Vatsil's Blog

I still dream of those good times

2010-12-10T01:26:00.002+05:30

I still dream of those good times
Not just when I'm asleep

You learn when you fall, they say
Sometimes that's the only way to learn
Time heals any cuts from the fall
But not if you still regret the fall

Will time ever overpower regret?
Well, not directly; but a self-reconciliation will
Where should you fall from to learn the art of reconciliation?
Ah, who can say? Only time will guide you
The real question is once you learn reconciliation,
is any "fall" truly a fall? leave alone cuts
There is no spoon; or so we conclude

I still dream of those good times
Not just when I'm asleep
While I wait for my final fall

Goa Trip

2009-08-10T21:06:00.000+05:30

I had a enjoyable and relaxing vacation of 4 days in Goa. I was able to spend some quality time with my parents. We reached Goa, by train, on the morning of 5th and left from there on the night of 8th. We had a pleasant stay at Hotel Succegado in Panaji.

Day 1 : South Goa tour

Day 2 : We spent it exploring Panaji (wherever our feet took us), though we took Goa By Night, which is a river cruise on River Mandovi, in the evening.

Day 3 : North Goa tour

Day 4 : We explored a very big beautiful park, which was close to our Hotel. We spent the afternoon having fun at Calangute beach, the queen beach of Goa.

My First Vote

2009-05-13T14:38:00.003+05:30

Today, I am proud to have fulfilled my duty to vote in the General Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha.

Ragam 09 and Convocation

2009-04-02T22:12:00.005+05:30

I was back in NITC last weekend, for Ragam 09 and my convocation.

Last thursday's night, I met Fazil outside Gee Pee Travels's office. We got our tickets signed at the office and got on to a bus, with "GEE PEE TRAVELS" written on its front. We were glad that we got sleepers in an A/C Volvo bus, although the cost of the ticket was Rs. 700. About an hour later, the bus stops at Kalasipalayam and the conductor asks everyone to get down to get our boarding passes from the office. "What boarding pass? What office?", was our initial reaction, but since everyone else got down, we followed suit, only to find a rush at the table inside the office. A board outside the office read "SMPK travels". We saw people giving "GEE PEE Travels" ticket, "Ramya Travels" tickets, "Red-Bus" tickets etc. [all these travels have issued tickets, on behalf of and with the consent of "GEE PEE travels", which is a sister concern of "SMPK travels"] and the guy was issuing boarding passes to these people. When we got our tickets to this guy, he told us that all seats were filled and that we could take a seat in their "special bus", which is not A/C, not volvo and not even semi-sleeper. All this when we had booked the tickets 2 weeks in advance. How more unscrupulous can this get? We were uncontrollably angry. This fate was shared by 7 or 8 others around us. Fazil and I, not knowing if there really was any special bus, got into the volvo and sat on an unoccupied berth. We refused to get down, when the boarding pass issuer asked us to get down. He asked us to show our tickets. We showed him the tickets. He snatched it from my hand and got out of the bus. There were 2 other guys in this bus, just like us; the rest went off to take the special bus. Everyone inside the Volvo was completely pissed off at SMPK travels for their ruthless tactics. The bus started. We sat in the berth with the confidence that, if the bus operators tried to force us out of the bus, the angry crowd inside the bus would definitely support us. We somehow managed to put our backs on the berth and our tiredness put us to sleep. We reached Calicut, at 6 AM the next morning. Fazil invited me to his home for breakfast. At his house (or might I say 'bungalow'), after freshening up, I had a lovely breakfast, that his mom prepared. I thanked them and left for college.

Palayam bus stand, "REC, Mukkam" shouts, the bus ride to NITC, Medical College, Kunnamangalam, Co-ops, canteen, Ragam decorations, Rajpath, Basketball court, NLC, MB, A-Hostel (and other hostels), mini-canteen ... brought back many vivid memories and kept me smiling widely. Outisde the F' hostel, I met Arjun, at whose room (F-120) I was going to stay. F mess is now run by Lovely Foods people. We ate at F mess, where I started meeting juniors and friends. We then caught up with some events like Eastern Orchestra, Solo dance, Duplicate. The pro-show for the night starred Shankar Mahadevan. His voice was worth the 300 bucks for the ticket and much more. As his second song that night, Shankar started singing "Thaniye Thannanthaniye" from the Tamil movie "Rhythm". But since the crowd, that was swarming around the stage and that was desperate for Hindi songs after the previous night's pro-show, featuring Benny Dayal, who had sung Tamil songs predominantly, gave a very sombre response. Shankar sensed this, ended the song with just the first stanza and did not sing any Tamil song after that. Nevertheless, the show was outstanding. I had a great time that night, dancing with Machchans. Outside the OAT, I met Nikhil John Kurian, who was in the "Special Bus" from Bangalore to Calicut. He told me that the bus was blocked at the state border, for 3 hours, due to lack of valid permits. He also told me that when they got out of the bus at Calicut, all of them threw stones at the bus, broke the steering wheel and every windowpane of the "Special Bus". Guess they made the bus really "Special" then. I congratulated Nikhil for this achievement. After having the legendary double-attached at the mini-canteen [MC], all of us were dead tired. Since Arjun's bed was small for both of us, I took refuge at [Raj Thilak, Sanjay and Hemu]'s room (C-245), where we could join beds.

Saturday, the last day of Ragam 09, began late for me. It was past 12 noon, when I finished my morning duties. I had lunch at Lovely Foods, with juniors. Juice/Milk-shake at the co-ops was next in line. During B.Tech., at several points in time, I used to come to co-ops everyday. I have come to the co-ops too many times, but that day, it was at co-ops did I feel like a complete outsider. For 30 seconds, I was in a black-N-white spiral tube and I was going backwards, facing the centre. When I came out of it, the harsh reality, that I can't come to the co-ops daily, struck me. I always knew it but it did not hit me like this before. After about a minute through this complicated feeling, it dawned on me that it wasn't the co-ops that I was going to miss, but everything at NITC. I then realised that I have already been missing my college for a long time. I never fully understood when my friends told me that they were feeling nostalgic about college. All those feelings came rushing to me. I wonder if this was how my friends felt at the end of 4th year. I'm guessing that all of these emotions have been accumulating for a while and they just surfaced at the co-ops. Was I too robotic to ignore these emotions till then? Or was I sub-consciously suppressing them? Just then, the 'cheta' at the co-ops recognised me and came to speak with me. With the conversation, I was diverted and put at ease relatively. The mango shake was brilliant as ever. Back at Ragam, JAM was about the only interesting event that day but that too got boring very soon. The pro-show for that night featured "Breathe the delicate sound of Floyd". I enjoyed their music. Fashion Show followed the Rock show. NITC's team put an extraordinary show and everyone loved it. Later I heard that our college won the event. Soon after our college's turn, we got bored and called it a day.

