actually the study part was the waste of time, rest was put to good use by me. I read Feb's RD and R.K.Laxman cartoon book and some more magazines that I don't remember.

But seriously, staying in library for more then 8 hours is injurious to health. It makes a person mentally imbalanced. It is apparent to me since I am not playing CS and writing quite a short blog, both very unlike me.

Feb 22nd, 7:05 pm

Lab Life

2005-02-21T05:31:00.000-08:00

Right now in lab CS is going on, the server limit is 12 and 10 people are playing the game from the lab - Majji, Raheja, Deadly, Khare, Ranta, AU, Bhargava, Bedi, Bolero & _J with Jayaram and Sreejith playing from their rooms, . And surprisingly, 4 regular members of the LPG (Life is Pure Gas) clan Vidit, Sam, Tarun and I are not playing! 2 more frustoos (Parry and Ranjith) are playing Aoc and that too separately with hards! Some more poeple are surfing the net. There are no traces of any study going on!! This is our Computer Lab where we are supposed to study.

I love our Computer Lab....

Feb 21st, 7:15 pm

The French Connection..

2005-02-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

After reading in Khare's blog about his tussles with the whiskers, I too was inspired... :) I thought why not, come on this is the last sem, if not now then when? This is the time to experiment.

So here goes, today I tried to carve my week old stubble into something resembling a French Cut. Ok I was not totally successful, but I had given it a shape somewhat like the actual French Cut. Initially I had thought of shaving it off once I saw how I looked. So I started taking people's opinions. Khare laughed when he saw me (it seems he was jealous :) since my beard is at least noticeable.. Just now on the dinner table he again asked me to shave it... He is still jealous :D), Bolero and Rocky were not laughing but they were neither supporting me. Sam was totally in favour of it, still I was thinking of shaving it off but Abhinav would not let me. He was vehemently against me shaving it off. So I let it be.

After some more opinions I have decided to keep it for another week. I know I look a bit weird, but who cares ????

Feb 20th, 8:50 pm

I wish..

2005-02-19T06:43:00.000-08:00

Lyircs of the song when Lola runs :

I wish I was a hunter in search of different food
I wish I was the animal which fits into that mood
I wish I was a person with unlimited breath
I wish I was a heartbeat that never comes to rest

I wish I was a stranger who wanders down the sky
I wish I was a starship in silence flying by
I wish I was a princess with armies at her hand
I wish I was a ruler who'd make them understand

I wish I was writer who sees what's yet unseen
I wish I was a prayer expressing what I mean
I wish I was a forest of trees that do not hide
I wish I was a clearing no secrets left inside

I wish I was a forest of trees that do not hide
I wish I was a clearing no secrets left inside
I wish I was a stranger who wanders down the sky
I wish I was a starship in silence flying by

---------------------------

Hey please comment on my review, this is my review of any movie and I want to know how I did it??
:)

Feb 19th, 8:18 pm

Review:: Run Lola Run

2005-02-19T06:19:00.000-08:00

Super movie. It is not Romantic exactly, it is not a Thriller too. It is a combo of the two. Lola runs and runs a lot to save her boy-friend Manni's life.

Manni has screwed up a deal and his boss will kill him if he does not get 100,000 dollars in 20 minutes. So in desperation he calls up Lola and she asks him to stay put, telling him she'll get the money somehow. And the movie begins, Lola runs. In the first attempt they get the money together but Lola dies. In the 2nd attempt Lola gets the money again, but this time Manni dies. In the 3rd attempt both get the money and no one dies!! Confused?? Yeah, I believe you would be.

The movie is very fast paced. The music is super, the songs that play when Lola runs (which is almost throughout the movie) are too good. And I loved Lola, her bright red hair, and her blue and green attire but especially the red hair. Another part of movie that is very different and kind of weird is the fast forward on anyone's life. All the people whom Lola dashes into during her run, we see their future life in the form of 10-15 snapshots. Whenever Lola passes someone, we hear "And then..." and the snapshots show the future. Weird but nice. Great direction, great shots of the run, slick editing - but the biggest positive is Lola. She runs and she rocks. The part I liked the most is whenever Lola is running, her flaming hair all over and nice music playing in the background.

This movie is very different, but very enjoyable. A must see.

Feb 19th, 8:12 pm

The Broker

2005-02-18T00:42:00.000-08:00

Just completed reading John Grisham's The Broker. It was nice, but very unlike other Grisham novels. Generally he writes legal thrillers. This too was a kind of thriller, but not a legal one. It was more like a novel written by Alistair Maclean.
The book is just about a guy who is on the run, running from everyone, coz everyone is out to kill him. He is initially the bad guy, but as the book progresses, he turns good, has a hridaya parivartan and then the usual stuff. How he evades all the bad guys (here bad guys mean the intelligence agencies of US, China and Israel), manages to put his hands on the money he staashed away years ago, learns Italian and in the mean time learns to hack (that is send mails) and also gets entangled with a girl - this is what the book is all about. Typical Hindi-movie novel, but it was a nice read.
I think John Grisham should stick to legal thrillers only. Even though the book was good, it had good pace, nice settings and good grip; but it lacked the twist that seems to me a trademark of Grisham novels and there was absolutely no legal stuff.

One small question - Is there something like IMDb for books ? Some website where books are rated and I can read their reviews ? If anyone knows of any such thing, do please let me know..

Feb 18th, 3:42 pm

New Bloggers here...

2005-02-17T23:28:00.000-08:00

Please welcome to our community of bloggers, two new entrants.

Adi

Parry

So now I can spend some more time surfing the blogs.
:)

Feb 18th, 1:00 pm

What if this is true ?

2005-02-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

Another Conspiracy ??
This can't be true!! I hope it is not..

Feb 17th, 5:15 pm

I have too much free time..

2005-02-17T03:09:00.000-08:00

It's true. I have too much time. I have so much time, that even when I have nothing to write right now I am still writing. I don't know what I am going to write in this blog; I am writing just to kill time.

I have started Friends all over again. Almost all the movies on LAN have been exhausted. All the books have been read. Have been surfing the net for years now, chatting has lost its appeal long back. Am in semi-retirement from CS, Quake and AoC. Daily posting twice, sometimes thrice on the blog. What else can a person do to kill time ?

Let me check how am I spending my time...
Sleeping - 8 hrs (Yeah, I am sleeping just 8 hrs these days)
Eating - 1 hour
Gaming - 1 hour (Surprised ?? Thats b'coz of the semi-retirement)
Blogging - 1 hour
Reading others blogs - 1 hour
Tea - 2 hours (This is the best part of the day)
Reading - 2 hours
Watching Friends/Movies - 3 hours

And I am still left with 5 whole hours.. I never thought there was a thing as too much time. How wrong I was ? But even after all this analysis, the problem still remains - What do I do ?
See, I had nothing to write and still end up with such a long post...

Feb 17th, 4:59 pm

Future...

2005-02-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

Today while attending the Terradata talk (yeah, I finally attended one of those boring talks) I saw the future of, lets say someone...

From my vantage point, I was able to observe two people and the starking similarity between them. They both are deeply involoved in Data Engineering, no that is not the similarity. The similarity was in their hair-styles or more specifically the lack-of-hair.

One has just started losing his hair, his chand is not yet properly visible and the other has a very well formed round chand. Any guesses about whom am I talking ?? Well I'll stop the drama now, I'll disclose the secret. Sorry Rocky, but today I saw your future (or your future hairstyle) in Dr. Kamal. :)

Feb 16th, 10:09 pm

My first experience with blogging..

2005-02-16T00:40:00.000-08:00

Here is the first instance of my blogging, at that time I did not give it any name, but now I know that it was my first tryst with blogging.. It is quality stuff :) that is what I feel.. I was screwed badly by Vidit and others for writing such a wrong, useless mail.. Your honest comments would be appreciated. (Well not too honest, please..)
Directly taken from my sent-mail
----------------

Let me start again from the beginning since some more of our esteemed friends have joined us in this endeavor to understand space. Or in consideration of constraint of space (oh! here it comes again) the new entrants are requested to read the stuff below.

