The Road Less Traveled

alumni

2012-02-07T22:34:00.009+05:30

After getting into a good Engineering college, we decided to pay a visit to the coaching institute where we studied. We especially wanted to meet the legendary PC Thomas Sir and our Hostel Warden. We met Thomas sir downstairs, talked to him and got his blessings and were on our way to the Main Hostel to meet our Warden. On the way to Hostel, in the first floor (where teacher's sit) we met PC Jose Sir (who taught us Physics). He shouted 'why are you guys late for the class?" and came near us. We defended saying that we studied there 2 years back and had come to meet them. 'Oh ..is it u guys?? I still remember.... hw r u guys" was his response. Ofcourse we were from the Elite batch and so he still remembers us :P . We felt great and talked to him and he gave us sweets. We said bye and went upstairs where our Main Hostel is located. We talked to our warden for sometime and finally were on the way back. PC Jose sir spotted us again in the 1st floor and came running and asked 'Where r u guys goin?' We said we just went to visit the Warden of the Main Hostel where we stayed 2 years back. He said in his typical Thrissur accent, 'ദെ ഇപ്പൊ ഒരു team വന്നു പൊയിട്ടെ ഉളളൂട്ടാ' !!!! ( Oh....another gang has come just now only!!!)

Technical Glitch

2011-12-05T08:28:00.013+05:30

Recently, I had to go to Mumbai. I checked the tickets for Volvo and found a lot of tickets available. But to avoid last minute rush I decided to book the tickets. Before I travel, the basic things which comes to my mind are:
1) On the event of an accident what are the chances of a seat being safe. Seats in the front and back are more damage prone than on the middle. Seats diagonally opposite to driver are safer than those behind him, seats near door/ emergency exits are preferable to others etc are some basic things which could help to assign the probability of a seat being safe. But mostly this probablity calculation is neglected as the probability of an accident is assumed to be 0.

2) Angle of solar beam on ur seat depending on the direction of the journey and time. If you prefer sleeping you would not want any direct light falling on you.
3) The scenic views on either side of the bus especially if you like listening to music and prefer watching outside.
I asked my roommates about the view on either side from Pune to Mumbai. They told me there are mountain ranges on one side and Valleys on the other side. Based on the probabilty metrics + my decision to enjoy the scenic valleys I chose a seat and reserved it online. I reached about 15mts before the Departure and could see a queue of losers in front of the counter for tickets. I went to occupy my seat and then then n then... an old couple in their 60's has occupied the two seats including my window seat where I am supposed to sit and njoy the scenic crap... They can definitely enjoy the good old days but not on my seat! Or atleast not without my permission! I argued with them and showed my ticket and they agreed that the seat number is the same and so I demanded their ticket.. I knw it wud be different and they will ask me to shift my seat without even knowing the gravity of math went behind selecting the seat. But their seat numbers are also the same! Impossible! Now I don't have a seat and so I went to the counter where losers were still waiting for tickets and complained that sbdy else has occupied my seat. The guy at the counter checked my ticket and the ppl inside started discussing. They checkd my name against reservation list and said it is not there and so using my expertise with computers I poured them some 'gyaan' by telling them there is some 'Technical Glitch' and they hv to do sthg about it. After a thorough analysis they gave my tickets back and told me ' You have booked for a ticket on the same day next month'!!!!!!!! uufffffffffff everything went dark...I asked them if I could get a new one? He pointed me to the queue. The loser's queue was long and having no other option I joined it as the biggest loser. I got the last ticket! I went inside the bus... heads down... passed the old couple...they were still in their 60's..... went to the very last row and my seat was in the middle..exactly middle.. I could see the entire length of the bus from there...and the valley on one side and mountain ranges on the other side....

Moonlight trek to Purandar Ghat

2011-12-04T21:22:00.016+05:30

It is my second trek to Purandar Ghat and was amazing. Purandar is around 35kms from Pune. It is famous for many reasons one among which is that Shivaji's son Sambhaji was born in Purandar fort. This ghat is one of the interesting trekking places in and around Pune.
The last trek to Purandar Ghat was about 2 months back and was exciting and adventurous coz of the fog and drizzle. Today, it was pretty safe coz of the nice weather. But to make it exciting we chose to trek a bit late.

The trek was with the same gang as before: Peeku, Poro, Nila and Sandy. We started from home in the eve and started the trek just before sun set. We are allowed to trek only form 8Am -6PM in the ghat which is now a restricted Army Area. But we knew we are gonna break the rules this time......It was indeed amazing to trek during dusk. Most other gangs were leaving after their treks. We passed through the abandoned churches, forts, the lake where we washed our legs last time, adventurous short cuts and finally made it to the top. Last time we could not even see more than a few meters ahead coz of the fog and we were shivering coz of the cold wind, but this time whether was perfect and we got nice scenic views from top.. As extreme weather prevented us from finishing the trek before, we were determined to finish this time. The Sun set before we reached the final point where there is a temple. After the sunset the trek was of another class... amazing it was.. We spent a good time at the top and njoyed.... We were the only trekkers left and indeed was a bit scary.... but with moon light and stars it was superb..... The abandoned churches in the base seems to have turned haunted on the way back! Security guys were asking abt the breach of timings, but we had excuses.... I loved both the treks to Purandar in its own way. There are lots of trekking places in and around Pune and I had been to some of those. Will write abt those some time.

The Curious Case of Hindi

2011-06-09T22:58:00.022+05:30

As a kid I was very curious about many things..... As I grew, I lost most of those...... But I am still curious about one thing..... Curious right from the first time I saw 'it' in school.....It is none other than the Hindi letters/script.. unlike others they won't stand on the ground....they defy gravity and prefer hanging on the branches and a bunch of them would be tied together so that they won't get mixed up.... Back in school I asked the language teacher y are they hanging on the 'line' above? she asked me whether they are actually hanging on the above line or rather they are trying to save from falling from their own line!! it confused me..but I like to believe that they are indeed hanging from the line above....Anyways I prefer the jilebi south indian scripts.... C'mon, atleast they obey gravity!