On Sunday, Nithin (he arrived that morning) and I, with juniors, went to Kappad beach. It was already 2 PM, when we landed at Kappad. All of us were hungry by then. We had food at the Kappad resort, on the beach. Although initially I was hesitant to get wet, within minutes, I was completely drenched in water. After about an hour in the water, we left for college. Exhausted, I slept early that night.

Monday was the much awaited Convocation day. We had some formalities (paying caution deposit for the robes, collecting the robes, ...) to do. In NITC, any official work implies standing in queues. Starting from withdrawal of money from the ATM to collecting the robes, there was a line for every step. I wouldn't dare compare this queue to registration day queues, but it still did give us a taste of those days, especially since it was very hot, just like registration days. The programme was at the auditorium, scheduled to begin at 4 PM. At around 4 PM, dressed up in the black robes, we were taking a few snaps in groups, near the Production department. Most of us looked funny, especially when the hat kept falling down. Nithin got just one day's leave (monday) at office, so he had to leave to catch the 5:30 PM train. He knew he would not be able to attend the convocation and still came to Calicut for a visit. I felt very sorry for him not able to attend the Convocation. The staff ushered us to get in as it was time for the Academic procession to arrive. My parents arrived just when I was about to enter the hall. After a few quick pictures with my parents, I went in to sit with my classmates and they went to sit in the guests area. Soon, the Academic Procession, which is a march of the Director, Chief Guest Dr. K. Kasturirangan [MP (Rajyasabha), Former Chairman of ISRO], Heads of Departments and the other members of the Senate, from outisde the auditorium to the stage, in a formation, arrived with music in the background. The music sounded like some circus music. Their robes were different from ours and the Director and the Chief Guest had special robes, in which they looked like the Pope. Together with the music, this was very funny. The long boring speeches were strenuous to sit through, especially since the over-crowded auditorium was suffocating us. Then, as the Head of the respective department, read our names, each of us went on stage to collect our degree. We were required, on the stage, to bow thrice - once to the HOD, once to the Chief Guest and once to the Director before receiving the Degree from him. When my turn came, my only thought was to save my hat from falling down while bowing. After the Degree distribution, the Awards (Medal) distribution took its turn. I was the Gold-Medalist in my branch. As far as I can remember, this was the first time I have topped in Academics. I was happy and excited to receive the prize. The Chief Guest awarded the medals. After awarding the medal, he has a brief chat with the medalist, on stage. Mine went like this ...

Kasturirangan : My hearty Congratulations !!
Me : Thank you.
Kasturirangan : Where are you now?
Me : I'm with Goldman Sachs, Investment Bank.
Kasturirangan (immediately, with concern) : Oh are they O.K.?
Me (with a slight hesitation) : Yeah, we are fine now.
Kasturirangan : You are happy there ... ?
Me (being in a good mood) : Yes

We all took an oath that I don't remember very well, but basically said we must be good people. The music started again, when the Academic Procession was leaving the auditorium. Even when the procession only half exited the hall, all of us threw our hats in the air and roared with joy.

It was 7:45 PM, when we got out of the auditorium. Another long line, to return the robes and collect our caution deposit back, was in place. Standing in that line, it was depressing to think about leaving. After getting the deposit back, I collected my bag from Arjun's room, said "Bye" to everyone I met on the way and went to the bus stand. As I walked, the hostels, MB, MB circle, NLC, Basketball court, ... were all dragging me back, as if asking me to take one more look at them. When I reached the Rajpath main gate, I turned back to look at the well-lit Rajpath, adorned with Ragam decorations, still intact. I remembered leaving college, on the last day of 4th year - we were going in a jeep; as we reached the main gate, I looked at the Rajpath and gave a smirk. In contrast, on monday, I couldn't feel anything but plain, raw sadness to leave.

At Calicut, my parents came to the bus stop to send me off. They had tickets for the 2 AM train to Chennai. I at least wanted to go to Chennai with them. I did not want to get back to Bangalore. But the next morning, when Fazil and I got out of the bus, outside Forum, both of us were dejected that we had to leave college, again.

Going back to my college was more heartening than I had ever imagined. I took 2 days to stabilise myself, but I think I will feel nostalgic about college for a long time.

New House Again !!

2009-01-05T22:00:00.002+05:30

I had a wonderful vacation in Chennai from 25th December to 4th January. On New Year's Eve, we had a family get-together at my place and celebrated New Year with loud (really loud) music, dance, lots of food.... It was very sad to get back to Bangalore this morning, after having a fun-filled vacation.

This morning, I get ready for office and come down to take my bike, when I see that some guy had cut the petrol tube and taken all the petrol in the tank. Since the time I moved in to this house in Koramangala, I always kept my bike outside as there was no parking space and as everyone seemed to park their vehicles outside. Even my roommate S.Arun (Gaali) keeps his Honda Activa outside. I assumed it was very safe. I never knew that stealing petrol from bikes was so easy. All one needs to do is to look for the knob that controls Fuel On, Reserve and Off, find the tube that comes out near this knob and cut this tube. I was shocked and angry, when I saw the hanging petrol tube. With no other option, I pushed the bike to the nearest petrol bunk, in hopes of finding a mechanic there. When I reached the bunk, it was closed and a board read, "Petrol - Out Of Stock". So I went pushing the bike to the next petrol bunk. There, no one could help me with my bike and there too was no petrol. My new worry, then, was that, even if I got my bike fixed, I might not get petrol. I knew that there was another petrol bunk, down the road. But what if there was no mechanic there? I had already pushed the bike 2 km. I did not want to push it another km and finally end up pushing it back 3 km. I decided to take the risk and started pushing it towards the next petrol bunk. But within a few meters, I found a mechanic shop. The mechanic got a new tube, fixed my bike in a few minutes and charged 20 bucks. Some petrol was left in the tank. So I rode the bike to the petrol bunk and luckily petrol was available. Phew !!