So let me continue the discourse on space. Space, its importance lies in its simplicity, its invisibility. Have you ever considered space as an important attribute? Have you ever thought what the scenario would be if there was no space. Consider if instead of space some other symbol would be acting as delimiter.
"I#think#this#would#signify#the#difficulty#in#deciphering#simple#english#text".
Or even better consider if there was no delimiter,
thenimaginewhatthescenariowouldbe ?

Shakespeare said, "All the world is a stage". I agree he was a cognoscente but it would have been better had he extended it to include, "... and this stage is worthless without space". In absence of space, everyone jostles into each other, pushing around. Chaos and pandemonium everywhere!!

Space; take it in its spiritual sense. The levitation it affords to all.
In dearth of space.. Hey do not contemplate that I'm proselytizing you. But what I say and have said is absolutely true to the last word. The great Sa(i)nt Bansilal once said, "A bad throw begets a good catch". How true!! He said it in context of cricket but even he could not have imagined the far-reaching consequences of his saying. These days not only the cricket teams but all Multi-National-Companies are vying for the favours of the great Sa(i)nt. Oh sorry, I deviated from the main topic of our discourse.. Space. Space is 'The unlimited 3-dimensional expanse in which everything is located'. (Courtsey: WordWeb Dictionary). I would say that it is dimensionless or with n-dimensions where n tends to infinity. Our very own Einstein, Piyush would maybe like to throw some light on it.

Thank You
Especially to Sa(i)nt for lauding me in our mission to understand space. Remember this is not Mission: Impossible.

Bye. Enjoy.
Kunal

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Vidit Bansal wrote:
Moronic or otherwise your effort to play with words was commendable (Commendable for trying it out with a musical lilt), still what amazes me is levels at which you analyze 'space'.
Spiritual space ...I don't know
Emotional space ...I can't comment now
Mental space in your context definitely refers to a big hole in your head.
A good fool begets a good shrink... a musical one begets a...

On Fri, 11 Sep 2003, Kunal Dhabalia wrote:
Password of the system changed to 'easy work' that is 'easy space work' where space is not taken in the spiritual or mental or emotional sense or level but at a practical level as in pressing the biggest key on the keyboard which is significant in the sense that it helps me in changing guns in quake, going to the selected object (villager/military unit/any building) in age and helps in jumping (virtually here not practically. I’m specifying in case u try to sue me for not providing complete information) in gta vice city.
Disclaimer: the above information except the password was meant for morons. If you read it you know who you are. :)
Sorry I forgot the space also gives boost (not bournvita Mr. Smart) in cricket 2002.

ha ha ha ha ha

----------------

Feb 16th, 2:33 pm

Being Twenty-Something..

2005-02-15T03:23:00.000-08:00

"Being Twenty-Something"
They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis. It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and they aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused.

Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you.

Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better.

Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

"What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it"
We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Feb 15th, 5:00 pm

V-Day

2005-02-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

Question ::
What is the dumbest way to celebrate V-Day?
Answer ::
Malik says - Take admission in IIIT and you get to know he answer..
Pelu gives a very ajhel answer, which I deem unfit to put here, please ask me or him in person.
Anyways my answer is - Clean your room. :)
Yeah, after a whole year I cleaned my room today. And surprisingly, I did not find enough rubbish this time. Good for me, less work!!!

Adi had participated in the love letter writing contest, organized by our CRs. But he seemed to have encountered a writer's block or he was totally blank. Even after I had given him scores of ideas, he still had not written a word. So I come to his rescue.. and I write the following love letter for some person from Adi.

Comments invited...

-------------
Dearest *************

How are you? You know, lately I have been very disturbed and am not able to concentarte on anything. But then I remember those times when we used to be together and I am back to normal. Just a tiny memory of you is enough to get me back on track. But the problem is once I start thinking about you, I cannot control myself and just keep on thinking about you. I have spent hours and hours thinking about you, reminscing all the times when we just used to sit together and chat endlessly for hours together. All the small insignificant things we talked about have taken a new meaning for me now.
What is happening? You have become a necessity in my life. I thought that it mattered what I said or where I said it, then I realized that the only thing that matters to me is you. You make me happier then I ever thought I could be. There have been many people who came and went through my life, but no one matterd but you. Even when we are not together, even when you cannot see me, still you understand me better then people around me.
Every girl I see, I try to find in her something that even remotely resembles you. I search for you in all the girls around me. But even though you are not here, you mean to me more then anything. Every day I crave to talk to you, say something I wanted to tell you so badly, but I never felt that this was the right moment.
But today I have decided to pour out my heart. I never thought I could feel this way for anyone, but I can't help it if I do so. I dont have words to express myself, hope you understand what I am feeling. I dread the thought of life without you..
I love you..
---------------

So how is it ?
:)

Feb 14th, 8:50 pm

Pizza !!!

2005-02-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

After the volleyball match back to hostel, tried to order pizza from Pizza-Hut, but the jerk on other side refused to deliver. So I gave him a piece of my mind. Poured out all my frustation on him.. Shouted on him for at least 3-4 mins and did not give him a single moment to speak. Have never felt better :)) Now I know what I'll do when I am frustoo. I'll just call up Pizza-Hut, that guy will refuse to take order as they are too afraid to deliver to our college, afraid they'll get all lost in the dark like a small kid and then I'll shout to my heart's content. I know this is sadistic pleasure but I am enjoying it.. :)

Anyways ultimately got the pizza from Domino's. And finally the ice-creams from Ice & Spice. :) A nice way to polish off the pizzas.

Feb 13th, 11:55 pm

Volleyball

2005-02-13T06:39:00.000-08:00

Today had a match with the 2nd year guys. Their's is a pretty good team, with two national level players. Ok, we are not that bad either, but we lack the pratice and co-ordination. So we started off the match - Rajjo, Prashant and Deadly on the net and Parivesh, Jagdeesh and yours truly taking the back. I started the proceedings with a nice simple serve. I served through the set, taking almost all the serves, I made 3 errors in the serves. Well we lost the first set by 25-18.

The next set starts and this time Jagdeesh takes the first serve, and after that it was only me serving through the set. I was very very tense while serving and the only thing that was going in my head was, "What if I make a mistake? These guys will get a foothold to come back into the match.." We were leading through out the set, but one bad serve could have changed it all. Luckily I did not make any mistakes in serves this time, all of them were properly in and I also served up a few very nice serves, 2-3 aces but overall I sucked. Played awfully bad. Majjj later told me that whenever I was about to hit the ball Jagdeesh always ran and came behind me as instead of hitting the ball forward, I was hitting it behind me outside my own court! Well thanks to awesome play by all others these mistakes I made did not count that much and even though the 2nd years fought back well we won the set 25-23.

Well the third and final set starts and every one is pretty tense. I ask Jagdeesh to take the first serve, both of us remembered he took the first serve in 2nd set and we won then. But early on in the set (at 3-3) we suffered a major setback. Deadly, who was in awesome form - countering all moves of Raghuvir, their national level booster - sprained his leg. :( He was out, we got Majjj in instead of him. Majjj plays well but he is not as good as Deadly. Even though we fought hard, we lost the 3rd set and the match.

Feb 13th, 8:35 pm

Friends & Joey

2005-02-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

Even when you are in the dumps and nothing is going right in your life, these two TV-series act as life-savers. Just now did lots of Friends Trivia Quiz with Khare, got most of them right. Saw Joey-17, Alex is growing more cuter and Joey is getting funnier. And when ever I am bored or frustated or confused or angry or in any damn mood, F*R*I*E*N*D*S is the one thing that gets you back on track.