मुझे पता नहीं कि क्यों मैं जमीन पर खड़े नहीं

P.S. This post is in no way meant to offend anyone or any script. Hope you will take it in the right spirit. :)

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Plagiarism 3.0

2010-08-04T23:05:00.009+05:30

Disclaimer: Names and events mentioned in this post are fictitious. Plagiarism is 'harmful' to your academics and you are supposed to adhere to the highest level of 'academic integrity'. Incase if you feel like the environment in this post is familiar to you, most probably you'll be an engg grad.

We were in 3rd year of our engineering. As in every college, we were also tortured by assignments. Even the professors knew that most of us won't do anything. But they give assignments to make our life hell. If it was their job, copying and submitting were ours.

Doing assignments were not even in the subconscious mind of an NITian. As life was going that way, the teacher who took 'Computer Organization' thought of an innovative idea of giving an opportunity to learn a new programming language. She gave an assignment for 10marks flat in the course, which we have to do in a new programming language ( I dont remember the name of the language. I never heard it before or after and hopefully won't hear it again. It was some stupid language which should be kept in museum). We don't even know 'C' properly (sorry Mr. Ritchie). So the common man (ppl except Nine Pointers and geeks) in NIT din even think of doing it.
But on the night of submission (deadline was 12 midnight. we need to send it to the mail Id) we started thinking of submitting as usual. 10 marks is a big deal. It could do magic in the end, for anyone. For geeks and nine pointers 10 marks could push them to a top grade. If we copy and submit the teacher will easily make it out (Not by seeing the assignments. She already know who will do and who will copy and so submission and mark rewarding are all drama). She will deduct 3 marks if the student is not in her perfect list. Then she asks some stupid question about some part of the assignment and if we could not answer we will tell like we did it as a group and that part is done by someone else. In the end no one in the group will claim responsibility for that part and so it is assumed to be written by God and another 3 is cut! This is followed by other screwing questions like 'What is ur contribution?". At this point we start bargaining "4 marks madam....4 is enough.. won't pass..." and in the end, on an average we get 3-4 each. For the majority who doesn't know what is happening around in the last 3 years this 3 marks means a lot. It could mean a pass... It could mean saving a summer course...It could mean saving a year.. It could mean much much more...Thus every single mark matters!
Thus we 25-30 people who doesn't even thought about doing on our own, split ourselves and started approaching nine pointers and geeks. No one gave a positive response.
"My code is not working yaar..."
" I don't even know if I could submit"
"Tomorrow we have submission, eh???"
we got all such responses.. but no code...
We were disappointed, but we din forget to have dinner and after that we assembled in a room and were discussing and analysing our pathetic situation. Only few hours were left for submission.
Some guys dialled to Ladies Hostel, the last resort till date. But tonight is different. It is a new programming language and it is a big deal! For the first time we had nothing to submit. Some others forgot the assignment and started flirting on phone. Few others initiated a voice chat in gtalk to LH(ladies Hostel) and started discussing how bad the entire academic setup in NIT is and other such irrelevant matters.... Some others started sleeping.. " We were moving towards extra time and we were desperate to score".
Suddenly someone asked " To which mail Id we need to submit the assignment? Is it computerorgani 'z' ation @ gmail.com or computerorgani 's' ation @ gmail.com ?"
Heard some else responding " What ever it is, will ur father get us the code to submit?" or sthg like that...
Suddenly lightning struck.
Eureka! Eureka!
If this bugger has the doubt where to submit, then some one else will be having the same. Time for action! We checked the availability of the mail Ids. The one with 'z' is unavailable (obviously the teacher owned it) and the other one is available. We created the one with 's' !
Last hope ....
In a minute the bugger who asked "Tomorrow, do we have submission?" has sent his assignment to our new Inbox!!!! terrific...none of us could believe... we won!! we won...!! We scored in extra time!
Within an hour the new Inbox had a lot of assignments from nine pointers and geeks who showed sad faces as if they were going to fail the very next day. They din take any chance! They sent to both address 'z' and 's' to makes sure they din lose the 10 marks. We got code of different varieties, different logic, different complexities...
We downloaded and copied to pen drives and it reached every single person who dreamed of submitting that night. Every one from nine pointers to five pointers and people who were there for last three years 'without any point' submitted!
We never worried about tomorrow those days. So after the submission we forgot the password for the mail Id. We still feel very sorry for not transferring the password to our juniors. Hopefully they would have found some other way to submit. :)
To all the juniors from all the seniors:
"If you got a deadline, you will get the code to submit!"

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Confessions of a Terrible Cook (Part2)