Before I went on vacation, Krish, Ashish (Krish's friend) and I had decided to move in together to a house near BEML. The house in Koramangala was only temporary, till Krish could move out of his house. Krish and Ashish had moved in to this new place when I was in Chennai. I was going to shift sometime this week. But after this incident, I was scared to keep my bike outside even for a night. So I shifted to my new house now. This place has parking space inside the compound. A big relief.

Settled down finally

2008-10-04T22:37:00.003+05:30

I shifted my home to an apartment in Koramangala, today. I'm going to share this house with 3 guys, Shivaram, Karthik (MK) and Gaali (haven't met him and don't know his real name). Karthik has gone to Chennai for the weekend and Gaali is in Korea. I know MK through Vijayaraghavan. MK was Vijayaraghavan's senior in NITK. I met Shivaram only today. MK and Gaali (both from NITK) work for Samsung, and Shivaram (BITS, Pilani) works for Google. Also, Shivaram and MK studied at DAV matriculation school (adjoining to my school).

This is a very spacious double-bedroom flat at a very silent, clean and posh neighbourhood, which is also very close to anywhere we would want to go. They also have a TV with Tata Sky connection, a washing machine, a microwave, a bread toaster and a broadband internet connection with a wifi modem, here.

It feels so much better to have my stuff unpacked, which by the way were packed (on june 14th) when I moved to Bangalore to join GS. I have been living with all my stuff inside suitcases, all this time, even in New York as the shelves there were not very convenient to use and at Krish's place there was no space to unpack them. I now feel like I have settled down. Finally.

My New Bike

2008-09-26T20:45:00.010+05:30

I bought a brand new Bajaj XCD DTSI 125 cc bike today, for Rs. 48,169, with a down payment of the whole amount, at the Khivraj Bajaj showroom here in Indira Nagar. After a week's time of research on the internet, reading up lots of negative and positive reviews about this model and other bikes, asking people about their views, visiting Hero Honda showroom and comparing the features with other models, I decided to buy this one. The bike is black in colour. I have already started loving it. The dealer promised a mileage of 65-70 kmpl. I hope it renders as promised. As far as looks of the bike go, I like the bike a lot. I had taken a test ride on the bike 2 days ago and it was very comfortable and smooth. So was it now, when I rode the bike from the showroom to Krish's place (where I'm temporarily put up). I promptly got a helmet too, for Rs. 1050. Registration work for the bike is not completed yet and I expect it to be over by monday.

I now have two 2 wheelers. The other one is my Honda Activa, which is in Chennai now. I'm totally excited about my new bike. Looking forward to many happy and safe rides on it.

From My Bike

Paid Vacation Gets Over

2008-09-18T22:56:00.005+05:30

I left Bangalore on July 16th, for training at New York. I came back on September 14th. The 2 months in Manhattan was fun, despite the few initial shocks - economy class was such a punishment (very painful), weather at NY was extremely hot (comparable with Chennai), NY was totally unclean (garbage and waste everywhere), the train stations can bake us alive (that hot), people don't wait for the signals to cross the road, etc. As I mentioned, these were no hurdles in our way to fun, making the trip more of a vacation, though the purpose of the trip was training.

We (all the new joiners) had the luxury to get an accommodation at mid-town, Manhattan. We stayed at Eastgate Tower Hotel (at 39th St between 2nd & 3rd Av). We used the metro trains 4, 5 and 6 for commuting to office.

Places I went to, during the US trip :-

Atlantic City - I won 45$ on the slot machine
Six Flags, an Adventure Park featuring roller-coasters like Kingda Ka (tallest and fastest in the world), El Toro, Superman, Batman, Nitro and many more - I went on all the rides
WWE RAW, a house show - Though I had lost interest in WWE way back in school, the real thing, with the crowd cheering unanimously, was an awesome experience. The crowd went crazy for John Cena and C.M. Punk. Adding to the exhilaration, D'Lo Brown (my childhood favourite) had a fight that night. Though he lost, he and his attitude were awesome in the ring as always.
Niagara falls, a wonder of the world - The experience was out of the world, not to mention Maid of the Mist, which was a boat ride to the foot of the falls, from where you can see the horse-shoe falls surrounding you. The scenic beauty of the falls at night goes beyond words. On the way to Niagara falls, we went to Corning Glass Museum, which was amazing too. Buffet dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the way proved to be the heaviest meal I had in US. I had 5 servings of fried rice and noodles, one serving of a variety of fruits and one more of ice-cream (3 flavours), all for $12. The food was very good.
Broadway Show - Phantom of the Opera - Oh, how can I ever describe this? Is superb the word? This Broadway's longest running musical was an orchestral performance, magic show, dance performance and many more (don't forget acting skills) put together with an amazing exhibition of stage management, both onstage and backstage. The music, still playing in my head, just blew me away that night.
Columbus - I visited Ramu mama's house for 3 days. It was a pleasant stay at their place. I played a lot with the kids. We also went to a water-theme park and a bowling alley. They have a palace for a home. Their dog Duke, which scared me to death initially, was actually very friendly. I am now less scared of dogs.
Brooklyn bridge, Central Park, Bronx zoo, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It or Not, American Museum of Natural History (where the movie Night At The Museum was shot), Top of the Rock (Rockefellar Plaza), Woodbury Commons Premium Outlets (where I bought my Nike shoes), Times Square and other stuff made huge contributions in making the trip very memorable.

I also went to Janaka chithi's home at Staten Island, NY. She was very loving and affectionate, and gave me all the food I needed for the stay. Raghu chithappa was interesting to talk to and we talked a lot. I also met Ram and Sumi. Right from the first visit, Staten Island became my home in NY. The ferry ride to and from Staten Island, not only gives the best view of the Statue of Liberty, but also makes anyone wish that every frame which his eye records could be taken as a photograph and kept for life.