I can relate to each and every character of the show. There is a little bit of each of them in me, and even if it was not there earlier I am so obsessed with Friends that I may be sub-consciously picking up traits from them. Who cares if my room is not clean (Definitely not Monica, this is pure Joey), I don't care for what others think about me (Vintage Phoebe), I believe there is someone out there who is perfect for me (For Ross it was Rachel), I love the on-the-spur bad and good PJs (Chandler and all his stupid jokes), I sometimes worry about the stupidest thing (Monica) and many a times I am totally unreasonable and get all moody (Rachel). These are just a few things, I can go on and on. I have not even started on Joey's stupidity, the carefree attitude of Phoebe and relationships of Ross-Rachel and Chandler-Monica.

For me watching F*R*I*E*N*D*S with all my friends has been the most memorable moments of my hostel life. Nothing beats a nice episode going on, with some slices of Pizza (this was during last summer) or a nice steaming Alu-Paratha (and this is now). We have moved from Pizza-Hut to PR, we have had Chips and Biscuits and Cold-Drinks but the one thing that has remained constant has been F*R*I*E*N*D*S.

One of my favourites (of which there are a lot) --
Phoebe: [Right after playing a song in the coffee shop ] If you want to receive e-mails about my upcoming shows, then please give me money so I can buy a computer.

Feb 13th, 4:42 pm

Black

2005-02-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

I was tempted to just rip-off Rocky's and Khare's review of the movie. I totally agree with what they have written, but since I've never written a review for any movie, here it goes.

Simply put Black is *awesome*. I have not seen any movie that has had a more powerful impact. The acting ... What the hell I'm bad at writing reviews, I cannot think of anything to add to what Rocky and khare wrote. So here are their whole reviews-

Rocky on Black

Movies like BLACK come once in a decade and may be 3-4 such
movies come over a century. Its really a masterpiece of a
genious, which stands tall among the mediocre films of bollywood.
I haven't seen many of Satyajit Ray, Gurudatta or Bimal Roy
works, who are called the greatest of greats in bollywood.
But I am sure that with this movie SLB deserves a place equal
to them.

This movie, I think is very diffent from the all other SLB movies.
Its like "Mera Name Joker" of RajKapoor. A movie very different
from his earlier movies (except may be Khamoshi), but at the
same time containing that very special signature of SLB.

OK coming to movie... I don't know much about the technical
details like screenplay or cinematography and things like that
... but in a pure layman's language... The story was very touching
... The scenes and picturization were too good... the absence of
colors (not exactly) and the powerful use of shades of white, black
and grey makes every scene wonderful.

The acting of all the actors were superb. The acting of Ayesha
Kapoor(young Mitchell) and the Rani Mukherjee(mature mitchell)
is very enchanting. I always knew that Rani is a good actress but
this time her acting was far superior from all of her earlier works.
She was like living the character of Mitchell in herself.

Amitabh as usual has done gr8 but this time his role as an teacher
(Devraj) is very very different and challenging, I don't think anybody
else could have equalled his performance. Anyway I found him a little
overacting in the later part where he acts an Alzheimer patient and
also the make up of Amitabh for this part sucks.

There are some scenes in the movie which I can't forget. Like the one
where young Mitchell learns the meaning of words.
The speech which Rani makes when sister is getting engaged and also
when finally she completes her graduation.

I don't expect this movie to be financially successful and I guess
even Bhansali didn't make this to make money. I have never seen
the blind and deaf people so closely before this movie. This movie
shows us that they are also humans and they too have feelings. Its
indeed a very brave effort from the director.
Great work Mr Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

I think this movie is made totally from `Dil Se`. So just watch it,
if you like listening to your heart.

Khare on Black

I am not a movie buff, but of all the movies I have ever seen, I think Black is amongst The Best. Sunil summed it up pretty well in the end "If this does'nt win an Oscar .. what will". The story is definately a brave deviation from everyday masala movies or for that matter most of the movies that we see. The experience of seeing Black was like seeing 'Anand' for the first time, except that it was more close to life than Anand. I am told that this movie is inspired from a real life story of someone named Hellen Keller. Something like this has happened in someone's life and think about it, it most probably happens to blind and deaf people everyday.
Black is a story from the heart, for the heart. Even a guy like me, who takes life on a day to day basis, a rather happy go lucky attitude, finds it touching. It tells us how exactly is the world for a blind and deaf person. Imagine being in a room, where there are no lights and everyone speaks in a language which makes no sense to you, basically because you yourself have no idea what conclusion to draw from the sounds you are hearing. That's what life is for these people, every minute, every hour, every day, every year, all life.
And then, comes into little mitchell's life, GOD. She calls him, her teacher. At first she has trouble understanding what teacher means, but he teacher her that too. Her first words maa, papa, and then teacher. Just goes to show the importance of these three people in her life. Slowly she learns everything that she needs to. And then she even goes on to become a grad student, thanks to the guidance of her teacher.
For me, every scene was a experience worth remembering. The movie has been rather beautifully picturized. At no part of the movie would you feel bored or would feel that the movie has come to a standstill. Especially since the start of her college life, the movie has become from being good to a classic. I liked the part in the movie where she appears for her interview. When asked what is knowledge for you, she replies for me "knowlwdge is my teacher". Another scene which I liked a lot was the part where her mother sees her using the spoon for the first time, and says to Mr. Sahay " you have made a fine lady out of my daughter, thank you .. ", and then breaks off crying. Yet another scene, where she talks to her mother on phone to tell her that she has failed in her exams yet again, I think that was rather beautifully picturized. I think that the scene where Amitabh reads her speech on her sister's engagement party is also good. And at the top of the list of wonderful scenes, the speech in the end on her graduation day from Rani mukherjee is simple superb.
Acting wise, for me, I feel the lady playing the role of Rani's mom did a SPLENDID job. Rani and Amitabh are pros and great acting IS expected from them and they do deliver the results with a power packed performance. But the surprise package is the girl playing young mitchell ( Ayesha Kapoor ?? ). She was definately great at her part. She did seem to bring out the helpnessness in Mitchell pretty well.
Overall, a must must must must must must must see movie. A great story, wonderful performances and great direction .. what else can you ask for ?

-------------------------------

Thank you guys for your awesome reviews.. :)

Feb 13th, 2:15 pm

???

2005-02-10T22:43:00.000-08:00

I am so confused these days, that I don't know what 'Title' should I give this blog. I have lots of things to do, but I am not in a mood to do anything. These days everything sucks. Playing volleyball and cricket is more like some duty these days then just fun. CS has grown even more boring. It has been two weeks since I've atended my last GD/PI session at CL. I have no desire left to go till there and hear all the people just shouting at the top of their voices as if this is the end of the world. And to add to that, now I've a call from XLRI too!! So the perfectly nice week of 4th of March has now turned into a week dedicated to travelling and packing and more troubles. And on the FYP front nothing has been done for past 2 weeks.
The only good thing has been that I've had novels to read. Lots of them. So at least some part of my day goes on without me getting frustoo.

Feb 11th, 1:39 pm

Felicity

2005-02-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

This time around Felicity was all about fun. No more organising, no more begging, no more hassles. It was pure, unadulterated fun. :))

On day-1 Adi and I participated in Collage-Making and Vidit, Rocky, Adi and I also went for Biz-Understanding. After making a fool of ourselves at both the events we were back to what we do best - doing nothing. In the evening it was time for Bombay Vikings, the guy is a great singer.
Throughout the day the one thing that stood out was CS. The gaming tournament had started and there were hundreds of participants for all three games. Majji was the main organiser and we, the CSI clan had also participated in CS. That day we didn't have any match and just practiced in all kinds of stupid maps. I was in nice form .. :)

Day-2 came and went fast. Actually the day started quite late with me waking up after 1:00. As soon as I reached the lab, I was told that we had a match with Jedi in the tournament. Ok, so all of us got ready.. polished our mouses, got our headphones, decided on the strategies and started playing in inferno with us as initially CT. All our strategies seemed to be useless as those people won the first two rounds quite easily. They had magnums and all sorts of big guns, and we had small paltry pistols. We made a small change in strategy and then Majjj went mad. He alone killed four people, and we won the next round!! From then on we never looked back. We won the CT round 8-4, and then finished them of with a 5-0 win as Ts. It was quite a comeback!! Majjj led the scores both as T and CT. My form from yesterday continued to today and I put up a good show. But the man of the match was undisputedly Majjj. He turned the match around...