2010-07-24T15:58:00.016+05:30

Back with our cooking adventures! (Click here for Part 1)
Even though we improved a lot (by our standards) the chief chefs (me and GIT) could not agree on how to add the components, when to add and how much to add (we took Dev's opinion on this so that if anything goes wrong we can blame it on him!) and each believed one's cooking style is better even though both were worse. Both knew it and din admit. Dev told abt our fight on how to mix things to our colleagues over lunch and suddenly one of the colleague told me ‘You might be following some xyz technique’!!! OMG! My style has got a proper name too…. That was more than enough….GIT’s face turned red and he din talk to me for next two days.
Once we invited a colleague of ours to home for an overnight stay to test our chicken curry. He said it distinctly resemble chicken curry. Our heart broke! We never invited anyone after that.
Meanwhile we decided to give Dev more opportunities than telling how much powder to add. It was indeed a memorable experience when Dev cooked for the first time. He was on call as usual and he missed ‘the step of pouring water in rice’ and according to the algoithm he waited for whistle....waited and waited for long.... he strtd thinking if there is any mistake in algo and finally asked us "Incase if I din pour water in rice, whistle should still come right?" Both of us dashed to kitchen to turn off the gas and the cooker was almost destroyed! According to experts (girls from office) the cooker should have blasted in some more minutes! It brought a halt to our cooking for some time and we went back to omlets, maggie and such low level stuffs.
Meanwhile GIT left Bangalore for a change in career. I proclaimed myself as chief chef and Dev became a proper chef and we inducted a new roommate (Nicol) who got into the training period.
I want to prepare chicken as my amma does and so the next time I went home I asked her to teach me. I went to kitchen with a paper and pen and was ready to start.
Me: Amma, today we are cooking chicken together.....
Amma: Pha.......I never saw you in kitchen to help me with the chores... forget it I dont even see u downstairs other than for food....
( with the 'pha' only I reached the coziness of my room. I din hear the rest. I just assumed. But I can't just lose like that. I have delivered enough dialogues to room mates about me not stepping my leg back in Blore with out learning to cook chicken properly. So I have to learn)
I mustered courage..., without a tinge of remorse (courtesy: night classes Marar/3rd rates!) , came down.... and went slowly to kitchen..
I: Amma..... (to melt her heart) we don't get good food outside anywhere near my apartment.... I am staying away from home for last 7 years... I miss home food so much... blah..blah..
Amma: Okay okay...I will show you how to make the curry. You just note it down and revise as u do for exams!
Me: OH no! I had enough theory classes in life. I want practical knowledge.
Amma: But this curry is not just for you. Others should have it too no?
Me: That’s where you come in. I would do only what you tell to do. You will supervise and I will do exactly as u say. Deal?
Amma: hmmmm alright. But don’t even think of putting your imagination in this curry.
Me: :)
Thus we started. After each couple of steps I ran to my notes and scribbled it down.
Some times she says put a bit of that , a lil bit of this, a pinch of that and all.
What the hell!!! I want exact data to note down. Little, less and pinch won’t work and has no meaning in our dictionary. I had to fight with her regarding this. I told her to tell in spoon terms. She says it should be very less, can’t tell in spoon terms.
Me : Half spoon?
Amma: That’s too much. A lil will do.
Me: Quarter spoon?
Amma: I said a lil is enough.
Me: 1/8th is okay rite?
Amma: ha…..1/8!!!
So my recipe has a lot of ½ spoon, ¼ spoon and 1/8th of a spoon. I took a similar spoon from home for my kitchen. And thus I made chicken curry properly for the first time. I learned that cooking curry need not be a serial task and it can be broken into pieces and can be parallelized. I copied the recipe into a new sheet of paper and drew lines to indicate what to do when. This is a bit complex algorithm than the washing machine- Chicken algorithm. I had pasted it in my kitchen in Bangalore and is the last point of reference for our curries. All the people who see it keeps telling about the 1/8 spoon!!
I prepared curry using this algorithm without supervision. And my roomies liked it too. I have taken cooking to another level! But I din take the risk of inviting the colleague who earlier broke our heart.
But things took a different turn after I published the algorithm on the kitchen wall!! Dev and Nicol started cooking properly and I lost my status (they by hearted the algo. My trade secret is GONE). Now a days I am not even allowed to cook without supervision as they accuse me of the following charges (I denied those with the answers given along)
1) 1kg chicken/vegetables become half kg after cooking. Do they evaporate like water?
I taste the chicken every now and then to make sure we r in the proper direction!

2) Even after tasting half of the curry while cooking, the curry is below all bench marks.
Sometimes I indulge so much in tasting that I forgot about the cooking process. It can happen with anyone.
3) “Cooking is an Art”. It is not meant for u!!! My own words are used against me :( I remember Steve Jobs being thrown out of Apple. I made the mistake of publishing my recipe which I got from my mom which she got from her mom and so on through generations… ( I am the first guy to own this recipe)
I will be back with a new dish which they need so badly and I won’t share the recipe.
“They din even let me play. They made me run out at non-strikers end :(” – Sho!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(this part is meant for Keralites)
D: eda vijaya...
V: endada Dasa?
D: nammunkenda ee budhi nerathe thonathadu?
V: edu budhi?
D: kandavande hotelil ninnum food adichu food poison adikkade swayam cookcheyyanulla budhi.
V: hihi...Dasa.. oroninum adindedaya samayamundu mone...
D: nammude kazhivugal muzhuvan puratheduthu namukku chicken undakkanam... chilly chicken..chicken kabab thandoori chicken...
V: mutton...
D: tharavu.. pinne namukkoru thattu kada thudanganam...
V: pinne restaurent... D: orupadu jolikkare vekkanam V: pinne hotel chain.....
D: pinne pala pala businessukal.....
V: namukku Kochi IPL team angu vanganam....
D: adinokke orupadu samayamundallo.... namukkangu sukikkanam....
Whistle....................................................
D: aiswaryathinde siren muzhangunnadu pole undu.... endoru sangeedadthmakam... eeswara rakshikkane...
OOchaligale.... adukkalayil endo karinju manakkunnu!!!
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Burglary 1.0