On our journey back to Bangalore, four of us (Karthik, Shravani, Aparna and myself) had a 13 hours halt at Dubai. So we took an on-arrival transit VISA at the Dubai airport for $145 and took a tour around Dubai for $45 with the Dubai Big Bus Tours. The Jumeirah Beach was very clean, beautiful and tempting, and the Burj Al Arab was magnificent and eye-catching. The Dubai museum is an underground museum and was originally an underground fort built in the 1800's. We had nice fun at this museum. Karthik lost his wallet in the public bus just after we left Dubai airport. It was quite an experience even to have a friend losing his wallet in a foreign country, with a plane to catch in some hours. Karthik however took it light as with anything else and enjoyed Dubai with us.

In a nutshell, the whole trip was fun-packed and awesome. But I'm happy to be back in India now, even if paid vacation is over and real work starts.

Religion at Office

2008-06-24T21:14:00.006+05:30

I have now spent 7 days at office and today I saw something very interesting. But let me go in order.

I wore a new shirt to office on the first day - 16th, June (I bought 2 nice shirts from Fab India last sunday [15th, June]). Though the shirt felt really good, that day was buried in orientation programmes and hence was long and boring. Right from the second day, I had nothing more than training (Java, Unix and Perl). We have our training in a new building, in which, presently, only a handful of seats are occupied. Today was the last day of my Perl session and the instructor kept a small test at the end of the day. I was in no mood for a test. So I wrote something, gave the answer-sheet back and came out.

Then, I was literally taken aback, when I saw a religious (Hindu religion) ceremony ("Pooja"), for the inauguration of office at this building, in progress. For a company like mine to indulge in a proper religious ceremony, with a priest, a Lord Ganesha's idol (in silver), flowers, "prasadam", "Kuthu Vilakku" and mantras enchanted by the priest with the bell, is unacceptable to me.

Though it was shocking in the beginning, it started to become funny soon. The majority of the people who were invited for the ceremony were foreigners. Looking at their faces and thinking about what all this could mean to them, made me burst with laughter. I also got reminded of a story, my dad used to tell me when I was small. The story goes like this.

In a big kingdom, there lived a foolish and unhealthy king, who had no children. One day when the king died, the ministers decided to use the traditional method to decide who would inherit the throne, as there was no prince. So they got the temple's elephant, gave it a garland and took it on the streets of the kingdom. The method deems the guy, who is garlanded, the king of the kingdom. The elephant walked all day, but din't even stop anywhere. It finally made up its mind and garlanded a beggar, at the corner of a street. Though the ministers were disappointed that the elephant din't choose them, they were at least relieved as the ceremony got over. They quickly made the beggar the king. The beggar was very happy with all this but he din't eat anything in the dinner party that night and answered that he was not hungry, when anyone asked. The king was actually hungry. The next morning at the grand feast, he sent everyone out of the dining hall and shut the doors from inside. After sometime, the ministers got curious and peeked in. Inside, the king was holding a plate and was moving around the dining table. Near each dish, he stops and says, "Please give me some food. I'm hungry from morning." Then, he serves himself a small portion of the dish and eats it there. Though this new king proved to be very efficient and grew as a mighty king, he could never change this eating habit of his.

Coming back to our picture, this story relates to today's function only on the surface level; beneath the surface, today's ceremony proves, once again, that people hold on to sentiments more than logic, morals (secularism) or wisdom. But then again there were a few things that made me unhappy (really?) and laugh at the same time :

Today is tuesday, which is considered inauspicious for events such as this.
The foreigners were wearing their shoes, even when they went to get blessed (by the priest) and the priest din't object to it.
Whenever the priest finishes a mantra or gives "prasadam" to someone, everyone starts clapping.

Ultimately, the boat was neither here nor there.

In the last few days of vacation

2008-06-13T22:19:00.009+05:30

On May 30th, I went to meet Prof. K. S. Ramachandran, my maths tutor for IIT-JEE, who did much more than teaching maths or even teaching itself, at his house, with Vijayaraghavan, Rajashekar and Akshay Ram. Though he couldn't recognize us, he was happy to see us. We were more than happy to meet him too. A lot of memories came back to me then. The memories were not confined to the ones with KSR in it; but the entire world, I saw 4 years back, came in front of my eyes. I could realize, once again, that those days were beautiful. They were so beautiful that the very thought, that these memories would go away in sometime, was accompanied by tears. We talked for about 20 minutes about our plans after college and other arbitrary stuff, he gave us some sweets to eat and then we left, happy and content to have seen him after 4 years. He is healthy and his jokes are still very funny.

On June 9th, I went to my school (DAV Boys Sr. Sec. School, Gopalapuram), with Rajashekar, Akshay Ram and Sureshwar. We met our 11th and 12th standard teachers - Prem Chand (maths), Shanthi (computer science) and Sampath (chemistry). Physics teacher, Malarvizhi, had retired last year and we specifically avoided meeting Mini James (english), our most hated teacher. Sampath still remembered and told me that I wrote "Anbe Sivam" on the blackboard (in the place for proverbs), the day after I saw the movie "Anbe Sivam". When we met Sampath, we also saw our 6th standard science teacher - Maheshwari. She said that this was the first time she saw students coming back to school after completing engineering. Right then, I had a good mind to say, "Who will come to meet you, if you hit students with a steel scale?" But I controlled myself for, Sampath sir was sitting right next to her. We then met C.K.Lalitha (10th standard english teacher), who remembered all our names. To get all the feelings, I had on that day, in this post is close to impossibility. All in all, it felt nice.

Today, we went to the Dhabba on Cenotaph road, for dinner, partly to celebrate my birthday and partly to have a final get-together before I go to Bangalore. "We" includes Rajashekar, Venkatesh, Manoj, Nambi and myself. The food was really good.

Earlier today (in the afternoon), I, with dad and mom, went to this new Arun ice-cream outlet near my house. The outlet is not very big, but has a nice variety of ice-cream flavours. I had a double-scoop and my parents had a single-scoop each. One serving filled my stomach and it was very delicious too.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for Bangalore by train at 11:15 pm. I have to join GS on June 16th (Monday). So tomorrow will mark my last day of vacation :(

When is my next vacation?