Day3 had in store for us even more fun then the previous two days. We had our CS match with the best clan of Hyderabad, the 4mac (TM previously) clan. They massacred us in dust2. We played well, it was not as if we were bad, but those guys were just awesome. Half the time I didn't know from where I was getting hit. And that too in a map which we have explored more then any other map. We got screwed but we put up a brave show. Majjj again led the scores and this time I was second in scores. But we had much more deaths then we had kills. We lost 13-3, but I believe any other clan from our college would not have been able to get on the scoreline. The 4mac guys eventually won the contest. The other semifinalists decided not to play with them as they were too good and decided them the winners among themselves.
In the evening it was time for the dances. For the first time in his life Adi performed a western dance and he did it well. His group won the 3rd prize. After that it was Mr. & Miss Felicity and some more crap. But the main attraction of the night was the party thrown by Abhinav. Sam, Nipun, Raheja, Jayaram, Akhil, Rocky, Khare, Ranta, Deadly, Vidit, Piyush, Abhinav and me were the beneficiary of Abhinav's largesse.

On returning to the ground for the DJ, we found Amal walking around with a platefull of chillies. He was looking for people who will eat 4 of the chillies in lieu of an ice-cream. He himself started the craziness by eating 5 of them and then he caught hold of all the girls and eventually the girls took revenge by making many guys eat the chillies. Rocky cried and Adi puked but they put up a game show. I somehow managed to rescue the chillie feat. And then it was dance thru the night. Adi, Rocky, AC, Sam etc were the great dancers and KG, Piyush, Amal, Abhinav, Vidit and me - the people with two left feet. Abhinav turned out to be an impostor, he danced well!!

Another thing which I almost miseed. Vidit and the story of Zombie. Courtsey Jayaram, the song was dedicated to all the lovely 4th year guys who have made it to IIMs, a rather precise description of Vidit :) Where ever Vidit went, be it the tea shop or any contest, she was everywhere. Eventually all the girls of our batch became the leaders in teasing him, as we all took a backseat. Zombie was sung again by them, and it was again dedicated to Vidit. :)

In short, Felicity was never more fun !!!

Feb 7th, 10:35 pm

Dean...

2005-02-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

The match between Undecided (Khare, Vidit, Sam, Jayaram, Shetty with Deadly as the substitute) and Jedi (2nd years) had started. Sam had just a won a game for their team, he killed 4 Ts and the whole lab erupted!! And then the Dean enters. He comes looking for his FYP students and instead he finds all his favourite students there shouting at the top of their voices. And then he made us revisit the Compliers class... :)

He started off with the Online Programming Contest, and quickly moved on to his favourite topic - Marriage. The first guy to be married today was Khare. Jayaram as usual was leading the show for us students, doing nothing but just airing the fire. Quickly he moved on to Shri-Ram Sachin. Alas, he was not in the lab and escaped the fun! The others who came in the line of fire were Amal - the Chennai guy, Shetty - the silent killer, Raheja and his towers. But the guy who stole the limelight was Rocky. Rocky has a Hindu kept on his CPU. Dean picks it up, "Ah! What is this? Oh.. Hindu.. this newspaper is for people like me.." Saying this he starts reading the newspaper and to our and to his absolute delight he finds it out to be the Matrimonial Section. He looks around amusedly, his gaze finally resting on Rocky (cortsey all of us in lab, who all shouted out Rocky in unison) and then Rocky starts blabbering, "Sir but it is not mine..." Neither we nor Sir cared to whom the newspaper belonged and a part of the Matrimonial Section was read by Sir with the usual gusto. Poor Rocky !!! :D :)) Finally we told Sir about the gaming contest and he let us continue the match.

Feb 2nd, 5:10 pm

P.S. - Undecided lost the match to Jedi

Cache In

2005-02-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

And the online treasure has been found. After lots of scribbling, solving, cursing, shouting and googling finally Majjj and I completed the Treasure Hunt with 318 points. May get some more points, hopefully! I think we are in top-9 (9 teams are getting the prize), but nothing can be said for sure until the results are out. Anyways surely will get a T-Shirt. :))

Cache-In has done what many profs and many courses have been unable to do. It seems to me that after years I sincerely sat down for anything and solved a problem diligently. I have filled more pages in these past two days, then in the previous 4 semesters. :-|

Today I again saw the awesome power of Google. Of course it helped us a lot during Cache-In, but the best was saved for the last. Got an image during Online Quiz (Answer-42). Some guy screaming his head out while shouting some gibberish. I don't remember exactly what he was shouting but it was something like - "FDJRK". I searched for this nonsense on Google, and that too in image-search and I got the exactly same image I was looking for !!! Google rocks... Anyways with lots of help from Jayaram (sorry Jayaram, I know you did all the questions but let me take some credit.. ) and Rocky (Ha, now this guy helped me, or was it the other way round ?? Again he is the one who told me what to search for.. ) I finally submitted 11 correct answers, 3 total flukes and for decency's sake left one question unanswered. Waiting for solutions tomorrow.

Feb 2nd, 12:18 am

Surname...

2005-01-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

Majji - Kaka, tera surname kya hain ?

Kaka - Kumar.

Majji - Nahi, tera surname (Sir-Name) hain Jawahar.. Ha ha ha

Majjj with his very bad phatta when he is supposed to complete our FYP without me :) I am right now too lazy to work or for that matter I am generally very lazy whenever anything realted to studies is nearby. Still I've written 4 pages of crap in the FYP Progress Report. I did 'wc' on the report and found out 199 lines with about 1340 words and more then 7000 characters !!! And the report is not yet complete!! I really am verbose in writing useless things, actually this may turn out to be quite useful.. :) Lets see what is the verdict of the faculty on this report..

Jan 31st, 12:28 pm

Inspired by Khare

2005-01-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

As Utkarsh says, "A song that speaks to you."
It does not exactly speak to me, but it is great :)

Hoobastank - The Reason

I'm not a perfect person
As many things I wish I didn't do
But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

I'm sorry that I hurt you
It's something I must live with everyday
And all the pain I put you through
I wish that I could take it all away
And be the one who catches all your tears
Thats why i need you to hear

I've found a resaon for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is You [x4]

I'm not a perfect person
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I've found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

I've found a reason to show
A side of me you didn't know
A reason for all that I do
And the reason is you

Jan 30th, 10:07 pm

Surprise !!

2005-01-30T08:25:00.000-08:00

I am finally bored of playing CS. For the whole day I've done nothing but play CS. Tried my hand at sniping too and found out that it is not my cup of tea. A match is going on right now in dust2, but a change is required. So I'll be back to quake for a while.
The only problem is these days no one plays quake except DP and he is the god of quake. What would a lesser mortal like me do against him ??

Song :: Hoobastank - The Reason

Jan 30th, 10:00 pm

Which OS am I ?

2005-01-30T01:06:00.000-08:00

What the hell is this OS ?

:((

Jan 30th, 2:40 pm

An Insider's View

2005-01-30T00:22:00.000-08:00

Read this interesting article on bloggers and blogging.

Blogging: An Insider's View Courtsey - Rediff

Jan 30th, 1:54 pm

Experimenting

2005-01-29T00:17:00.000-08:00

Experimenting with Hello, a photo manager.
Seems to be a nice thing, makes it very easy to upload photographs..

Jan 29th, 12:49 pm

2005-01-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

Shadow Play at IIAS

2005-01-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

Imambara at Lucknow

Uploaded...

2005-01-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

Uploaded my photograph in the profile. Has still not come on the blog, I believe I am seeing the cached page.