2010-07-09T13:40:00.020+05:30

It happened in our home too, like in most bachelor’s homes in Bangalore (the city of Software Engineers and dogs! -both are abundant like hell in Bangalore.....).
We don’t lock the door’s main key and use a lock on the latch. On a fine day when we all left to office someone broke the latch and got inside. In the evening me and my roommate ’Dev’ was going back home. We were in a Volvo which moves very slow through traffic and I was relaxing with music from my playlist and a fiction in hand. What a nice way to relax after work! I have the habit of keeping the mobile in silent mode when I don’t want to be disturbed. The third roomie ‘Nicol’ tried calling me, failing which he called ‘Dev’ who was born to make and attend calls. (He is a magician with phone… Among frnds circle it is said that he detects an incoming call before the mobile tower detects it… many ppl din even realize that he also detects an incoming call before the other person thinks of making the call and calls back the other person b4 he makes the call... Who said only Rajnikanth can do such feats!! His feats with phone are beyond the scope of this post). Nicol informed him “Someone broke inside the home and has messed up everything!”
Dev informed me…. OMG! Suddenly music became painful and could feel the bus moving slower than snail. We just want to reach home.
We haven’t kept any cash at home. That day I din forget to take wallet or mobiles. We take laptops to office. I have kept my certificates and ID cards at home.
I hope the thief would only be interested in cash and other valuable things. I have kept my room unlocked and my drawers are always open and Almirah keys will be on table. So I will definitely lose sthg. I started figuring out the valuables at home.. cash, citi cards, laptop and mobiles are all with me.
Food coupons and my NIKE shoes are the things closest to my heart! I have kept 15k worth coupons at home. My sbi debit card is left there plus a couple of sim cards… No one can use SBI card without pin anywhere. So that’s not a problem. My roomie kept telling, forget those and just hope to get the IDs and certificates back. I have a lot of books which are valuable for me, but I suppose those won’t make any sense to the burglar. So I hope I won’t lose them. Recently my colleagues lost laptop, camera and all. Compared to that this would be nothing.
So I accepted the reality. Ideal case is, I would lose 20k worth things for sure + some cash left here and there+ my sbi debit card and I would have all the id cards and certificates without any damage. Anything lost apart from these would be a worst case (Thanx to Algo electives back in college.. Nw I knw the importance of Average case).
When I reached home ‘Nicol’ was sitting sad telling his 5.1 has become 2.1. I told him we kept those in the speaker box last week. He became happy. I went into my room. It was totally messed up. Everything was on the floor. I searched for my certificates. It was all there...and the ID cards too. I thanked god and thanked the thief!
I was so happy. Then I strtd searching for lost things. All books were there…coupons too! Can’t believe!! He has thrown all coupon sets on floor..he din realize it is worth 15k!!! My ‘NIKE’ too (that was more of an insult :( that bugger couldn’t make out the value of the tick mark!) debit card was also left there…. almost everything was there… I lost a couple of watches which I got as gift…they were costly but I don’t normally wear watches… so that was okay for me.
It is rumored that the thief has left 100 bucks in Dev’s room. (He din accept it)!!
So at the end of the day I was so happy! We went to police station and filed a complaint for the sake of it. There were many ppl around to file complaint for lost mobiles, purse and all and the police is trying not to take any complaints!
Police came home later in the night. They called me 5-6 times and as usual I had kept my phone somewhere and so din pick the call…. They figured out the home themselves and was angry wen reached. Dev opened the door and the Police was scolding him in kannada about the calls…I understood wen he said ‘phone’ and all and I kept mum.. Dev was trying to figure out wat he was saying…he was even telling “Phone miss agilla”!!! (I din lose the phone).
They came inside my room…. They din know English.
Police asked “Kannada gotta?” (Do u knw kannada?)
I said “NO”
To my surprise Mr.Dev said “swalpa swalpa gottu..artha agathe..” (I can understand Kannada) We can somewhat make out kannada wen it is said slowly..… I was puzzled and looked at him. He regretted it later.. Kannada words flow from police’s mouth….loads of words like flood…. Never heard anyone speaking kannada so fast… Dev was shoked…this was not the kannada he knew or heard. When our colleagues speak kannada it is very slow and we can make out what they say. But this was nightmare… Dev looked at me… I looked at ceiling. I thought “nxt time u shud think b4 telling ‘gothaythu!’ U only handle it”.
The police had no intention of leaving the ‘swalpa swalpa gothaythu’ person..Dev tried understanding… nothing worked… He started responding “OK sir” “OKAY sir”… after every sentence spoken by police.
I went to the other room with the other police and tried speaking in English by stressing on ‘keywords’. He was telling they need bills of watch for investigation!! I told him we din lose anything valuable and I don’t need watches back and I gave complaint for the sake of it. I can stil hear the conversation in the other room
Police: …..Kannada……..
Dev:“ok sir”
Police:….lots of kannada …….
Dev: ”OOOOOKAY sir”
Polcie: ….again kannada in great pace…..
Dev: “WOOOOOOOKAY sir”
After the police left Dev called for a meeting(!) with neighbours where he was explaining the adventures in a mix of Kannada English Tamil Hindi and all. The aunties out there were impressesed by the narration…. After settling them messages flew from his mobile to all parts of the country abt the incident and mails to different corners of the world. All at lightning speed.. He was busy for two days continuously making calls to narrate the incidents... The story changed a bit and there were additions each time he narrated it... I later got confused which version is true...thats y i am putting this narration as Burglary 1.0... all the versions introduced by Dev are built on top of this.....
For Burglars Info: We have put stringent security measures after the incident.
Later that day Dev was mumbling “gothilla…gothilla….nang eanu gothilla”

Note: Pic is added with written permission and will be removed upon request! ;)

Confessions of a Terrible Cook (Part1)

2010-05-20T10:48:00.026+05:30

When I moved to Bangalore last year, my new roommate Git (he was my classmate at NITC) claimed he knew how to cook and proposed the idea of cooking. Both of us suddenly went into action and set up the kitchen with stove, vessels, cooker, gas connection and done! I made him my Guru and after the first cooking session I understood he din knw much! I revoked his ‘Guru’ status the very next day and assumed an equal status as chief chef. We inducted the third roommate (Dev) as trainee.
This is Git's washingMachineVegetable (WMV)Algorithm.
washingMachineVegetableAlgo( vegetables, curryPowder, cooker, salt, water, stove, lighter)

{

wash( vegetables);

cutIntoPieces( vegetables);

putIntoCooker( vegetables, salt, curryPowder, water);

initialize ( cooker, stove, lighter);

while( noWhistle or noCookerBlast or noOtherDisaster)

{

walkHereAndThere();

thinkSomeStupidThingsAsAlways();

sitIdle();

playPrankOn( roommate);

}

if( whistle)

{

if( havePatience) AllowToCool (cooker);

else //no patience

{forceOpen (cooker);}

serve( product);

}

else //blast or other disaster

{

cleanEverything( everything);

keepMum (incident);

}

}
This is the simple WMV Algo.