2008-05-26T22:18:00.007+05:30

Its been a month and 4 days since my vacation started. It feels nice when I think that I do not have exams anymore. At the same time, its disheartening to note that I will not have the lovely vacations I had (and having) after the exams. Well, this probably is the last "2 months"-long vacation I am going to get in a few years.

In this vacation, till now, I went to the Marina Beach a couple of times, participated in the May Day rally (CPIM) in Chennai, went to Barista with friends, saw 2 movies, bought a new phone (Nokia E51), bought a new laptop (Dell Inspiron 1525), went swimming once (today) and a lot of other things.

I have only around 20 days left, after which I will have to join Goldman Sachs. So I wonder . . . when is my next vacation?

RAGAM '08 - Inauguration day

2008-03-27T15:14:00.001+05:30

Yesterday was Ragam '08 inauguration day. Though a few times something funny like Manu.A happens, inauguration is boring. So I decided to go to the pro-show after the inauguration directly. What I didn't know was that "The Raghu Dixit Project" (which is the band's name) takes around 1 hr 30 mins for a sound check. I have no idea if the sound system guy was the reason for such a long wait. But I like to think it was the band's fault.

Finally they started playing their music at around 9:30 pm, when they were supposed to start by 8 pm. The band consisted of Raghu Dixit, who was the lead singer and who also played accoustic guitar, a violinist, who was born and brought up in Calicut and who played really well, a base guitarist, a lead guitarist and a drummer. Their music sounded really good. It was different. But what bored all of us after the first 2 songs was that every song they played sounded the same. It had the same style. The music was different compared with what we usually get from film songs and western music, but within the concert the music had nil variations.

Lots of students went near the stage and started dancing to the music. At one point of the program, Raghu asked someone very close to the stage to restrain from getting on the stage. Apparently, that guy didn't say ok or something, Raghu got offended and asked the Security-in-Charge to get that person out of the OAT. Ya right! Since nobody seemed to follow Raghu's "order", he continued to play the next song, which had a fast and terrific ending. Right after the song, Raghu says,"This wasn't for you, man!" and pointed at that guy. It sounded so stupid. I got reminded of something that happened in my first year. When Mother Jane was playing, someone threw a one rupee coin at the singer. The singer didn't give reactions like what Raghu did. Instead, he coolly picked the coin up, kissed it and put it in his pocket. The entire gallery applauded for his wits.

Stupid E-Commerce Class

2008-01-09T19:27:00.000+05:30

Everything below is fictional. Any resemblance to the present, past or future is my bad luck and pure co-incidence.

E-commerce is an elective, I have taken for this semester. In every e-commerce class, 2 students will take seminars (each a seminar) and the teacher will sit in the last bench, behind the rest of the class. These seminars will be covering the syllabus for the course. Every student will need to take a seminar in the roll list order. This is how he (the teacher) has planned to deal with the course. Comfortable, isn't it? All he needs to do is come to the class, sit in the last bench, pass the time asking people to sit properly, take attendence and get paid for it by the Govt. of India. For some reason, whenever he talks to the class, he keeps his face like he is under chronic stomach pain. One tiny nice part is that its enough if we go for only 12 classes for the whole semester and we will not get attendence shortage.

Today, in the e-commerce class, this stupid thing happened. It was almost 30 minutes through the class, and the 2nd seminar for the day was nearing its end. The class was extremely boring, not to mention this semester in itself has been quite boring and irritating. So to lent it all out, when the seminar just got over, we started clapping. I dont know who started clapping and why the others were clapping. Nonetheless, I joined them. When we were done clapping, he called me from the back and asked me why I clapped. I told him that my classmate gave us a good seminar and so I was appreciating his efforts. He knew I was bluffing, and I knew he would know. He said, "Then, tell me what is anitinic?". I didnt even understand what that last word was. I still dont know. "Anitinic" is what it sounded like. I vaguely remembered that the topic for the seminar was "Web based tools for E-Commerce" and I knew for sure that he knew nothing about the answer. So I started, "Anitinic is a web-based tool that is widely used by many companies to promote their products and sales over the internet. It has many features that include". He stopped me then. I, for a second, thought he knew the answer and that I got it wrong. But he said, "Stand up and say it loudly". I gained more confidence, then that I could understand he knew nothing. So I stood up and said loudly what I had said already and "billing features, shopping cart etc. Shopping cart is the best thing. You can add stuff and remove stuff from the cart. When you add, it gets appended to the cart, which is good because other things are there. Finally, when you finish shopping, you can check the cart to confirm. It will then calculate the bill with taxes. We can pay the bill through credit card or paypal. Once we pay the bill, the stuff we bought will come to our home." I said this whole thing without laughing and looked in his eyes as if I was telling him that it was the exact answer. He said, "Ok sit down." I can bet that what I said is not even close to the answer. He took this nonsense with no doubt. I mean who can be this dumb? We all now know that even he doesn't listen to the seminars. I think I got the idea or inspiration from my school classmate, S.Venkatesh (we call him "swenki").

What did Swenki do? It was 11th or 12th std. Our beloved maths teacher, Prem Chand, was teaching some problem in which we had to equate the tensions of the rope on either side of a frictionless pulley. He normally interacts with the class. So he asks Swenki, "What is tension?" Swenki started saying, "Sir, when we pull a rope," At this moment, the teacher nodded and was happy that he was getting the right answer. But Swenki continued to say slowly but without any pause (with actions describing what he was saying), "the electrons in the atom will spin very fast, making the near-by atoms to ..." While he continued to make this stuff on his own, all of us in the class couldn't stop laughing. After a minute or so of Swenki's explanation, which seemed to go on, becoming more funny with each second, our teacher asked him to stop, saying not to go into very deep physics, and asked Swenki to sit down. I dont know how Swenki pulled out a minute long comedy instantly. Oh man, it was too good.

FOSS.IN '07

2007-12-26T14:28:00.002+05:30

FOSS.IN was right in the middle of my winter vacations, which as such was no more than 17 days. Still, I decided to attend this event, in a hope that I might find out "how exactly" I can contribute code to an open-source project. Well, the event taught me two things :

1. I can't directly start contributing code to any project, until I know how the community that maintains that particular project works. In other words, I must hang out on their IRC channels and find out how bugzilla works for that community.