Jan 29th, 10:44 am

CyberGames

2005-01-28T20:19:00.000-08:00

Talks of a Clan-Tournament in CS-CZ is going on these days here. New clans are springing up daily. People who have never played 5v5 in their lives are making clans and large-scale-recruitment is going on. Already a web-page is up and the draws are out, complete with the double elimination system - all courtsey Majji.
Yesterday we, the CSI clan, played with the Titans clan in dust2. We started as T's and after lagging behind 2-4 initially, defeated them 8-4. I was woefully out of touch, since I played after a long time. But at last I won a game for the team when I was the lone man standing with 3 CT's. :)) When we were CT's, the same story started. They led initially 1-2, but eventually we won 8-5. It was a nice game with all others (xXx, Slipstream, Shrek, saikiran) in great form and me (Sp4cE) in horrendeous form.

Now - FYP time :((

Jan 29th, 10:10 am

Bruises and Sprains...

2005-01-26T05:36:00.000-08:00

Thumb, ankle, neck, head, nose, toe and my hand. That is the small list where I've been hit this week, sorry not a week but two days.
In the football match instead of me contacting the ball, the ball contacted me more often. That is where I picked up the major number of injuries. Barring the thumb the rest are courtsey football. None of them major. Qunatity but no quality !!
The next day I made up in quality. Sprained my thumb, X-Ray revealed no fracture. Quality but no quantity. So have not been able to play anything for the past few days, even CS as I am not able to hold a mouse. Am typing right now with one hand !!!
Have become a pukka leftie in these past two-three days. Having meals with my left hand. But it is fun making Adi, Piyush, Vidit etc work for me. They are my beck and call. :))

Went for a batch picnic to Rammapa Lake near Warangal. Details of that in next post.

Jan 26th, 7:25 pm

Ramoji Trip

2005-01-16T19:59:00.001-08:00

28 of us went for a trip to Ramoji Film City. Abhinav, Vidit, Piyush, Adi, Parry, Majji, Pushpam, Rocky, Maddy, Khare, Pankaj, Parivesh, Ranta, Tiwary, Dixit, Deadly, Bapu, Jayaram, Sam, AU, Akhil, Bhargava, Kaka, Raheja, Shetty, Sushant, Malik and me. Whew, that was a long list!! Took minutes to remember all 28 people..

Instead of a detailed blog here is the story in pictures..

The trip starts.. Waiting for Dixit in front of Kamal's home..

Majji was flooding us with his intolerable PJs..
Majji guide always led us on to the wrong way throughout the trip.

Still in bus, Rocky and me.

Vidit, Abhinav, Jayaram, Shetty, Raheja, AU etc are up there, trying to reach the sky

Adi, Dixit, Pushpam and Parivesh await their turn to touch the sky..

Vidit and Rocky, with Vidit saying yyuuyui !!

A scared Tiwary and the photographer - me

Pushpam did a nice job as Monalisa.. :))

I am wanted...

Now even Majji is wanted..

Almost half the group (13/28)

Piyush, Bapu, Ranta, Me, Daedly and Khare

On the slope in front of Hawa-Mahal.
Now it is more then half the group, 15 of us.

Rocky, Me, Pushpam, Abhinav, Aditya and Parivesh
An artistic touch...

Woman on top !!!

Bapu enjoying ...

Can you belive it, I am holding on Parivesh !!!

The roll, discovered by Majji.
Tiwary rolling while Majj offers a helping hand.

Malik falling off the bull...

And Bhargava trying to take the neck of the bull with him..

After some agonizing 30-40 secs, even I fall off... But gg

The rain dance...

Beneath the rainbow !!!

Bapu, Majji, Pushpam, Adi, Abhinav and Rocky - all rocking...

Shetty, Raheja, Vidit, Sam, Sushant, AU, Kaka, Rnata, Malik

The monkey in us coming to the front..
Me, Maddy, Abhinav and Tiwary

Parivesh, Rocky, Pushpam and Majji
Copy Cats or Copy Monkeys ??

Me!

Adi!

And Bapu..

The Sun-fountain. Me, Pushpam, Adi and Dixit.

Notice the white speck in center of the photograph ??
Thats Adi copying the statue !!

Parivesh, Abhinav and Me - Still on the fountain

The line - Adi, Parivesh, Me, Dixit, Pushpam, Bapu and Abhinav

The circle - Adi, Parivesh, Dixit, Abhinav, Pushpam, Me, Bapu.

The semi-circle - Pushpam, Parivesh, Abhinav, Adi, Me, Bapu, Pankaj

Playing Snakes and Ladders... Tiwary, Me, Ranta and Pankaj

The rain dance... Part II

Pankaj, Abhinav, Tiwary, Parry, Bapu, Adi and Ranta on the floor

Aftermath of the rain-dance..

Jan 15th, 9:55 pm

GD PI Sessions

2005-01-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

In CL the GD PI sessions have started in full flow.. I did bad in my first Mock-GD. Reached the conclusion that I have to study a lot, if I need to have a say in any GD.
Then gave a presentation on Constitution of India. I answered almost all the questions raised by the people there.

The classes are very tiring. They go on for more than 5 hrs sometimes. Also the sessions are in Parklane, almost 25kms from here.. So daily spending around 2 hrs on bike. Going through the most crowded sections of the city in the rush-hour is tiring, and this is going to go on till March !!! I'll be black from the dust and grime I accumulate on road by then.
:((

Jan 17th, 10:30 am

Nerd

2005-01-11T00:47:00.000-08:00

Courtsey Rocky's Blog , I took this nerd-test and this is what I get

Jan 11th, 2:20 pm

XLRI + CSI + Party

2005-01-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

Gave XLRI.. The reporting time was 9am and the exam started at 10:00. Why do they call us so early? Just to make us stand, wondering about the future and pondering over all kind of stuff.. Why I gave XLRI I have no idea. I think I have done bad. Attempted many questions, but quant may lead to my downfall. Was blank while doing it, and was not paying any attention to it. My mind had diverted to more important and more philosophical things in life, that is the impending, much awaited match of Counter-Strike.

The CSI Clan - Majji (xXx), Unni (SlipStream), Venki (Adept), Shrek (_Esuko_)and I (Sp4cE) had registered for the CS tournament at Reliance Web World. Our match was to start at 4:00, so we reached there about an hour earlier for practicing on their systems. They were playing CS-1.5, and we are habituated to play CS-CZ. So it was a bit of problem for us to get attuned to their systems and the setting there.. We were in nice form coming up to the tournament as we had defeated our juniors quite easily. But on the D-Day our main players, Majji and Unni seemed off-colour. They were in bad form. Also we were very frustoo as we had been waiting for the other team from approx 2:30 and the match ultimately started after 6.. Almost 4 hrs of irritating wait, with the blaring sounds all around had not left us in a mood to play. And eventually we lost. I was in ok form, got 5 headshots with pistol in the first round (It was the only silver lining in otherwise a very dark cloud for me). We came out from there in a foul mood and then I got a sms that Anubhav and Jagan were partying us at eat-street. It seemed that finally something was going right in the day, but I was again proved wrong.

Majji and I reached eat-street around 7:00. It was jam-packed, with no signs of others. We roamed around for 1/2 an hr looking for a place to sit, albeit unsuccessfully. Jayaram joined us at about 7:30 and he immediately found some chairs, thanks to him at least for the subsequent wait of 2 hrs we were seated. Yeah, they came at 9:30 after leaving college at 7:00. Again another wait, it seemed that this Sunday had been especially marked for waiting. Well from now on the day went fine. Had pizzas and sandwiches and chola-bhatura and raj-kachori and noodles and frankies and polished off everything with a very nice coffee.

But the day had been one for the inevitable waits. First one-hr wait for XLRI, then four-hrs wait for CS and then more then two-hrs wait for dinner. In all the waiting time that Sunday exceeded seven hours !!

Jan 10th, 10:00 am

Cat out of the bag !