It resembles the washing procedure ( put dress and washing powder, switch on water supply and power and done!) and hence the name.

A slight variant is the WashingMachineChicken(WMC) Algorithm where the difference is, we put Chicken, Onion and Chicken Masala. In WashingMachineRice(WMR) Algo we put rice instead and wait for 3 whistles. The patent for all these goes to Git. I still remember he was very humble inspite of these vast knowledge and expertise (sale ko kuch bi nahi aata aur baatiein karta tha Taj Chef jaisa….). When I told abt this long after he left Bangalore his response was " Sale kutte kamine, mere khane pe hi tu ji raha tha!!".

Thus we 3 had rice and curry for some time based on washingMachine series of algorithms.

Then I recalled the different colored powders used at home and called up amma (mom) to know more about. She explained each and told when to add and how to. I incorporated powders (red, yellow and all!) chilly and curry leaves to the WM series of algorithms and took our colorless, odorless, tasteless product to a slightly higher level.

One thing about our cooking is that the guy who cooks feel it is okay and the rest feel it is terrible/horrible or whatever. So I came up with the idea of cooking together. All three would be involved in the cooking and as each one is responsible for the final product, every one appreciated it and believed it is almost perfect!

to be continued....

(more to come...including how Dev almost blasted a cooker!)

Click here for Part 2

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Blood Donation

2010-05-12T18:21:00.004+05:30

I was reading Ford County Stories by Grisham. There is a nice instance which made me laugh. Three ppl are going to donate blood for a guy in hospital. One among them is a drug addict and has lots of experience with needles and has even donated blood for cash to buy drugs. He describes the donation process to the other two guys who never donated.
The description goes like this “They make you lay down because most people pass out. The damned needle is so big that a lot of folks faint when they see it. They tie a thick rubber cord around your bicep, and then the nurse’ll poke around your upper forearm looking for a big, fat blood vein. It’s better to look the other way. Nine times out of ten, she’ll jab the needle in and miss the vein-hurts like hell-then she will apologize while you cuss her under your breath. If you’re lucky, she’ll hit the vein the second time, and when she does, the blood spurts out through a tube that runs to a little bag. Everything’s clear, so you can see your own blood. It’s amazing how dark, sort of a dark maroon color. It takes forever for a pint to flow out, and the whole time she’s holding the needle in your vein.”
This made me laugh coz something similar happened a month back. There was a blood donation camp in the teach park I work. I went in the evening with two of my colleagues. They were donating for the first time and I, being second time, kept on telling about my first donation @bagmane techpark during my internship. I narrated the procedure and how brave I had been. I gave some tips too and assured them there is nothing to worry! But right from childhood I am scared of needle...scared like anything...and blood too.... I had fainted the first time I went for a blood test... My parents had really hard time taking me for injections and all. Then I mastered the skill of looking away and thinking about something else while needle pierces inside as I got to know my parents would never allow any excuse for not taking an injection. But now I am not that scared of seeing blood and taking injections. I have learnt to be calm and cool!! Donation is a noble cause and I am ready to take the pain!
When we reached there, I saw the big needle and I started feeling the pain. The needle used for donation is relatively large. And when I saw the big packet to fill our blood it scared me more! I kept on telling my colleagues about the needle and the packet. They were just cool and told me not to worry!!
After the tests, needle pierced in and I looked away. But the real trouble was yet to come. Towards the end of donation I could feel less blood circulation in my head. But I hold on as I heard that if they can’t collect the prescribed quantity the rest may go waste (I don’t know if it is true).I hold on, I don’t’ want my precious blood to go waste! After removing the needle I called the volunteer and hold my head with both hands. He understood and raised both my legs for some time. I felt blood injecting back into my head. Felt good. He let me rest there for some time and then assisted me to a bed. My friends were sitting near the bed in chairs and I 'begged' the volunteer, that I am feeling okay and if I could sit with them. He said no and forced to take rest in the bed. After some time I sat in the bed. I can feel blood draining out again!! I called the volunteer again and he raised my legs and I felt good. I took rest for 10 minutes and felt okay and left with friends.
My team mate took revenge and started spreading the story! She told all other team mates about narration of my adventures before the donation and the ‘pathetic situation’ (her words) after! I told them I was given special treatment as my blood is precious. I even defended telling my blood is rare and her’s some variety which is cheaper than water in Bangalore! ;)
I was not having my food properly for some days and it could be the reason for what happened. Anyways it is a great feeling when you donate blood.
Benefits of donating Blood
1) If you are prone to Iron overload, donation removes excess iron.
If you are a red meat eater, accumulation of iron will be more.
2) Donation stimulates generation of new blood cells.
3) Donation of a pint of blood (450ml) burns 650 calories in donor’s body. (stay fit!)
4) Above all, the feeling that you are saving someone’s life is inexplicable.
I wind up quoting my own quote (!) which I came up to motivate people to donate.
“When you need blood there will be somebody to donate. Today, for someone else, that somebody is you.” –sho (WOW! Seriously, it is my own quote!)
P.S. If you know of any other benefits, please add and promote blood donation.