2. I must try to answer questions on IRC channels and try to squash bugs. This really is the way to contribute code to any project, unless I already know certain things, which I know I dont know.

Though a lot of things, that were discussed at the event, went over my head, I got an insight into how things are. This, I would never have learnt if not for the event. Among many sessions, a few that stayed in my mind for a long time are below:

Making Gentoo Tick: Anant Narayanan, a B.Tech. student from NIT, Jaipur, is also a Gentoo Linux developer. He spoke about Gentoo linux and I should say he impressed us all, not just with Gentoo, but also with his knowledge about it and his public speaking skills.

GCC Internals: An IIT Bombay professor, by name Abhijat Vichare, explained on a conceptual level, the internal stages of the GCC compiler. It was very informative. The hall was jam-packed and I had to sit on the steps to attend the session.

The Mozilla Project: Mitchell Baker, the CEO of Mozilla Corporation, explained the various levels at which we can contribute to Firefox. She also explained how Firefox needs to work on Windows too and how that needs to be taken care of by the developers. I was amazed to note that more than 95% of the contributors to Firefox are from Windows users. I then realised the power of free software and the power of its freedom.

Hacking the Fox: If I have to title one session as the most informative session as far as I'm concerned, I will give it to this session, which was neatly and interestingly handled by Myk Melez. Myk is also from Mozilla. He made us understand the simplicity with which the Firefox's front end is built.

All in all, the event was a grand success, which was obvious to anyone who attended it. But if I have to answer how much I learnt from the event, I will say I dont know. But all the same, I know I learnt things that will help me a lot in my path to FOSS contribution.

Entering Semester 8

2007-12-24T10:30:00.000+05:30

Its been a month since I last blogged. Well, in the vacations, I sat in front of the TV mostly, except for 5 days, when I went to Bangalore for FOSS.IN (will be posting photos soon).

I arrived at college on the 16th (sunday), did registration on 17th (after standing in the queues for over 4 hours), got terribly sick on 17th night, flew to Bangalore with the sickness (Calicut to Bombay to Bangalore) on the 18th, messed up my interview (atleast I dint throw up during the interview) with Google on 19th, flew back to Calicut (Bangalore to Cochin to Calicut) on the 20th, cancelled my trip to Kottayam for ACM ICPC '08 (the train was for 20th night) on account of severe health conditions, rested (slept the whole day) till yesterday and woke up this morning at 7am hoping to get to my first class for the semester, but only to find out that all classes for today have been cancelled. So here I have 2 more days at my disposal. Ya right. All I can do is take more rest. Not to mention, Im terribly weak.

anti-capitalist.org

2007-11-22T18:29:00.000+05:30

I was just StumbleUpon-ing now, when I landed on a website that had the url http://www.anti-capitalist.org. The site had two captions that read "Anti-Capitalist alternatives to barbarism" & "The Machinery of Freedom?" and this interesting picture below.

FOSS.IN, 2007 @ Bangalore

2007-11-17T17:42:00.000+05:30

FOSS.IN/2007, an event I have been looking forward to, is held from December 4th to 8th, hosted by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. For more info about the event, check http://foss.in.

Delegate Registration for FOSS.IN/2007 is open. Click here to go to the registration page. We donot have to pay any amount for this online delegate registration, which closes on 2nd, December. Only people who register online are eligible for the Rs.600 (Rs.500 for students) delegate fee. Those who do not register online or forget their delegate code have to pay Rs.1200 (Rs.1000).

Are you?

Prolog lab - a practical course. Really?

2007-11-03T00:20:00.000+05:30

The inclusion of practical courses in any field of education is quite evident - a student should be capable of applying what he has learnt in the theory courses. Well, the lab courses are doing exactly the same thing - shaping the students so that they are able to find out how to apply the theory in practice.

While the student has to be clear with the theory before he can apply it anywhere, the student may be able to apply that theory anywhere, once he is clear with it. Indeed, it is unfair to expect anyone to always successfully deploy a theory in a given scenario (problem). Otherwise, any new proof that humanity unravels should have been found earlier, when all the theories, that were used by this proof, were known. Or atleast any scientist who previously knew all those theories required for the proof and dint come up with the proof must be termed dumb (incapable). Therefore, we dont have an alien system given to the students to test their practical skills.

So as I said, in the practical course, the student is given the system where he is required to apply the theory he knows. We have lab sessions that teach the student how the application of that theory is done in this system, the student slowly understands the underlying principles of this application and then he is ready for an exam. There is no point, in the exam, to ask the student to solve a problem that he has already done during the practice sessions. Nevertheless, the difficulty of the problem has to be maintained. While it is better for the student to fully know about the system where he is going to apply his concepts, the exam has to only check if the student knows the concepts and how to apply them in this system and not if the student knows the system thoroughly. This is to mean that the student has to get a chance to analyze the system during the exam, after he is given the problem. Since the problem is new to the student (which is almost made sure by the examiners), the student may not know all information, about the system, that he needs, to get a solution to the new problem. He might want to test the behavior of the system in specific cases. He should not be deprived of this necessity, as he is tested for his concepts and not for his knowledge about the system, which is just a scenario where he applies his concepts. Infact, if the student knows very little about the system and yet can experiment with the system, find out stuff about the system and arrive at a solution, it only speaks about his strong concepts and his general knowledge. Remember, we dint give an alien system to the student only to help the student.

This is also one of the reasons why in NITC, B.Tech. Computer Science and Engineering program doesnt include any specific programming language course (like C, C++, JAVA) in the syllabus. We are taught only concepts (purely). We see languages as systems where we are supposed to apply our theoretical concepts.

Coming to the real problem, for PROLOG lab, during the exam, we are asked to write the Prolog code for the question, on paper, before we switch on the machine. Once we complete that, we can type the same code we have written on paper in the machine. Now, if the machine gives the correct output, then our code is correct but if the machine doesnt give the correct code, we cannot alter the code we have written on paper without reduction of marks. After you change the code, even if you get the correct output, you get only 50% of the marks. This needs the student to know everything or atleast enough about the language Prolog to get full marks. If he doesnt know how Prolog behaves for a seemingly trivial situation, something he dint need during the practice sessions, something that can be found out in no time given Prolog interpreter, which is the system, where we apply our "Logical Programming Paradigm" concepts, then irrespective of his concepts, he is doomed to fail.