2005-01-06T00:08:00.000-08:00

Section                         % score                        Percentile

Logic and DI                25.00                        84.26

Quant                            51.14                        99.38

Verbal                            66.41                       99.43

Total                            48.92                        99.65

Well the score exceeded all my expectations, and to top it all I got a call from IIM-A for my Group Discussion and Personal Interview. :)) It is scheduled for 11th March at Bangalore. But there is something weird too. I did not get calls from any other IIMs. After this percentile and the call from IIM-A, I expected at least 1-2 more calls from other IIMs. But they seem to have different ideas.
I am happy that I got a nice score and a call, but also disappointed that I was not called from any other IIM.

Jan 6th, 12:56 pm

We really went to Shimla !!

2005-01-06T00:02:00.000-08:00

Even though the figure of 13 followed us throughout the trip, it was anything but unlucky. The trip was great. Well, great does not exactly convey how we felt about the trip, a much better adjective would be awesome or stupendous or fantastic.

The trip was conceived when Amal, Chandu and Ranta were selected for the ACM at Kanpur. The ACM was on 15th, so Vidit too decided to join them, bunking two days of classes. They decided on visiting Ranta's home at Daroti, 125 kms from Shimla. We decided on joining them for the trip and slowly the number of the people for the trip swelled up to 18. Courtesy PJN and Jawahar, we were cut down to 14. Abhinav and Bapu being the prime casualties, and others falling on the way.

So finally after many deliberations, we started on the 13th. Eight of us – Vidit, Parry, Rocky, Amal, Chandu, Manjeet, Ranta and me – started for Kanpur, with the other six to join us a day later. We had a whole block in the coach to ourselves in AP express, and had lots of fun. Slept and ate and played dumb-charades. Exhausted almost all the Hindi and English movies. Great acting on our part (barring Manjeet who relied only on our excellent guessing, he just moved his hands like he were setting some birds free, or as if he was flying. He had no other gestures!!) resulted in majority of the movies being guessed. Reached Jhansi at 2:00 in the night and got the connecting train to Kanpur immediately from the adjacent platform. Traveled thru the night and reached Kanpur early morning.

At Vidit's home we enjoyed a lot and ate a lot. All of us grew fat!! We visited Imambara in Lucknow and Aditya (Vidit's younger brother) gave us a tour of the bazaars of Kanpur. Vidit knew almost nothing about Kanpur. He was as lost as we were. He sure knows all the roads of H'bad, but the twists and turns of Kanpur seem to be beyond his reach.

Kanpur (Adi Jr, Me, Vidit, Paresh)

Imambara Lucknow (Vidit, Paresh, Me, Manjeet)

And to complicate matters for him, now his whole family knows about the incident in English Literature class. Rocky and I ensured that not even the smallest detail was left out. Vidit has been showing his gratitude in form of kicks and bumps etc. Well leaving Kanpur and all the Archie's comics behind, we reached Delhi after an entertaining wait at the Kanpur railway station where we guessed each others weights, Parry and me being the extremes and the rest of the pack in between.

Vidit at me at Delhi raliway station

At Delhi station we waited for the other six guys, their train being 18 hrs late they had to ditch the plan of coming to Kanpur and instead came to Delhi directly. As soon as Adi, Khare, Pankaj, Parivesh, Ketan and Googs arrived we took off for Chandigarh. We reached there around 4:30 in the evening after stopping for an hour for lunch around Panipat. There we roamed only in Sector-17 market for hours. Sushil (Ranta's younger brother) joined us there, Ranta being ignorant about all the routes and everything. Vidit and Ranta belong to same pack of cards, both being jokers!!

Well after a night's halt at Chandigarh, the next morning we left for Shimla. We reached Shimla late in the evening courtesy lots of stop-over in between. The first was at Timber Trail. This 2km long ropeway led to a hotel on a mountain-top. The view from there was breath taking.

Timber Trail (Me, Aditya)

Timber Trail

And what does one do on a mountain-top? Any guesses? I don't think any one will get this..
We played tennis.. Yeah that’s right; of all the places to play tennis I think this would be the craziest. Well since all of us playing for the first time, we sucked. Anyways by the end Parivesh and I had got a bit of hang of how to return and I had also served up an ace!!
Moving on next we went to Nauni via Solan. Had lunch there with Ranta sporting an ear -to-ear grin.

Ranta at Nauni

The next stop was Shimla. Reached there around 5:00, looked for a hotel and found a nice one cheap. The view from the hotel was beautiful. A dry tree, and the sun setting behind it. It was desktop material and the photographs proved it right. The stuff was astounding.

Sunset from Shimla Hotel

Roamed on the Mall-Road for 2-3 hours and ended the day by seeing Swades. Shimla closes down by 9:00, so we went to see the show at 10:00. On the way around 8-10 of us had dinner in just 160 bucks!! :)) We got the tickets easily, and came back to hotel at 2:00 am. It was my first experience of watching a movie at a place where I have gone as a tourist.

Paresh on way to Swades at Shimla

Next morning we went to Jhaku temple, the monkeys running amuck there. One of them snatched Parry's specs and gave them back only after it was given prasad. Saw snow-capped mountains for the first time from there. Then went to Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, and it surely was advanced studies. Post-doctorate in Humanities!!! And Rocky was thinking of enrolling there, he had ideas of having a 116 year old history behind him. He never even got to know the name of the girl, but I think he'll go back there at the first opportunity. :))

IIAS (Rocky's lost love)

Leaving Shimla behind we started for Ranta's home at Daroti. But en-route we stopped at Kufri. The place was even more beautiful then Shimla!!
Kufri

Sunset at Kufri

Again at lunch dumb-charades helped us endure the long wait for the food. Then Adi and I went for a yak-ride there. It was fun. Then Vidit took a photograph of a ghost.. :))

Ghost !!!

Reached Ranta's home at 9:00 pm. His home was about 200 meters downhill from the road. So had a mini-trek in the dark!! That night just had dinner and went to sleep, having decided on going to trek the next morn. The morning came and with it an astounding views of the mountains. We were on a mountain slope, a small river flowing in the valley beneath and as far as the eye can see only lush-green mountains were visible. Some snow-capped peaks were also visible in the distance. It was nature at its best!!

View from Ranta's home

Me and Adi on the roof of Ranta's home

Parivesh Jet Li

That morning, after a hearty breakfast left for the trek at Giriganga. It was a small temple, surrounded by a frozen pond. And since it was a temple, we were bare-foot. The ice was... well ice-cold. We crossed that 10-foot long frozen pond bare-foot. Twas one of the greatest experiences.

Rocky crossing the frozen pond at Giriganga

And after Parivesh crossed it, as expected a crack developed on the route and others had to cross the pond by a longer route.

Me at Girganga, photographer - Me

And then the main trek started (I'm not considering the 2-3 kms long walk to the temple as a trek, coz it was just walking on a dirt road).

Had the first encounter with snow just ahead of the temple. And from there the trek started. Sushil and Nishchaya (Ranta's cousin) ran ahead of us geeks and were on the mountain top ages before us. One-by-one the people kept falling out of the trek. the first to go were Parry and Amal. 10-15 minutes later Khare, Bothra and Chandu gave up. Resting every 10 minutes, slowly but steadily we made our way up... Adi wanted to give up, but since he was alone and did not know the way down, he continued with me. Just ahead we caught up with Ranta and others, so Adi got company to go down. He, Rocky and Ketan were the next to go. That left Vidit, Maddy, Parivesh, Google, Ranta and me. Vidit, Maddy and Googs were much ahead of us. And at last even we three reached the peak. If it can be believed, the scenic beauty seemed to be increasing as the trip progressed. That time, we were Desktop Material had someone taken our photograph from some other peak. Surrounded by snow everywhere, on the peak of a mountain with the sun setting on one side and the moon rising on the other, simply put it was beautiful!! I have always dreamt of climbing the Mt.Everest. So what if this was not it, we called it the Mt.IIIT!!

Me and the snow

Parivesh and Me at the peak

The people who made it to the top

Sun sets as the trek ends

Since darkness was descending fast, we started making our way down. Finally we reached where our Qualis were parked and a blazing fire greeted us. It was the perfect way to end the trek. Made our way back to Ranta's home, with us playing Antakshari. Parivesh at his comical best (he is always at his comical best), the all-excited Adi (as he always is), Amal trying to sing Tamil song (got interrupted by the driver, but he sings well), and yours truly at his peak of besurapan the Antakshari was fun. Tired but happy, finally we reached Ranta's home looking forward to the next day's trek (at least I was, but I don't believe anyone else was). Had a grand dinner and then to bed!!

The next morning gave us a wet greeting. It had rained the night before and there had been snowfall just some kms from there.

Snow on the adjacent mountain

So leaving all the plans of treks etc behind, we packed as another snowfall could have meant, walking 18 kms to the nearest bus-stop. So half-heartedly we had to leave.

Rocky, Rocky and Poosha

Khare, Me, Parivesh and Pankaj

The whole group except Ranta

On the way back, the one thing we had been looking for confronted us. A snowfall!! Stopping for about an hour, we enjoyed in the snowfall, made proper snow-balls and all pelted their favourite target - Khare - for his infamous dialogue, "Are we going to Shimla?".

Snowfall on the return trip

Snow !!!!

Made our way back to Shimla that evening, Parivesh having made arrangemts for us at some Guest-House. It was less of a Guest-House, and more of a 4 or a 5 star hotel. That night got the CAT scores. Abhinav called us up with the scores. Vidit rocked with his 99.91 percentile in English and overall a great score. I was also very much surprised by my good score. Next morning we left for Chandigarh. And since Bothra and Googs wanted to go by train, Parivesh, Amal, Chandu, Adi, Vidit and I accompanied them. The trip was a tad long, but we endured it courtesy Dumb-Charades again. Google was at his worst best. He even defeated Bothra in terms of the acting. But the surprise element was Amal, he acted quite well and I think he was even able to act out a Hindi movie too.

The trip ends. Pinjaur Gardens at Chandigarh

From here on, the trip was just about saying Good-Bye to all. Ketan had left before we even reached Kalka. Vidit, Khare and Bothra also had their trains from Kalka that night. Then we traveled through the night, sleeping en-route for some 3-4 hrs and reached Delhi early in the morning. Dropped off Parivesh and Aditya at New Delhi Railway Station. Amal, Rocky and Maddy went ahead with Chandu as their trains were later, and Googs, Parry and I were dropped at the Nizamuddin station. The wait was horrendeous as the train kept getting late. The only silver lining in the cloud being Abhinav's call telling me about my call from IIM-A and Vidit's call from A & B.

And so the trip ends...

FYP

2004-12-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

Nothing compare to the days leading up to any presentation. The confusion, the chaos, the pandemonium!! Had my Final-Year-Project's presentation today. Have been doing nothing but trying to understand the complexities of R-Tree and splitting nodes and maximal-horizontal-space-strip (impressive, huh?) At last the D-Day was here, and Manoj and I came out with flying colors. I believe we had answers to all their questions.

Now the next big thing or THE big thing for which we all are waiting, Shimla Trip. We have planned a trip to kanpur(vidit's home) and shimla and rohudu(ranta's home). amal, chandu and ranta are going for ACM, and from there the plan developed and now 17 of us are in it. But thanks to jawahar and pjn, these plans may very well go down the drain. abhinav has now his presentation on 20th, so he is out. parry too may ditch us soon. And just now pjn mailed amal and chandu regarding their deadlines, and so the list continues. Hopefully we'll go.

Abhinav brought a DigCam. It is really great, but I've been reduced to the unofficial photographer as abhinav has not yet learnt how to use it properly, and since I've tinkered a lot with the camera I'm now considered an expert. So all my photographs are coming bad :-(

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Dec 9th, 10:50 pm

Worst week..

2004-11-27T05:42:00.000-08:00

I think this week has been the worst in a long long time.

Got screwed in CAT. Did pathetically bad in DI courtsey misreading a word. Doing well in other two sections may very well go down the drain. Not expecting any calls.

CAT was on Sunday, the start of the week. And if the the start was with a bang, how could it end with a whimper?

For the first time in my life I failed. Got 'F' in Linear Algebra. Scored 20 totally. And I thought, I had done well in the end-sems. I was expecting more, but...

The main culprit in both this was the figure 9. I scored 9 in DI and got 9 in LA end-sems. :)) Coincidence ?? (Or as Chandler says, "Joincidence with a C !!")
So if nothing else I can blame the figure of 9. Nine, hey that seems to be a nice name for CS and Quake!!

And speaking of CS and Quake, this week even in those both my form has been nothing short of horrendeous. The past few days have been dedicated to regaining my sublime (!!) touch. I think I am back to my normal form.

Nov 27th, 7:45 pm.

Poems on Vidit

2004-11-16T04:44:00.000-08:00

Poet - Rocky

woh phul woh mauka
woh mast hawa ka jhonka

Vidit ne kisi ko dekha ...
pad gaya uske dil pe daka..

kahna to chaha bahut kuch
par har bar zuban ho jati thi chup

Marathe ne diya mauka ..
Khush ho gaya hamara banka..

finally mili Knight ko uski lady
bhaiyon .. ho jao baarat ke liye ready

Poet - Pelu

Sequel 2 rakesh

Woh teer jo chali dil ke aar paar
Vidit to shaadi ke liye hai tayyar

Nazren jhukaye woh mallika hai khadi
Vidit ki kismet to khul padi

bhaiyon chalo is mauke ki khushi mein
chalo dikhayen vidit ko sitaare

Use de hum bumps jumke
Kya kehte ho mohan pyaare ???

Poet - Vidit
Vidit strikes back

woh phul woh mauka
woh mast hawa ka jhoka

us par padi jo woh pehli nazar
dil na jane gum hua kidhar

woh pyara sa chehra
woh sharabi si aankhen
Kahar sa chhaya
joh koi nikla pool se nahake

Mana ... mana lady thi cute
pur ROCKY ne is dil ko liya tha loot.

Poet - Rocky
Rocky has the last laugh

Arz karta hoon ...

Vidit ke Dil ka Haal
--------------------

Ab Intezaar ki ghadiyan ho chuki hain bahut lambi...
ab to sun sun kar pak chuke hain .. "Zombie Zombie"

Kambakht Yeh Semester bhi hai khatm ho chala
Aakhiri english ki class main bhi us se nahi Mila ?

Ab to Bas Khuda pe hi bharosa hai...
Swimming Pool main mila de bas itni hi aasha hai

Nov 16th, 6:30 pm

Time flies...

2004-11-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

I know I promised to continue with the cooking blog, but who can control the time and space and the happenings around ? Anyways the food turned out to be awesome and we finished our dinner at around 1:00 am after starting the cooking at 4:00 pm. We cooked for 8 hours and then polished off everything in just under an hour.

Gave the exams, did well in vlsi algos and I'm preety sure I'm failing LA. Only a miracle can save me. CAT is just around the corner. So preparing for that. Hope I get 4-6 calls. Stop being greedy Kunal.. Ok any call from A.B,C,L would do. :D

Went home for diwali. After 4 years celebrated diwali at home. Enjoyed a lot, but came back in just two days. :(( But it was fun. Met many friends..

Ya, I almost forgot the Tiger-story. As per rumours a tiger was caught in the campus !!!!! Then we had lots of fun at the poor tiger's and vidit's expense. How ? This will be clarified in the next posting..

Nov 16th, 6:10 pm

Cooking !!!

2004-10-21T05:15:00.000-07:00

Today we are cooking our own dinner. abhinav, vidit, adi, piyush, amal, ranta and me. parry has not yet graced us with his presence, but I believe fatty(sorry parry :P) won't miss the eating part.

The official cooks are abhinav, vidit, ranta and piyush. adi and amal would join them soon. Since my room is the kitchen, I have captured abhinav's room and am searching for recipes on the net (and also playing CS). The menu is Tomato Soup, Aloo Tikki, Mushroom Appetizer, Garlic Bread, Burger, Maggi, Rasmalai and Kheer. Wow !!!

Right now, milk and the potatoes are being boiled, and the vegetables are being cut. Lets see how everything turns out. :D
Next post, after an hour with the latest details and all the progress..

Oct 21st, 5:50 pm

Microsoft

2004-10-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

Microsoft IDC came for recruitment today. They had taken all the CVs and shortlisted some 35 people, myself being one of them. How was I selected I have no idea, I think having a CG > 8 helped. Anyways again I woke up at 7:30 (I should stop it, else it would become a habit!!) attended their presentation and then waited for the first round of interview for nearly 4 hours. After that long boring wait, at last my interview started. Was asked about triangles' angles, hashes, atoi function and finding substring. I made mistakes in all answers and he always rectified me. For all the questions I ultimately reached the answers he was looking for, but always after lots of hints from his side and lots of mistakes from my side. So it came as no surprise to me that I did not qualify for the next round. piyush is through to the next round. I hope he gets the 7.5L.

Piyush gave his GRE too yesterday. He got a great score of 1340 with just few days of prearations. So now it is time for his party. Tonight we are going to Pizza-Hut :D Went to Melting Moments on sunday with vidit, adi and ketan. The ice-creams there are too good. It is a place which can be visited as often as the wallet permits. I whole-heartedly agree that the ice-creams there are uncomparable, but the prices sure are extravagant. Had it been cheaper I would be there almost everyday. :-)

I don't know how am I feeling right now. I never wanted to go to MS, so I am happy that I am free from all the bothers of future (MBA/Oracle/What) but I am disappointed because I was rejected from the interview. So having mixed feelings right now.

Oct 19th, 7:45 pm

Ooops

2004-10-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention...
I completed season-6 and have started with seaosn-7.
:-)

Oct 17th, 10:09 pm

FLT-1

2004-10-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Score - 52. Did bad, should have done better. Very bad accuracy in DI and english. In quant accuracy was fine. Attempts were fine, around 90.

And sadly, the test match did not end today. It is evenly poised, although I think India has a slight advantage. 210 runs needed in 90 overs, with 10 wickets in hand. Perfectly achievable. And Kumble passed Akram too today, he is now at 415 wickets.

piyush is busy preparing for his GRE tomorrow and vidit is studying hard for his PR test tomorrow. Both as uaual are frustated. vidit a bit and piyush a lot.

Regarding my going home, bhai says I'll lose the tempo for CAT if I go home. I know he is right but I'll still go home, as I think the break will do more good than bad. So I've told dad to get my return tickets. Have also got the admit cards for CAT and JMET. Both centers are in Hyderabad. Will have to go sometime and take a look where they are.

We are planning a trip somewhere after the 8th sem. vidit is of the opinion of a secluded place, and abhinav favours any hill-station. So we have decided on a secluded hill-station (This is what is called Democracy!!). As of now we don't know any such place, but we'll surely find it. We are thinking of going in May last week. That is a long time from now, but it is fun planning..

Oct 17th, 10:07 pm

Lots..

2004-10-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Lots of things have happened in the past 3 days and I don't remember most of them :-)
But some things I do remember..

piyush flummoxed jawahar and dey and likewise with his presenattion during viva. And still he was not satisfied. He himself is one confused guy. abhinav and adi breezed through their vivas. No glitches there, but adi was surely frustoo the night before..

For a change I attended all the classes yesterday.. Whew, it was really tiring. And to top it all, I had woken up at 7:30 in the morning!! In the evening adi, vidit, abhinav and me went out for ice-creams to Ice-n-Spice. Had sandwiches and pizzas and shakes for dinner, and instead of rounding it with ice-creams we decided on going to Hi-Tech for the Cold-Swiss-Choclate (refer the previous post). So we took a huge detour through whisper-valley, and finally reached there. But unluckily, we did not find the shop open at 10:00 pm :-( vidit, adi got us choclate-pastries, which were just about ok. Then the procession moved to the secret-lake.. Sat there for around an hour talking on everything under the sun.

I am surely going mad. Today again I woke up at 7:30 :D Had to go for invigilation of the itws3 mid-term. Wasted an hour there, and then our seniors came and so we had a cricket match. pratyush, surya and others came. They were playing quite well, onsidering they haven't played for a long time. I bowled one miserly over (just 3 runs), and so was entrusted with the ball for the last-over too. And I certainly fulfilled the expectations of our seniors. Gave away 15 runs. :(( Eventually we ended the match as draw, due to unforseen equipment problem. In layman's language, the ball burst and so the match was ended as draw.

I've decided on going home for diwali, convinced mom dad too. parry saved me a trip to station as he is not going now. So I got his tickets. Warne became the highest wicket taker in test-cricket and Kumble moved past Ambrose on the first day. I hope we win on the 4th day itself.

Thinking of giving an FLT now. Will post my score to keep myself abreast with the progress on the war-front.

Oct 16th, 10:30 pm

...

2004-10-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

Another 700/- gone down the drain. Today applied for JMET. They had lots of weird funda. Scanned photograph, scanned signature (?!?!) etc. And the worst part was paying the fees. You have to be a wizard to figure that one out. After lots of deliberations, I finally did it. The only compensation was the awsome Cold-Swiss-Chocolate at Hi-Tech. It was too good.

Today I'm absolutely free. I have no idea on what I should do. No, I am not going to study today. Actually, this morning when I woke up (ya, for a change I was awake at 8:30 today) I thought of writing a FLT, but then the turn of events did not allow me to do so.

Today I fulfilled some of my duties as a TA. I checked the projects today and graded them based on the work they did after the previous submission. Also got my end-sem timetable. My exams start and end on 2nd Nov. How great is that!! Now I am seriously contemplating going home for Diwali, just have to convince mom and dad :D

Got a great wallpaper of Amrita Rao, she is looking absolutely stunning. Saw DCH once again, that movie remains as good as ever. Actually it seemed better then before. I think I've been watching boring movies for too long. I should stop watching movies for a while and just continue with Friends.

It is after midnight and I am feeling a tad tired. So bye...
Oct 14th, 12:15 am

Viva..

2004-10-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

The setting was of an interrogation in a jail. Five people sitting in semi-circular fashion facing you and expecting you to spill all the beans. Well we were supposed to spill-the-beans, else what would the viva be there for.
I think it went very well. Prof. Kamal tried to confuse us a lot, but we persisted with our view-point and pointed out his mistakes. And finally we came out unscathed from the interrogation cell after 10-15 agonizing minutes.

Saw the movie Garfield today. Really awful movie. As good the normal Garfield cartoons are, the movie was a huge dampener. I expected much more.

Anyways, continuing with the season-6. On 609..

Oct 12th, 12 midnight

Keith Miller

2004-10-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

"He was one of those rare athletes who could turn a game with bat, ball or with an impossible catch.

"But more important, he was a man who understood that the game, great as it is, is just a game, and he played it that way."

Oct 12th, 6:15 pm

Studies !!

2004-10-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

Why do I have to study? It is really boring. Yesterday gave Mock-8 and tomorrow I have fyp viva and project submission. Whew!! I am having a really busy week.

Anyway, let me analyze myself reg Mock-8. Got a score of 56, I did bad. My number of attempts reduced drastically. From 114, I came down to 78. Even though I did well in quant and eng, I did pathetically bad in DI. I won't be clearing the cut-off in that. I should have attempted more. I had just 18 attempts in DI, whereas my score in DI is generally around 20. Time-management has to improve. I did well in quant. 21 attempts and 19 correct :D That is really great.

Since morning I've been preparing for the viva tomorrow, am confident that it will go great as both our preps are good. (majji and me)
Just now saw an enthralling football match between aakash and prithvi, studded with an own goals and three late goals, in the last 5 minutes.

I have started watching Friends once again. Saw 1st and 2nd season and now I've jumped to season-6. Having a really great time watching them again.
Well I suppose I've to study now, if I've to live up to my own expectations.

Oct 11th, 6:40 pm