IT Fun Race

2009-12-26T09:17:00.001+05:30

I never dreamed of running for ‘any cause’ after my pathetic performance in my first ever race during school days. My colleagues who run marathons encouraged me to take part in IT fun race. The 5Km race (IT fun race) was part of the mid night marathon conducted by Rotary club, Bangalore. It was an event conducted for the ‘green cause’. My mind said ‘you can do it’ . I din asked my body as I know the answer would be excuses..! I’ve never ran even a km in life. But I decided to give it a try. I reached forum value mall by eve with ma frnd. Had food… and even ate chocoloate an hour before the race. I met two of my colleagues who came for the marathon @ 12, They decided to kill the time by a movie…and so headed to forum value mall.. The event started with a rock show… kinda warmed up! Then javagal srinath came… fought among the kids and got an autograph….. and then the race was about to strt!!!! Around 500 ppl came for the race.. A french guys near me was warming up like anything.. I thought ‘dude…u wont run more than a Km’! race strtd… Only thing in mind was ‘don’t run at max speed keep running at a steady pace and finish the race…’ While I almost reached half way I could see the same French guy racing back ahead of every one… wow!! I stopped 3-4 times…stomach was aching coz of the late food…still I ran.. took water bottles from volunteers… drank..splashed on face… threw away…hooohaaa… I’m njoying!! The race was about to end… one more turn that’s it..I can hear the cheering crowd.... I stopped a bit… ‘ I don want to end the race like a dead man… I want to wave to the cheering crowd in full energy…yup! I took my time.. ran in full energy…and ended in style..!! I waited for my frnd to come after the movie… My heart broke when I saw him heading to the emergency ambulance to check if it is me!!!

Memories

2009-12-24T16:12:00.001+05:30

My childhood days had been a constant effort to prove that I was better than my sister. Even though I was elder it was not counted anywhere… We fought for everything. I would do whatever she is up to and vice versa. I wanna win!
Experiments started with music classes….. (“Sangeetham padikyanam padikyanam ennu karuthi chenethiyathu simhathinte madayil, ustad badushah khan”) Those days I used to go to watch music shows in thalassery town and dreamed about singing there… But actual music was painfully different! Music teacher tried hard to convince me the difference b/w different swara’s and all… It never worked. I was singing the same way he was singing! but he din like it… I was struggling…hanging on… till my ‘sis’ would decide to quit. At a point when we thought that the teacher would go ‘mad’, both of us quit.
Then I joined the bharathanatyam classes. Malayalam film hero ‘Vineeth’ is an alumni of my school and he is a dancer… dreams followed…mollywood!! My sis too joined…I started with passion.. Parents spent money… After one year and after our first bharathanatyam performance on stage I ‘discovered’ that this is not meant for boys! I dropped it after ‘crying’ and all….Sis went on for one more year...
Then came ‘Scouts’. I joined Scouts and Sis joined ‘Guides’. We went for camps…played games.. took part in activities… had fun… had tests… I failed somewhere… and decided to drop… But she went on conquering the levels and finally years later she received ‘Rashtrapathi award’ from the President of India.
Meanwhile I discovered the real talent in me. My mother was an athlete during school days and had won a lot of races till district level. So I started believing that ‘it was in my genes’! Mom was happy on my decision. Sis also decided to participate in races. But no one cared her…I was in the lime-light… Family members started talking about me being the next big athlete having being set the goals at a small age… I eyed Olympic medal!!! Another big athlete from PT Usha’s state! Yup… I was ready for the first ever race in school competition in Thalassery stadium…I had 5 events… Mom took ‘off’ from work to see the race… She was in the gallery… time for the race… lined up…flagged off… full throttle….paced at max speed… challenged the lung capacity… half way the race I knew that I was no way near the second last ‘competitor’ and so I ran into the gallery into Mom’s hands… done! that was it.. I was last in first round! Mom advised me to pull myself out from other events.. She cancelled the leave and went to work.. Spent the rest of the day nibbling ‘ice’ in the stadium.. But I went to watch the sub district competition at the same stadium weeks later.. I should have been right there in the track.. running and winning .. crowds cheering…. tears fell… Oh there she is..! my sis..! she is representing her school.. watched the race.. Oh she won… won… and kept on winning… She came home with 5 medals.. went on to next level…. I bent my head… no one ever talked about running since then…What next???
My father had played cricket, football and kabadi for college. So I can try that… I don like kabadi… no future for football in India and so it’s time for the next big thing! Cricket… decided… no competition this time… There is no cricket coaching for gals… Sis joined hockey coaching in school.. hockey!! I started batting and bowling.. made local teams…. Played every day with people in different age groups… weekends were spent solely for cricket.. played a lot… there was no coach… mastered the bad shots better and better… But never went on to next level… dreamed batting with Sachin on non-strikers end! But couldn’t play even for school team.. Mean while sis was playing hockey for her school in tournaments in stadium, with crowds cheering and bringing certificates… I hate hockey!
I lost every where…. And was generally considered to have ‘no future’ by neighbours and family…
Then my sis joined guitar classes…and I was thrilled too.. I asked my parents… They sat with me and narrated my ventures till date.. music…dance…running…cricket…scouts…. And they din asked me ‘still you wanna go?’..They said ‘no extra curricular activities for you’… But the musician in me longed to learn something.. I decided to take classes from sis.. She tried to teach me something… It was tough… I want to play some song… she said we can’t directly go for that… But at last she taught me how to play ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ I by hearted it and played….satisfied and quit!
We used to go for drawing competitions… she got prizes for pencil drawing and painting..I too drew… put in my imagination… but I got nothing.. Then I went for chess tournament. She din like chess…. But I lost to a small kid who had coach and dreamed of becoming professional.. I kept quiet about the tournament and I quit chess too…
So that was my story of failures during my school days….still the memories are sweet... U should be thinking I quit from everything!! Na….naaana! I won’t ;) I no more compete with her… but I do try a lot of different things in life…. I will write about them when I feel like I have enough failures to write about!!