If this is the case, then practical courses boil down to theory courses. Only that in theory courses, the answer on paper is checked by the teacher and here, the answer on paper is checked by the machine. In other words, this Prolog lab could have been kept as a theory course, with the traditional theoretical evaluation system. If doing that rings a bell somewhere, then, may be we are after all not so sure about what we are doing for Prolog lab. We need to change this valuation pattern and let the student play around with the system, before he needs to write the solution on paper. Ofcourse, he will have to be given full marks if he comes up with a solution that delivers correct output (i.e., if he solves the problem).

Unless we do something about it, we are far from our aim of having practical courses.

Remembering Ernesto Che Guevara

2007-10-26T22:36:00.000+05:30

Courtesy: People's Democracy (http://pd.cpim.org)
Dated October 14, 2007

Che's Farewell Letter To Fidel Castro

Havana, April 1, 1965

At this moment I remember many things - when I met you in Maria Antonia's house, when you proposed I come along, all the tensions involved in the preparations. One day they came by and asked who should be notified in case of death, and the real possibility of it struck us all. Later we knew it was true, that in a revolution one wins or dies (if it is a real one). Many comrades fell along the way to victory.

Today everything has a less dramatic tone, because we are more mature, but the event repeats itself. I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution in its territory, and I say farewell to you, to the comrades, to your people, who now are mine.

I formally resign my positions in the leadership of the party, my post as minister, my rank of commander, and my Cuban citizenship. Nothing legal binds me to Cuba. The only ties are of another nature-those that cannot be broken as can appointments to posts.

Reviewing my past life, I believe I have worked with sufficient integrity and dedication to consolidate the revolutionary triumph. My only serious failing was not having had more confidence in you from the first moments in the Sierra Maestra, and not having understood quickly enough your qualities as a leader and a revolutionary.

I have lived magnificent days, and at your side I felt the pride of belonging to our people in the brilliant yet sad days of the Caribbean crisis." Seldom has a statesman been more brilliant as you were in those days. I am also proud of having followed you without hesitation, of having identified with your way of thinking and of seeing and appraising dangers and principles.

Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance. I can do that which is denied you due to your responsibility at head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part.

You should know that I do so with a mixture of joy and sorrow. I leave here the purest of my hopes as a builder and the dearest of those I hold dear. And I leave a people who received me as a son. That wounds a part of my spirit. I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever one may be. This is a source of strength, and more than heals the deepest of wounds.

I state once more that I free Cuba from all responsibility, except that which stems from its example. If my final hour finds me under other skies, my last thought will be of this people and especially of you. I am grateful for your teaching and your example, to which I shall try to be faithful up to the final consequences of my acts.

I have always been identified with the foreign policy of our revolution, and I continue to be. Wherever I am, I will feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary, and I shall behave as such. I am not sorry that I leave nothing material to my wife and children; I am happy it is that way. I ask nothing for them, as the state will provide them with enough to live on and receive an education.

I would have many things to say to you and to our people, but I feel they are unnecessary. Words cannot express what I would like them to, and there is no point in scribbling pages.

Ever onward to victory!
Homeland or Death!

I embrace you with all my revolutionary fervour.

-- Che

CHE: A Tribute

A file photo of Che with Fidel Castro

I MAKE a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on October 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, crossing the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey, while being chased by enemy troops. He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara and the mastermind of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as messenger of militant internationalism in East Congo and Bolivia. He built a new awareness in our America and the world.

I thank him for what he tried and failed to do in his home country, because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem.

He left to us his unmistakable literary style. He was elegant, swift and true to every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he didn't know it. He still fights with us and for us.

Yesterday, we commemorated the 31st anniversary of the killing of all passengers and the crew of a Cubana airliner blown in mid-air, and we are on the threshold of the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes. We likewise bow our heads in respect to them all.

It was with great emotion that I watched and heard the commemoration ceremony on TV.

-- Fidel Castro Ruz (October 7, 2007. 3:17 pm)

Within 5 Minutes

2007-10-26T21:46:00.000+05:30

After 3 days at home, last sunday, at around 7:30 pm, I was sitting in an auto, with my parents. We were on our way to the Central station. The train to Calicut was at 8:15 pm. I was thinking about how life would go back to boring classes, when suddenly... My stomach churned, as though I was freely falling, but only, I was moving forward. I just saved my teeth from hitting the metal bar behind the driver's seat. The sudden brake was due to a two-wheeler, that had given the auto a sharp left cut. The auto-driver didnt get a chance to shout at the motorcyclist, who drove off without knowing what he did.

Phew! I leaned forward. I was sitting on the left side of the 3-seater and could again feel the wind, blowing hard on my face. PAM PAM! I turned back and saw this black pulsar, honking to get way. In a neat curve, it came to the right side of the auto. The speed of the bike rose. It overtook the auto, came right in front and in seconds, decreased the speed considerably. Sudden brake once again. This time more sudden but we were already holding onto supports; so nothing happened, except all of us getting really pissed. The auto-driver shouted at them, nothing bad; just asked them to be more careful, in his "slanguage". All of us pointed our hands at the boys (looked like college students) on the bike, you know, in a fashion to scold them. They had wanted to park the bike on the left, when they slowed down. They, still on the bike (now parked near the pavement), stared at us as we started moving.

A minute passed. My heart came back to beating normally. I was looking down at the road, enjoying the wind, still leaning forward. I had just noticed a fast approaching headlight, when, in split seconds, a fist came to my face from outside. My reflexes reacted and I moved my face back, right in time. The fist couldn't reach me but his fore-arm hit the side of the auto. Just when I realised what came to my face, I saw the guys on the black pulsar, not even a foot away from me. I had this urge to kick the pulsar away; less they attempt that again. But I didnt. They accelerated forward and howled at us (abuses included), after which they took the immediate left and disappeared. The entire thing was very sudden; it took us a few minutes to get our minds from going over it again and again.

Cultural Night, Tathva '07

2007-10-12T16:37:00.001+05:30

Tathva is NITC's annual technology-festival. This time, Tathva '07 was a techno-management festival, and spanned over 3 days (27th-30th September). On the inaugural day, as is customary, musical performances and dance performances, by NITC students, followed the inauguration.

I played bass guitar for a couple of performances. One of them is below. This song is an own composition.

The dance performances exceeded normal NITC standards (you know!). Nevertheless, we have amazing dancers in our college now. One, of around 8 dance tracks, is below.

When is this getting over ...

2007-10-05T22:04:00.000+05:30

This is the "hate-to-see" wall of my hostel room. Now, what are those bits of paper stuck on the black chart? Lets take a closer look.

"Oh these look like post-it notes. What? Post-it notes? You are using post-it notes for remembering pending work? Whats wrong with you, Arun?"

"Relax pal; I just happened to have post-it notes and so decided to waste them differently. Its ok."

But guys, here is the truth: these bits of paper, that remind me about the amount of work I have, are driving me crazy. Still, I'm not removing them coz they are really helping me keep track of pending work. So its a trade-off I guess.

I just wish I know the day when I will have the black chart blank. Seriously. That plastics assignment on top requires reading four very recent research papers. Four of them. There is this economics test next week and a seminar on "Political Economy", that I need to present for 30 minutes. You need to prepare for this dude; I mean this isnt some maths topic that you can keep explaining over and over again for 30 minutes; this is a subject closely knit with philosophy; gonna be tough. Oh, and the main project -- I almost forgot. I just got the mid-term evaluation report for the main project done with now. The report was to be submitted yesterday. Avl Vs Red-Black trees - Advanced Data Structures course project. This work was given to us, when S-7 started and I havent started it yet. Finally, for its part, Design & Analysis of Algorithms has a course project on "Bipartite Roots of Graphs".

These are non-academic work, that dont trouble me much. But bundled with the rest, I get reminded : "Work is work and I have loads of them."

To push all this down the drain, 2nd sessionals are scheduled for next monday. All that can pull me to sanity is my trip to chennai on 19th. I'm only waiting for 19th.

"Tell me, Arun. Why are you speaking like you care about all this? You normally dont think about academics anytime but the day before exams."

"What do you mean? I have always cared about academic work. I sure have. (pause) I have. (pause) Haven't I? (pause) Oh God! Whats happening to me?"

Shyam Prasad

2007-10-01T22:13:00.000+05:30

Shyam Prasad was a 2nd year B.Tech. Civil Engg. student in my college. I dont know him personally. As my friends tell me, he had just learnt how to ride a bike on friday. That very same day, he met with an accident. Early this morning we lost him.

He was riding a bike with 2 of his friends behind him. It looks like the bike had gone out of control, throwing his friends off it. He, unfortunately, collided with concrete somewhere, resulting in a serious head injury. His friends escaped fatal injuries. In the hospital, he underwent a surgery in the brain and the doctors were not hopeful of his recovery after the surgery. His family was a little relieved last evening, when his pulse had come back to normal. But he could not make it. Early this morning, he passed away.

This is not the first person, we know, who lost his life in a bike accident. It is also known that in almost all of those cases, what proved to be fatal, was a head injury. If we dont wear a helmet, when on a bike, then its high time we take things seriously and start wearing one.

Garlic Bread

2007-09-24T19:20:00.000+05:30

We were 7 or 8 years old, when all of us cousins used to play a game. The game was called "Muniyandi, the servant" (ofcourse, in tamil). It technically isnt a game. Its a small drama show with this protagonist named Muniyandi. This guy works as a servant at a household and does crazy things. To explain one, when his master asks him to make "Upma" (its a dish), this guy doesnt know what it is, tries to mix salt ("uppu" in tamil) and flour ("mavu" in tamil), makes a mishmash of it, gives it to his hungry master and gets scolded badly for it.

A few days back, my friends and I were bored and so went to this new place they had opened at Kozhikode. Its called "Coffee Beanz". There, we ordered for some stuff, along with "Garlic Bread" as starter. For 20 minutes, we waited for the starter. Finally, they brought it. But what they served definitely, or debatably wasnt Garlic Bread. It literally just had pieces of cut garlic on top of a few slices of bread. We just couldnt eat it, despite being really hungry. It made us regret for momentarily forgetting we were in Kozhikode.

After all the effort, Finally my first blog

2007-09-06T21:48:00.002+05:30

It took me one whole day to set this screen up and post this blog. I wanted to blog since last semester, after Mr.Kiruba Shankar, who had come to my college (NIT Calicut, where I'm dong my final year B.Tech. in CSE), for FOSS.NITC, '07, explained how blogs can be useful. Not many but a single huge hurdle stood midway - one I have never crossed without someone poking me from the back with a needle. Well, I don't have to mention, do I? I was lazy.

It was summer and I was at home changing tv channels on my remote. My dad was around and all of a sudden, he asked me about what I think of the nuclear deal (that, I feel, should be vehemently opposed). Be as it may, I took some time to get my head to the question, before which he started to speak again. He was more casual this time. He asked with a smile on his face, if I know what NRIs in America say about the left opposing the "deal". I didn't know but I was amused already. I just knew these guys (atleast a majority of them) say complete nonsense. My dad, then told me that they are asking the communists in India to flee to China and let India grow. Thats it. Both of us started laughing. It was uncontrollable. I wonder if it was interesting or funny, to think if these guys actually fled from India, (from participating in its government, democracy), intending to enable its prosperity. It was surely funny. In some minutes, when we were regaining balance, he went on to say that they (NRIs), in emails to media or to family and friends and on the web, are actually making a strong movement. He continued laughing but I felt something other than amusement then.

"The web is not confined to them, Appa. Infact, even we need to seriously start making efforts to express ourselves through the web. Its effective and now, its important that we do it. Its not all that difficult. We can have our own websites. Or, we don't have to do all that, we just have to start blogging."

"Blogs, yeah."

I smiled as if I won something. It lasted only till he said, "You have one, right?"

I didn't need a needle after that. So here I am.