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The art of mind control

2009-04-05T03:55:00.004+05:30

Yesterday I attended a class on "The Art of mind Control". Attending such a class in aryabhatta by a final year is thought to be taboo. This kind of classes are meant for first years who are crazy about anything! My friends rejected the idea of attending a class w/o attendance and that too on a fine saturday afternoon. Anyway I just want to check it out. So I went there. Inspirational quotes by eminent personalities flashed in the screen till the class started. Some people started taking down to get motivated later.The class was conducted by an experienced guy who takes classes for corporate guys. It is his first time with engineering students. The guy started talking about the need of mind control and taught us some basic pranayama techniques and methods to increase the spiritual quotient. The class was very nice but the way in which the nitc guys approched the class was quite interesting. Some doubts which I liked are those which followed the pranayama techniques.

* He taught us that in pranayama we should inhale till he count 2 and then hold for 8 counts and then exhale for another 4 counts. When u inhale take maximum breath and ur tummy should be of maximum size. While exhaling completely exhale and ur tummy should shrink inside. After practising 4-5 rounds came doubts from the ever curious nitc-ians :

Q:Sir is it absolutely necessary to hold for 8 counts...?
A:No.. If u inhale for 1 count hold for 4 and then exhale for 2 counts.
(The engineers figured it out inhale=x, hold=4x and exhale=2x)
Q: Sir, my tummy is moving the other way around. (shrinking on inhaling and vice versa)
A: Check with some doctor!
Q:Sir we are inhaling for x time and we exhaling for 2x time. So where is the extra air coming ?
( questioning the very existence of all theorems " energy can't be created or destroyed")
A: We are inhaling faster and exhaling slowly.
Q: Sir, any how which is more in amount ? Inhaling or exhaling air?
A: Exhaling contains impurities too. There fore may contain more amount.
Q: Sir, but the number of molecules inhaled is same as exhaled rite...?
Then the guy and some chemists started figuring out C4 + O2 -> CO2
then balanced C4 +4O2-> 4CO2. So inhaled amount is Same as exhaled.
Pranayama class thus ended up a chemistry class coz of engineers .

The guy succesfully took the class to the later sessions before avogadro's number and molecular masses would dominated the discussion.

Lots of such interesting discussion came up and I couldn't remember all. But I am sure he would be more careful in dealing with engineers in future.

APRIL FOOL (How many times can you fool the same guy?)

2009-04-01T17:06:00.001+05:30

As I dream and as it may sound it is not me who fooled someone. It was HASH who fooled me.
I was thinking of some ways to fool my friends. Then I got a mail from HASH "101 ways to fool people" which came handy for me. But on opening the mail it said "this is one way.. Will send the rest later"! . No one saw that. I buried it!
I had been alert since then. I had graph theory class at 10.15 . As usual I was a bit late and when I reached the class it was closed and so I called Hash. He din take the call and msgd me telling "class has shifted to seminar hall". Ever since I registered for the subject it was taught in db. And why should it be shifted on APRIL 1 ?? My brain analyzed and found out a clear case of fooling. Who is he gonna fool ? ME!!! I went back to room and slept. But it turned out that class was actually shifted which means my bunkometer moved towards the border in the subject.
After all other classes I went back to room and I almost forgot the APRIL fool thing and then 'hash' sent me a link to the blog of an M.Tech guy whom we know and he claimed to have got "Google Internship" . I was happy for him and so I commented congratulating him. Then hash told me he was fooling !
Thus I got fooled thrice!

The star unknown

2009-01-31T12:12:00.007+05:30

Ofcourse Galeleo, Newton and Einstein had thought beyond common sense. But it seems they aren't the last ones who did so... Joining the endless stream of the brightest out of box thinkers is a young guy from nit calicut - P R Ananthan/pranthan. He believes his ideas are ignored because common man's intelligence is yet to develop to his level of thinking... no big deal... great men are always ignored @ home!
Major accomplishments till date...
1) Probably he's the only guy in the world who has 'backspace' in his password. ( like.. his password may be " 'a' 'p' 'p' 'e' 'backspace' 'l' 'e' " which is actually 'apple' but for him it is a 7 character secure password!)
2) He opens an mp3 file in notepad to see the lyrics and on seeing the gibberish he figures out that the codec is not installed!
3) He's the one who copies three files one after the other and pastes three times and wonder why it doesn't work. This task alone has earned him the name 'copy copy paste paste'
4)He admitted being failed to write two cd's together by inserting both in a single drive.
(Nero and Sony are thinking along these lines...)
5) Opening a video file in a firefox web browser (he got this idea after watching youtube vidoes in browser) made us lose our patience and asked him " are you stupid?" He said nothing and left the room... The poster on wall said " I did not fail a thousand times.. Each time I learned what doesn't work - Thomas Alva Edison"

*Steve Jobs (APPLE CEO) is thinking these ideas should be incorporated soon.
*Lately it is heard that Page and Brin are flying to Calicut to snatch the 'out of box' guy for Google. ( still some sceptics are of the opinion that the sum total of intelligence in google is gonna cancel out :) )

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A lab Admin

2008-09-15T23:46:00.001+05:30

We have a lab admin, the worst one can get! the linux geek of our class!!
He does all unpleasant things like
1)He used to switch off most of the AC's when it's sweating.
2)He disabled the scp -r command in lab ( this is one of the best commands from the linux community which helps us to transfer the submission materials and files during lab submissions and most importantly during lab exam)
3)He has plans to disable orkut and facebook during lab hours when it is most needed...
4)He deleted my favourite Suse linux from all sytems in lab to popularise his favourite Fedora
5)Torrent downloading systems are switched off when closing the lab

When I asked about this he replied

1)No.of ACs switched on should not be more than number of people.
2)Suse consumes a lot of memory and takes a lot of time to start up.Fedora repositories can be managed easily.
3)why do u require scp at lab time ??
4)orkut , facebook .. at lab time ??
5)it's illegal

1)When I used to switch on ac's most of the guys flee from the lab making the no. of people lower than no. of ac's....
2)Why Suse repositories are difficult to manage?The Suse community should anwer this answer... (by the way what is a repository ? )
3)You need scp when you work in a team!.. how else are you planning to make a majority of us pass..?
4)what else should we do at lab time...? ( assignments are above the threshold of a normal NITian and the very thought of doing it will make the head pain)
5)What else should the entire NIT community do without movies?

A SECOND YEARITE's DAY

2007-03-10T17:35:00.012+05:30

Here goes a typical second yearite's day in NIT...........

Sleeping is an integral part of life. But in NIT it is more than that… it is an art and a kind of culture. We have sleepless nights and snoozing lectures…
As it should be, the dirtiest sound available in the campus is that of the morning alarm. Most rooms have switched to alarms with singing tones which could aid sleeping. Still we are having the old ones which would really kill us. After 7 in the morning one of the three alarms in our sweet B309 started screaming. Simultaneously three hands from three blankets started crushing their alarms till the one screamed shut up. With much satisfaction and an increased pleasure all returned to their sweet dreams. My roommates Chris and Aswin are artistic sleepers and are much better than me in the art. They are from tronix/electronics (myself in compsci/computer_science). Then came mobile alarms which gave way to snoozing. After 2-3 snoozes I hardly jumped out of my bed at quarter to 8 and leaned at timetable and bunkometer to find that my attendance in maths is not in a good condition even though it is only a mid semester morning. I was even more shocked when I leaned before the tronix timetable.... #@$$@# !! Their first hour is off! Before I went out for brushing I din forget to put both tube lights on and both fans off! I got hardly 5mts for breakfast which I usually miss, but breakfast made me 10 mts late. When I ran to the class I saw teacher scolding somebody at the door. I reached there and made an expression which could melt the heart of the bloodiest killer. But the professor was above that. Still his sharp eyes and scolding had no effect on me. Coz I am used to it. After the usual last and final warnings he let me in.
I started scanning the seats from the backside. All back seats are filled and the inmates are in a state of subconsciousness in their way for unconsciousness. I managed a second last bench. The cuties and the nine pointers have started taking down the notes as and when a word emanates from the professor’s mouth. Others are free birds in dreamland. I joined the majority. The call for attendance made everyone wake up. Everyone became alert coz 80% of it is something that is expected from the future software engineers.
After boring lectures I had my meal and plunged into bed for a nap. Aswin was a bit excited coz there is robotics lecture in the afternoon. He is talking to some tronix guys about the future of robotics and about the great projects that he is going to undertake in future in robotics. Every one out there is listening open mouthed suggesting they are impressed by his great visions .But I wasn’t, coz I hear his great visions and future project works daily .What ever field is there in the world, he has some great unpractical visions and future project works. Tronix guys left for robotics lecture. I made my way to programming lab. Programming is the worst thing one could imagine doing with a comp. Compsci is said to be the coolest branch. But arrays, pointers, pointer to pointer and dynamic memory allocation makes it less cool. After a long fight with segmentation faults and various errors the lab is over .
Straight to room after tea. Chris and Aswin are already back after robotix lecture. Their afternoon was free after robotics lecture. Doesn’t matter, tomorrow I have only 3 lectures. Every dog has a day! Me and Chris shared interesting things happened in the class while Aswin was enquiring someone whether there is any area other than robotics where he could lay his hands on. Now, according to him Robotics is not that a great field and he is happy to find it atleast now!
Chris and Aswin are two sides of a coin. Nothing could be more unlike. According to Aswin tronix has reached a level of saturation and a break through in optoelectronics would happen in near future which would cause tronix to go down and the whole world would be after optoelectronics. So the point is, there is no point in studying tronix hard. This is his excuse for neglecting the studies and pushing his points down. He spends his time chatting and messaging. While the other freak Chris is a download maniac. He used to explain the importance of upgrading from winamp 5.05.3.103 to winamp 5.05.3.104 (which would hardly be one more bug free) and would scold us for not keeping up-to-date as far as technology is concerned! According to him, even if we won’t bath we should keep winamp updated and should download the latest Intel drivers.
I went out with Aswin. I am heading for gym and Aswin for volleyball. There was a mangoliad (Chinese like) man in the gym half the size of me but is heavily built and would play with thrice the weight I could manage and is a constant source of jealousy for me. After gym I would meet Aswin in the cricket pitch for a bit cricketing. Mean while Chris would be playing POP or AOE which could make him fatter and fatter day by day.
We three will be having dinner in canteen today as the mess ppl are be messing up with food. Then all will be in front of lappy. Serious studies! Nothing else.. wanna be better pointers this time! Class notes (topper’s notes) will be scanned and be available in BLAN (B- LAN). We copied it and started reading. Meanwhile fb, orkut and gmail are opened and minimized and will end up in maximizing fb and minimizing the notes and eventually the notes will be closed to prevent bad thoughts!!
We have a jobless filter in the campus which mess the urge of the future engineers to gain knowledge on various sectors of life .It has in possession a set of keywords and the slightest smell of any of these words in any of the site would be more than enough for blocking the access to servers. So we had almost a clean online culture with only time pass like chatting and spending time on social networks which itself has a major share of our college life.
3 hours is more than enough for digesting a meal according to latest researches in medical sciences. Well I mean it’s time to go to mc (mini canteen). Computers go into hibernation while I would join my friends . Walking in the campus at night is a pleasure. The serenity is tempting. After walking for five minutes we reached the final destination .Wow mc!! (it is situated at the other end of the campus near E hostel) Everyday ends here. So many ppl are entering and leaving. They have a nice business and would make better revenue than an average bar. We had double attached as usual.
We will be almost unconscious by the time we are back in room. Bed will be full of books and papers and all kinds of shits. We dump ourselves among them. After a hectic schedule we fell asleep, not for a full stop but for a punctuation as the seniors say……….because we know there is yet another day ahead …………….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz