Life @ MyWorld

Looking Back At That Decision

2012-01-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

Courage, panic, happiness, disappointments, fun, victories, losses, explorations, anger, fights, pleasures, laze, solitude, friendships, frustrations, excitements, jubilations…

All that (and maybe more) over the past 365 days. Glad I took that decision a year back.

A cup of coffee

2011-09-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

Today morning I woke up to a heavy rainfall. It made me go back to sleep. Few minutes passed by, and mom’s rebuke made me get out of bed. With no will/motivation I freshened up and took the newspaper. Turned a few pages, saw pics of flooded Delhi streets and Airport Terminal 3. Rains make me gloomy. They really do. As I continued flipping through, I noticed a simple ad that looked very similar to Tender Notices that get published in newspapers. Instead of “Call for tender”, it read “Make a career out of tasting coffee”. No wonder it caught my attention. Here is the online version (which looks quite different than the newspaper print). “Wouldn’t that be super cool career option” I thought, and immediately I decided to taste some myself. I usually do not prefer instant coffee, but had no other alternative at home. Better that than nothing. I intentionally added more-than-usual amount of coffee to some hot milk, few spoonfuls of sugar and it was ready. It felt awesome, like, really awesome. Somehow I got all the willingness to brave the rains, and get to work.

And then followed these good moments, or rather little pleasures of life that we often overlook.

Walking through the heavy rain, carrying an umbrella, wearing shorts and floaters. One of the few things I like about rain. Fun, fun, fun. Watching people running around, looking for cover. Jumping over the puddles. It just felt great.
People at the bus stop were busy discussing the rains and water logging at Lajpat Nagar. I just love how the conversation at bus stops change with time and season. I have rarely seen a debate. Usually everyone is in the same side of the discussion.
An empty AC DTC bus came out of the depot right next to the bus stop. A very rare thing to happen. Today the luck was on my side. A window seat of my choice on a rainy day in an air-conditioned bus. What more?
Right at the next stop a random person ran towards the seat next to me. As he reached close enough he flung his handkerchief onto the empty seat, gestured me to take care of it with a bright smile on his face and turned towards to conductor to get his ticket.
The radio station talked about the increasing petrol prices, cracked humorous jokes (like gifting your wife a chain having a locket containing 2 drops of petrol) and played some wonderful music. I didn’t care about petrol prices. I rarely drive.
Sitting next to the window in an AC bus as it rained outside gave me some good vibes. The entire city looked washed and cleaned. Nowhere throughout the ride from home to office did I find any appreciable water logging. And that’s a good 23 kms. Probably many waited for rains to go away, and so there were hardly any traffic snarls (except for the last km).
About halfway through the ride, the clouds cleared up and the sun trickled through. The air was amazingly clean. Every time the bus was atop a flyover I could see the Delhi skyline, far far away. It brought back memories of my days in Chandigarh where I could see the mountains from my hostel after rains.
As I got down the bus at Nehru Place, I noticed that the authorities had restored the footpath and the service lane leading to the subway. Don’t know when they had done it, but it felt good to notice it today.
A blogpost after quite a while. I had started writing one long back, but due to sheer laziness haven’t got down to complete it. Hope to finish that soon.

Today’s experience makes me feel that the #1 way listed in the 7 Scientific Ways Coffee Gives You Super Powers is for real.

Ah, the pleasures of a cup of coffee. :)

Public Transport – I’m sold.

2011-05-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

Of all the cities in India that I have lived in, Delhi by far has had the best public transport infrastructure. I was a regular user of the city buses during summer vacations in class 8th and 9th when I had joined a computer programming course out of my personal interest. Following this the next major phase of my life when I used city buses came in class 11th and 12th. I would take a bus to travel from school to my coaching classes and also back home. Back then, I had no choice. There was a car at home, but I neither had a license nor did I know how to drive. Also at that time, most buses were Bluelines. These buses never ran with a motive of serving the public. Money making was the only motive. Given the helpless circumstances back then, I was definitely not fond of the buses or the public transport.

Things changed as I joined college. I regularly travelled along the Delhi-Chandigarh route on buses and trains. At the same time, I learned to drive and got myself a driving license. I did drive around the city for sometime, but soon Metro operations expanded in Delhi. From the day Metro connected Dwarka to other parts of Delhi, I realised the convenience of driving only up till the closest Metro Station. Following my graduation, I moved to Mysore and Bangalore. I had no personal vehicle. Autos in Bangalore (and Mysore) are a nuisance. As a result I always favoured the buses and often had to fight the reluctance of my friends in order to take the buses. And now that I am back in Delhi, I have been making the most of the public transport over the past four months.

Over this time I have had a change of mindset and my attitude towards public transport has changed a lot. I no longer perceive it as the cheap, painful and poor-man's mode of transport. At the same time, I am far from considering myself as a socially responsible citizen who takes public transport to help save fuel, lower pollution, lessen traffic on the roads. While I do support these causes, they are totally unrelated to my ever-growing fondness of the public transport.

One of my reasons for preferring public transport is that carrying around your own personal vehicle is slowly turning painful. Traffic is too slow too often. Parking has always been a problem (at least since the day I started driving). Petrol is burning bigger holes in your pocket. And then there are these occasional unpleasant cases of breakdown (I recently had a flat tyre). All these add to the pain.

The primary reason for my attraction is the experience in itself. This tweet by Rungta sums it up: “Never a dull moment on the public transport crush— err, systems of India.”

Truely, there is never a dull moment. Unlike the monotony of driving your vehicle through slow traffic, switching gears between 1 and 2, and finally searching for that non-existent parking spot; there is some spark in almost every ride on the public transport. The joy of boarding an empty bus, the competition for a seat in a jam-packed bus, the funny comments in the air, the sigh of relief at the end of the journey. In addition, the noticeable (as well as subtle) traits of individuals coming from diverse backgrounds (regional, cultural, economic etc) add to the exuberance; imagine a Haryanvi letting out his frustration in a crowded bus. Somehow these tiny highs and lows makes the entire experience worth it. And when I think back, and recall all these experiences there is a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

This post is a consequence of the same feeling, and I decided to share some of those moments. Even if they don't convince you about the beauty of the experience, at least they would humour you.

One of the important difference between the buses in Delhi and Bangalore is the ease with which people start a conversation. Maybe because language is a lesser divide among the people in Delhi as compared to people in Bangalore. For some reason there is a “general assumption” that the people around are eager to talk to you. So don't be surprised if the guy next to you strikes up a random conversation with you. The topic can be, well, anything depending on the day, the mood, the person, the co-passengers, the weather, the cricket match; as I said, it can be anything. Some of the topics I have come across in the recent past: overcrowded state of public transport; the Government not functioning well; the distressing traffic situation; lack of trees; the performance of the bus driver; the insignificance of the Metro Airport Express Line; or a one-sided monologue where a random “enlightened” guy decides to spread some gyaan.
While there are no shortage of frustrating moments, more often than not you will find some humour being born out of those situations. For example in a bus, every now and then you will discover newer (and funnier) ways of stealing seats. If your happen to be the unlucky victim who gets beaten in the contest, you can either humour others by letting out your rage, or simply learn from it and outsmart your fellow co-passengers the next ride onwards. Sometime back two of us took a metro from HUDA City Centre. Since the train originates at this station, people usually scamper for a seat the moment the metro door opens. We did not participate in the scamper as we were making a very short trip. Just as someone was taking the seat right next to where we were standing, a guy runs in and manages to force his potli onto the seat (under the other guy's half-seated posture), which obviously gets crushed by the butts. What followed was this huge argument - one claiming that he sat first, while the other claimed that his potli was kept on the seat before the other guy sat. The argument concluded with both adjusting themselves on the seat.
On another occasion I was travelling in a jam-packed metro from Rajiv Chowk towards Dwarka wearing a backpack. Having no control on my movements due to the rush, I happened to accidentally give an old man a slight nudge with my bag. Incidentally the old man was travelling with an elderly companion, and both happened to be in a drunk state. The nudge made this old man start talking (actually, more like announcing) to his friend “Ek to duniya mein samasya yeh hai ki logon ko apna basta sambhalna nahi aaya”. A third aged co-passenger (no, this guy was not drunk) participated in the conversation and blamed the Government for not doing anything about the helplessness of the passengers. The conversation took wild turns as more people got interested. For quite some time the three old men kept talking and conversation nearly turned into a meaningless argument. After a little while the sober old man got off at this destination. Following that the drunk old man decided to address his co-passengers “Aap kahin bhi jaoge aapke aas paas zyadatar log murkh milenge aur bohut kum samajhdar milenge. Hum sub mein bhi zyadatar murkh hi honge. Bus ye batana mushkil hai ki kaun murkh hai aur kaun samajhdar.” The pravachan continued as everyone listened to the old-man-on-a-high with a smile on their faces. When it comes to carrying bags in public transport, I now have a golden rule – “keep it below the belly”. From that day onwards I converted my backpack into a sling-bag.
The roof of the bus stop near my house was blown away by strong winds quite sometime back. Only a small piece of the roof still remains stuck. On a peak summer afternoon as I waited for a bus, two persons came in from different directions and sat alongside me. They realised that the sun was too strong, and so decided to look for a shade. Eventually both ended up cramming themselves under the little shade provided by the broken piece of roof. And this initiated another fun conversation, and as expected they pulled me into their conversation. They went on to criticise the DTC, the Government and even the MCD for not planting trees on that side of the road.
Most of the new buses procured by DTC are an engineering marvel. These busses run on CNG. Have the engines at the back of the bus. They are low floor. Automatic doors. Automatic gears. The manufactures did almost everything right except that the engines generate very low power. You can distinctly hear these buses scream with pain as they try to pickup from a dead stop or climb up a flyover. The situation worsens in an AC bus, when the AC is turned on. Often the bus drivers turn the AC off when the buses need more power for pickup. And almost immediately you can hear a comment or two from the crowd – “AC chala do. Paise to hum poore dete hain, AC chalane mein aapka kya jaata hai.”
Even though the bus route I usually take has a very good service frequency, there have been times when I have had to wait a lot, specially at the Nehru Place Terminal. About a week back I was at the terminal at about quarter past seven in the evening to catch an AC Bus plying on the same route. There is no fixed platform at the terminal from where the bus might originate. If you need a seat, you have to be attentive and look out in all directions. Whenever a bus moves, or starts, or shows any other signs of departure the crowd would rush towards it. The key to get seats is very simple; win the race. If you are lucky, the bus would be plying on the route you're looking for. On that day we had been running around without luck for about half an hour. After some more time, as we all started our sprint towards another bus, someone among us shouted aloud “Itne mein to Dilli Police ka physical clear ho jata.” Even that bus turned out to be on a different route.

Public transport rides are a mixed-bag of emotions – fun, frustration, humour, exercise, excitement, anxiety and more. Most importantly it is a break from monotony. The person facing the music enjoys as much as the person observing these moments. While there are many more incidents worth sharing, I'd rather not make a long blogpost even longer. Instead let me point you to some tweets by me and my friends:

https://twitter.com/rungta/status/68676611809091585
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/64377491216801792
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/55524957639282688
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/51287585775034368
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/36997949665837056
https://twitter.com/souvikdg/status/55888370190127106
https://twitter.com/rungta/status/53472583194116096
https://twitter.com/lokallobaat/status/71820202173673472
https://twitter.com/souvikdg/status/71823844670840833

As pointed before, hopefully these anecdotes have at least humoured you, if not convince you about the beauty of using the public transport.

Food for thought

2011-04-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

A couple of days before Bengali New Year (Poyela Boishakh) my mom expressed her desire to have breakfast at the newly opened Sagar Ratna near our house. For those who are unfamiliar with Sagar Ratna, here is how they introduce themselves on their website: a well known Brand of Restaurant chain in Northern India serving vegetarian cuisine with a speciality in South Indian delicacies.

For the record and from my experience, they did start off being a South Indian speciality restaurant, but in their quest of business they ended up serving all kinds of vegetarian food including Burgers and Noodles. Their start as a specialised South Indian restaurant chain was pretty impactful and it still is the first place that a Delhi-ite thinks of for having a South Indian meal. I reluctantly agreed (why reluctant? - will come to that shortly).

So on New Year’s Day, I took mom to Sagar Ratna. I ordered my last year’s favourite breakfast. My mom, as usual, couldn’t control her greed and ended up ordering much more than what she could have herself (obviously expecting me to take care of the leftovers). This was the third time I was about to have South Indian food since my return from Bangalore (excluding the occasional chomps at the roadside vada vendors), previous two occasions being at Southy (Nehru Place) and Karnataka Bhavan (Shanti Niketan). Each time my experience has been unsatisfactory and I have sworn not to have South Indian food again in Delhi. Not that the quality of South Indian food has degraded over the years in Delhi, just that over the past year and a half I have had awesome Vadas, Dosas, Idlis, Filter Coffee and other popular South Indian food right in South India. I have grown a basic understanding about how it aught to be. I keep expecting the same softness in an idly, the same crunch in a vada, the same aromas in filter coffee. They did not keep us waiting for long. The food arrived within a few minutes. And it strengthened the cause for my reluctance to have South Indian food in North India.

I have had a fantastic time having South Indian food while I was staying in Mysore/Bangalore and while I visited the nearby states. At the same time I have had an equally horrible time searching for North Indian food in South India. On one hand I feel this is good because it makes me want to visit South India. But on the other it is really bad. It induces this false notion, a false perception of the kind of food available in other region.

I believe that good food is not just about taste. I am a strong advocate/believer of relativity. Taste in spite of being important is relative. One’s favourite might be another’s nightmare. In a slightly vague manner the problem can be explained by this example: Imagine an unaware sweet lover who is given a laddo instead of barfi which he ordered at a sweet shop. Even though what he had might be tasty, in reality he did not have what he intended to have. More than taste, good food is about authenticity. It is about “not being cheated”. So when someone who knows little about your South Indian cuisine walks in to a South Indian Restaurant, it is not just about cooking food the way it is written in cook books and serving the same. Instead, it is about making the guests realise how authentic South Indian food is supposed to be. The food must speak out the qualities of food back in South India.

I am not a person who has visited plenty of countries. So I do not know first-hand whether International cuisines available in India are authentic or not. Even if they are not, it is not as big a problem as authentic Indian Cuisines not being available across India. International cuisines may not have a market for selling authentic cuisine in India profitably. There are differences in taste, culture, lack of ingredients and cooks from other countries may not opt to come to India. But these reasons make little sense when we talk about Indian cuisines in India.

Another factor that worsens the problem are the Food Awards that do their round in the market. Here is a page highlighting the awards won by Sagar Ratna. Some new doubts have raised in me. Do these companies assign the job to food-critics taking into the account the region he/she belongs to? i.e. People from South India being sent to evaluate South Indian restaurants. Even if the food-critics belong to North India, are they asked to evaluate a South Indian restaurant after they are made to try out food in South India. While these awards do help businesses woo consumers, at the same time any scope for improvements must be conveyed to the businesses. Unfortunately, as pointed by Rungta in the movie Inside Job, these awards/ratings companies have defence which is both strong and weak in itself: “It’s just our opinion and people are free to not go by it.”

I just can’t accept that South Indian cuisine cannot be authentically reproduced in North India and vice versa. So where does the problem lie?

Lack of availability of ingredients locally? Not possibly. Even if some of the ingredients are not available, they can be easily procured from South India. And, I am not paying less for the food. I pay nearly double the amount charged at the best places in South India and get something which is not even half as well made. Procuring authentic ingredients should not add much to the expenses.
Unavailability of cooks? I won’t buy that. Most certainly there are enough South Indians who can cook well in North India. Additionally in quest for jobs and better pay thousands migrate in both directions. We are not talking about speciality dishes whose recipes remain secret to generations of a family.

Sharing one of my food-related experiences I have had in Bangalore. I once went to Tunday’s Tunday Kababi outlet in Bangalore which serves the famous Tunday Kebabs (Galouti Kababs) from Lucknow. One of my Punjabi friend ordered a parantha, which turned out to be made from flour and was very different from usual Punjabi paranthas. He asked “What kind of parantha is this?” “Sir, Lucknow mein aisa hi banta hai”. By the way, the kebabs were delicious. About a month later, I took my mom to the same place. Aside from the kebabs, we order a preparation of Chicken. The moment I tasted the gravy I got the pungent smoky taste of a burnt gravy. I called the waiter to complain. “Chicken ki gravy jal gayi hai” “Sir, Lucknow mein aisa hi banta hai”. Heights of denial. I immediately snapped back “Kuch din pehle tak to aisa nahi banta tha”. He called the manager and we were served a different preparation as the entire stock of that preparation for the day was bad.

I think the problem lies in the intent. There are very few businesses in the food industry that intend to do things right, serve authentic food and sell the right experience. It’s sad.

Not my Cup

2011-04-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

Most Indians are driven by obsession over intellect. Now don't mistake obsession for passion. Being driven by passion at times is not bad. But being driven by obsessive passion or passion beyond reasoning is harmful – both for the individual and the society at large. India recently won the Cricket World Cup. I was happy for it. To be honest, the feeling was a mixture of happiness and a sense of national pride. Now does this feeling call for a party? Yes, it does. Every reason for celebration should lead to a celebration. Now imagine a person celebrating the happiest moment of his life; dancing on the roof of his car right in front of India Gate. Is it justified? Debatable. But surely if you happened to be at India Gate watching someone do that, you would classify him as mad. And you may not be wrong. I recently heard on the radio that obsessive behaviour is a psychological problem and is often a result of extremely low self-esteem. The moment India won the world cup, thousands gathered at India Gate (and other locations all over India), and many danced on the roof of their cars in a similar manner. Apparently, somewhere down the layers of their decision making was an attempt to make themselves more noticeable to the public and compensate the low self-esteem. And then there was this extremely acute case in which a fan committed suicide because Sachin did not score a well in the final.

On similar lines many Indians have the obsession for recognition. And in this quest they go far beyond personal achievements. Any remarkable achievement by a person of Indian origin, and Indians would be more than happy to share the credit. To a great extent the Indian media is to be blamed for such a behaviour. Even the remotest of connection to India, and the media will be the first to advertise the news highlighting the fact that the achiever was a person of Indian origin. Remember Sunita Williams? Now (obviously) this world cup victory is also a victim of such an obsession. And I feel this problem is very well explained by this tweet. Reality check is important. It is not our cup. It is their cup. It is a cup won by a few individuals representing India. It is ok to say that the cup belongs to India, but saying that it is my cup or our cup is far fetched. The ONLY way I contributed to this victory was by NOT playing for India. Nothing more.

Now why are these obsessions bad for the society at large? Well for a start, the cricket-biased reactions exhibited by the crowd, pushes back the other sports. I can think of plenty of other reasons but I'll highlight the one that has provoked me to write this post. It is bad, because we are a democracy and our current generation is not being led by the right politicians. In an ideal situation, a politician would work to the best interest of the country. In reality they work to appease people and get re-elected. They align their efforts to take advantage of the sentiments of people and they decide to honour the heroes (i.e. the cricketers). Unfortunately, as I realised sometime back, Indians make the mistake of confusing money with respect (I did tweet this the very next day after the finals.). They announced cash awards without realising that they paid no respect. They paid money. Money is not respect.

One of the insane reason to give away cash award to cricketers might be that it will motivate them to do better. Another insane reason might be that young cricketers would get motivated to play better and improve the overall standard of sports. But does it work that way? I don't think so. In fact, I believe it misleads people towards wrong goals. The goal of a cricketer is to improve his skills, do well in the sport and aim to win the games. But now when you announce an award after they win, you are slowly trying to replace the real goal with money. I am not entirely against giving money. Almost all sports competition do have a prize money associated with the event. The players know that the money is an associated prize if they win that contest. But if you declare a cash award after the event, you sow a hope for the years to come. Every sportsman would start expecting a "surprise" cash award on their performance. God forbid, if ever the country is not in a financial position to give such awards to the players, it will leave them dejected. Because by then a "surprise" cash award would be as important as the cup. And look at the amount of each cash award. The cricketers in the National Team are already so wealthy that an award in lakhs doesn't seem to be a respectable amount. Most states/institutions gave 1 crore per player (Another reality check – Most Indians make lesser than that working their entire life).

Another question to be answered – It it fair to the other sports? There are so many sports persons in India who do not earn a decent living. One of the well known case is of the Indian Women's Hockey Team. I distinctly remember reading a newspaper report (most likely, TOI) couple of years back while travelling by the morning Shatabdi Express to Chandigarh. This report featured on the first page of the newspaper covered the financial situation of the players in the Indian Women's Hockey Team. Most of the players were the sole earners in their entire family. Their monthly income would not even place them in the middle class strata. Often they have considered quitting owing to extreme financial crunch. Pay such sports persons; lack of money is definitely affecting their performance. I am not too attached to hockey. Hockey is just an example as I have little information about the condition of other sports persons in India. But my guts say that the sports persons who play less popular sports are negotiating even worse financial crisis. So even if cash awards given to the cricketers were taken from sports budget, I'd say it is a bad investment.

A quick search on google yielded these links: Karnataka Government award for Cricket World Cup and Karnataka Government award for Hockey. If you are not convinced here is one of the millions of pages on the internet highlighting the plight of Indian Women's Hockey Team.

If not money then what? Honour them. Have a look at this: Gujarat Government award for Cricket World Cup. This is how you pay respect.

While there are some voices being raised against these cash awards, it is being largely ignored by the cricket obsessed Indians. I personally feel it is nothing less than a corruption scam. It is a scam against me, cause even though these actions make me unwilling to pay my taxes, I'll have to oblige.

And finally the cherry on the top (the sad way). It is really disappointing that this tweet comes from one of few journalists in India whose work I like.

In the State of Flow

2011-04-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

When you do many things with excitement, energy and enthusiasm, your time perception changes and you tend to loose track of how time passes by. During the past three months I have been in the state of flow. Just over 2 months since my last post, but it feels as if I had posted it recently. Even then, in spite of so many things happening over the last couple of months, I have very little to share on this blog. Primarily because I want this blog to remain my personal blog in which I would prefer not to have work-related things.

So have I been working all this while and have had no personal time? Well, it's a little complicated.

In the context of this post, work is an activity involving mental or physical effort as a means of earning income. Whereas pastime is an activity done in one's leisure time for pleasure. Now things are not as simple as experiences at work = work life (or professional life) and experiences unrelated to work = personal life (alright, now don't interpret personal life as private life). Instead, according to me, it depending on how willingly you do things. The underlying reason for personal life being separate from work life is because the former constitutes of things that you want to do (or prefer doing) over the things that constitute the latter. When you have the option to choose your work you may pick up any random activity that can generate an income. But if you (like me) want to do your best, you will pick up an activity that you love AND that can generate an income. Now here is an irony. If you really love your work why would you not be doing it in your personal time as well? I have no answer to that. So, I have come up with a statement that has applied to me over the past couple of months and I feel it will be applicable to most other cases:

When you decide to quit your job and work on your own, you are essentially trying to bring your work closer to your personal life. Or in other words you are unconsciously making an effort to overlap your personal life and work life.

Coming back the the question, have I been working all this while? It would not be incorrect to say that work nearly consumed the last three months of my life (except for a few days that I could probably count on my fingers). While an observer may say "You're working all the time. It's so bad.", but it hasn't been that bad. In fact it has been pretty good. Of course there are things that are "purely work" and have no overlap with your hobbies or pastime (e.g. getting over the government processes, running around to get your work done, dealing with legal shit etc.) but then you can't get away without them as they are the enablers to your work.

So if there is an overlap between my work and personal life, why not put some of those things here? Because now that I have unconsciously overlapped my personal and work life, I want to consciously ensure that my personal life does not become a subset of of work life. This overlap is kind of a bubble. Rosy as long as the overlap does not overpower the personal life. But the moment it does, the bubble will burst, and I would be in a state similar to mad-scientists - the likes we see and say "They've got no life".

As long as I use my personal blog to share experiences unrelated to work, I should be able to keep a check on that. And with this for the first time since I started blogging I do a small modification to my blog description that earlier read My life in my words.

Also sharing a video titled "The Secret Powers of Time" that I saw recently and it somewhat relates to this blogpost.

Interruptions to Miserableness

2011-01-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

I always believe that no matter how tough your present is, it seems much better when you look at it backwards in the future. Even though my last year and a half had been pretty miserable, on looking back I do find plenty of hidden fond memories. Some of them I would love to re-live. Here are a few highlights from my past year and a half that I adore and pine for. Try not to miss these experiences if you happen to be at the right place at the right time:

Weather in Bangalore: I took a fight from Delhi to Bangalore along with a few friends of mine on 11th July 2009. We were greeted by the new Bangalore Airport. The jet bridge guided us from the aircraft right into the air-conditioned terminal. We collected our baggage, found out about the different ways to reach the city and stepped outside the terminal. And then Bangalore weather welcomed us; A beautiful morning. Perfect temperature. Slightly cloudy. No scorching heat. A Soothing breeze. I almost immediately fell in love with Bangalore for its weather. I can still distinctly remember the smile that the breeze brought to our faces. Only on a few occasions over the past year the weather has not been as kind. I believe that weather in Bangalore is the single best thing about that city.

Trip to the God's Own Country: Thanks to some fantastic effort by Vishal we managed to make a short and a budget (yet exhaustive) trip to Wayanad, Kerala. I add this trip to my list of cherished trips with friends. The highlights of the trip were: the thrilling climb to the top of Edakkal Caves, the quick (and playful) peek at the Kuruva Islands, the arduous trek down Meenmutty Falls and the exhausting trek up to the Chembra Peak lake. I recommend everyone visiting Wayanad to undertake the trek down Meenmutty Falls and if you are slightly bold; attempt reaching the top of Edakkal Caves.

Dasara (yes, Dasara and not Dusshera) at Mysore: Never in my life have I seen a festival add so much enthusiasm to a city. There may be many such festivals in India. But, for me, this was the first one. The preparations were prominent about a fortnight before the festival. The entire city is lit up, esp. the magnificent Mysore Palace. Greeting messages are lit up on the nearby hills such that they are visible from most parts of the city. Innumerable exhibitions, performances and celebrations everywhere. Mysore being a pretty small city compared to the Metros, makes it very hard to stay away from the celebrations. One of my friends and I went to see the Dasara procession. It was an amazing experience. We had to fight through a massive crowd wherein each one is fighting to catch a glimpse. People climbed up trees. Terraces are overcrowded. Subway roofs are crammed full. Not a single eye wants to compromise. I myself had to balance myself on one of the Bamboo barriers while clinging on to a lamp post and simultaneously take snaps.

Anukruti and Gurukul: I really missed freedom while training at Mysore. The one way I partially got it back was by joining two web-based magazine clubs - one targeted at the entire Development Centre and the other targeted at the trainees. I joined both these clubs along with one of my friends. Internet access was imperative, and so our time restriction on internet access was somehow lifted. We loved bending the rules (whatever we could manage) like sneaking into production area late at night to complete our job and enjoying the administrator access we had on a few computers. We did have to work under a lot of restrictions (which was a turn-off), but we loved the little freedom that came along with it.

Events at Mysore campus: Another classic case of something (in addition to Pool) I enjoyed sans my friends. Most events that took place in my Campus be it a corporate event, an awards ceremony, some random celebration etc had a cultural element associated with it. I do not know much about elsewhere but Mysore campus had some amazing singing talents. Much better that the ones I heard in Bangalore about a year later. Every event had some performance by them. They were complemented well by the awesome JBL loudspeakers and some very nicely done karaokes of well known tracks. They sung in various languages, most of the times in some South Indian language (Tamil, Malyalam, Telegu or Kannada). A R Rahman compositions were the (obvious) favorites. For the first time I heard the original compositions of A R Rahman which were later were adapted for some Bollywood films eg Saathiya, Roja etc. They sound beautiful; much better than those I had been hearing out of my iPod. I would sit on one of the corners and try to guess what the songs meant. Each time a new song would start (in a different South Indian language) I could see one section of the crowd capering and cheering to the fullest. I just loved (and I still miss) those performances.

Mavalli Tiffin Rooms: Once I moved to Bangalore, I managed to get back in touch with one old friend of mine who had spent the last five years in Bangalore. He is also a foodie. He wrote down a list of must-visit food outlets in Bangalore. I wanted to go to cover all the places on that list, but I was unable to make it. MTR is one of the places he missed in the original list and later he asked me to add it to the list. I loved the breakfast served there. The very first time I reached MTR around 9am. I was told that everything except Masala Dosa and Rava Idli was over. I gradually advanced my time with each subsequent visit and finally realized that the best time to reach there was around quarter to seven. That is the time you would most likely get everything listed on the menu, and you can follow the heavy breakfast with a walk around Lalbagh. I simply loved their food, esp. Idli, Vada, Masala Dosa, Rava Idli, Fruit Custard and of course, Coffee. To top the good food, they have a wonderful service. The waiters (in their lovely uniform; red striped shirts and half mast lungis) are very courteous and they know how to make their customers ecstatic. It may be a little difficult to converse with them initially (if you do not know Kannada), but soon you would realize that they are experts at recognizing hand gestures. Interestingly, the food and the service were not the only things that got that place so close to my heart. What drew me closer to that place were the locals who dropped by early morning. Mostly the aged Kannadigas would come in their traditional "comfort" wear i.e. shirts and white dhotis (or lungis). They would read the newspaper over a cup of coffee and chat with their acquaintances. I loved observing them and even tried to imitate their style of eating Idly Sambhar and drinking Coffee. Add MTR + Lalbagh to the list of good things in Bangalore.

Saturday Mornings: While most of my friends enjoyed a lazy Saturday, I preferred playing pool. And to avoid the hassles of changing 2-3 public buses to reach office campus, I would take the company bus that would pick me at about 7:15 in the morning. The pool arena would open at 9 and I'd have an entire hour for myself. Every day I'd to go to a particular food court in the campus and have hot vadas, coconut chutney and some strong South Indian filter coffee. Add to that the lovely early morning weather and some music through the earphones; solitary bliss.

Durga Puja in Bangalore: This event made it to this list not for how good it was, but because I did not expected it to be as good. The year before I spent Durga Puja in Mysore. I did not expect much. But, by the end of the Durga Puja I realized that I had actually expected a lot. No where did I get any Bengali food. People in the pandals hardly spoke in Bengali. The cultural shows were small and mostly (of what I experienced) either in English or Hindi. I am not very sentimental about Bengali language, but this came to me as a surprise. The following year I was in Bangalore. And I set very low expectations. Bangalore hit back hard. Although the number of Durga Puja celebrations were not as many as in Delhi, but there were plenty of them. Almost all of them had good cultural shows and nice bengali food stalls. The one at Palace Grounds was huge and the scale at which it is celebrated really surprised me. I managed to catch live performances by Raghab Chatterjee, Indian Ocean and Usha Uthup. And not to mention, some real good food.

South Indian Filter Coffee & Matteo Coffea: I am an outright coffee lover. And South India was heaven in that respect. Every tea/coffee stall served freshly ground filter coffee; even the tiny canteens at Bus Stands. While I loved the coffee served at most places (esp. MTR and Hatti Kaapi), I am also a great fan of Cafés. Even if I would have drunk, I would have regarded Cafés to have more importance than Pubs and Bars. Cafés are a place where one can order a hot/cold drink; have some snacks/deserts; chat and socialize with friends; sit for hours enjoying the aroma (of coffee), the ambience, the music and at times even browse the Internet. The problem with most cafés in the metro cities are that they push too hard to earn money over goodwill. They end up eliminating the element of relaxation and force you to vacate as soon as you are done consuming your order. Matteo Coffea is one of the cafés on Church Street, Bangalore that clicked with me the very first time. They do almost everything right (including giving you free wifi internet). They have a awesome ambience and they play good music. I just can't get over their "Coffee of the Day".

The beginning and the close of a Chapter

2011-01-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

My last blogpost was about a year and a half back. I was too happy then. A brand new laptop. A new job.

I was never too happy about my new job. Just excited about it - mainly for two reasons. Firstly, I always loved traveling. My job called for a relocation to Mysore. In spite of my long association and love for technology, I never had the opportunity to be at the IT capital of India. So, I was pretty excited to see that part of the country. Secondly, I was about to join a workplace that had been widely respected by most of the middle-aged people around me. "Oh, you are joining there. It's an excellent company. It will take you places. You would love to start and end your career there. Such companies take very good care of their employees". This was what I heard from most middle-aged people I knew. And I have to admit - such statements feel ticklish.

Just after my college, I had some time for myself and I was happily enjoying my new laptop and giving my website a new look. And then came the bummer. I was communicated that I cannot carry my laptop to training. I was stunned. An IT company not allowing their employees to bring in their laptops to a residential training facility!! I realized I had too less time left with my laptop (something I could never think living without). The training would take approximately 6 months time. Half a year without a laptop - unimaginably long duration. So I quickly put up my half done website online, hoping I would be provided with some resources to access this code and modify it when I am free. And then I left. I left behind my laptop (which more or less dictated and controlled my life, apart from my then-alive iPod). Additionally most of my hobbies got left behind. Back then I had a love for programming, a love for photography, a love for listening to music and adding new ones to my collection - and all these are not possible without having a computer for personal use at your disposal. Over the next 5-6 months, I spent my time in a quarantined zone. No challenging programming. Very low self direction. I had a camera, but it was getting harder to backup my photos. And adding new songs to my iPod, was pretty much impossible. My love for all these activities went numb. They were all fading away. Additionally, with a very limited internet access (limitations both on time and websites)- I was cut off from by blog, my website and all my online activities.

I did grow few new hobbies and interests during my training. But most of the habits I had developed, were a result of sheer frustration. I realized that addiction is one of the best ways to get your mind off unavoidable and loath-able things. And instead of going for the common intoxicants like alcohol, drugs or smoke, I looked into some cheaper and healthier alternatives (the likes I had in college during my final semester - playing cards). I did carry a deck of playing cards with me to my training, but (as you'd expect) there is no open card playing culture. Thus, you need a friend who is in the same state as you are and both should have a synchronized schedule. Playing cards did not work out. Meanwhile, I always loved aiming; and I had cue sports in my campus. Pool looked fun and interesting. What looked interesting at the early stages soon turned in to an addiction and I gave in. I used to rush out of my training at 5 and the stand in the queue for about 45 mins to get the first slot. Later due to a high demand for pool, I started playing snooker, but pool remained my first love. Most of the times I'd continue to play till 10 at night. The food courts served dinner till 10pm, and most of the times I only got the left overs. Non-veg would usually be over by that time but yet I gave my preference to my addiction over my love for food (esp. non-veg). About 4-5 months into training, the facilities team decided to stop providing cue sticks. By then I could not think of giving up playing. So, I undertook a one-day trip to Bangalore and back, to buy a cue for myself. By the time I came out of training, I had grown an intense dislike for my work-life, but was still addicted to cue sports.

Having been brought up in a metro city, I did not want to live in a Tier II city. Mysore is a nice place. But someone who is brought up in a metro city feels bonded due to the lack of options. You develop a need for a wide range of options in food, people, culture, hangout, infrastructure etc. Even Chandigarh made me feel chained over a period of 4 years. I dearly wanted to be posted to Bangalore, and I "just-about-managed" that. Very early into my posting I did get my laptop from home. But now there was a new problem. I was bound to spend too much time at office. And most of the times I had very little work. Even when there was work, it was pretty uninteresting. In order to bust my discontentment I experimented with my whiteboard at work, and decided to create a new status note each day which I'd put up on our internal messaging system. Most likely this was the only creative thing I did in my job. There were plenty who followed my status notes. Some loved it, some did not. But either ways any comment would give me the kicks and helped me move on. At the end of the day, I would immediately rush to play pool in order to let go of my entire day's frustration. Most of my friends disapproved it, but I just ignored them all. It was the best way I could keep my mind off the dissatisfaction at work and compensate it with the satisfaction of get better at pool day by day. I even spent my Saturdays playing. In the process, I learned a few new games like Billiards. It is an awesome game. It taught me how to control the direction of the cue ball after it hits the intended ball. These skills made Pool even more fun. But still, by the end of the day I was tired, unhappy and eager to call it off. All I needed to do was to wait till I am out of all legal agreements and bonds. Till that day arrives, I'd hardly have the chance to reclaim the life I loved earlier. As time passed a decision grew in me - to publish my next blog post only after I close this chapter of my life.

I just published it.

Who wants a trouble free Laptop?

2009-06-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

Buying an AppleCare Protection Plan for my Macbook Pro was probably the first good decision on my part, thanks to Karan's advice. Ever since I bought my Macbook Pro, it has been niggling me with some problem or the other. Not that there were any "major issues", but since I had got myself an APP I had decided not to compromise with any minor problem. Every snag I faced, no matter how petit, I took it to the Apple Support Centre and the part was replaced, no questions asked. This is why I loved the Apple Service. At the same time I can vouch for Apple not stocking good spares, at least here in India. There have been at least 2-3 times when the replacement part either did not work at all, or had some defect for which it had to be returned. But there was one problem that would recur very frequently. My Superdrive would not write DVD-R or CD-R. Please get this right. It had no problems in writing re-writable disks, or in fact reading disks. Leopard would report an error saying that "The Device could not calibrate enough laser power to write on the media". Probably RWs are written with lower laser powers. I got the Superdrive replaced at least 4 times. On one of these occasions faulty replacement parts were sent twice, and it worked only after a superdrive was called in for the third time. What surprises me is that Apple claims to give "New Spares" in its replacement, which is surely not the case with Superdrives. New Superdrives come with no region set. But in my case when I had got my Superdrive replaced for the first time, no region code was not set on the replacement part and I had the entire quota of 5 region changes remaining. All other times the region code was already set on the replacement drives. In one of the cases it was actually set twice beforehand, so I had only 3 region changes left. Thanks to DVD Info X that reports these figures. When my superdrive failed for the fourth time, I took the case to a higher level ie to the Customer Relationship Department. The concerned representative checked out my case, and insisted me to go for the replacement one final time. Thanks to my humble (:P) attitude, I accepted. This was probably the second good decision I made, cause I was pretty sure that the replacement drive would fail yet again. And so it did- in the month of May during my final examinations. I decided to return to Delhi, before I give a call to AppleCare - which is probably the third good decision I took. When I returned to Delhi, I called up AppleCare. My case was referred to Customer Relations once again on 1st June, and the representative immediately offered me to replace my unit. I could "sense" it, and thus I wasn't surprised. Also, I was aware that Apple replaces with the current models, which I confirmed with the representative. I was offered a Macbook Pro 15-inch with 2.4Ghz Intel Processor, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD and Nvidia 9400M + Nvidia 9600M GT with 256MB VRAM. I was elated. It was like a b'day gift from Apple.

The bad part was the the entire process of the replacement. The older unit would be picked up from my residence and the replacement process would take up to 10 working days from the day they receive my older unit at their Bangalore warehouse. And once the replacement product is despatched it would still take time to reach me due to customs clearance and other technicalities. Such a process also meant that I needed to backup my entire machine. DELL probably gives a better service in this regard by sending the replacement unit first and then collecting the older unit. I had to get a new external disk to back up my entire laptop. My older unit was picked up on June 3rd, and it was the beginning of two weeks of "miserable & laptop-deprived" life. It reached the Bangalore warehouse on June 5th and my replacement process started. Meanwhile at home, I had a big trouble starting my desktop. It was left unused for about the last two years and I had to disconnect and reconnect loads of cables and devices to get it working. For the entire two weeks I had to leave the Cabinet open due to frequent inexplicable issues.

The Desktop at Home

Unexpectedly, all of a sudden WWDC took place on June 8th. For me WWDC took place unexpectedly for the first time, ever since I had been introduced to Apple products. Probably it was because I was too bored and isolated from the internet without my laptop. It was only on June 9th when I logged onto Facebook that I noticed WWDC Keynote Address had taken place.. and wait a minute... the entire Macbook Pro line was upgraded. Ouch!! I quickly called up AppleCare once again, and asked if I would be receiving the same 2.4GHz model. I was told that the 2.4Ghz model was now out of stock and I'd be receiving the newer 15-inch 2.53Ghz Macbook Pro- Which means a faster Processor, Double the RAM (4GB), same hard disk... but hey NO Nvidia 9600M GT and NO dedicated video ram. I complained about the same. My older unit had an ATI Radeon X1600 with 128MB VRAM. Also this model was priced at $300 lesser than mine. But somehow the Customer Relationship guy kept insisting that Nvidia 9400M is a much faster processor than X1600. That was bad. After talking over this for a long time he simply asked if it would be fine if I get the same model as my older one. With the amount of harassment I had faced with the Apple Spares of that model and the kind of upgrades I was otherwise offered, the older model was certainly out-of-question. So I had to accept the 2.53Ghz one. I am unhappy that the Customer Relationship Officers are not given a right knowledge about the products, since the new laptop has performed poorly as compared to the older one in the XBench OpenGL test. But anyways.. the two miserable weeks ended on June 19th when I received this new Macbook Pro... And probably I would be among the first in India to own this new model. Here is a short review of the product and comparison with the older one (ie Macbook Pro 15-inch 2.16Ghz, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD and ATI Radeon x1600 with 128MB VRAM)

Packaging
The first thing you would notice about it (at least I did) is the considerably smaller packaging. Yes, Apple has been claiming that they're doing it for environmental issues, but hey, its just a different way of saying "We're saving a lot of money on packaging and shipping". Ever since I have owned Apple products, it has always gone on to cut manufacturing and packaging costs. And only some portion of the savings have been passed on the the consumers. Look at the trend... My iPod photo... came in a beautiful box, containing the iPod, headphones, a firewire cable, usb cable, charging adaptor, dock, carrying case, AV cable and software disk. I know that before this they even included the iPod Remote. Since then they started off with discontinuing firewire support (which IMHO is much better than usb), and now they just give the iPod, headphones and usb. Thats just it. They don't even include a software disk. You may say that one CD doesn't cost a lot, but I think it is quite a saving as it reduces package size. Although, I still love the Apple packaging (small size - no probs with me), but the fact that they have stopped giving video adaptor and Apple remote with the Macbook Pros is real stingy. All throughout my college these two things have helped me BIG time during those countless presentations. Thankfully I was not required to return my Apple remote, so I can use that. But I will need to buy the MiniDisplayPort adaptor.

Comparing Package Size

Outer Design
The second thing to notice about this laptop is that it has a much sleeker look as compared to the older one. The display is much thinner and it opens up much beyond the older one. It has a sturdy unibody design, which is also claimed by Apple to be lighter, but is is as heavy as the previous one. This is probably because of the bigger battery. Also, it is not user replaceable. There is no mechanical lock for the screen (which is good as once I had a little problem with the mechanical lock in the older machine), instead it is now magnetic.

Ports/Superdrive
The ports have changed quite a lot, and so has the position of the Superdrive. My older model had a front loading design, but in this one the drive slot is on the right side. This is an excellent change. Front loading was at times uncomfortable. There are some changes in the IO ports. No firewire 400. Probably its too old now. SD card slot is also a welcome change (The only time I had used the ExpressCard slot was when I put in a SD card adaptor.), but unfortunately I have a Sony Cybershot, and this slot wont work with MemoryStick. Another not-so-good decision was keep both the USB ports next to each other, in fact a little too close to each other.

Keyboard
Once you open the screen, the unibody design will impress you immediately. Yes, it looks elegant. The entire keyboard, is basically, individual keys sticking out of square cavities in the aluminum. It also means that the size of the Keys is slightly smaller than the one in the older one. Even the keys have actually changed. The Enter key next to the right command key is missing and is replaced by an option key. No Num lock. The Function keys have now become similar to a multimedia keyboard. So you have a Play/Pause, Forward and Rewind button. Volume up, down and mute. Screen brightness up and down. Keyboard backlight brightness up and down (no key to switch it off). And finally two new ones: Exposé and Dashboard. There is one more thing that I like about the keyboard. The arrow keys are much more spacious. And last, but not the least, the Keyboard Backlight looks amazing!!

Track Pad
Yes its is Multi-touch. Yes it is large. Yes it has no visible button. Yes it works. No you actually can not click ANYWHERE!! The entire trackpad is the button and this entire thing depresses when you push it, except for the farthest edge of the track pad. Basically as you move from the closest edge to the farthest edge, clicking requires more and more pressure, and when you are close to the farthest edge it does not click at all. Multi touch gestures are fun to use. You'll have to get used to it to take advantage of the same. One good thing is that you can choose the bottom right or left corner to act as a right click. The bad thing is that System Preferences does not allow you to modify the 3 finger or 4 finger gestures. I am sure its a software limitation which to me is incomprehensible.

Display
When I saw the display of my older Macbook Pro, I was impressed. This LED display has really blown me. They did announce in WWDC that there were improvements in the display, but hey I never expected such gorgeous. Unfortunately, there is no matte option. The reflections on the glossy display is certainly annoying. But the fact that these LED displays are very bright and thus it certainly negates some of the reflection. But under usual conditions you'll just love the display. The colors are extremely vivid, distinct and saturated. It turns on instantly, no warmup time (or probably negligible). Since it is an LED display, wont notice any waves when you touch the screen, but you'll definitely leave behind fingerprints on the glass surface. I agree they there is a polishing cloth included, but its not feasible to always have it with you. In the end, I must say that LED display simply rocks and these ones are really "to-die-for" quality.

I clicked a few pictures which can elaborate on the reflection problem of the Glossy screen:

Reflection of Keyboard with Display turned off

Display in Low Brightness

Display in Highest Brightness

Thus the Screen Brightness does negate a lot of reflection. Of course if the background is dark, it would not. Here are a few pictures with the laptop in front of a bright light source.

Reflection with Display turned off.

Display in Highest Brightness

Battery
The battery performance is excellent. Definitely it gives 7 hours backup. In fact it can give you much more. Most of the reviews that I have read about these machines, the battery have lasted more than 8 hours with wifi turned on. One thing they have not mentioned, but I find is that it charges much faster than my older one. Also note that I got only a 60W charger. The other 15-inch model (even my older one) come with 85W chargers.

Other Notable things
The iSight camera is actually camouflaged in the top edge of the display - not as prominent as the older machine. Also there is just a single fan in my model. Its a lot quieter as compared to the older one which had two. Even other current 15-inch models have two fans.

Performance
No need to crib. 2.53Ghz performs the way it is expected to. The graphics is good as well (although I give much of the credit to the LED-display). I have not played any games yet, thats when I'll be able to judge better. This one has a Hitachi hard-disk, which according to XBench is faster than my previous Fujitsu one. The Superdrive is faster and can write DVDs at 8x(as against 6x). Finally the 4GB RAM is simply a lot of RAM. Even though my graphics shares 256MBs out of it, I am always running with 1.5GBs free.

Look at the free RAM, I have Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, Excel and few other apps running

While I was recovering my applications from my backup, there was a time when I had selected around 20 applications to copy, and by mistake double clicked on them. I was surprised to see this laptop launch all of them simultaneously with ease. Certainly when you peek in a little deeper, you would realize that it has only 3MB L2 Cache (as against 4MB L2 Cache), but a much faster 1066MHz FSB (as against 667MHz FSB) and uses a DDR3(1066MHz) RAM (as against DDR2 - 667MHz). I noted the boot time to be just a fraction under 30 seconds till the login screen, whereas the logoff+shutdown time was fractionally under 8 seconds.

Pros: LED-Display, Large Multitouch trackpad, battery backup and fast charging
Cons: No matte Display, USB ports too close to each other, No dedicated VRAM.

xBench benchmarks, the one on the right is of the newer machine.

Habits, Addictions and Obsessions

2009-05-28T02:28:00.000-07:00

College is over, and there is nothing much to do for the next one month. So I'll get back to blogging and its time to rewind the past 4 years. I guess I'll have different blog posts covering different aspect of my college life. This one is going to be about habits/addictions which I owe to the 4 years in college. Not that I repent all of these, but I guess its worth putting it on the blog. Here is the list:

1. Abuses: It all started from the first day at Chandigarh. Punjab has a comprehensive influence over Chandigarh. And of course the Punjabi language is very widely used in Chandigarh. The problem with punjabi language is that it is no longer simply a medium for human communication. It has transformed into a medium to swear at people. After being at the heart of it every sentence I speak now starts and ends with an abuse. Interestingly people no longer restrict them to "behen****" or "madar****" or even "chu****" (these have started featuring in movies as well - remember "Omkara" or "DevD" or "Gulal" or even the lighter ones like "Khosla ka Ghosla"). Innovation is the key and people take pride in abusing in a creative manner. Infact this habit is so deep that even hearing plain Hindi language seems so unnatural. Remembering the school days, when we were scolded for saying "kutta" or "gadha" or the hifi "saala", gives me a mixed feeling of amusement and guilt.

2. Coffee: I have never liked tea which my parents and most of India has been fond of. Every place I go, I have always been refusing tea all my life. I still remember those old days when I used to love traveling on Rajdhani Express. Why? Because they would serve you coffee instead of tea if you request them to. Over the last four years I have been exploiting my freedom as a hosteler. I would always yearn to take coffee and I would grab every opportunity. It doesnt matter what time is it. Even past midnight I would often go to Aroma (which is open 24 hours and has a Cafe Coffee Day outlet) and take Redeye shots (Expresso) without milk or sugar. I can still remember days when I have had coffee 7 times in a day. By the end of 4 years I have a choice of coffee for every mood.

3. Lost: Rungta initiated it when I was in first year. Then I used to love it as a TV show. As time went on Lost started shaping up. Most of my friends in my hostel and I became a fan of it. Little did we know that it had become an addiction. In the last one and a half year at hostel various restrictions were imposed on the use of internet. Many of the download websites and filetypes were blocked. I realized that I was addicted to it when we were more bothered about download websites being blocked (from were we used to download the episodes of Lost) than Gtalk being blocked or 'zip' filetype being blocked. Lost had-to-be watched at any cost. I still remember requesting day scholars do download the episodes and rushing to them to procure them.

4. Music: I loved music even before I went to college. But the love for music has taken a definite shape while I was in college. I have grown a distinct taste based on both the music and the lyrics. There were people in hostel who would always recommend particular tracks. Being in hostel the music library was never stagnant. It kept growing in different genres and languages. By the end of the college, I realize that I have tracks from at least 15 different languages and many genres. In fact I have started appreciating the OSTs of different lesser known movies, something I never did before I was in college.

5. Playing Card (esp Sweep aka Seep): It started in my final semester after the trip to Udaipur and Mt Abu. We played cards when we were in the train. And we never stopped playing since then. I remember that we have played out about 4-5 decks of cards in the last one and a half months. I would perpetually sweep (Read the game rules here). Day or night. At times even miss a few meals for playing cards. We slowly attracted the entire hostel in playing with us. At times we would bet meagre amount over a game to add excitement and thrill. I will really miss this addiction of mine, since being at home I have no one to play with.

6. Clicking Photographs: Note that I did not say photography, I have always been fond of photography. Even before joining college I have about 5 different kinds of cameras at home. But none of them were digital. This is why I bought a digital camera as soon as I managed to save enough money. Digital camera has given me a power to click. And this has turned into a habit. A habit to click all the time, capture all moments, weather good or bad. As pointed before, this habit has nothing to do with my love for photography. During the 4 day trip to Rajasthan I clicked more than 2k snaps. Out of these only about 100 of them were with an intention to click "good photos". The rest was a result of the addiction. When I have a digital camera, I just click click and click. By the end of four years of college we have about 25 GBs of pics. I hope I can get over it.

7. Anytime Internet: Hostel has certainly pampered most of of us in respect to this aspect. I just can't live without an anytime internet connection. Till about a year and a half ago my hostel was blessed with anytime high speed internet. Although the official time for the internet to be working was from 6pm-8am. But unlike the other hostels in Panjab University, we had found out methods to access internet all throughout the day. About an year ago the loopholes were discovered and internet in our hostel was also restricted to the same timings. It is not that I am perpetually hooked to the internet. Nor is it that I need to download lots of stuff. But yet (for reasons that even I am not aware of), I just need to have access to the internet, anytime. So I subscribed to GPRS internet connection on my phone, which would give me unlimited access to the internet. Its so odd that before I joined college, I seldom needed the internet- mainly to access my email.

Back from heaven...

2009-03-09T06:54:00.000-07:00

Last week I went for the most adventurous trip of my life and it is certainly one of my most memorable trips. Four of my friends and I went to McLeod Ganj which a little ahead of Dharmashala. The trip was for 3 days - one night at McLeod Ganj and one night at Triund. McLeod Ganj, which is 1750m above sea level is a tiny hill station dominated by Tibetian Population.

Let me first list the places to see and places to eat in McLeod Ganj. Among the places to see is a Monastery and a Temple which also has a Tibetian Museum (we missed it as it was closed on Monday). The Dalai Lama also has his residence over here. Also there is a Bhagsunag Temple which is a Shiv Temple. Another place that is a must see is Dip Tse - Chok Ling Gompa which is not very common with the tourist but certainly the main prayer hall is worth visiting. I was lucky to be able to witness the monks praying. As for the places to eat, this place is a paradise for a foodie. You get excellent Italian and Tibetian at very reasonable prices. I recommend Jimmy's Italian Kitchen and Oogo's Café Italiano for Italian food. Norling Restaurant for momos. Moonspeak Expresso also offered good breakfast. I had also had stuff at Malabar Restaurant(not recommended) and Lhamo’s Croissant.

The first day we reached in the evening. We could only visit the Bhagsunag Temple- it was closed by the time we reached it. But we did not bother to go back there. We had planned to trek(for the first time) to Triund the next morning, so we bought some chocolates, Red Bulls and Brownies for our trek. Triund is a small location about 2842m above sea level. The trek was about 9kms in distance. The next day morning we started off for Triund at around 9:30am and each of us had either a backpack or a heavy rucksack carrying out stuff. The terrain was pretty harsh and the climb was quite tough. I did well in spite of my heavy weight and heavy rucksack but the steep climb in the last 300 odd meters drained me of all my stamina and energy. We managed to reach Triund by about 3:30pm. It took us a lot of time to cover the distance but the view was worth it. We could see snow capped peaks all round us. There were patches of snow at Triund and it was freezing cold. Triund has a HP Forest Dept guest house. We took a room there. The only problem was that there is no electricity, water supply or even mobile signals. There are one/two small Tea stalls. They sell food stuff like some bottled water, tea, coffee, bread, eggs, maggie dal-rice and some other bare essentials. We slept under numerous layers of blankets at the wooden rooms provided to us at the guest house. At about 4am we were woken up by some snowfall - it was an excellent experience. Attending to the nature's call was probably most memorable. Find yourself a rock and sit behind it in the open. Watch the snowcapped mountains, and enjoy the snowfall (if you are as lucky as me). We descended the next morning and covered the remaining places at McLeod Ganj.

The trek was an ultimate experience and I hope to have some similar trips in the future as well. I leave u with a few selected snaps from the trek:

New milestones...

2009-02-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

In the later half the year 2004, I had gone to Chennai for the National Round of a Programming Contest. Rungta and I had left our lodge on the first night for dinner and we went to a mall. Both Rungta and I were thrilled to see a Bose Store there and we checked out their headphones. Rungta tried out a few tracks off his 3rd Generation iPod and then I tried out the Animal Song - Savage Garden on the headphones. The sound on those headphones had left me enchanted. Those headphones had immediately become my fascination. Since then I had visited Bose Stores a couple of times. Their demos impressed me every single time. Its only recently that I thought of realizing my long time wish of owning a Bose product. About a week back I bought myself a Bose On-Ear Headphone. Just as expected, the sound of these headphones blew my mind.

Also very recently I have achieved another milestone in the department of eating. A couple of days ago I participated in an IPR workshop. I had pre-decided to fill out my tummy at the free buffet lunch (something we as hostelers have always missed). Unfortunately the food was too ordinary and so I did not feel like having enough of it. At the end of the lunch there was ice cream for desert. I decided to prey on that. After about 3 servings every time I went for more the attendant would get annoyed. I went for the 8th serving and stood shamelessly in front of the ice cream counter. This time the attendant absolutely revolted. He joined his hands and expressed his inability to serve any more to me!! Everyone just gazed at both of us. Oh boy, that was an experience to remember. I forgave the ice cream and moved back to the workshop sessions. I guess this experience beat my previous best, when I (along with two others) had emptied the entire container of Chicken at Nirula's Chandigarh buffet and made them cook more. Even after such experiences I remain as shameless and hungry as ever!!

Day before yesterday we achieved another feat in hooliganism. This time we were fueled by Baskin Robbins owner. One of my hostel mates - Arvind had his birthday yesterday. After a gala dinner we went to the Baskin Robbins outlet at Sec 17 Chd at around 11:30 in the night. We cut a cake outside the ice cream parlor and then went into the parlor (at about midnight) to have an ice cream each. The owner of this ice cream parlor is a very warm gentleman and has earlier given us little tokens like keychains etc. This time after we had our ice creams, he greeted the birthday boy and handed out whistles to about 15 of us. And oh-my-god. It was a moment to remember. All of us gushed outside the small parlor and blew the whistles with our full might. We continued to blow the whistles all the way back to the campus. When we entered the campus, we took a longer route back to our hostel touching the Girls Hostel and almost touching our Director's residence. It was one hell of a ride back to the hostel. We were lucky enough not to be caught up in another face-off with the police.

Finally there is some good news for our college labs. My college has for the first time bought two 2.66 Ghz 20 inch iMacs. Yeah its very close to the time when I am going to pass our, but never late than never.

I am going for another trip tomorrow. Will sure make some content for a new blog post.

Not given up yet

2009-02-06T22:27:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know I am not posting much... but look at the good side: I have not given up yet.

I will breeze through the last 4-5 months. Some of the memorable things I did was that I watched the India vs Australia cricket test match at PCA stadium, Mohali in Oct 2008. I know its not a big deal, but its the first time I had witnessed any International Sports game. I must say, it looks a lot different that it looks on TV. I must say that I had expected much bigger ground size. The spirit at the stadium is great, and I got to witness about 8-9 records, one of them being Sachin being the highest Run scorer in Test Cricket and then go onto reach 12000 Test Runs. And as usual I cannot stay away from Punjab Police. I got into a tiff with them again at the stadium when I jumped the stands onto the next higher stand. But again, I got away. India wont the match, and it was really satisfying.

Later in the year I got myself a new phone Nokia 5310 Xpressmusic. It is a nice sleek phone, which is what I was looking for. I like everything about the phone except that its loud speaker volume is a bit low, and so the Alarm has always failed to wake me up. But the good thing is that it allows standard 3.5 mm jack headphones, and so I can connect my normal headphones/ speakers with it.

I spent the last two weeks of 2008 in Kolkata. It was wonderful to be back there after more than 3 years. My mission there was to roam about and eat good food. I made sure I stuck to it, and it ended up being one of the best Kolkata trips I had this far. I went to Kolkata on a SpiceJet flight and returned on Indigo. I must say that if you ever have the choice between the two low cost airlines, choose Spicejet. They have lots if stuff in the seat pocket including a magazine. They give bottled water for free and the food costs a lot lesser than Indigo (in case you're hungry on board).

This year I am in my last semester. I wish to enjoy most of it. Less work, more fun. Thats what I want. I started off with a Trip to Punjab in the last week of Jan. Three of my friends and I planned this trip. Just as a warning I would mention that- DO NOT ASK ANY PUNJABI ABOUT WHERE AND WHAT TO VISIT IN PUNJAB. Specially if that guy lives in Punjab. Everyone I asked just has one thing as the answer. GOLDEN TEMPLE. Where to go? GOLDEN TEMPLE. What to see? GOLDEN TEMPLE. Any other place? Yes, GOLDEN TEMPLE. I agree, Golden Temple is very good, but trust me, there is a lot more in Punjab than just Golden Temple. So dont trust them, its just that they dont know about any other place. We eventually touched upon Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Beas, Amritsar and Wagah Border. The best part of the trip was the retreat ceremony at Wagah Border. We went there on 26th Jan, Republic Day. The retreat ceremony was preceeded by a cultural show by students of different school. The Stands in India was overflowing and there were very few people in Pakistan. And the atmosphere was electrifying and spirit of the people was really high. It was like a competition between India and Pakistan, which of course we won, simply due to the spirit of the enormous crowd. It was a memorable trip indeed.

Finally very recently I went to witness a Hockey Match between India and Holland taking place in Chandigarh. It was one of the League Matches of Punjab Gold Cup. It is very disturbing to see the sorry state of Hockey. There were only 3-4 sponsors for the entire tournament. No sponsor logo on the Team Shirts. The entry was free, yet the stands were not full. It was really really bad. The match ended in a 2-2 draw, but it was enjoyable.

I guess I have written quite a lot. I will end with a funny snap that I took on the Delhi Chandigarh highway sometime back.

Size does matter!!

2008-06-16T09:02:00.001-07:00

For the second time, I guess, I am going to criticize something for being small. I remember saying that iPod Shuffle is too small for comfort. Very easy to lose, it can drom off you pocket while you are taking out your handkerchief and you wouldnt even know. Anyways, but you can live with that owing to the advantages to such a small MP3 player. But here I am going to talk about something different.

I drive to Gurgaon everyday for work. I leave at about 10 mins to 9 and reach my office at about 10-10:15. That is about 20 kms of travel is more than an hour. Now one would say... good enough. That is a nice average speed (20kms/hr) is a city like Delhi. But unfortunately, this speed is far from acceptable. Why? Because the most of the distance of this 20 kms are travelled on an expressway. Yes, the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. It has opened about 6 months ago, about 4 lanes each side. Boasts of the largest toll booth in India. And, in reality, during peak office hours, you have to travel bumper to bumper, most of it, if not all. I still remember, when they were making this expressway, they projected a maximum stoppage time of about 20-30 seconds, and in reality, during peak hours, you need to stop for about 10-15 minutes. Now thats where foreseeing the future comes in. India SUCKs at that. First, they are unable to judge how much time they themselves need to complete a project, and by the time they complete it, its too late for all the initial predictions. I still remember, I guess last year there was a proposal to build a new Airport at Noida which would serve as a satellite Airport for Delhi. The inital project proposal that was presented would be completed by 2014 and the predictions are that it would run out of capacity by 2019.

"Short-sightedness" is what our country suffers from, and this bring me to the Tatas. Nano is truely a wonderful and a very ambitious project by the Tatas... But what happens when it actually comes to road by end of next year. Every day about 1000 cars are added to the roads of Delhi, and Delhi cant take any more. At the same time it would also increase the fuel demands. If a car is sold as opposed to a bike, the fuel consumption is atleast doubled. The latest fuel price hike and the associated agitations certainly highlight how important even this issue is. So have the Tatas thought about the catastrophe that this project might lead to??

Since the end of 3rd year...

2008-05-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well I have had two weeks of my holidays now. And there had been nothing new. Just the same old fact that I have gained a lot of weight and I am continuing to do so. Now unlike the previous holidays I have been quite busy this time. The main reason for that is my internship. Unlike last year, when I used to work at a Sarkari Company, this time I am doing my internship at Oracle, Gurgaon. Everything is good about this training, except for the fact that I have never had a "disciplined timetable" before. I have to go to the office Monday-Friday and do my stuff from the morning till the evening. Now that calls for a very fixed timetable. So every morning I have to wake up around 7...aaarhh!! And obviously, it also means that you cant stay awake late at night. The other bad thing is the drive from Dwarka till Gurgaon. I obviously travel during the peak office hours. Which means millions of cars on road. And which also means that your left hand and your left foot gets sore by the time you complete your journey. Its a 1-2.. 1-2 affair (gears, I am talking about) at many stretches. Recently the NH-8 from Delhi to Gurgoan has been revamped into an Expressway. So that is the only stretch where you can drive "normally". But again, as soon as you cross the Toll Booth, its back to square one. Like it takes about 30 mins to travel about the 3 remaining kilometers. And I blame DLF for that. They have just opened up offices, without ever considering the "other demands". Like for example, there is no good place to park your car, unless you are one of the employees of companies. There are some people who have opened up private parking lots (which by the way is simply a piece of muddy land) and they charge about 60 bucks for a day. On top of that, DLF is still constructing at many places, which adds to the problems of the commuters. So, at the end of the day, you will hate to travel in this stretch, even on foot. Now, this entire complex DLF Cyber City and DLF Cyber Greens host many of the top companies of the world. To name a few Oracle, Google, Microsoft, Sapient, Accenture, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Nokia etc etc. So you have a huge number of well-paid employees going there, and so the traffic situation worsens.

Anyways, its better to stay within the building than to stay in the chaos. Offices are extremely beautiful and chilled out. Every care is taken that the employees are comfortable at work. Unfortunately, there is something wrong about the place where I am working. Like who wants to stay inside the office, when on the same floor (right outside your office entrance) you have outlets of Barista, Dominos, Subway, a Chinese Restaurant and a Bar. Its really ironic that I am usually inside the office due to lack of dough. But I don't know what keeps others inside.

There is something more that is killing me. The News Channels in India, have totally lost it. I am not a TV addict. I don't watch television regularly and so most of the time I flip around the News Channels, or the sports channels. But this time the News Channels are giving me a shocking experience. They have nothing to show except 3 things... Like when you turn on a News Channel (absolutely any news channel) the chances are 95% that you will find them showing one of the following things:
1. Aarushi Murder Case
2. IPL
3. Showing glimpses of the 100s of different comedy show/reality shows running on the other channels
I swear to god, they don't have any news to show. A few weeks ago I was trying to recall how the TV has changed during my lifetime. Like earlier we only had Doordarshan. All night and during we would have those colorful vertical strips and a continuous sound. And then at about 2 (I guess) it will start with a countdown and the News Bulletin. There were separate News shows for the deaf audience as well. Then some time later came the News Show AAJ TAK anchored by, I guess, Deepak Chaurasia. Now that guy really made News important to your life. There used to be so many important news items that this short TV show would cover. It ended with a "Yeh thi khabrein Aajtak, Intezaar kijiye kal tak", and people would really wait kaltak for the next day's news. Now slowly, TV has become 24 hours. We have 24 hours news channels, and all of them doing an equally bad job, sadly it even includes Aaj Tak channel. Now the TV channels have decided to shift its focus from news and move towards entertainment. Hiring comedians, getting into collaboration with existing entertainment channels and showing their footage. You really got to question, Where is the News?? Isn't it stupid to cover a single murder case 24-hours in a day, and making it so hyped that it turns into a political game for the Political Parties. And I am sure that hundreds of murders are taking place everyday. And many of the murder cases are equally brutal and lacks evidences, why go after one like you have nothing else to do?? And then you have "utterly idiot news correspondents" questioning the members of the victims family and the investigating officers "Janta Jawab Maang Rahi Hai??" WTF?? I guess the number of people who are really affected by the verdict is going to constitute of a few people, maybe atmost 100 (including door ke rishtedaar). And finally, I found the news channels go to the extent of inviting sms wishes for the victim. Holy Shit, you are trying to turn it into a profit making business now. I really imaging how things will change in the years to come. No wonder we have so many comedians making fun of the news channels now... here are some of the recent ones that I had seen:

Anyways there isn't much more to say, just hope that things improve...

Finally, before I end, I'll like to give a good review of the latest hard disk I bought. A Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB

I must say, the design is quite sleek, and the hard disk is speedy. Recommended if you wish to go for a portable external. CNET has given it a 7.6 rating.

Ciao.

"Reservation"

2008-04-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

I returned to Chandigarh yesterday and for the first time is a long time I took a Bus ride from the station to my university. There are few things really distinct about the Chadigarh Transport Unit (CTU) bus service. Recently, about a year or so back they had made a change in their system and they charge Rs 5 for one ride on one bus. Thus, it doesnt matter if you have to travel one stop or maybe several kilometers, you pay the same. Also they have introduced a "Grid System" whereby if you have to travel from one point to another in the CTU bus network, you have to make a maximum of one change of route. So the minimum you spend is Rs 5 and the maximum Rs 10 for travelling from any one point to another. Now these things combined gives you a very odd experience. The bus I boarded to reach my university actually went outside the city first, halted there for some time and they came back into the city taking a very peculiar and a long path to reach my university.

Anyways I spotted something really funny:

(Click on the photo to enlarge and read the seat reservation categories)

All this while I used to travel in Delhi, I used to find such a hue and cry about one side of the seats reserved for ladies. CTU has gone one step further. Considering the other half of the bus also has quite a few seats marked for handicapped and ladies the question is where does the general public sit?? Is there any way to prove if a guy is a freedom fighter or not?? I really do not see any reason of encouraging such system considering that in other countries there isn't any such reservation. I hope such system will soon be history.

RDB Fort

2008-04-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

So we finally decided to go for an outing. Many of us had been thinking of going to RDB fort for a long time now. For those of you who are not aware of RDB fort. It is a small old structure, maybe a fort, built near Doraha, Punjab behind Gurudwara Manji Sahib. Quite a few scenes of the movie Rang De Basanti was shot at this location. This place is about 100 odd kilometers from our hostel. On 12th of April all of a sudden we decided to go to this place. I proposed that we leave at night so as to watch the sunrise in the morning at the fort and this plan was unanimously accepted. This is how spontaneously we make all our plans. I guess you remember how we all went out at night last time- My back is all right now :). On Sunday few of my friends had MBA coaching classes, and therefore we could not leave that night. But we made it on Sunday night (in spite of the fact that we all had final practical examinations on Tuesday). 11 of us left at 2 AM on Monday, ie 21st April in one car and three bikes. The drive was really fun. Open roads, hardly any vehicles and the weather was chilly. I could see the pillion riders curl themselves up due to cold. It took us about 2.5 hours to reach Gurudwara Manji Sahib where we had our breakfast till about 5:15 am. The fort was just behind this Gurudwara. We went there just as we saw the skyline brighting up. This structure seemed to be quite old and is surrounded by wheat farms. Even inside the fort farming takes place. Since this place is not maintained at all, the walls and the steps are all broken. Being a fat man I had a hard time climbing the broken steps, but it was fun nonetheless. Soon after the sun rose and the view was awesome. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me at that point of time, I really wanted to shoot a few images before the sun turned fully bright. It was indeed bad luck. The scenery around the fort was really pleasant and surrounding was really calm and serene in the wee hours of morning. We had some fun for about 2 hours and clicked a loads of photos before we turned back. We returned back to hostel well in time to have breakfast. It was of course followed by a long days sleep. It was only late in the evening that we started preparing for our practical examination which was to take place the following day.

I have uploaded all the pictures taken by my camera at this link.

NTU vs PU (not really...)

2008-04-04T22:49:00.001-07:00

In 2004 I took a picture of a bike standing outside one of the hostels in NTU, Singapore.

And a few days ago I took this picture outside my hostel.

This bike has been standing outside my hostel ever since I got admitted. In a place where Bullets and Open Jeeps are a passion and they rule the roads, it is odd that someone has decided to detach himself with this.

Midnight Adventure

2008-03-31T01:43:00.000-07:00

I didn't blog for a long time... Maybe I was waiting for this Day.

On 27th March all the hostels in Panjab University celebrated Hostel Annual Day. A Hostel Annual Day celebration has three highlights. Fun filled annual day function, buffet dinner and a DJ. On the down side, the cultural show mainly consists of Punjabi songs and Boliyas. Most of it I don't understand, and therefore, I don't appreciate. And to continue the down side, the buffet is way different than what you can imagine. And finally the DJ brings along with him a collection of "yuk" Punjabi Songs and 3rd class speakers. But interestingly in spite of all the down sides we look forward to it, and amazingly we end up enjoying a lot.

So here is how the show proceeds... The stage is set up. All the audience (mainly the hostel residents) reach by 7 in the evening. The cultural show begins. There are people who sing, people who dance and even some fun games are played during the entire show. This time there was a competition on paper dance. I hope you realize that we are in a "Boys Hostel". A normal person might find an all boys paper dance to be an "homosexual" act, but after spending 3 years in hostel we found it pretty "normal"... lol!! It only requires a hint, a small clue that one or two person is moving towards the dining hall for dinner and everyone the rushes for food. Now here is the buffet part. When you reach the hall you will find that the food is not served yet. But you don't wait. The plates and salad is there. So you rush and make sure you have a spoon and a plate in your hand. Cause if you cant manage a plate then, you might end up not geting your hands on one till the end of the dinner. Then you push yourself through the mob to reach the table where food will arrive. You need to somehow manage to hold on to your position in that hustle. As soon as food comes, its show time!! You cant wait for the serving spoons to come. Use your own spoon to stuff your plate with the food. At the same time you need to be extra careful that no one drops some food on you, although that is inevitable. The final task is to balance your plate and come out of the mob... victorious. All this while there might be a corner where you can easily go and get your food, but there is no fun in that!! At the end of it there is ice cream. The biggest problem is that by the time you reach the counter that serves ice cream, there are no plates left. Any how, you do manage that. So after the meal its time for some dance. The DJ is playing in full & "PHATI" volume. But the rules in Chandigarh says that No Loud Music after 10 so at 10 the police shuts down the DJ. Till this point you enjoy the official Hostel Annual Day.

Hostelers enjoying the Paper Dance

Gala Buffet!! :P

Enjoying the DJ

This time we were not satisfied with the Celebrations. We wanted some more music and some more fun. So we decided to go to Cambwala Pul. Now cambwala is the place remotely located and the north-most part of Chandigarh in the green area next to Sukhna Lake. Thats were you need to go to drink during off hours. Although the "Daroo ke Theke" are officially closed, the business still goes on. After purchasing your dose of booze, you enjoy it at a small over-bridge further away from the city almost where Punjab starts. That area is totally dark with farms all around that narrow road and the bridge. Now I dont know why people enjoy drinking there, maybe because I dont drink. But I know that people like to piss off that bridge and no one disturbs them there. Now we reached there at about 11-11:30 pm to continue our celebrations. There were 12 of us. 2 cars and one bike. I was the pillion rider. One of us bought a very light dose of drink consisting of 3-4 cans of beer and a breezer. Many of us, including myself, dont drink. We were just there to enjoy ourselves. I also carried my iPod to play our favorite music. The celebrations continued with loud music and few cans of beer and we all danced like mad men. After about 5-6 songs ie about half an hour we saw few torches in the farm and a few men walking towards us, shouting abuses. Our sixth sense told us that they were policemen and we decided to RUN!!! They were about 200 metres away, moving swiftly in the dark. Everyone ran towards the cars but I realized that Dhananjay(aka Dhanno - the bike owner) would be left alone. So I decided to be with him. I quickly went upto Dhanno and asked him to take out the keys. He fiddled in his pocket, got the keys and sat on the bike. Now the bike was standing on the main stand and he managed to get it off the stand in his third attempt. I jumped onto the bike and he started the bike (self-start). He was just about to accelerate when one of the policeman had managed to come close and give a blow of his lathi("sottah") on my back. As Dhanno accelerated and switched the gears he skipped the second gear to third gear by mistake. Obviously it got difficult to accelerate. One of them was running just behind me on my left ready to pounce onto me. I was pleading Dhanno to get the gear down to second and he did that just in the nick of time. And we managed to sprint away from them. We didn't look back for the next 10-15 secs as we paced at a very high speed. Unfortunately our bike and the two cars were parked along opposite direction. Thus we ended up running in two opposite direction and got separated in the process. We were further away from Chandigarh and they came back into the city. We stopped at an isolated area to cool down and think for a while. It was really tough to control the adrenaline rush. Although I knew another way to get into the city, but our helmets were left in the car and most likely we would be caught without helmet once we enter the city. Furthermore most of the times our mobile was out of coverage. We waited for sometime and then decided to go back the same way and meet our friends but I was a bit skeptical that the policemen were still there on that bridge. We noticed a car going that way and we followed it at a distance. As soon as the car reached the brige 4-5 torches illuminated on the bridge and we realized that they were waiting for us. We quickly turned back. We could hear them shout as they saw our light turn around. Again we raced away and this time went further and inside a village. We parked near a few buffalos and in the process, woke up a few residents. I quickly alighted and went in search of mobile coverage. Finally I managed to get my phone working and we decided to meet near Chandigarh IT Park where they can hand over the helmets before we enter the city again. Meanwhile Dhanno was talking to the chowkidar of the village. Then we started for the other way back. I had a little trouble in recognizing the way in the dark, but I did manage to take us to the IT Park where the two cars were already waiting for us. Ah.. rescue at last. My friends checked out my injury and gasped when they looked at it. Finally, before we returned to hostel, we spent sometime at PGI 24 hour canteen.

Dancing, unaware of the future

Uff!!

I had two things before I went to bed that night. An injury that would last a week, and an experience that would last a lifetime!! :)

Minus!!

2008-01-30T22:01:00.000-08:00

I have got my first sessional examinations from 4th Feb. Already I am busy with lots of other things. On top of that the weather is freezing me. Have a look at this:

Yes. This is what you'll find in my Hostel every morning.

And to day I was shocked to see the forecast...

Who the F**k said that Global Warming is bad??

Busy Schedule, no time to spare

2008-01-27T06:01:00.001-08:00

One thing one should not do is lead more than one club/committee in college. That is what I have learned in the past month. I have been a member of Technical Committee for more than two years now, and now I am also the Convenor of the Committee. At the sametime, I am also the Sun Campus Ambassador and am heading the Sun Club and the User Group in my college. These two responsibilities is really demanding a lot from me. Everyday I reach college at about 9 amd return at about 7-8 in the evening. And after about 2 years of being in this college, now I am thinking of buying a bicycle of myself. On top of that, the sarkari administration in my college/university has really made my jobs even tougher. You apply for a permission, firstly you go to the faculty in-charge. Most of the time he would not be there in his room. So you have to time yourself according to him. Once you get his signature, you have to get it countersigned by the Director. Most of the time, our Director is busy in a meeting, so his PA would just shoo you away. Then after much efforts, you manage to get is signature, and then you have to run around to catch hold of Lab Assistants or Staff members who are responsible for the different things like labs/projectors/sound system. Issue the stuff from them and also, in case you are printing question papers, you have to issue a slip from the college office and give it to the photostat shop. And this is just an overview of the no of efforts that convenor/the leader has to make, the actual experience is even worse. God.... Help Me... I take back all the critisism that I had made for the previous convenors of the Technical Committee... Things are really bad here.

And haan... We are about the receive a SunSPOT kit from Sun Microsystems. Can't wait to get my hands on that.

Video: Shimla Kufri Trip

2008-01-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

I made a short video of the trip that I went for with my college mates.

Leopard got some ticks

2008-01-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

Hey I am getting a little bugged with leopard. Its all coming out of very high expectation... standards that Mac has set for itself. Of course there are some common ones that you can live with, like when you drag any file from finder and then do to the screen corner to show desktop and move your mouse on the desktop, the icon that ur mouse was dragging along simply disappears, although you are actually still dragging the object.

Now yesterday I was deleting a folder from my external hard disk. It would go into the Trash, but the thrash would not empty because there are some locked files in the subfolders. It told me it hold onto the option key while emptying the thrash, but even then it would not empty the thrash. It will copy the folder to the local hard disk, and then from here you can delete and hold on to the option key while issuing the empty thrash command, it works. But if would not move the folder to the local hard disk, saying that you do not have privileges. I have never heard of a privilege problem in a FAT formatted disk. Anyways I open up the terminal to try rm -rf, but it wont work. Karan suggested me to do sudo rm -rf, it still gives some privileges error. Futhermore I eject and reconnect the hard-disk and also do a reboot. But the folder just remains there. Finally the last solution, start Windows in VM and delete the folder, and boom, its gone.

The again some time later, I realized that my computer started to freeze instantaneously. Everything started to slow down. The fans became too loud. On checking the iStat Pro I found this:

Two processes: mount_hfs and syslogd were really sucking the juice out of my processor whose temperature had risen to 82˚C. I dont know why, what initiated it, when did it start. It just started happening and I was a little late in realizing the problem. The processes could not be killed from the Activity Monitor as they were root processes, so I tried to restart the computer. The computer froze permanently half way to shut down. So I had to like warm boot it, kept the power button pressed.

No doubt Leopard has been a bit buggy, it has just been about two months since its release, and I hope to see 10.5.2 soon.
Finally to end on a good note, I tried out DTrace on Leopard. Its a great feature. Currently Leopard has a lot fewer probes than Solaris which I am sure will increase.

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all. Another wonderful year ends, one of the memorable ones in my life. Hopefully things would be even better in this new Year.

Not everything was great today. I went to this shop "Kitchen Affairs" in the evening cause my mother wanted some specific spices. While she was searching for the spices, the billing counter caught my attention. Two brand new iMacs. Wow I said. It was only yesterday, I was at The Deck, India Habitat Center to have lunch with Karan, Maanick and Nisheeth. Even there the payment counter had caught my attention. They were using an ancient PC running a DOS based billing software. My reaction was: Pathetic!! I commented to Maanick that the least they should be using is a GUI with a decent interface. Nevertheless I was so glad that at least this shop owner (or maybe the cashier) has "some taste". But since I had never seen a cash counter using Mac before, I had never seen a Mac Billing Software in the real life (movies, yes I might have seen a few times). So I moved my enormous body slowly towards the iMacs and when I looked at what was running on that I was terrified. They were running windows, and inside windows, a similar DOS application maximized (not fullscreen, so you can see the Start bar). Outrageous!! Fuck that taste!! Why on earth would someone do this. I am sure there are many LCDs that would look cooler at a lot lesser price and would give the same performance. India definitely lacks sanity in this regard and such extreme examples (of The Deck and Kitchen Affairs) definitely prove this statement right. And I also feel there are there are many more extremes that are left to be seen.

But every cloud has a silver lining and I was able to shoot one this New Year eve:

Once again wishing you all a great New Year.

To the newer cat

2007-12-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

Belated Christmas greetings. Unfortunately I could not post an entry yesterday, not that I was too busy celebrating christmas, but my laptop had to be pressed into an unavoidable service, namely, showing my mom a movie. Anyhow so I will complete my yesterday's duty today.

So what has kept me occupied last two days. Of course I am doing some Solaris and Java learning. But apart from that, I am also doing a Leopard learning. Yes, finally I have upgraded my system to Leopard, and definitely I have started liking my new OS. So how did it all began?

While I was at Chandigarh, a day before I left for Delhi, I decided to free my hard disk space, cause I new that I needed so free space to upgrade my OS. Usually I only have free space of about 1-2 GB, and definitely it is far from adequate for an upgrade. So I decided to transfer some of my things to a DVD and in the process I spoilt 2 DVDs. Toast would only write the DVD for about 2 seconds after the lead in and then it would generate a hexadecimal hardware error. It was late so I decided to return to Delhi and then try to diagnose the problem patiently. Back in Delhi I tried to write the same DVD again, but this time a DVD+RW. This time Toast would write the lead in and immediately following it, it would write the lead out. No error. But the error was generated when I tried to erase it. I finally confirmed that something was definitely wrong with my SuperDrive. So when I was going to meet Karan, Maanick, Mukesh Sir and Nisheeth (who apparently forgot that we were to meet, and got left out in the process), I carried my laptop along to Anything Mac at Yusuf Sarai (Near Karan's place). For those of you who have read my criticism of the AppleCare Center at Chandigarh forget about all that. AnyMac has definitely beaten the the Chandigarh one by miles. I remember this summer, when I had got my laptop, Maanick and I tried to locate AnyMac for a laptop bag. Boy, we nearly sieved through the Yusuf Sarai market and Village for an address 2F 40 Yusuf Sarai. Some people sent us to Yusuf Sarai market, some to the village. There are two 40 Yusuf Sarais at Yusuf Sarai and we reached both the places but could not find AnyMac. To top that Maanick is someone who has already been to the place once, and even he could do anything but give up. This time I carefully checked out the Map they have on their website. On reaching the 40 Yusuf Sarai Village, I had to ask two more person to find a small staircase behind the building (sort of a back door entry) and then climb to 2nd Floor to find a dark glass door with a tiny Apple Sticker on that. Ah.. Finally. I realized that the reason that Maanick and I could not find it was because our eyes were searching for an Apple Logo, or Apple Poster or something, some board that would either say Apple or Mac or Anything Mac. None of these things actually exist. Anyway once you go though that door, you fill find everything Mac inside it. At least the receptionist is using an iMac G4 and not an ancient windows computer as they do in Chandigarh. So after proper diagnosis they declared that my SuperDrive will be replaced and so they ordered the SuperDrive from Bangalore and took my contact no so that they can contact me when the replacement would arrive. Now since I had a bad SuperDrive I met everyone and did not upgrade to Leopard that day.

On 24th they gave me a call. My replacement had arrived, and I was hoping that the drive would be region free. I am really pissed carrying an RPC2 Drive. So I got it replaced and then went to Karan and tested my drive with an original Hindi Movie DVD - Corporate. Vlc played it!! I was happy but somewhere in my mind I was not really convinced that Hindi movie DVDs have a proper region check. Then I upgraded to Leopard.:)

Back home the first thing I did was Check with my Gladiator DVD. And sigh!! Vlc failed to read it... My hopes were shattered. I searched over the internet if there was a firmware hack for my new SuperDrive. My last Superdrive which was a Hitachi-LG (HL) GWA4080MA did not have a firmware hack for the AE39 firmware revision. My current drive a Matsushita UJ-857D has a firmware hack for the firmware revision KCVB. I quickly downloaded all the required files. But later on reading the forums I realized that the Patcher wont work on Leopard... Shit Man!! I just upgraded to Leopard!! Maybe I'll wait for a patcher that would work with Leopard, or maybe I'll use Tiger temporarily to apply the patch. I don't know.

But some consolation... I am using a superior OS now. So what are the features I love... Firstly QuickLook. Boy, isn't it useful... Works with most files. And interestingly, video files that are currently being downloaded, you dont have to wait for the download to end for it to be played on a player. Just QuickLook it and it would play even the broken file. The next would be Spotlight. Its quick and its better. Interestingly the Help menu of every application also have a Spotlight. And while you are typing your search it would also yield result if there is a menu matching with the keyword. And it woould also show the menu like this:

I really like this feature. So from now on you dont have to search through the various Menus and Submenus to find an option eg it often happens with Photoshop. It has loads of menus and submenus and at times its really difficult to find a menu option if you are not a regular user. Next good thing is Spaces. Finally Mac has workspaces and they are lovely. Also you can assign an application to open in a particular space. Time Machine is also good, but since I don't have a large hard disk for backup, I can't take full use of that. Coverflow in finder is just another feature, its good but not a feature that I'd die for.

Leopard has also brought with itself certain bad points. Firstly the directory Icons. The Dock is also not that good. If only the "orbs" change to something more contrasting I'd be satisfied. Of course I know the List View is coming in 10.5.2, and also that I have Drawers Icons that helps me differentiate the stacks in the Dock (Not neat, but effective). Also for some reason when the Spotlight dropdown is open and we use Exposé for seeing the desktop, the Spotlight drop-down disappears. I am not yet comfortable with that, but surely will get used to it. FrontRow interface is not as cool as the last one. Mostly the opening and closing. This new one fades through black. The older one was awesome in that respect. Also no live video in the dock icons when a player is minimized. :( Not a feature that would be missed but definitely it was cool.

Chalo I'll get back to some real work....

SDG-Express

2007-12-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, thats what I have named my new Airport Express Base Station (Thanks to Skar). Didn't bother to think much to name it.

It is up and running and finally my home is unwired.

Shimla-Kufri

2007-12-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

A short one day trip to Shimla-Kufri with few of my classmates followed soon after the last exam. I am a little late at sharing this. As soon as we heard that there was an early snowfall in Himachal, we planned this trip in a hurry. Overall it was a fantastic one. I had seen snow for the first time, and I was lucky enough to also experience snowfall. Furthermore I also shelled out some money to try out skiing. A summary of the entire trip... 11 of us started off at 6 in the morning from university. The weather was not very good at around 4-5am, there was heavy thunder and rainfall. But it also meant that we might see some snow in the mountains (which is exactly why we had planned this trip). We had hired two cars - one Tavera and one Indica. After reaching Shimla at about 9:30-10, we had some breakfast. It was chilly. Then we went to the Himachal Pradesh University. From there we went to the Mall Road and to the Ridge. After spending about two hours there we left for Kufri. Kufri was full of snow. Spent about an hour playing with snow.. no one was spared!! Then we hired mules to go to the top where we did some skiing and visited a temple (I dont understand... why is there a temple at the highest points of every place I go?? It was same for Kasauli, This place, even the highest peak at Shimla has a Jhakhoo Temple). While returning to our cars, there was a snowfall. We had to turn back then, cause it was getting late. It was dark already. It wasn't till quarter to nine in the evening (on our way back) that we had our second meal.

The pictures I took can be found here.

I leave you with few of them:

And now I am back home. A much needed break till the first week of Jan.

Sunny Affairs

2007-12-07T07:39:00.001-08:00

I am back from my second last exam of this semester (ie if I dont flunk in any of those that I have given till now). The next exam is on 11th, Tuesday and its a biggie. I just hope I am am able to survive three days of preparation and three hours of the examination cause I find this subject to be really tough. Actually that is mostly because I have not been paying attention in the class. Nevertheless I will have to face the music on Tuesday.

Anyways I just wanted to inform you people that I have created a new Blog for the Sun Activities and updates. So everything will now go into the blog at blogs.sun.com which I have named Sunny Affairs. Hopefully you'll be visiting that blog too.

End of semester syndrome...

2007-12-05T22:03:00.001-08:00

One thing that happened last week was that we had a trip to the Infosys Chandigarh Campus. Infosys Chandigarh is located at the Rajiv Gandhi IT Park. Chandigarh IT Park is developing at a blazing pace. Most of the buildings have a modern architechtural design, mostly glass exteriors (Gurgaon types) and are being built by the big developers like Parvsnath and DLF. The only issue being that they have to grow the buildings horizontally rather than vertically as buildings in Chandigarh are restricted to three stories. We all had a good view of what all facilities are being provided by the company to its employees. No doubt the infrastucture was very good. Most of the IT companies have started providing recreational facilities to their employees. Obviously Infosys wanted the students to know more about the company cause it would be coming to our college for placements. So at the end of the "tour" there was a short briefing by two or three Infosys executives. And finally a brief quiz on Infosys, where I scored the second highest and got a token from them (a nice Pierre Cardin pen).

Also we had a usual Hostel Innaugration ceremony, which is basically a hostel fresher party. Everything was similar as last time and also the fight for food!!! It has to happen everytime even if everyone knows that there is enough food for all of us. This time we were prepared and we took care not to wear clean clothes (We learned from our past mistakes). Land of nerd surds!!

I also spent a lot of time with the softwares the BlackTree develops for Mac. Very cool stuff. I guess every mac user has had a look at their tools, but if you haven't go to http://www.blacktree.com/.

Apart from this just Exams ही Exams. Nothing more nothing less. Just trying to break out of the end of semester sydrome...

And yes if any of you are having problems in choosing between Solaris and Linux or if any of you are among those people who wants to move away fromWindows or Mac to try out other operating systems, have a look at this post.

Unix.. Who cares??

2007-11-22T08:41:00.001-08:00

I remember I had to study the basics of Unix in my 3rd Semester but I had found it utterly boring (in fact anything I study in my course curriculum automatically turns into a boring stuff). Recently I have been introduced to the Solaris Operating System, and obviously it has taken me back to Unix. Sun Microsystems has additionally given some learning resources from where I can get to brush up the Unix OS.

I started my course about two weeks ago, and unfortunately I haven't been very regular because of my ongoing examinations. But definitely my entire approach to Unix and the terminal/command line has changed. Since I am on a Mac I have the benefit of having the best of both the worlds - GUI and a natively running Unix OS command line. So how does the Terminal and the GUI compete against each other?? Here is my opinion:
Let me take a simple example.
Say, on a Mac you have to eject a pen drive. What are the options?? You have a small eject icon next to the device in the finder windows. You can click that and the drive is ejected. But definitely its not preferred. You can also have a eject menu in the menu bar. Naah!! What you like to do is drag the drive into the trash and poof!! The drives unmounted. Now you love doing that, why so? Cause everyone around is impressed by it and also its super cool!! Now on the other hand there is also another way... do it through the Terminal. So you have a simple unix command 'umount -fv /dev/disk1s1' Hey its not working!! Gives an error... So, dig the Internet... scratch you head... Google loads of keywords and finally you come up with 'diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1'. And once you get to that... trust me u'll love using it. Why? Cause its Classy and its Techy. So if you have to choose between Cool and Classy what do you choose? Most probably Cool is the first choice. But just give Classy a shot. Maybe u'll start loving it just like I am. For me, at least for the time being... Classy is in, cool is out!!
Similarly 'hdiutil attach diskimage.dmg' is really a classy way of mounting disk images. Just give it a try.

Atlast...

2007-11-16T12:18:00.001-08:00

I recently did a software update and a newer version of Safari 3 was intalled, and thankfully.... Google Chat inside Gmail is working!!... and as usual I'm loving it!!

A small glimpse of Panjab University

2007-11-14T07:19:00.001-08:00

I have uploaded my first public album taken with my camera

http://picasaweb.google.com/souvikdg/PanjabUniversity

Its just a part of Panjab University, I'll take some more pictures and upload them later.

Bizarre, but a must read.

2007-11-14T06:11:00.001-08:00

खतरो के खिलाड़ियों... ज़हरीले भूखे कुत्तो... अब आ गया है वो दिन... T20 विश्व विजेताअों दिखा दो तुम में अभी भी है वो जोशो-खरोश जो दुश्मन की माँ बहन equalize कर दे... शातिर सूरमाअों, आगे आने वाले युद्ध में विजयी लौटना... जय बाबा बाप्पी नाथ। I am a disco dancer... O yeah!!

My final sessional exams for this semester are just over. This was an SMS that I received from one of my hostel mates during the exams. It is supposed to serve as a "confidence booster"-cum-"all the best" message for the sessional exams. By the way the person who sent this message is a Sardar (no offence) who is a Bappi Lahiri fan. He makes up these messages when he gets fed up of studying during exams and sends them around. He has been doing this for quite some time now and I finally decided to share it on my blog.

Side-effects!!

2007-11-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have nothing much to write... Just have a look at the news paper clips. (Just open up the images in new window to read the articles).

5th Nov 2007

6th Nov 2007

Unfortunately one of the car that fell victim of the assaults belonged to my friend...

7th Nov 2007

And when I finally came back from my Diwali break... some traces still remained

I remember quoting the Elections as adventurous once... its slowing turning into an unpleasant experience.

शुभ दिपावली

2007-11-09T03:50:00.000-08:00

Wishing all of you a very Happy Diwali.

Please solve the bug!! Every time I try to edit an old post.... Its date/time of publishing changes to current time (Inspite of the fact that I manually change the date and time!!).

2007-11-09T03:49:00.000-08:00

Just to notify the few viewers of my blog... check out this newly created blog.
It'll have all the sun-related things that the Sun Club of UIET is involved in.

And ya.. PUSU-INSO won this time. Another election comes to an end... only one more to go for me. :)

ढिश-के-आ-उ

2007-11-09T03:28:00.000-08:00

Did you hear the shot??

If no here it is...

Yes its the first gift that I am gifting myself... of some hard earned money. So no more running after my uncle for digital camera, I own one now. And a nice sleek one.

I wanted to by a decent digicam within a decent budget and surprisingly a Sony Cybershot DSC-W80 fulfilled all my needs (except of course I wanted a better zoom). I usually do a good survey over the Internet to make sure that the product I am about to buy is the best one that I could afford in the market. And the same trend followed with this one. Although I wanted to consult the king of photography before buying this one, I really could not wait for his reply, and I just went for this one. I hope he approves of my decision.

I had considered Canon and Sony (I know Nikon is also a biggie... but really I dont find the name of the company "catchy" enough) and there were a few deserving candidates. But really, the videos on these two pages really made my decision a lot simpler.

Tech Specs...

General

Product Type Digital camera - Point and shoot
Color Silver
Weight 4.4 oz
Width 3.6 in
Depth 2.3 in
Height 0.9 in
Body Material Metal

Main Features

Resolution 7.2 megapixels
Sensor resolution 7.2 megapixels
Optical Sensor Type Super HAD CCD
Effective Sensor Resolution 7,200,000 pixels
Optical Sensor Size 1/2.5 in
Light Sensitivity ISO 100, ISO 200, ISO 400, ISO 800, ISO 1600, ISO 3200
Digital Zoom 2 x
Shooting Modes Frame movie mode
Shooting Programs Snow, Beach, Landscape, Soft snap, Twilight mode, High sensitivity, Twilight portrait
Special effects Sepia, Vivid, Black & White
Max Shutter Speed 1/1600 sec
Min Shutter Speed 1 sec
Exposure Metering Multi-segment
Exposure Modes Program, Automatic
Exposure Compensation ±2 EV range, in 1/3 EV steps
White Balance Presets, Automatic
White Balance Presets Flash, Cloudy, Daylight, Fluorescent, Incandescent
Digital video format MPEG VX
Still Image Format JPEG
Continuous Shooting Speed 2.8 frames per second
Color support Color
Image Stabilizer Optical (Super Steady Shot)
TV Tuner None
Video Capture MPEG - 640 x 480, MPEG - 640 x 480, MPEG - 320 x 240

Memory / Storage

Flash Memory 31 MB Flash - Integrated
Integrated Memory 31 MB
Floppy Drive None
Flash memory 31 MB - Integrated
Supported Flash Memory Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo

Lens System

Type Zoom lens - 5.8 mm - 17.4 mm - F/2.8-5.2
Focal Length 5.8 mm - 17.4 mm
Lens Construction 5 group(s) / 6element(s)
Lens Manufacturer Carl Zeiss

Additional Features

Self Timer Yes
Self Timer Delay 2 sec, 10 sec
Additional Features Direct print, Face detection, Auto power save, Built-in speaker, PictBridge support, USB 2.0 compatibility, Digital noise reduction, In-camera red-eye removal

Camera Flash

Effective Flash Range 8 in - 11 ft
Type Built-in flash
Flash Modes Auto mode, Fill-in mode, Slow synchro, Flash OFF mode
Red Eye Reduction Yes
Effective flash range 8 in - 11 ft
Features AF illuminator

Viewfinder

Viewfinder Type Optical - Real-image zoom
Color support Color

Display

Type LCD display - TFT active matrix - 2.5 in - Color
Mounting Built-in
Resolution 115,000 pixels

Digital Player (Recorder)

Type None

Microphone

Type Microphone - Built-in

Connections

Connector Type 1 x Composite video/audio output, 1 x USB
Expansion Slot(s) 1 x Memory Stick PRO Duo

Lens Systems

Auto Focus TTL contrast detection
Type Zoom lens
Focal length 5.8 mm - 17.4 mm
Focal Length Equivalent to 35mm Camera 35 - 105 mm
Focus adjustment Automatic
Auto Focus Points (Zones) 9
Min Focus Range 19.7 in
Macro Focus Range 4cm
Lens Aperture F/2.8-5.2
Optical Zoom 3 x
Zoom Adjustment Motorized drive
Lens construction 5 : 6
Features Aspherical lens, Built-in lens shield

Miscellaneous

Cables Included 1, 1 x A/V cable, x USB cable
Included Accessories Wrist strap

Power

Power Device Battery charger - External

System Requirements for PC Connection

Operating system MS Windows ME, MS Windows XP, MS Windows 2000, Apple Mac OS 9.1, Apple Mac OS 9.2, Apple Mac OS X 10.0 - 10.4
Peripherals USB port, CD-ROM drive

Battery

Supported Battery 1 xSony NP-BG1 Li-ion rechargeable battery - 960 mAh ( Included)

Manufacturer Warranty

Service & Support 3 year warranty
Service & Support Details Limited warranty - Parts and labor - 3 year
Type 3 year warranty, - Limited warranty - Parts and labor
Full contract period 3 year

Software

Type Drivers & Utilities, Sony Picture Motion Browser

Back View:

Accessories:

Apart from these.. I got a 1Gb Memory Stick Pro and also a leather carrying case.

I haven't used it much but the only 2 bad things that I find about this product is that firstly the charging adaptor is separate and the battery cannot be charged through the camera (through USB). Secondly the USB cable us coupled with AV cable.. so it becomes slightly bulky.

From now on u'll start seeing some photos in my posts.

Edit: Warranty is 3 years, not 1 year.

10..9..8...7....

2007-11-04T11:35:00.001-08:00

Let me clarify one thing... the countdown is not in seconds, or minutes. Its in hours. Now guess what am I talking about... Elections
So polls in the next 10 hours and the results withing an hour or two after the elections.

Although I have covered a lot about the PU polls from kidnappings to midnight raids, I have never shared "this bit". Let me title it "A Day Before D-Day".

It started with a wonderful morning... sunny and chilly. But it really felt different when I woke up. Reason: Open House. So Open House is where all the political parties meet. There are three speakers from each panel (panel in this case is an alliance) come up to speak for 12 mins. What happens in PU elections Open House is something not to be missed cause if you are a sensible voter (like me) you'll find it to be utterly nonsense (and oddly that is the fun of it!!). It is one of the few places where you would find hordes of people screaming at the top of their voices. People will laugh/cheer/clap for every sentence spoken by the panel spokesperson. Actually it doesnt even have to be a sentence, it could be for a simple reason that the person next to you started clapping/cheering. And you will (at times) get to hear nice shayari(full of criticism against the opposite parties) by the political leaders... And this is no campaigning cause the audience is basically divided into two halves. A PUSU half and a SOPU half. So there is hardly anyone who needs any persuasion. In simple words an event not to be missed... just to witness the heights of insanity.

As the night draws nearer, the tension rises. Everyone now starts getting worried about how many votes they'll get. So in the evening all the party workers work at their respective tents ("Remember the safest place in PU: when I was in first year"). And what do they do? Take out list of all the students of PU, and message them/call them. Just to ensure that in the morning they get the maximum votes (And trust me it doesnt work). This effort continues overnight basically making the most out of the last 48 hours before the elections when Campaigning is not allowed.

Finally I realize how it all works. Basically a 1st or 2nd yr student is only expected to go and cast their vote... whereas the parties expect the 3rd/4th year students to make more and more people cast votes for the party.

Its getting late and I must go to sleep now cause tomorrow I have to act like a responsible student of PU. Great burden on my shoulders!! lol!!

पेहली कामयाबी

2007-11-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

So day before- the 30th I had my first event as the Campus Ambassador of Sun Microsystems. Nice start I'd say. Never did I expect so many people to come for the first event. It took me quite some time to make a 100-slide presentation which covered the introduction of What Open Source is and continuing to give a brief description of the Sun Open Source technologies. Well although it was supposed to be only an introduction, I did cover a lot about these things, thanks to help from all the various presentations at the induction program. Furthermore, an introduction to the Code For Freedom contest and specially to the OpenSolaris and NetBeans project. I was shocked to see the crowd, cause we really did not prepare for so many people. Even before the session had commenced the no of students had exceeded the number of chairs (we had made arrangements for about 80, and the turn up was over 100) and they were more than willing to just stand and be a part of the presentation. It was quite an interactive session cause the students were more open to me than they would have been if I were a teacher. What was most impressive is that even at the end of the 2 hour long session there were quite a few bright faces and they wanted to see a small demo on how to make a NetBeans plugin. And its a little difficult when you have only 8 pens as giveaways for such a large crowd. I guess I did a fairly good job by giving them to those who were most involved in the presentations. Anyways a good start, lets see how well my learning curve rises. And I'd like to thank the members of the Sun Club for their help during the event.

Moving to other things... Leopard has been introduced and after reading the Ars Technica review I feel really good for 2 things. Firstly that I know really what to expect from Leopard. Secondly I am feeling really great to be associated with technologies that are being imported into Mac OS X from Sun, namely DTrace and ZFS. You never know, even Zones might be on its way. Definitely there are some great things in OpenSolaris and adoption of some of them into Mac would surely improve the already top of the line product.

And FINALLY Panjab University is having its elections. After series of court cases against the party leaders and the political parties themselves finally matters have resolved and things are really bad here. Things have to conform to the guidelines set by the Lyngdoh Commission as ordered by the supreme court. Finally all those guys who have any standing reappears, or marks below 60 percent or attendance below 75% are not allowed to compete for elections. Uff... basically all those guys/gals who have given their heart and sole for the elections are out of it!! And most of the parties are having difficulties in finding any candidate who satisfies all the clauses of Lyngdoh Commission. I have heard that the parties have annouced in the Girls' Hostels that anyone having attendance above 75% is welcome to be a candidate for the post of Vice President. Basically no bright student is a part of politics and now the parties cannot do without them. This is the third time I am facing PU elections and everytime it brought in a new flavour with itself.

And finally... Its really unfair that M$ still enjoys monopoly over the software market.....

Edit: Some pictures shared... And download the presentation from here

Sun Microsystems

2007-10-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

Finally my second sessional exams are over and I have some time to blog about my recent Sun Induction Training. For those of you who dont know, I have been selected to be the Sun Campus Ambassador for FY08. Basically a Sun CA is a 12 month intern and a temporary employee. So he gets a stipend and also many of the facilities a Sun Microsystems employee enjoys. In return, you have to train yourself and get aquainted to the Sun technologies and also spread awareness among the college students. Anyways, the induction program was basically an introduction of many of the Sun technologies including OpenSolaris, Java, Netbeans etc. Now although my initial feeling was that this program is going to be mainly advertising but the induction program changed my prejudice. What they want is that more people and students should participate in the development process of open source technologies. I have been programming in PHP for a long time now... and I have always believed that open source was the way to go. But never before I thought of contributing back to the community. What Sun has done here is inspired a part of me to contribute back. For this they have a new Contest running: Code For Freedom, whereby you can win prizes by contributing back to the source codes. Obviously they are mainly concerned with the Sun's Open technology, which is pretty strong. Sun here claims to be the largest contributor to the world of Open Source including Linux (interesting!!) Definitely a feat worth an appreciation. So the training was held at Jamia Milia Islamia University, Delhi, basically because they donot have a big office in Delhi. Jamia has a proper Sun Lab with many Thin Clients connected to 1 or 2 servers. It was really nice to meet new people from North and East Universities/Institutes, including 2 school-mates from my batch. Nice three days and lots of knowlegde and experience to carry back to college. And also not to forget, more responsibilities.

And haan, try looking for Zones and ZFS. Really nice Solaris features. DTrace is another thing they promote, but my favourites are the former two.

The same excuse....

2007-10-04T01:21:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds suffering possible if you turn back to your blog after a long time. One of the kind is that you have nothing to write. Im the other kind. And since there is so much to write in there I am utterly confused. Let me brief it up. As usual I have been busy. PHP projects, workshops, taking charge of different committees - old things. The new things that have been keeping me busy are: Great download speeds. Our university has taken a new internet connection which we are getting in our Hostels. Now we enjoy consistent 200-250Kbps download speed. Also with new Wireless routers installed, I enjoy this connection in my bed. While most of my friends spend time finding new tunneling sites, I enjoy the speeds by downloading productivity tools/softwares/operating systems. After being selected as the Campus Ambassador of Sun Microsystems I have found myself downloading loads of SUN-related stuff like Solaris, Netbeans, OpenOffice etc etc. At the same time (thanks to skar) I have also tried the new iLife. Great update I must say. Also the new iWork has been a great release. Numbers, although has a few negatives, kicks the ass out of Excel. Another recent thing that I have tried out in VMware Fusion. Certainly I find it slightly superior than Parallels. First and foremost I have noticed two things, all microsoft sites open in XP installed in Fusion also that the standby mode in enabled(in the shutdown dialog box). The only negative I guess is that the Virtual hard disk cannot be externally accessed and the shut-down time is almost twice that of parallels. I havent found any advantage of using 2 processors, maybe because I have done nothing processor intensive. There are some extra features like send the battery status can be sent to Windows also Unity is a lot better than Coherence, specially because each window is independent of each other. Although I miss the Start bar in Unity. Fusion has also installed Solaris 10 very smoothly. I'll try out Fedora 7 (Which didnot work in Parallels). Anyways I have an induction training by Sun (this weekend) and an online orientation 10 mins from now. I'll write again after the training....

ah!! iPod

2007-07-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

My iPod had been troubling me for a long time... Roughly 4 months. In the month of April my iPod had been showing some odd symptoms. Every time I woke it up, it would reset itself. At times it would show 0 songs and I had to reset it again. At times it just wont play the songs well. Eventually in the last week of April it showed me the Sad Icon!!

Sigh, my iPod was sad...

If you are an owner of an unhealthy Apple product, Chandigarh is the worst place you could be in. Inspite of the fact that the Apple website shows quite a few retailers in Chandigarh, I could locate just one. In due course of time I realized that for all practical purposes, that was the only retail-cum-support. So if you feel that there is a difference in class between the Apple Premium Dealer at Ansal Plaza and the Apple Stores in the US (Rungta has shown me a lot of pics/videos/ 360º VRs) imagine this. 5-6 posters, one G5 iMac, one Macbook, one small shelf in the corner containing iPod accessories and a senior executive (?or maybe owner) who possesses a Powerbook. As a matter of fact they themselves seem to use PCs more than Macs.
Anyways I handed over the poor iPod and they said that they will try to put the iPod software in it which will cost Rs 200 (I guess it is not same as the iPod software we update/restore.) and if it solves the problem then the charges would be Rs 500. I also told them about the battery backup problem (which had reduced considerably) and they offered me the battery exchange program. So for Rs 3950 they would give me a refurbished iPod same model.
I decided to go for the battery exchange cause now it didn't even last an entire trip from Chandigarh to my home. The best thing was that the replacement arrived in two days as opposed to 5 days which they initially committed.
A few weeks later I returned to Delhi and me my new MBP. This time I tried to sync the Pod with the notebook. But repeatedly the syncing would terminate after a few songs. Throughout the holidays I had a miserable time updating my iPod. I had restored it 2-3 times and managed to update it completely only twice. Anyways I was returning to Chandigarh after my holidays when in between my journey the right earbud of my Sony Earphones just stopped working!! Height of bad luck!! It was working as good as new. I pauses the music for say 10 mins and when I played it again... the right bud just refused to respond while the left one played everything smoothly totally ignorant of the fact that its partner was totally unresponsive.
Somehow I covered the rest of the journey without music. And to top that the very next day my replaced iPod showed the Sad icon.... Ah another visit to that miserable shop. Only this time the lady in the shop was surprised to see me return with the same problem on the replaced iPod. And since the head-technician was missing I had to leave my iPod with them... After about an hour they called me back saying that there was a hardware problem and nothing can be done as it is no longer under warranty. This news really brought out the Voldemort in me and I gave that guy a piece of my mind over the telephone. He asked me to return to their office and talk to the lady. I had my lunch and rushed back to the office and as soon as I entered the office the lady was ready with my iPod- this time totally in working condition. Anyways they managed to fix it and not charge me anything. I checked it with my laptop and it worked fine.
Now I was left with one problem... headphones. I was scheduled to return to Delhi the very next weekend and so I decided to hold on before taking any action in hurry. I was hoping that the Sony ones would still be under warranty cover cause it hadn't been an year since Karan had got it for me. The moment I reached home I checked out the warranty terms.. 90 Days..!! Yuk!! 90 days?? Can 90 days even qualify as a valid warranty period?? As good as no warranty.
So today I searched through the internet for good headphones. I was looking for Sony / Sennheiser. I really could not track Sennheiser stores/dealers in Delhi except for a Distributor at Hauz Khas. During my search I also read the Reviews for Bose In-Ear. Most of the Reviews matched my experience when I had tried them during the holidays. Unlike the Headphones there is hardly any noise cancellation. Although the sound is good, but not worth spending 5 grands. I went to the Sony World at Rajouri Garden. Unlike the Sony website which showed around 10 models of earphones, the Sony World only had the 3 worst ones that they had to offer. And NO WARRANTY. I walked right out of it. I am fed up of headphones problems. Since the time I have started using my iPod I have collected 5 pairs of earphones. 3 Sony and 2 Apple. So I need one that is more reliable. After spending some time in the Rajouri Garden Malls I reached Shopper Stop. It has opened very recently and right at the center of the Shopper Stop Ground Floor there is a new Apple iStore. And they had a decent stock of Sennheiser Headphones and Earphones. I finally purchased a Sennheiser MX 550.

Well Day 1 has really satisfied me. The earbuds are a little big with the foam cushion, but not very uncomfortable. Also unlike my Sony it does not have a very good noise cancellation, particularly because it does not have a silicon bud that goes into your canal. But it is better than the Apple earphones. The Sound is great!! I find it better than the Sony. Since the Sony was In-Ear, the sound was pushed into your canals, and at times it is uncomfy. The ear sometimes felt too full of unidirectional sound. But in this pair, the big buds give a much wider sound experience. The Base is good. The sound does not crack/distort at all full volume. The Sony one did not give a good full volume experience, although you would hardly play an in-ear at full volume. This one also has a small volume adjustment control in the cable. Also you get a nice carrying case worth using. The Sony case was utterly useless. And finally the best thing: 2 Years Warranty.

Last few days...

2007-06-30T06:10:00.001-07:00

Inspite of the fact that I have quite an amount of php work, I just can't get back to it. Mac has consumed all my time. Even at this point of I am stuch to my mac and I found this nice and easy blogger widget. I just cant image how easy now it is to post new blog entries. I have found two impressive softwares in the last two days. Remote Buddy that lets you control everything in your laptop using the 6 button Apple Remote and Parallels Desktop that lets you run other operating systems simultaneoulsy in mac. The easy transitions, drag and drop features are just amazing. Infact I found both of them to be unbelievably innovative. Apart from that, as Karan pointed out SuperDuper! is a very nice software to back up ur hdd. I have actually cloned it and now its a complete piece of mind as the cloned hard disk is also bootable and it can be used as a recovery partition. Apart from Mail, Address Book and iCal have now become a part of my life along with the other iLife apps like iTunes and iPhoto.

Enough of that, among the other things we had a small-class reunion (all boys). About 8 of my schoolmate, classmates actually met up at CP. We had a nice time together. It was great to see the old mates. And apart from that its just food and food and a nice healthy round stomach... Not that I want to get rid of it, but I have been swimming during these holidays (not very regularly though) and it feels like heaven when the weather in Delhi is hot and pretty dry. Apart from these regular actvities there is another activity which I generally do not prefer. Its watching TV. And trust me the idiot box is also turning really buggy. Who wants multiple music talent hunt competitions. Man you got to see the हालात of Indian Television. It started with Indian Idol, but now you have so many. One wants the भारात की शान, the other the "Voice of India", then you have सा-रे-गा-मा-पा. oof. Even the Bengali Channels are airing a bengali singing competition... Just too much. And unfortunately I have not seen a single winner of such a conpetition to have become a reputed singer. Anyways I need to go for a swim now, lets see when I get over the Macintosh.

And ah - the iPhone has arrived!! Cheers to the Apple team.

Think Different - think again!!

2007-06-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

Ah computing has been very different since I have started using my mac. Very very different. And I must say aadat bigad rahi hai. It seems I am being spoilt (by nature) and some kind of arrogance has crept in my attitude. I logged into Vista today (installed on my Macbook). Why so? To serve the very purpose of installing Vista (or windows). That is to convert the new Office 2007 XML format into a format that can be understood by Office:Mac 2004. I know I can do that online also, but it is not that I will always have an internet connection. So I booted into Vista for the very second time with some purpose. And boy! did I not face some problem. That first habit that I have aquired is to move my mouse at the bottom right corner to have a look at all the windows that are open (and similarly the other corners as well). And I must have gone crazy. I repeated the same action a number of times. At times it got me worried 'Why isnt it working?' And then I would realize. Ah shit its windows?? Now here is the problem. Why blame windows? It is you who are to blame. Every software has some limitations, galat aadat nahi dalni chahiye thi. The reaction ideally should have been: ah I am so stupid!! Actually I just realized right now that I am being biased. Cause a week or two ago while working on Mac I would press Ctrl+C for copying. Then I would repeatedly press Ctrl+V at some other location and hope that the piece of information would get pasted. The reaction at that time was: Ah stupid Windows habits, why the hell did they have to choose Ctrl?? So blaming the Macro-fools, err.. sorry Microsoft guys again. I just finished watching Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5 Conference (Video) which was sort of fun cause Jobs pulled the legs of Gates very frequently. Now analysing all the known facts I am actually running a risky business here. Come on, Mac isnt even close to Windows in terms of the market share. And if I continue to act like this I am likely to get crazy sooner or later. I feel really sorry for myself, when I picture myself working in my College Lab, about a month from now. So coming back to my other problems. Vista would not let me save any file from an application in the root of C:\. I dont know why. I am in an administrator account. I have full access. Still it would not. Instead it would simple give an alert saying that you need administrator privileges to save here. Had it not been my Macbook the computer would have been repenting for such an action. My first reaction to that absurd message was: Who the f**k do you think I am? I am your bloody owner. Mujhe hi kaam karne se rok raha hai? I controlled my emotions. Went upto the security settings. Gave full control over my C:\ to all the objects that were given as an option. It just refused to save the file in C:\. So I had to save it on my desktop and using the Windows Explorer I had to transfer the file from the desktop to root. Even at this point It would show a small popup window... Cancel or allow types to... Confirm file operation. So basically It required two extra clicks of mouse. This is still acceptable cause atleast it did allow to do what I wanted to do. But I fail to understand why they have such a meaningless security feature. Maybe to stop remote users or worm. But to make it a good security options atleast it should prompt me for a password or something to ensure that I am the actual administrator, cause anyone can click the allow button. I decided not to go deep to this. I quickly rebooted back to Mac.

And It feels bad to loose a part of your music collection when you are really passionate about it. My previous computer hard-disk a Seagate 200Gb sata stopped working. It had all my iTunes library. I had initally transferred the entire library to my laptop but had to remove some part of it cause I needed some free space in my laptop. And since my HDD refused to work I lost my backup of those songs. I got it replaced (It was still under Warranty). And strangely Seagate replaced it with a 250Gb. A sort of Compensation... or Condolance maybe. 50 gigs is a decent amount of extra space.

And do listen to the soundtrack of The Namesake. Very nice music. I have been listening to it for quite some time now.

Mac-ish... eh thats history

2007-06-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

I still remember, I was hell bent on getting Mac installed on my PC!! Karan... oh... he had to really struggle to make that possible. And at that time, I had a post titled "I feel Mac-ish" But now its a pure Mac (no mac-ish business). I really did not want resume blogging untill I had a few snaps of my new Macbook Pro. And for that I had to wait nearly 2 weeks to get hold of a digital camera. Why so long.... just forget that, from now on I will keep posting now and again.

And it is blazing fast!! Never seen such a super notebook.

Features:-

15.4" Display (Matte)
Intel 2.16 Core2 Duo
2 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
120 GB HDD
ATI Radeon 128 MB
6x DVD-RW
Just 1" thick
Apple Remote
The list goes on..... but one of the best (and very useful) feature is: Backlit Keyboard with Autosensing.

And Look at this:-

Trust me you can never get over such a fantastic laptop. It is an owner's delight.

And I must not end this post without thanking a few people... Karan and Nisheeth - for buying it for me. Rungta - for his constant support since then.

बाकी बात अगले पोस्ट में।

Sleeping??

2007-04-18T23:46:00.001-07:00

So was I sleeping? As a matter of fact I did not have any time to sleep at all. Boy!! I was (and also am) reeeaaaaally busy and worked out. But I somehow I have decided to make another entry into my Blog. Why? Cause firstly there was two new emails in my inbox notifying me of two new comments on my bog. And secondly it reminded me of how long it had been since my last post.
Chalo… Let’s have a quick look back at the last two months. The things that have been keeping me busy:-

College (Tests, Classes and now Exams)

Fests (Goonj, PecFest, Cyanide, Jhankaar, Synm, Hostel Fest)

About 5 jobs in php

One project on microcontrollers and networking

A small project in Visual C++ (part of curriculum)

Trekking

Some of the clubs and student bodies are keeping me busy (Technical Committee, Rotaract Club, IEEE, CSI)

Many other things that I am unable to recall

All right first about college. Studies are really simple apart from one subject: “Digital Electronics and Wave Shaping”. Oh how boring is it to attend those lectures and to play around with circuits and transistors and trying to analyze the effects. Bad.. Bad!! Such electronics subject really bore me. I have just returned after a minor exam on this subject. Thankfully it went well. God knows what will happen in the Semester Exams. There is one more subject that is really bothering me.. OOPS.. basically C++. The curriculum here concentrates more on the theory than programming. And even my teacher is one of the least confident teachers in this subject that I have come across. The worst thing is that you cannot code the way you want to do… Last sem my marks were deducted in C as I had included the string.h header file and used the string functions. Very bugging.
Next the fests. Panjab University administration has gone crazy!! They just don’t want to give permission for college fests (or to correct it… department fests) The original plan of Goonj (which as you might know, is the fest of our college) was in the month of January. It was delayed further and further and finally it happened from March 16th-18th. Phew!! Finally the administration gave us the permission and we had to organize the entire fest in about 2 weeks. The sponsorship was a big problem. Although the Goonj organizing committee had talked to its sponsors long back, but because of the delay the sponsors also backed out. After a huge effort by the marketing team, Goonj finally got its main sponsor on 15th March… A day before the fest: Reliance Mobile. And because the convener of the Technical Committee was in direct contact with sponsorship issues,.. unfortunately I was (sort of) managing the Technical Events. Thanks to some of the members (about whom I shall talk a little later), the technical events were successful. I enjoyed a good participation in the events I organized “ENTIRELY” on my own i.e. Technical Quiz, Data Mining and Encryption-Decryption. The three nights: Rock show, Fashion Show cum Dance Competition and ‘Khayali’ (one of the winners of Laughter Challenge) and finally the War of the Djs. Moving on PecFest was the college fest of Punjab Engineering College. They had a very bad organization which was further affected due to rains. Their fest took place in February and unfortunately they had to face some bad weather. As a result their last two nights were a big flop. It has to be organized inside their small auditorium. One bright side: I won the second prize in their Technical Quiz along with two other friends of my hostel Vishal and Digvijay. Cyanide was a small fest of the Chemical Engineering Dept. I participated in the city-wide treasure hunt they organized. I found the clues of the treasure hunt to be very vague… one had to be a Chandigarh local to crack them. Jhankaar and Synm were University fests organized be the two major parties PUSU and SOPU respectively. You know how bad the politics of PU is. And finally the Hostel Annual Fest. This time it was in the evening. Same old Punjabi cultural shows followed by dinner and this time there was a DJ.
Ok Web Development is something that I have really got into. The Goonj website was pretty successful. The first time the students had experienced online registration, personalized page and timetable. And a very user friendly interface. The only thing bad in it was the looks. But I guess I have improved a lot. And I am trying to increase my contacts through this. Recently I got a project to build a recruitment portal for someone.
The “Embedded Web Server” Project. Even this is going well. I guess now we will continue after exams. Learned some Assembly Language in the process. And I am also trying to develop “Music library software” with my classmate as my VC++ project. Let’s see if we make it.
Trekking was fun. Last year if you remember we went to Kansal forest. This time the same people took us to Nepli reserve. Only four of us went this time. Dara, Reety, Neha (all from 4th year) and me. Although the trekking was good, I was stuck with three very less interactive persons on earth. Not that I did not know them before hand, but I guess they do not like to talk at all. Anyhow, it was a nice was to spend a Sunday.
And the committees… oof!! Let me break this post here. I shall soon post another entry that would be exclusively about the different committees that I am a part of.

Embedded C

2007-01-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

I just attended a three day workshop on Microcontrollers and embedded C programming. The workshop was organised by IEEE Students Branch of my institute and professionals from Eureka Electrosoft Solutions Pvt Ltd were invited to deliver the workshop. It was an excellent learning experience, trying to program an Atmel 89C52 microcontroller using embedded C using the Keil Compiler. We also interfaced LCDs, stepmotors and Analog to Digital converter with the microcontroller. Here is my first embedded C program....

#include <reg51.h> #include <intrins.h> #include <math.h> void move(unsigned char x) { P1=255-pow(2,x); } void ms_delay(unsigned char del) { unsigned char dt; while(del>0) { for(dt=0; dt<=160; dt++) _nop_(); del--; } } void secdelay(unsigned char del) { while(del>0) { ms_delay(250); ms_delay(250); ms_delay(250); ms_delay(250); del--; } } void main() { while(1) { char i; for(i=7;i>0;i--) { move(i); secdelay(2); } for(i=0;i<7;i++) { move(i); secdelay(2); } } }

A simple program in which 8 LEDs are connected to the IC and they blink one after another and back repetitively. It was my first exposure to hardware programming and robotics and really it has impressed me.

Is it really a 'Happy' New Year?

2007-01-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

Most of my time in the past few days was spent watching television. And on television I generally watch the news channel. If you have been following the news bulletins recently, it must have left you dejected. It is so disturbing to watch the news channel these days. Innocent kids are killed by serial killers, Haj committees asking for bribes, Saddam was hanged... and it was unfortunately video graphed. And it has left the stupid people and parties protesting. I was really left speechless when I saw the news that one guy had climbed a high voltage line in Delhi, trying to do a Sholay. He was apparently protesting against the capital punishment of Saddam. What was his demand? Not Basanti, in this case he wanted the Indian Govt to break all ties with the US government. How stupid can people be? With a very heavy heart, I wish you all a Happy New Year. Hopefully the next year will be better. God only knows when I will see the ‘OTHER-SIDE’ of MyWorld.

And yesterday afternoon my mom taught me how to cook Chicken Biryani. It was a wonderful experience and I found out what an excellent cook she is. She doesn’t even taste the food while it is being prepared; still the food that she cooks is awesome. And, it feels good to know how to prepare something you love to eat.

Biography of a fat boy

2006-12-30T08:03:00.000-08:00

It has been about a week and a half since this boy has returned home for his winter vacations. And in this time he has been one of the most physically active persons in this world. His schedule for a typical day has been…. Wake up at about 10:30 am. followed by breakfast (WoW!!! Eating Time) at about 11:30 am. Then he does some miscellaneous stuff on the computer (Yeah!! That’s a real workout) for 2-3 hours. This is followed by lunch (Wah Wah Khana!!) and again spending time with the computer (mainly listening to songs). Finally dinner (Food!!) at about 9 and late in the night he downloads a few things till about 1 am. The only little deviation is when he performs driving duties for his mom and takes her to the market or to any other place. Now that’s about all the physical activity that he performs. All this hard labor leads to some kind of growth in that boy. Now there are two types of growth that can take place in a person. And each of them can be analyzed in two different ways (depending on the frame of reference).

The first type of growth is growing taller. Now as told earlier, there are two ways in which you can analyze this. The first can be done by following these steps….
1. At any time look up… What do you see? The blue sky, birds flying and the sun gleaming?? Now if this is the case then your observation will not be correct. You need to step inside your house. Now look up… You see the ceiling? Ya good.
2. Now after some time when you are at your home (and you are standing in the same place as you were before) look up again. You will again see the ceiling… only this time it might appear closer. If that is the case... you have grown taller.
So you take yourself as the frame of reference and only realize that the ceiling is coming down, which is actually an incorrect conclusion.

The other way is to change the frame of reference to anything else (stationary and passive). Now from that frame of reference (which could be a measuring tape) when you see yourself at two different points of time you realize that you have grown taller. Thus this leads to the correct conclusion.

Now the next type of growth is obviously in the other direction. So again in this case depending on the frame of reference you are either blowing up… or everything else is coming nearer to you.

Now in this case obviously the growth in the boy is of the latter type. Now that is definitely not good. Not healthy at all. You need to work out… you need to exercise. Oh! But why? You don’t exercise if the waist of your trouser shrinks… it’s the trousers’ problem. So every day he sits in his car (on the driver’s seat) and realizes that the steering wheel is coming closer to him. Now how do you make him understand that he is growing fat! You simply can’t. Have a peak into his dictionary….

fat: adjective (comparative fat•ter, superlative fat•test) having a bodyweight greater than yours; having more flabby tissue than what you have;

Now that is the problem… if that is how you will define fat, you will never be fat, forget fatter or fattest!! You can not have a bodyweight greater than yourself! Ab use yeh kaun samjhaye?

Now every time anyone calls him fat… he checks out his dictionary and realizes that others are joking. And this leads to complacency. And so he just goes around eating ‘this and that’ cause now he has a new reason for eating apart from the fact that he loves eating. And the reason is that he is not fat!!

And this complacency leads to excessive eating. One of the recent example could be his dinner at Nirula’s Chandigarh on 16th of this month…. The display outside the restaurant really got him into his groove… Unlimited Non Veg Buffet Dinner!! Wow! He promptly went inside, paid for his meal and started his dinner. They ran out of Chicken (the only non veg dish) and he made them cook another one. He ended up having 20 pieces of chicken. Furthermore Nirula’s had run out of Gulab Jamun (which was the desert after the buffet) so he was given an ice-cream instead. Even after the enormous meal, the fat-boy felt just right. When someone comments on his diet, the answer is pretty straightforward. I quote “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who eat for leaving and those who live for eating. I am of the latter kind.” Your really can’t deny that. This fat boy certainly lives for eating.

As time goes on these ‘enormous meals’ become more frequent. As the frequency increases the beautiful body shape turns evil. For females he may be consider 36-24-36 as ideal, but what about himself? 44-36-##. That should go down… But he thinks otherwise. “I cannot slim down. Not in this life.”

One of the ways to get him to slim down could be by making him following this:

My advice if you insist on slimming: Eat as much as you like—just don't swallow it.

Harry Secombe Welsh singer, actor, and comedian. The Daily Herald (London) (October 5, 1962).

Ah! If only that would be possible!! If only his fetish of food would magically turn into fetish of a slim look. Hopefully the New Year will bring some changes in the fat boy’s mindset. Who knows? Some nice games of football might do the trick. But till then he won’t lose a pebble!!

Now why is this post a biography, and not an autobiography?… Kyuki main koi mota thode hi hoon!

Sweating at seventeen degree celsius

2006-12-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

You know, it is difficult to remain consistently unpunctual. But I have managed to be one. I guess thins time I am not allowed to put any excuses. So let’s start of with what I have been doing in the past month. Since my last post there has been nothing worth sharing apart from the fact that I have started growing a long moustache. Now it is pretty long and it I look really funny when I curl it from the sides (like the surds in Chandigarh do). I post a photo if I could catch hold of a camera…

Most of my time was taken up by the semester exams. Unlike last year we had our practical exams first and it was followed by the semester exams. This was bad because of 2 reasons. Firstly that it is easier to go for the practicals once you have done the entire theory for the examination. Secondly the semester exams papers are shown to us within one week of the last sem paper. Now if the practicals are held after the semester papers, then it makes more sense to wait for the papers to be shown. This time we had to stay for a week just to see our paper. And I guess I was the unluckiest. My exams ended on the 14th, and the same day we were shown the papers of two subjects. And three of the remaining teachers promised to show their respective papers on the 20th. Now it is not practical to return to Delhi and then come back after three days. So I decided to stay on. Now most of my friends had a nice past time... Movies. Few of my friends are movie watching machines.. They can keep watching movies (esp. English) on and on without getting bored, tired or even sleepy. I remember few months ago I had spend my weekend at home. My PC was in my hostel and my friends had kept my keys with them as they wanted to work on the computer. On Friday 10:30AM I took a train to Delhi (Janshatabdi Express) and I returned on Sunday evening. When I reached my room, my friends were watching a movie. The fact that left me spellbound was that this was their 19th movie. So in the last 3 days (They did not even get full 3 days) these people had watched about 19 movies... On calculating the time ... 19x2hrs 15 mins avg.... approx 42 hours of movies..... in about 60 hours. A whopping 70% of the time consumed watching movies... 30% devoted to the natures call, food and other necessities. Surely they did not sleep at all. The very thought of being passive for such a long time makes me nausea tic.

All right so they watched movies. I did not give them my computer this time. Since I do not watch many movies, I needed something else to do... I continued learning more about web designing. And at the same time I kept playing DotA. Yes I have finally started playing DotA on LAN as the only person apart from me who loves playing Warcraft has purchased a Notebook (MacBook) for himself, and we have started playing against each other. And because both of us have been very competitive, we have had a lovely time. As the time passed 19th evening arrived... and I heard news that left me broken. 20th was declared a holiday due to some election in Chandigarh. Exams of other departments were postponed and the University would remain closed on 20th. The teachers had informed the students at the last moment that the papers will be shown on 21st instead of 20th. But I can't wait that long. I have my confirmed train ticket for 20th evening and I was not going to wait any longer. So I did not wait for the remaining papers and I returned on the 20th. Now I will have to go on the 1st or 2nd of Jan to see the remaining 4 papers. Could I have been be unluckier (if that is a word in English). It feels good to be back home and meet some of my old school friends. Yesterday evening I spent some time with the ever-helpful Karan who again brought some important things for me from US. While I was with Karan, Rungta and Varenya also made a short visit. Rungta briefed me a little about Ajax, and now I am spending some time trying to conquer another step in web designing...

Aha! And the title of this post… Well it is very usual if you are travel by Bus on route 764 in the evening at about 7-8PM. I was one of the unfortunate ones to be traveling on the same route while returning from Karan’s house. I was at the IIT Gate bus stop waiting for a 764. I had to leave the first bus cause it was so crowded. But since I did not want to wait, I took the next one which was equally crowded if not more. Initially I was hanging out of the rear door and slowly people crawled in. For some time I traveled on the foot board and soon I had to go inside the bus since the conductor keeps pestering you to clear the doorway. He keeps pushing and shouting at you to go inside (As if the bus is of infinite dimension) and eventually you have to. Every thing seemed so normal inside…. About 5 passengers every square foot. You can’t move, no need to hold anything to support yourself. You are like a pin of a plug fitted into the socket. It reminded me of the FIITJEE days, when I used to travel by the same route. We went past a big digital signboard showing 17 ºC and I could feel droplets of sweat rolling down my neck….

Hopefully I shall not remain unpunctual for long.....

बहुत िदनो बाद

2006-10-23T10:17:00.002-07:00

Long time no post!! That might be in your mind, but surely I have never been very regular with my blog. But this time I have more genuine reasons to not to be regular. The two months September and October were really hectic. The reasons are as follows:

1. There were two fresher parties during this time
2. Four birthday parties have been celebrated; two more will be celebrated in this month itself.
3. Two sessional exams (sort of minors) have taken place during this period.
4. A group from my hostel (including me) went on a trip to Kasauli: in Himachal Pradesh.
5. Durga Puja, Dusshera, Diwali, Bhai Dooj and upcoming Ed… they all take up time.
6. Technical Committee & Exun (to which I have hardly contributed till now) commitments.
7. Project works that I have taken up. I just completed my second project in php and in fact I am taking out time from the third to write this blog post.
8. Studies….. (This one is just to add some weight to the excuses)

Obviously Life@MyWorld describes what is happening in my life…. I’ll just scribble a little about each of the points enlisted above.

First of all two fresher parties: College and Hostel Freshers. This year the college freshers party was pretty good apart from the fact that there was shortage of time during the cultural show. Just like last year even this year there were two phases. First phase comprised of a cultural show by the freshers/ second year students and a Mr/Ms Fresher contest. The second phase was DJ party and dinner at Chandigarh Club. Due to shortage of time at the cultural show our college rock band’s performance was shifted to Chandigarh Club. Now not many students like hard core rock music, and most of the students were dying to dance to the beats of the DJ. What happened next was really humorous. People started doing bhangra to the beats of the hard rock music ….. Really a must watch. You might thing that this is impossible, but you need to see it to believe it…. Land of nerd surds!! That was followed by a dinner. Thankfully they had enough quantity this time. Last year there was a big shortage of food but this time the managing committee did a pretty good job. The only fact that needs to be overlooked is that most of the dishes were undercooked. You can never hope for good food during these events. Now the second freshers was in the Hostel. Again a short cultural programme followed by good food. The best thing about Hostel festivals (both freshers and annual day) is the fight for food. And I really love it. People would rush for plates as soon as the chief guest stands up to give a concluding speech. The food is not ready yet. Although there is never any shortage of food, people just repeat it again and again every time. As soon as the dishes are placed on the table students will just pile up there plates and force themselves out of the mob. And if you are lucky, you might come out with clean clothes, cause almost every one gets his clothes messed up with food.

Second is birthdays… same thing again, I’ll just mention the names of the birthday boys. Abhinav, followed by Digvijay, Sanamjeet and Mohit. And as I mentioned birthdays of Parveen and Sujoy are yet to celebrated in this month.

Thidly, Sessional exams…. Lets not talk about that!!

Fourthly, Kasauli trip. That was a real pleasant trip. Kasauli is a small, beautiful and boring hill station. When I say small, I mean really small. Nano-ish!! Just 3 things to check out. A church, the first in Himachal, built in 1803. A short mall road. And a beautiful Monkey Point. Monkey Point is the top most peak in Kasauli. The area is under Air Force and so entry is only though identity. Also you are not allowed to carry any electronic device inside, so no mobiles/cameras. Now why is it called Monkey Point? Because it is believed the Hanumanji while returning with the mountains, stepped on this peak. The shape of this peak is somewhat like a monkey foot, and so a Hanuman temple has been constructed at the top. As a matter of fact you can see many cities from the top of this peak that includes Chandigarh and Shimla. Apparantly this point is higher than Shimla, although it comes much before Shimla. But everything in Kasauli is not beautiful. This small place is full of Dogs and Monkeys. In fact Kasauli welcomed me with a dog bite. As soon as we reached we started looking for a place to eat. We found a small signboard where noodles was written as नयूडलस which when written in english should look like:nudeless!! As I moved closer to that board a dog poped out from behind it and bit me in on my right knees. Although it was only a small scratch, but I am have to take 5 Rabies injection plus 1 tetanus injection. Bad bad luck… While returning we visited the Pinjore Gardens. A lovely garden maintained by Harayana Tourism.

Fifthly, Sixthly and Seventhly …. Nothing much to write on these and eighthly… Just lying.

अौर अपने मैक से िहन्दी मे पोस्ट करने मे मज़ा अा रहा है।

I have pics to share, but blogger is taking too much time to upload, maybe I'll try later

Dare to Wear 2006-09-26T10:20:00.000-07:00 All I can say is that this was a dare.... And to describe the shorts to you, it looks exactly like the new uniform in the Indian Prisons. Think different. 2006-09-17T07:43:00.000-07:00 Life has been good and lazy since my last post. No exams, no study pressure, I have a decent attendance record… so a few bunks didn’t hurt at all. One of the best things that have happened till then is that the elections are over. I had already told you about my friends being directly involved in the elections, as either a candidate or helping them out with the campaigning. Being in second year, elections have been an entirely new experience. Till last year we were facing the music, on one had we were taken to movies and disco, on the other hand we were kidnapped and had to spend out nights elsewhere. This year there were two set of people, those who were involved in party politics and the others (including me) who were totally out of it. The former category had their own set of problems. Firstly they had to spend out nights trying to please the first year students. Taking them out to movies, giving them a gala dinner party (My god!! One of the nights, they had unlimited supply of chicken!!), taking them out to Kasauli etc etc. They even arranged for some booze and cigarettes for the drinkers and smokers!! All in all they tried out all the tricks to please the freshers. And since there was no kidnapping this year, the freshers must have had a lovely week. No kidnapping?? Why so?? Because this year all the first year students have been allocated the hostel no 7 which was highly guarded by CP….(Chandigarh Police). Last year we were the unlucky ones to be allocated hostel no 6 which has always open for anyone… So it was easy for some of the guys to come to our rooms and take us with them. So coming back to the former set of people, they really had a bad time visiting the freshers to convince them while missing their classes, and bypassing the “general college discipline”. At the same time they had to receive lots of threat calls from the opposing parties. That was the attraction of this year’s election. My close friends and classmates had received a few threat calls, and we all knew, it could be a serious threat. One of my classmate had always been associated with the SOPU party till the election time. He always took help from seniors of SOPU party since most of the residents of his hostel supported SOPU. At the very last moment he openly started supporting and campaigning for PUSU party. He received lots of threat calls. So he temporarily shifted to a different hostel, and visited his room only when he required a different set of clothes. He was really enjoying this, his comments were.. “ Ab zindagi jeene mein asli mazaa aa raha hai, bohut saari threat calls aai hai”. Some of the others were really scared and never moved in the campus alone. The other set of people had a much better life. Just had to face a little bit of campaigning and some of your friends wanted you to join them and help them out with campaigning. I was cleanly out of it. Neither do I wish to face threat calls nor do I wish to deviate from the “general college discipline”. There were also some new twist and turns in these elections. Everyone has to vote for 4 department representatives (DR) and 4 main members of the students’ union, namely the President, the Vice-President, the General Secretary and the Joint Secretary. This year there were only 4 valid nominations for the post of DRs by PUSU party. All the 4 nominations for the post of DR by SOPU party were cancelled because they filled up the nomination forms incorrectly. Apparently the teacher who assisted them in filling up the forms gave them incorrect instructions, and as usual PUSU partly was blamed for it. On the day of voting, I was amazed to see the amount of security in the campus. There were 2000+ policemen in the campus, water cannons, and teams of Rapid Action Force, Quick Reaction Teams and Riot Control Police. The campus looked like a protest venue. Eventually SOPU turned out to be the winner this year. Meanwhile we had another set of birthday party… we celebrated 3 birthdays together and had a combined treat at a grand restaurant: Mehfil, Sector 17 Chandigarh. Triathlon At the dinner table Now that was just a pose, I never moved closer... Real Fun, we had This weekend we had an inter-class football tournament (a very informal one). Our first match was the weirdest I have ever witnessed or played in. Have you ever faced such a situation?: A handball offence was committed by one of the opponent defenders. We were awarded an indirect free kick. Our player kicked the ball directly into the goal and it flicked the goalkeeper’s gloves on its way. Now a goal was awarded by the referee. On this the opponents started protesting that in case of an indirect free kick there must be atleast two touches by the attacking team. There was a lot of quarrel on the field (you would have regularly witnessed such situations in a Man U vs Arsenal match). Eventually one of their players who had a laptop opened up the FIFA Rulebook and it stated that if it is an indirect free kick and the ball goes directly into the goal, touching the defending team’s player on its way, a corner is to be awarded. But by then we had a point that once a referee’s decision is made it is final. I further checked out the rulebook and found out another point in our favor. In case of a handball offence, a direct free kick is awarded. Eventually after all the confusion, quarrel, protest…. the decision was changed to no goal and we eventually won in the penalties. Now that is something you will never see in a football match….. kya situation tha!! I have started creating my own desktop wallpapers…. Till the time I had no Mac I used this: And now that I have mac installed and working, I use this in windows: I feel… Mac-ish…. 2006-09-04T04:04:00.000-07:00 My new session as a second year student has really been very boring till last week. Although I had many things to write, I could not end up writing a post and going up to the café to post it. I expected my second year start to be as good as the first one, but till last week it only had been an extension of where I had left as a first year student. Well the first thing that you think of when you are in second year is that you are now a senior and now is the time for you to rag the freshers. But I have been really lenient till now, no ragging, no pdp. As a result I hardly know any of the juniors, and hardly any of them know me. Well at this point of time it doesn’t matter. Slowly I will get to know others. There has been some learning experience in this semester. Firstly I have started with php… sigh… finally. Php seems to be a very simple language till now. It is a lot broader and flexible than C++ language. I have to start with databases, and even that is simple if you are using phpmyadmin. The next thing I learned in this semester is to ride a bike. Bike as in Motorcycle (I know some Americans read my blog, so they should not confuse it with bicycle). Bikes are really an easy thing to arrange. You will always have friends around you who have bikes. And so if you are in the university, you must know how to ride it. But now since this weekend, everything looks to good. Simply because now finally I have Mac Os X running on my system. Well, I you have been reading my blog, or even skar’s blog you must know what all I had went through last year. I had the worst time of my life, both Karan and me were cursing my computer at the end of a week long of perseverance to install Mac. Now finally this time Karan has brought some nice ‘jugad’ that managed to get the Operating System running on my computer. The ‘jugad’ was VMware. We tried to install both 10.4.7 (which worked for Varenya the other day) and 10.4.6 which has worked on other computers. But with in minutes of the start of the installation, it would stall and ask us to retry. Well things very not very pleasant till Karan pulled out the trick called ‘VMware’ out of his hat. Apparently it set up a virtual machine through my windows onto my other drive, emulation everything apart from my processor. And somehow it managed to install Mac. Now when rebooted using my Seagate HDD, my machine booted in Mac. Wow!! The speed was awesome. It identified my processor as Pentium D 4 GHz…. (although my processor is only 3 GHz in speed). The whole booting took just 27 secs, right from BIOS till a completely started system. But this was not the end of it. The entire process was not that simple. The first problem was that (obviously) it did not support my nVidia graphics card. And secondly it did not support my onboard Sigmatel sound card too (in spite of installing the driver). So we decided to install 10.4.6 instead of 10.4.7 as Sigmatel driver worked in that in one of Karan’s relative’s computer in Himachal (unintentional use of bad English, mind you not wrong English). So we did it, but there were lots of hiccups all the way. Once the installation through VMware stopped giving the error that the workstation got disconnected (or sumthing like that). Well when we checked out on the Disk Management, it did not recognize the second volume at all, as if the disk was physically removed. But no, it was still connected. When we tried to restart, it would boot into Windows (which is in the Samsung HDD, placed second in the Drive order after the Seagate HDD). When we remove the Samsung connection, the BIOS won’t load!! When reconnected, it would load. That was bad. We predicted a Hard Disk crash. But when we inserted the Mac installer DVD, it started with the installation initially, then suddenly Mac OS 10.4.6 started. Strange!! The Hard Disk recovered?? But at the next reboot with only the Seagate connected, it said ‘No OS found’. It was really bad and confusing!!! Thus my PC was termed as temperamental and indeterministic by Karan. After the lunch (delicious Rajma, Parwal and Kofta) we sat down again. Since the sound card did not work in 10.4.6, we decided to properly install Mac Os 10.4.7 slowly, steadily with proper partitions and hopefully for the last time that day. This time everything went on well. I also installed another copy of Windows on the Seagate drive. Now this changed my active partition to Windows and it would not let me boot into Mac. Since Ubuntu did not work on my computer, Karan used some hi-fi commands through the terminal of the installer DVD to change it. Now all was set and running. Applications were installed (or rather copied, Mac does not have anything like installation, just copy the applications and it runs!!). A small problem that the Mac would only start in 1024x768 resolution was easily solved by referring to the internet. Now I have a good Mac, just missing the really awesome graphics effects (like the ripple effect”) and the also the sound (which I guess can be solved using a USB sound card). Configuration as shown by System Information and cpu-z: Those are true Apparent configuration as detected by Mac. xBench Analysis: Only the main ones, omitted Drive, graphics and open GL analysis. I also got another new stuff from Karan. He got me a new pair of earphones that I badly needed after my Apple ones ‘died’. A new “Sony MDR-EX71SL/WK Fontopia Headphones (White)”. They are an excellent pair of in-ear headphones. Although you need to get used to of in-ear at first, but it won’t take much time. The head phone has really good sound isolation. In the Metro when I was listening to it, I could only hear the loud announcements very faintly. No other chatting, jabbering of the fellow passengers, not even the screeching Metro wheels. In the bus ride to Chandigarh I could peacefully enjoy the soft music of ‘May It Be’. I must say they are a lot better that the Apple iPod’s earphones in terms of cutting down outside noise. The sound quality is far better too. Finally, some news about the campus. Election is round the corner (coming Friday), and we are already feeling the heat. But until now the experience has been very different from last year. This year many of our friends are a part of campaigning and many of them are candidates for the post of DR. And so this year there has been times when we get our work done through them, and also tell them “You want votes or not? Cause if you don’t help me out you are not getting any votes from our side!!” Last year it was really different, we had to hear them out, all the things they had to say, we had to get ourselves ‘kidnapped’, in short the experience as a first year student has not been very well. I am sure even this year the freshers are facing the music. Police checks at the campus gates have already started. When we returned from Delhi, they thoroughly checked our identity before letting us enter the campus. I guess we are not far from some police raids in the middle of the night….Oh this reminds me…… “Oooooo Aaahhhhh… In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep……….” River of Dreams by Billy Joel. PDP resumes... 2006-07-22T08:16:00.000-07:00 Blocking Blogspot was one of the worst decisions taken by the Government in recent times. It has hit the millions of Indian Bloggers (Me being one of them). The simple thing that the Indian Governments do not understand is that those bloggers who want to access Blogspot, need not always access the site directly. There is always hook or crook method, that can counter these measures by the government. I don’t know why these foolish government decision makers don’t know that!! And, Why should the Dot start instructing the ISPs to block a whole domain?? Should they not identify the suspicious blogs and block those ones?? It was very rightly specified somewhere… It is like stopping the water-supply in town, simply because there are terrorists who drink water in town!! Now even I have been facing a lot of inconvenience because of this sudden illogical decision by those moronic office bearers. I was in the middle of changing the template of my blog. So after having a small chat with Karan I was given the options of pkblogs.com or Tor. pkblogs.com is a slightly slow. Tor is better and is really a good option to fool the servers. NovaPortal was another option. Although Karan likes its speed, I did not find it to be good. It does not display my blog correctly. Thankfully now Blogspot is unblocked. Ok, now, coming back to my life. I returned Chandigarh on the 19th. Obviously I am now in second year, it is about time to be at the other side of ‘The Phantom Returns’. Yes, ragging is on. But at this point of time the ragging has not reached its peak. The problem is that only the first counseling has taken place till now. And only the first week of college has passed. So the number of fucche are too few. On 19th after taking the possession of my newly allotted room, and after setting it up I went to Hostel No 7, with a few of my friends at about quarter past ten.. Hostel 7 till last year was the most feared hostel as all the second year guys were living there. But now a new block has been constructed in Hostel 7 and all the freshers have been allotted rooms in that hostel. The first thing I noticed when I reached that hostel were a few groups of students standing randomly in hostel parking enjoying their interaction with fellow juniors. We all walked into the hostel and went upstairs to the first floor. Second year students were buzzing all along the corridors trying to catch hold of the limited number of first year students. I wished my mates over there; obviously we were meeting after a long summer break. The first room I entered I found a guy sitting on top of the loft. I was told that he is visiting ‘Shimla’. Well and good, what else can you expect when there is only one fresher trying to meet the entertainment-requirements of about a dozen seniors?? I just walked out of the room as I found the situation real dull over there. I was informed that there are four juniors in one of the rooms. I went in there and joined the other second year students (There were about 10 of them there already!! But only four 1st year guys.). Some of my friends followed. The problem was that in that room ragging was being conducted in Punjabi. Although I have picked up quite a few usual Punjabi terms, some of it was difficult to understand. I just sat back and watched the juniors act according to the given situation. I must say, whatever little I understood, it was really hilarious. I was simply a spectator with no inputs simply because it was almost entirely a Punjabi based ragging. At about midnight I returned back to room. Hopefully next time more freshers would be available. They are expected from the next week onwards. Meanwhile classes have restarted and the Information Technology branch is really enjoying the course. Semiconductors, Peripheral Devices, Data Structures, Programming Methodology, Fundamentals Of IT and lastly Human Computer Interface are the only subjects. So everything is IT specific. And when college restarts, movies have to restart. Yesterday night I went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. First Day last show. This movie unlike the last one was really complicated. Real complicated logic and really open ended. None of us were satisfied as we really felt ‘incomplete’ at the end of the movie. But I must say that the movie was really funny at times. Johnny Depp played an excellent role, but Keira Knightley’s role was not impressive….im sure u know why!! The 'excess-time' Problem 2006-07-11T23:16:00.000-07:00 My holidays began just a few days after my birthday. And surprisingly these holidays have been the best I have had so far. Never before have I had the opportunity, to enjoy my holidays according to my will. Partly because the school used to bundle you up with a lot of homework and partly because according to my mom, when you are in school… you are a student. Furthermore when you are a student, you have to lead a disciplined life. And when it comes to discipline of a student, he has to study a few hours everyday. So everyday you have to spend some time sitting around with a course book and pretend to read it (with the iPod plugged in your years – obviously), or else you have to face a verbal thrashing (on an unlucky day, it could be physical as well). But unlike the holidays of the past 12-13 years, this one was definitely different. Firstly, no college homework. In fact I even don’t know what all I will be studying next semester, and therefore no point in studying. So unless I have to help out my mom with some household work, I am totally vela. As a matter of fact this is the case with every other college guy/gal. Now when you have such a time, it is often difficult to decide what to do and what not to… esp. if you are not having a girlfriend. I know a few of my schoolmates who have girlfriends, they spend quite a lot of time with each other (basically just strolling or chatting), but the rest of the time they are also vela. So I can easily conclude that if you have a girlfriend, you can be assured that at least some part of the excess-time problem is solved (although it might also backfire with some other troubles, which I shall not go into). Many of my friends have realized that the best way to spend your holidays is by learning something. So people have joined in C/C++/Java classes (those who are fanatic about programming, may please replace the word ‘classes’ with ‘lectures’, to avoid any confusion), some are doing VB etc. Most of them are doing a computer programming course except Prateek Chadha who for some reason decided to learn golf (of course you can’t expect PC to do a computer course). In the beginning of the holidays I had decided to learn PHP. But typically an Exun guy does not believing spending money to learn programming. Neither do I. So I talked to Rungta, and arranged all the required softwares, servers, databases, manuals etc. required to master PHP. But eventually till today I could not start with it, simply because these holidays have turned me LAZY. I got a little pump from Rishabh Dara and Karan Misra to start with it… but god knows when I will start with it. I have never been unenthusiastic to learn a new programming language, but maybe this time I feel that it is too simple as it is very similar to C++. And even now, like ever other day, I am hoping to start today. So basically much of my time is being spent on the Internet, sometimes chatting or Orkutting (a very popular verb this one is, although I see that it is not defined in the MS Word dictionary). But mostly I am visiting the Panjab University forum called stu-c.com. These forum guys have started a new contest that the top two persons who participate most in the forum, shall get an all expense paid Taj Chandigarh buffet. Now that is motivating!! Apart from the Internet I am playing games. Eventually Nisheeth has given me this game Rome –Total War. Very time consuming, and a perfect game to kill time (at the end of the day that is all that counts). It is a very nice game in which you are taken back into some 300 odd BC and you are responsible to conquer the Roman empire and take control of it. Graphics are also decent, and unlike the likes of AOE and Warcraft, this strategy game has two different maps – Campaign Map and Battle Map. And the battle map fight is real cool!! The world cup was another time pass. Although I was supporting Brazil (it is in the blood of Bengalis, you may say that) But they were never really playing well. My second choice was Portugal. Although they were playing good, they got eliminated in the semis, France just hanging on to that single goal. But the final was brilliant!! Just about everything that can happen in a football match, happened in that match. A wonderful draw, and finally I think the right team is victorious. You must have realized till now that I am hardly into any kind of physical exercise. As a result I have really bloated. My girth has been increasing ever since, even while I was at hostel. So now I have realized that this tond of mine is actually my property (as in a distinctive quality/characteristic) that can never be lost. Nope, not in this life!! Another wonderful fact about these holidays are that you want to meet old friends and associates. And when you finally meet up with them, you realize a slight degree of pleasure and satisfaction. I understand that it is bound to happen if you are living in a hostel away from your friends and relatives, but yeah it’s really good to see old mates. This time I have met up with guys like Nisheeth, Prateek, Nishank, Rohit, Maanick, Rathin, Siddharth and maybe others (in case I am forgetting a few name). Had lunch together and a game or two of Counter Strike in the popular South Ex WebWorld. I also met up with some of my school teachers. Eventually this time I was able to meet Ms Raghavan, who seemed really pleased to meet me and she surprised me by not asking anything about Exun. She was the only teacher who used to be really pissed off with me due to my involvent with Exun. I still remember that line of hers, “Souvik!! YOU and your EXUN!!” Our school has also undergone a lot of structural changes, things are turning pink and that really goes against my taste. The staff rooms have also expanded, I guess they are employing more teachers which means that the no of students might also be increasing. Uniforms have also changed from shirt to T-Shirt. Things are really getting complicated and confusing. As Dhruv explained to me, he had to buy a shirt for the Investiture Ceremony. He has to wear a white T-shirt on normal days and a Green T-shirt on PE days. Thank God I am out of school before such uniform was implemented. Now for some news from Panjab University!! As you all know things are quite different here. I have finally realized the power of politics. On 4th July I went to get my hostel allocated to me. I had originally planned to go to Chandigarh in the morning and return back in the evening (It is just a 5 ½ hour journey). But the system in our university really spoilt my plans. Last year I was a junior and I had no option but to accept whichever room has been allocated to me. But I hoped that this year I would easily get the hostel room of my choice, simply because now I am a senior!! But nope, things are not that simple. I really did not want to stay in Hostel 6 because of the monkey problems and the water woes in Block 2 of Hostel 6. But when I went there I realized that the same hostel has been allocated to me. So I requested to get my hostel changed or the block changed so that at least this year I can be free from those problems. But a flat ‘No’ was their reply. I talked to the office bearers in my hostel and requested for Block 3, but they simply refused by saying that there are no empty rooms in this hostel. So here is where the politics comes in. To get a hostel of your choice, you need to be in touch with an active politician. So in the evening we told Abhishek Puri about our problem and he said that he’ll help us with it. We spent that night there, and the next morning walked up to the warden with him. And swwwwwishhhh!!! The job was done. All of my friends got a room in Block 3 and all of us were satisfied. Now here is the difference between the 1st year students and the seniors. The seniors have political contacts!! I don’t know if this thing will change in our University, but kuchh bhi ho, mera kaam to ho gaya. And now signing off, and waiting for the juniors to get admitted!!! Hathoda aur Chingaari 2006-06-12T08:53:00.000-07:00 Workshop Training has been one of the most interesting part of my course till now. The reason?? It could be simply the joy of creating something with your oun hands… or it can also be that it is the first time I have realized that something useful is being taught. Although the training was a very good learning experience, the schedule was simply cruel… Firstly it was planned in the middle of what could have been a nice long summer-break. The temperature was soaring high….and the timing??? 9AM… Who the hell wants to wake up early and then walk up to the workshop and back when the sun is blazing on top of you?? And when you are forced to do so (since the marks you get in this training will be added to your overall percentage) it becomes worse….. and on top of it you have to make practical files for the same!! Huh!! Seems pathetic right?? But No… The experience is still worth it. Workshop has always interested me from my very first class (way back in the ragging days). This time the projects undertaken were more difficult. Inside the workshop there are 9 different shops… Namely Electrical Shop, Electronics Shop, Machine Shop, Welding Shop, Fitting Shop, Sheet Metal Shop, Smithy Shop, Carpentry Shop and finally Foundry. Well, explaining each of them will be a waste of time, but the names of each of the shop speak for themselves. The best thing about the shops was that you yourself work at your job, so you do all the welding, hammering, igniting the furnaces yourself…. At the end of the class you walk out both satisfied and tired. And now continuing my earlier post….. I WAS NEXT!! Yes, my birthday in the teens has been an experience of a lifetime (which I hope I will never have to experience again…) Now why would I not like to face a similar experience again? Here is Why… All my friends had started teasing, taunting and warning me a week before my birthday. That was quite irritating annoying. But this time my birthday was not the same simple and sober as others (beating followed by a cake). This time they asked me to accompany for dinner on the evening of 1st June. Well I was really unwilling to go with them…. Who knows what was in store for me after the dinner. But a few of my friends requested my company and I unenthusiastically went with them. Throughout the time everyone acted as if they had big plans for me… and my biggest fear at that time was that the clock might strike twelve even before we return and those (cruel) friends of mine might start beating me in the middle of the street. So after the dinner I hurried back to my room in a cycle-rickshaw, while others walked back. I made some of my preparations and waited for the hour to arrive. The time flew past a lot quicker than I expected and soon enough as I expected more than a dozen arrived…. The carried me out of the room, dropped me in the corridor, clicked a few photos and then they just left me… No beating… Nothing. They just told me that they don’t feel like beating me. I was confused… and so I continued lying on the floor. What I was expecting was that as soon as I get up…. they will begin their assault. But on the contrary they threatened to beat me if I don’t get up and walk back into my room. I obeyed. Now back into the room I felt quite unsafe. Thirty odd eyes staring at me… hundreds of teeth…. doing something that I have never realized before. So now the game begun… They started ragging me… “Naach…” was the order. Although I tried to resist… But eventually I had to dance to the beats of "Kajra re". What’s next…? A box of sweets. Everyone fed me some saying "Mooh meetha Karo", but at the same time the ragging still continued. The wanted me to have the whole box full of sweets. Aakhir uske baad imtehaan ka waqt aa hi gaya. The just dragged me out into the corridor and gave me a heavy beating. What was originally known as birthday bumps has now changed into the birthday bash (Nice pun naa??). And I was the big time victim. After being kicked, punched, slapped, hit with slippers and bounced around I was thrown aside and my room mate (Mohit Singla – if you want to know his name) was made airborne. As the trend goes… the room mate has to face his share of the beating. Or in other words” Room-mate ka bhi apna quota hota hai”. Meanwhile I crawled aside and found myself being clicked on camera. If it would not have been for those two seniors (one in Geology dept, and the other doing MCA) I would have been crippled. Now next up was cutting the cake. My friends were kind enough t think beyond sweets… a Chocolate Truffle was waiting for me in my room. First I was placed under the birthday cap… As usual the cake was cut and applied allover me (Except….). But then again, after a quick wash, ragging resumed. This time I had to pose for photographs… (Some of them are attached). Yet after all this I heard voices saying “ Yaar, Souvik… swaad nahi aaya”. And I was dragged back into the battlefield. The impacts continued until my head banged against the wooden balcony door and tears (full of pain) trickled down my eyes. And that was it. I was released. I was given water to drink and I went for a bath. At about 2 AM I was clean and ready to doze off. When They Beat you... (notice the difference in this image and the first one). In the middle of the hustle. While my room-mate was facing the assault. Pose for the camera. Tears had to come.... But the pains continued…. The next morning was the worst time I had. Most parts of my body were swelled and stiff esp. Lower back, shoulders, neck, back, thighs and last but not the least, the rest of my body. Hopefully you are able to empathize. PU, a small glance 2006-05-23T00:50:00.000-07:00 The road leading upto my department, from my hostel. Just a stupid but beautiful looking tree. Round about, Chndigarh is full of them. This one's in the campus near hostel 5. I love to walk through this esp in summers. This lane leads upto my hostel. Sports Department (near my hostel) From a different angle This corridor connects my block to the mess/canteen and Common Room. These pics are taken by the camera of Nokia 6600. So this explains the lack of quality of the photos. Another Unofficial Committee 2006-05-22T23:40:00.000-07:00 Our latest hobby is to speak with eachother in Bihari or Bhojpuri. Some of my friends have started creating songs in Bhojpuri. It goes like this: Aawa aawa, Panwa Kawa... The song Zombie (by The Cranberries) has been really remade into a bhojpuri/bihari classic. Jombie jombie, Saare bolo jombie, Jeb me ka hai, jombie Mooh me ka hai, jombie Jor se bolo, jombie... and it goes on. In hostel 6 (where I live) there are 10 students from UIET 1st year in the third floor of second block. Each of us has been assigned a name (the same trend follows as I mentioned in one of my earlier post) and the conversation goes on and on in Bihari. Myself Kisan, and my friends Makhan, Lallan, Yasodhan, Veerappan, Bhawra, Lakhan, Gajodhar, Babban, Vishram(He is a member of The Polar Bear Association. Perpetually hibernates and usually wakes up just after lunch-time. Always short in attendance). So nowadays our conversation begins with “Arre Lallanwa ka kar rahe ho” or “ Arre Yasodhan tum!! Idhar kaise?” and ends with a “Accha Ram Ram”. Two of my friends, both room-mates sharing a common balcony with my room, had their birthday in the month of April. Both their birthdays were celebrated in a very different manner. First up was Varun, tall and handsome and pretty much physically dominant. Last few months he has had real fun giving some of his finest blows on our backs. Now it was our time to revenge all those blows, all at one time. Just two days before Varun’s birthday I formulated an informal committee among my friends. “The Birthday Boy Torture Committee”, as I call it. Its mission is simply to organize the party…. and organize it BIG time. Everyone was informed, and everything was planned. Friends from other hostels came right on time, just minutes before the clock was about to strike 12. Varun obviously knew that he will be beaten really hard. So he had a mutual agreement with his room-mate and both of them locked themselves inside their room. Obviously his room-mate agreed as his birthday was about to come pretty soon. But no one knew how violent we could be. Just minutes before time, his girlfriend called him to wish him on his birthday. As soon as it was time we warned him to disconnect the call and open the door.. but he took too long. Both the doors of his room (the front door and the balcony door) were kicked real hard until the balcony door broke open. Varun was dragged out and was beaten like a criminal (as if he had touched a girl in the middle of Kolkata). About 20 others trying to kick his a** as hard as they can. He got a beating of a lifetime and at the end of it all swore not to lay a hand on us ever again. In between all this Parveen Mangla (better known as ‘Happy’) decided to have fun and narrated one of the famous Hindi movie line which has been repeated over and over again in the last decade...”Isse haath lagane se pehle mere laash se hokar guzarna padega”. No probs he was dragged in and given a severe short beating that he would never forget. The beating was followed by cutting the cake, cold drinks and beer. Trust me, everyone had fun and I am sure Varun also enjoyed himself… although the after effects was not too good. A day after, the results for the best performers in the ‘Beating Arena’ was declared. Finally after the door has broken.... This is how it stands now.... The broken door. She hides it from any unexpected raid. Through the hole.... Next up was his room-mate Saurab. A topper, real good in studies. His birthday was just atwo days before the IIT JEE. Since he was appearing for the exam we decided not to harm his studies. The committee passed on the word to all the friends about its plan. Everyone pretended that he would be beaten very hard (for no reason at all). Saurab was really prepared for it. About fifteen minutes before he dressed up in full sleeves and shoes, ready to take on all of us. But we had a different idea in our mind. We picked him up and carried him all the way to the ground floor and just dropped him there. Now Saurab was very happy that he was not beaten at all... He called home and told everyone that nothing happened to him and there was no end to his happiness. On Sunday night (after the IIT JEE) one of the most unexpected things happened to him. Chandigarh is obviously getting warmer. Now to beat the heat we all recommended him to get off his shirt and wear light clothing. He was really tired after the examination so he accepted our suggestion and went off to sleep wearing only his vest and a light pyjama. When he woke up next it was just midnight and about 10-15 of his friends had lifted him in the air and were giving him real hard kicks up his butts. He was picked up right in the middle of his sleep, so even before he could realize anything he had a red butt and a sore back….. and it ended with similar cutting of the cake and other stuff. As expected in the result of the beating arena I was among the top three performers...and that is a warning for me as I am up NEXT... Read Urself 2006-04-20T03:13:00.000-07:00 The Conspiracy.... 2006-04-17T04:11:00.000-07:00 The past four weeks were the most demanding time of my college life. Full of adventure, hard work, celebration and conspiracy that I believe only PU can offer. Due to such ups and down and excessive workload I was unable to post for a long time. So this post will cover most of the important events that happened in the last month or so. First up is trekking. For a long time the technical committee was supposed to go for a trek at the outskirts of Chandigarh, somewhere beyond the Sukhna Lake. But for about a month and a half this plan was rescheduled, postponed and at some point of time it seemed to be cancelled. On 17th when I was returning from Delhi, I got a sms from one of the members of the technical committee if I would like to go for the trek the very next day. It was really surprising and I had least expected it on that day. At first I was not interested as I was really tired at that time since I was returning back after a 24 hour mission from Delhi. But obviously I had never experienced something like that before, so at that time I reluctantly agreed to join in. But everything was normal the next morning apart from my right knee which was still paining following the previous days exercise. Just as usual Mr. Dara calls us long before we are actually required. And similarly in the usual manner I trust him and reached my department on-time. Although it was supposed to be especially for the Technical Committee, one or two people who were not a part of the committee also accompanied us. Only 6 committee members turned up as the information reached us at such a short notice and most of them had prior commitments. We left after about an hour or too, when Harish sir arrived. Two cars stuffed with 11 people started from the campus. One of the cars belonged to a guy who is a reputed rash driver. Drives at the speed that makes his Maruti 800 really give its best. The other car, an Alto, belonged to sir: slow and steady. After a lot of confusion, adjustment, compromise and disappointment it was decided who would take which car, and off we went. The place where we were heading is known as Kansal Reserve, located north of Chandigarh at the foothills of the mountains, about 8 kms from the University Campus. Kansal requires prior permission from the environment/forest department for visiting the place. Thanks to Rishabh Dara and Harish sir for getting the permission. The lodge which we were supposed to reach was about 4.5 kms inside the reserve area. After entering into the forest area we drove through an excellent environment natural forest, water bodies flowing right across the path, excellent scenery and foothills. Winding and bouncing we reached the lodge. The first thing we realized when we reached the top was that our mobile phones were out of network range. Sir enquired at the lodge and pointed out a few checkpoints and tracks which we can take for our trek. He could not accompany us as his wife had come along and she did not wish to trek. Now the fun started… 9 of us started along the track which was taken by lots before us. Within minutes my heart started pumping hard, my breath became shorter and more difficult… in short I was having a hard time walking along the path that steep. The ground was also full of variation sometimes loose sand, gravel rocky, hard etc. Climb till the first checkpoint was the toughest part for my body to handle. The checkpoint is nothing but sort of an open shade. After resting for a while there I felt much better. Now I started enjoying the trek. From the top of the checkpoint which was at a very good height, we could see an excellent view of the surrounding. Few water bodies, high ranges, forest cover etc. Our phones this time was receiving Himachal Pradesh network. After little walk ahead we deviated from the trekking track and started moving higher. Up, up and up. At every point we could see a point higher than us. We passed through extreme spots like thorny, rocky, loose soils narrow lanes with steep drop on both the sides. Jumping over wild bushes, branches and narrow gaps we kept moving and moving and after every major achievement we took a well deserved break. What we missed the most over there was water. One of us did carry some water: 400 ml. 400/9=44.44 ml for each one of us. Just enough to wet four of my incisors. Throughout the trek we kept sharing jokes; I believe I was the best at that. Things like remembers advertisements of Maruti…. “Maruti Ka Service Centre Hai Kya”?? and RedBull “Gives you wings”. We also went through wet and soggy places since there were many water-bodies which were checked by dams. The last climb was the best. We lost track of our way and Kshitij, a 4th year member suddenly decided to climb a steep hill from an arbitrary point. The climb was extremely tedious. The slope was just too much and the loose soil made the climb extremely difficult. The shrubs and roots of trees were the only support that we got. It took me about 20 minutes to climb that hill, so steep and so high. It seemed that I had conquered one of the highest peaks in the world. As soon as I reached the top I engraved my name in the soil… The Mark Of Souvik’s Presence. Finally after a lot of hard work we managed to find our way back to the lodge where Sir was eagerly waiting for us. Overall it was a fantastic experience that shall be cherished by me forever…. The next weekend we had our hostel annual function. I really like such events exclusively for hostellers. The Hostel fresher’s and Annual function are very similar, actually only the menu differs. We attended some of the cultural events organized by students residing in our hostel. Last year fresher’s party some shortage of food. So this time we had decided to go there early and take our share before any shortage takes place. All of us reached the mess beforetime and many others followed us. Hostellers do not like to miss out any chance of getting hold of good food. So we all picked up a plate and a spoon each. You would have definitely seen the movie Mr. India. And I am sure you remember how the children asked for food when they had run out of cereals: Banging the spoons onto the plates and screaming aloud “Calendar (Satish Kaushik), Khana Do”. A similar situation erupted in the mess hall, but this time there were a lot more than a dozen hungry children. The attendants had to really hurry and place the food before the students go violent. But this time the estimation was much better and there was no shortage of food… not even the ice-cream. The Conspiracy: Another event exclusive to Panjab University. You already know about the election scenario. One of the most important events in the University calendar, and the reasons I have already given out before. The campaigning and the promotion stuff have already begun for the elections of this year which is about 5 months away from now. Only this time it is not a campaigning based on the mechanisms which we have learned in Civics. One day we wake up in the morning and open up the headlines of the Times of Chandigarh. It says that our Student Union President Amandeep Singh was attempted to be shot at the Students Centre. But he was lucky enough to escape unhurt. The newspaper article also said that many students nearby in Students Centre and Library had heard gunshots and that one bullet went through the sleeve of one of the helpers at the nearby eatery. This issue was startling enough and what followed was!!##!@?? The next day about a dozen members of PUSU party (The one to which Amandeep belonged) came to our classes and requested us to go for a bunk. Their reason: No security for the students inside the campus. Gunshots last took place inside the campus way back in 1984 and thus it becomes a reason to protest. We gleefully accepted and walked out of the class, everyone hates to attend classes. SOPU party (the main opposition, obviously the blame was targeted at them) passed on sms saying that they had nothing to do with the incident and that they respect the president of the student’s council. The following day the newspapers say that some of the policemen who investigated the matter have not been responsible enough as they could not locate the shells. Finally a few days before the scene changed totally…. SOPU party held an anti PUSU demonstration at the students centre. And that few of the leaders of PUSU party were arrested, some from my own hostel. Later on I found out that the forensic department had rejected that the holes in the windscreen of the car has been created by a bullet, instead a sharp object. Thus the whole case has turned against the PUSU party. Pata Nahi yeh party wale vote ke liye kiss hadd taka age jaa sakte hai?? And believe me when I say that... This Happens Only In P.U. I have lots more to share with you... shall be posting soon after a few days. Note: Since past two to three months the Bird Flu scare in India has really killed half the pleasures of my life (apart from the million birds and hundreds of people). Depriving a Bengali like me of eggs is a big sin and the Dean of Students Welfare is guilty of this crime. I tell you, the Dean shall be cursed. Back to the Ministry 2006-03-02T23:38:00.000-08:00 One thing that my friends circle has done is that it has given each other different names. Each one has been assigned a name depending on his characteristics, what he does, his looks etc etc. Lots of criteria.. I hate to say that I am called a Dungar by some of my friends. Another friends group constitutes true Potter fans, thus the names go the Harry Potter way. All of us keep using the Rowling terms very frequently (we all know the terms she has introduced to us). In that group I am known as the "Minister of Magic", in short "Magix". Why? Because I am a part of the Ministry i.e. The Technical Committee. Just after the first sessional the Ministry summoned us back to work for another event. This time it was Microsoft (Don't we all hate them!!). Microsoft organized nationwide Academic Days in 10 cities of India. Their slogan was "Rock With The Gyan". Although the slogan tells us that the event will be entirely educational, obviously it was not. This event was 20% educational and 80% advertisement of one of their latest product release i.e. Visual Studio 2005. It all started with a couple of persons from an event marketing company approaching us to help them for advertising. I was sitting at the Offline Registration Desk for quite sometime before I was given other jobs like guiding those people to the other institutes in Chandigarh for the advertisement. The advertising and the Offline registration took place only for 2 days before the event. The largest auditorium in Panjab University (The Law Audi) was booked for this event. People from the event management company arrived late in the evening before the day of the event. Extremely professional they were. Within few hours the whole auditorium was set-up with Microsoft posters, projection screens, sound and mike systems. The sound system was too good. 2 small BOSE speakers for the whole auditorium!! Superb effects those two speakers had and they easily covered the entire auditorium. Thanks to the event management company we had almost no work that evening. Just watch them do their job. The next day the same routine was followed that I have been following every time there is an event. Wake up early morning and reach the event site. A whole team from Microsoft had arrived but unfortunately some of the speakers were missing. Ashwani Sharma was the one who headed the team and some of his speeches were excellent. The first session was for the faculty. There was a session on Microsoft Visual Studio Team Systems. The demonstration was as big a disaster as we have been seeing in the 'History of Microsoft' videos. Some of the taskbars of the application just won’t open and there were some other problems. The one who was demonstrating the software started asking for a better Laptop (ironically the one he was using was his own). Finally he took Mr. Ashwani's laptop but there too he could not successfully demonstrate the software. The second session was for students. I attended another session on Data Mining. The speech part and the presentation were very good but when the demonstration time for SQL server came it was another blunder. It all ended with - "this thing could be done... don't know what is the problem...". The rest of the day I was on duty, crowd control, giving away the free software and CDs. The end of the day the faculty was given a 3-DVD set of Visual Studio Team Systems 180-Day Trial. And the students were given Visual Studio Express Edition. Also we were given Tutorial CDs. We as organizers also got free snacks and lunch (and obviously some extra CDs and DVDs). Abhinav Goyal, one of the members of the Technical Committee was entirely responsible for the success of this event in our institute. He was totally involved with this event throughout. First time I was able to attend a good birthday - the hostel way. The birthday of one of my good friends, Arvind. We reach his room at exactly 00 hours with a big Black-Forest cake. He was obviously harassed kicked around, and hit mercilessly. Bumps were difficult as he is heavy and big. At night he took all of us to a dhaba at Sec 15 and treated us. The meal was excellent and I also had an eating competition with Rupak (my school class-mate). This competition was planned long before and finally we had a platform for it to materialize. A lachha parantha eating competition which I easily won. But at the same time another friend of mine challenged me to have 5 paranthas for a treat at Mc Donald’s (A non-veg meal). How can I resist the offer. Although I faced some trouble at completing the challenge but I managed to eat enough to convince him to treat me. Now slluuuurrrrp!! I'm ready for another bite at Mc Donald’s. Rock(-ing) Week 2006-02-21T00:49:00.000-08:00 The two weeks following Goonj has had many ups and downs. The end of Goonj meant the beginning of studies and back to a normal student life. Our first sessional exams took place the very next week. Our subjects in this semester are extremely tough and we anticipated a very difficult sessional (although we were not prepared for it), but to our relief the questionnaires were pretty simple. The evening of the final sessional a live concert of one of my favorite bands took place. Jal & Aryans live at Leisure Valley. Obviously Jal is one of my favorite bands. I had already purchased general tickets of the concert two days in advance. Some of my other friends who were as enthusiastic as me had also purchased their tickets beforehand. Everyone in the crowd was there to listen to Jal. Although Jal was supposed to perform before Aryans, this order was reversed at the very last moment as the whole audience was interested only in Jal. This step was taken in order to hold the crowd till the very end of the show (same reason as to why we held the important competitions just before the prize distribution ceremony in Exun). The performance by Aryans was pathetic. This was the first time I saw a professional band being booed out of the concert. They had to make way for Jal, all embarrassed and humiliated. The band of Jal was excellent. Their drummer, guitarist and the vocalist, all of them were excellent in their respective fields. The section closest to the stage was VIP section, followed by the guest section and finally the general section. Each of the sections was separated by chest-high steel barriers. Only the first two sections had seating arrangement. As soon as Jal started their performance, many people started jumping over the barriers and had to be controlled by the policemen put on duty. Also all the audience in the guest section stood up on their chairs and cheered the band. We decided not to jump over and stay back as there were lots of us in a group. The band played almost all my favorites except one. We all had an excellent time at the show, most of us were dancing, head-banging and enjoying as much as we can. But the entire crowd in the guest section remained standing still on the chair, apparently most of them did not know about the other hits of Jal apart from Lamhay and Aadat. They also played a song from one of their upcoming albums. Paying Rs.100/- for a concert of this kind was more that worth it. The final jam session of Jal and Aryans was very good and it was a truly entertaining night. The following night about 5 of us went out for dinner. We decided to try out the new Yo China! that had opened up in Chandigarh. That was the first time so many of us were going out on a proper pre-planned dinner at a multi-chain outlet. Unfortunately this Yo China! is a franchisee and its menu is quite different from the ones offered at Delhi. Obviously where-ever we go as a group we do things that people normally won’t do. That is the advantage you have as a college student. I still remember the day when we went to a Chinese restaurant 'The Dragon Chinese' at sec-15, we all occupied seats, drank water, looked at the menu which appeared to be costly and then simply walk out. But this time we had to eat. The meal was excellent not because the food was tasty, but because we made it even more enjoyable. We had ordered dim sums and in Yo China! they are served in cane basket-like containers (I don't know what it is called). One of my friends started asked them if we could take them home. This conversation with the waiter extended very long and the subject changed to the no of things we can do with the basket. The only thing that they could do with it was serve momos, but we insisted that we could put it to a better use by growing plants in it or to store things etc etc. This was followed by demanding more and more dim sum sauce which tasted extremely good along with the momos. Finally we decided to carry tiffin boxes the next time to take dim sum sauce back home. Another friend of mine started eating the cabbage used for decoration of the dim sums. In fact he ate each piece of cabbage he could extract out of the container. He even used a knife kept in the spoon-stand of our table to scratch out some burnt pieces of the cabbage and then replaced it back in the same stand along with the fresh cutlery. Finally he returned the basket with few microscopic pieces of cabbage and apologized for not being able to finish it. As we were about to end our meal, we made a plan to escape the restaurant without paying for the food. One by one we would walk up to the gate and run out and away from the restaurant as fast as we could and not turn back at all. This whole conversation was done pretty loudly in order to humor ourselves. Finally after paying the bill we demanded for Sauf & Chini as mouth refreshment. But the manager apologized and explained that they do not have that as it was a Chinese Restaurant. We asked them whether Chinese people have Sauf or not. He had no answer to that question. Just a smile. In our language we call such acts "Chod Machana". The sessional exams were followed by two working days and then three holidays. Most of the hostellers use such short holidays to go home and so they even bunk the two working days and enjoy a nice long 5 day break. On the other hand the students who are left behind, both hostellers and day scholars use the fact that most of the hostellers are at home and they go on a mass bunk. The same thing happened this weekend. By Friday morning every friend of mine living in my hostel went back home. Two others did not go back home but spent most of their time with their local friends. I was left all alone. But thankfully I did not get bored because of PecFest. PecFest is the college fest of Punjab Engineering College. I spent most of my time there, but hardly participated in any event as I did not have any one else to form a team. Their fest was pretty good. They have more sponsorship but I have no idea where all their sponsorship money has gone, as there was nothing extraordinary there. Apart from the star-nite, the other two nights were not at all entertaining. Goonj was a lot better in this regard. There were only two things that I liked in PecFest- The Quiz and The Star-nite. The quiz was conducted by a professional quizmaster. He had a huge database of questions in his mind. It seemed that he was plucking questions straight out of thin air. Two of the rounds were extremely interesting. In one of them he gave out newspapers to each of the teams and asked them to choose a page of their choice. He will then look at the page for about half a minute and then make a question out of the contents of the page. The answers will also be there in the page itself. A very good and innovative round but only one team was able to answer their question. In another round he gave each of the teams to choose any state of India and a corresponding topic on which he would ask a question. I must say that the performance of this quizmaster was the best I have ever seen till now. Euphoria was invited to perform on star-nite. Initially I was all alone, but soon I found some of my friends out there. The performance of this band was superb, far superlative than most other bands I had seen. Dr Palash Sen the lead singer of this band sang some of the famous Hindi and English numbers and obviously all the famous Euphoria tracks. The most important part of his performance was his interaction with the crowd. He has a knack of involving people in his music. Definitely PecFest ended with a bang and so did my days of loneliness as all the hostellers returned back the next day. Back for another session of fun, masti and Chod Machana. Goonj 2006 2006-02-10T23:02:00.000-08:00 Goonj is a three day fest of UIET which has technical, cultural, academic and other events. All three days the UIET building looks pretty chaotic. Sponsor banners, students, confused participants, busy help-desk, food and other stalls are some of the common sightings outside the building. This year the main sponsor of our fest was Airtel. As a member of technical committee I was also a Goonj Organiser. Days leading to Goonj were extremely tiring esp. because our dear convener has been very inefficient. Just two days before the fest he realised that the none of the required softwares for the different techncal events were installed on the computers. So at the very last moment he turned to me, and thankfully I had the resources and I provided them with almost all the required ones. And finally he assigned me to install all the softwares!! It took me almost one full day to install the softwares on 35 nodes. Since anyone hardly helped me, it made the job even tougher. Looking at the non-technical events we had both cultural and academic events, competitions and programmes. Some of the secial events were Treasure Hunt and Young Turks. In Treasure Hunt clues are provided to reach a point in the campus where the next clue is hidden and this way the hunt goes on. Young Turks has been one of the most heavily marketed events. Many of my friends joined the team of Young Turks as volunteers. They were initially involved in hunting sponsors for the event and later turned to extensive marketing. Young Turks was extremely successful last year, so they got lots of sponsors and the posters of this event were pasted all around the city. This event has a written screening round based upon a topic of participants choice, followed by a final round in which the participants directly interact with certain celebrities like TV actors, RJs etc. Although I was extremely interested in participating in this event but unfortunately I was too occupied with the technical committee tasks. Another good event was Rendevous, in which certain executives from leading IT companies were invited to interact with the students. My friends told me that this event was awesome. Most of them liked the invitee from Microsoft who gave his presentation using Notepad. Another interesting competition was Besura Duet. As the name suggests, a team of two have to sing in a Besura and humourous manner. Coming back to the technical events.. We had planned 22 events, but unfortunately 2 events had to be cancelled due to very less participations. The first technical event to be organised was on the software development using c\c++. Since I did not organise that event (and because of my obvious interest in programming) I decided to participate in that event. I teamed up with Varun (ECE, 1st year) who stays next to my room. He is not extremely talented in C++, but he has done c++ in 12th. First up was a written multiple choice screening. I must say that if was a very tough paper for a first year (even for me). We had to think a lot to logically derive the probable solutions. But the result was good and we were the only first year team to qualify (our score was pretty decent, we were third in screening!!). But the smile on our face was erased by the main programming question. Unlike the previous competitions in which I had participated, this had only one question. Unfortunately the question was too tough for us to understand. Each line was OHT (Over-Head Transmission). The question had something to do with Cyclic Redundancy Check, binary etc etc which overall made very little sence to me. We scratched our heads for about an hour, looked at others who were typing confusedly typing some commands and then gave up and left. Some of the other good and successful events were Mathsmania- Mini Olympiad, Sudoku, Encryption-Decryption, Photoshop Designing, Debugging and flash animation. I also participated in Photoshop Designing but I had no partner. Although I did not win anything, I liked the topic and the overall event. The last thing I participated in was Debugging with a 2nd year CSE student Siddharth who is also in the technical committee. We suddenly decided to participate in it about a few minutes before the start of the screening. 10 participants were to be selected from the screening test which was extremely tricky. A brilliant screening paper I must say. We had to spot the bug and also name the which type of bug it is (Compiler, Runtime, L-Value etc). Unfortunately we did not make it. Later on when the finals had already started I checked out the corrected paper and I realised that our paper was incorrectly checked. When I approached the person who was organising this event, I was very correctly told "You are a member of technical committee and have the liberty to see the paper but that gives you no right to contest the checking of the paper". Mathsmania and Encryption-Decryption (Which was done entirely by me except for a small help by Rungta) were superhit events. Sudoku also had a very high participation. Ahother event that I fully organised was Data-Mining. Similar to one at our school but I had both text and picture clues and also an icon as a clue. I gave them 3 lifelines which they can use if they are unable to solve a clue. Overall I am pretty satisfied with my events. As you all know that Goonj was a 3-day event. Each night had some special events. First night was a Lazer Show. As an organiser I was allowed to enter the exclusive section that was right in front of the podium. Each lazer show was followed by one or two cultural shows. The lazer show was brilliant and most of the effects left us spellbound. Never before I have seen anything like that. The following night was the rock night. A band from our university played a few good songs which was followed by a Delhi based rock band Prithvi. Their performance was terrific. The lead singer and guitarist seems to be a big GnR fan. His performance was exactly like them, the was he played guitar, his movements. They played lots of GnR tracks, Linkin Park, Bryan Adams songs from their own album etc. The whole auditorium was rocking!! Everyone was standing on the chairs, head banging, screaming, shouting.... in short enjoying a rock concert to the extreme. Infact the audi had to suffer a high loss after this concert, brocken chairs, brocken handles etc etc. The final night we got a chance to enjoy disco. DJ Nasha was invited to perform. Although he is supposed to be next best after DJ Aqeel and DJ Suketu, I did not particularly like his mixing. But his choice of music was perfect and the arrangement was very good. The sound was awesome and the volume was extremely high. I loved the quality of speakers he brought along. And that night all of us had a ball. We danced as hard as our legs could bear. Even though we would have loved to dance all night, but in Chandigarh all such night events are to stop by 10 pm. Goonj ended after the dance party with a humble request by our Department Representatives. They asked all of us to go for a mass bunk the next working day. Over all the fest was lovely and I really enjoyed most of it. But it needs to improve even more. Hopefully next year it will be even better. Me vs The Technical Committee 2006-02-01T06:41:00.000-08:00 Last two weeks most of my time was spent in extensive interaction with the members of the technical committee. As you all know that we organized a national symposium on the 19th of Jan and it was followed by our college fest ‘Goonj’. The symposium was a pretty successful. About 7 speakers came from all over north India to give a presentation on the latest Trends in Computing and Mobile Communication. It was during this event that I had the maximum interaction with the other members of the committee. And I also realized how much disorganized this committee is. Although a few meetings were held beforehand about how this symposium should be organized and marketed, very little came out of the meetings. As usual one or two jobs are assigned to the few members who actually turn up for the meeting. Right from the first day I noticed that very few members actually turn up on the day of the meetings. This symposium was sponsored by Infosys, and was scheduled to take place from the morning till the evening. The biggest problem with this event was that the marketing was not very good. Although the posters of this event were printed well beforehand, they were pasted just a few days before the event. In fact the promotion was done only a day in advance when I had to miss my classes to tell the 1st year students about the event. This was the first big event that was being organized by us and most of the members (even the teacher involved, Mr Harish who in this case is equivalent to Mr Mukesh in Exun) seemed to be confused about how the event should proceed. Some of the questions that came in their mind were: How to welcome the guests? Lunch? Snacks? In which order should the events be held? When do we make the guests light the lamp etc… I passed on all the experience I had gained in school about such events. In fact I had to draft the whole symposium, in which order things will happen etc. I was instructed to be in the back-stage and help out the person who would compare in the event. I also had to wake up at half past five and reach the auditorium by 6:30 in the morning. When I reached there I was very unhappy to see that nothing was prepared. Not even the flex was put up a day before. The only thing that was done the previous day was that 2 tables, 5 chairs and one UPS were kept on the podium!! When I told the convener of the technical committee that lots of things should have been done a day before, his reply was “We did not have enough time.” Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it? After a few hours of hard work we were able to setup the Audi for the event which surprisingly commenced on time. Initially the Audi was jam-packed, but slowly as the day progressed the number of students declined steadily. Although at every step we faced difficulties, but eventually the symposium was a success. I shall describe ‘Goonj’ in my next blog entry but I would like to introduce the Technical committee to all of you. First up is Rishabh Dara who is the convener of the Technical committee and a 3rd year student of Telecom and Information Technology. I have already introduced him to you all but I would like to add lots to that. Firstly his ‘cool’ long hair was cut short to a normal length just before the symposium and now just moments ago I met him and his hair is as short as mine. His looks are being mentioned first as he is really bothered about his appearance. And he does not like if anyone comments on his looks. As I mentioned before he smiles perpetually and apparently it makes him a good and a successful flirt. And he rarely gets off his jeans. In the technical side he is mostly doing web-based stuff. I guess rishabhdara.com is one of his creations. I recently got to know that he is also from Delhi and did his schooling from Vasant Valley. My complain against him is that he hardly works. Always roaming around and instructing others to work. And the weirdest thing he did was that he invited me to sleep with him – gave me an opportunity to say that his smile does not work on me. Next up is Kshitij Aggarwal , a 4th year Computer Science student. Dark and handsome. He is the person who laughs a lot and entertains us a lot, which is what I like about him. But according to me he needs to work more, though he completes almost every little work he takes up. Jaideep Karam Chandani is in Mechanical 2nd Year. He works a lot!!! He is the only person whom you can see working hard. He takes up all the responsibility that he could and also completes them in the nick of time. I see him as the future convener of Technical Committee. He likes doing IQ-related stuff, Maths, Sudoku etc. But I feel that he should involve himself less in the stuff that others are handling which due to his interference leads to confusion and mismanagement. Preet Kamal Singh Minhas is the coolest member of the committee. He is a 3rd year CSE student. The only sardar (with due respect) and extremely witty. I love his one-liners. Very responsible. Completes all his tasks and you will always find him dressed well mostly in formals. He is involved in programming related stuff Aakriti Rana is a 3rd year CSE student. Very dangerous and short tempered. Does not like any nonsense during work. She is very talented, dances, sings etc. and is very commited. But she has a very sweet nature and is very focused about her work. Ujala Jhamb and Urvashi Khanna are 4th year CSE students. Always work in pairs. Since I have not interacted with them a lot, I do not have much to write about them. Siddharth Malhotra is a 2nd year CSE student. He is very fast in everything he does. Speaks fast, thinks fast, works fast etc. He seems to be really multi-talented in computing. Likes programming, photoshop etc. He is fun to work with as his conversations are a mixture of jokes and past experiences that you will love to hear. The best thing I like about him is that he always offers to help you. Abhishrut Gupta is a 2nd year IT student. He does not seem to be very involved in computing but he seems to be a serious Apple fan and is very much involved with quizzing and Mac stuff. Gurveen K Bhatia, Nishant Gupta, Tanuj Khurana are from the 4th, 3rd and 2nd year respectively. They worked pretty well during Goonj and I would like to thank Nishant and Tanuj for helping me with some of my work. Ashmeet Thukral and Mani Garg are two first year members. Both are not very good in computing and have not been actively involved in Goonj. Arjun Angral is the next member for whom I have a question. “Who are you?? What do you look like??” Finally the last member is.. Yours Truly. Hardly bathes, not concerned about his looks, looks shabby but works a lot. Note: These are my views on each of the members after I have worked with them for the symposium and for Goonj. Please accept my views in good spirit. My next post will be about Goonj so be prepared!! Back to college 2006-01-18T01:20:00.000-08:00 College life after the holidays has not been too good. As expected my life after the winter break has been difficult. Quite a number of factors have contributed to this, in fact everything has been dull and gloomy since my very first step in Chandigarh. As soon as I got out of the train at 8:20 in the evening the cold weather of Chandigarh welcomed me. Chandigarh in winters has always been chilly. And it was the first time I was facing it. The ride from the station to the hostel in an auto-rickshaw was a blood-freezing one. The first week was full of anxiety and tension, specially because the Ist Semester results were declared. Maths was really bad and the rest, except Solid Mechanics (which I have not received yet), was pretty good. I received another blow when I met Rishabh Dara. He is a nice soft-spoken guy with long hair and a cool look who likes to instruct people (atleast me). He is one of those kind who either perpetually chews gum or smiles or does both simultaneously. Dara (this is how I refer him) is the co-ordinator of Technical Commitee (and a IIIrd yr Student of Telecom And Information Technlogy). In our very first meeting after the holidays he bombarded me with tonnes of work. That was expected. He wanted us to stay behind during the winter break. And I on the other hand spent my winter break in Delhi and on top of that I also bunked the whole first week. These days our committee is under a lot of work-load, esp because our college fest Goonj is coming up. Also it is organising a symposium on the latest trends in communication and computing. I was given 3 tasks. Firstly to make a notice on CSI membership. CSI is not Crime Scene Investigation. It is the Computer Society Of India. Secondly to make announcement about the symposium. And finally to make questions of two events to be held in Goonj. Now that is a lot of work. My subjects in this semester are too tough. Maths, Chemistry, Electrical, Thermodynamics, Applied Mechanics, Humanities and finally the most feared one- Engineering Drawing(ED). ED I believe is a subject created by demons. In the first class of ED we were taught how to write English alphabets and numbers!! They want characters of exact dimensions, exact ratio, exact shape... I mean... it seemed to us that we never passed the Nursery class. Next it has so many strict rules that you have to follow. 4 kinds of pencils, a mini-drafter, sheets of A2 sizes, soft erasers and all the components of a geometry set are required. So many rules and instruments not only makes this subject difficult, but also time consuming and confusing. Last Saturday I went to the ED hall to complete 2 assignments. I spent three and a half hours only to draw margins of one sheet, a title box and one sentence- "A QUICK BROWN FOX...." in CAPS. Maths is another subject that bamboozes you. It was my first class and at that time I did not know my time-table. A teacher walked in and taught us for an hour. After the class I got up and asked one of my friends "Which subject was this? Phisics?". "No" he replied, "Maths". Whole of last hour I could only hear words like Vectorial Mechanics, forces, vectors etc. If you do not believe me refer our maths book- Vectorial Mechanics by J.S. Bindra and K.S. Gill. This is what the book consists of - Vector Algebra, Multiplication of Vectors, Resultant and Equilibrium of Forces, Moments and Couples, Friction, Graphic Statics, Funicular Polygons, Centre of Gravity & Pappus Theorem, Moment of Inertia, Velocity and Acceleration, Force Projectiles & Circular Motion, Work, Power, Energy & Impulses & Momentum, Angular Momentum & Energy of Rotation, Virtual Work, Mechanical Vibrations. Now in this whole syllabus only two words seem to be related to maths- Algebra and Centre (from Centre of gravity)!! The rest is all Physics!! And mind you, this is not a physics book. It is a proper Maths book. The former author was Head Applied Mathematics and the latter is a lecturer in applied mathematics. Although I have been facing plenty of lows, there were a few bright specs. Two major festivals were celebrated last week. Ed on the 11th Jan and Lohri on 13th Jan. Muslim population hardly exists in this part of India. As a result Ed was no special day except for an off day. Ed was celebrated by us at a Chinese Dhaba where we all had dinner. This Chinese Dhaba (as we all call it) has become very popular among our friends recently. It is located in Sector 15, about 5 mins walk from Gate No-2 of PU. Although it is not a very clean eatery, it is definitely cheap and tasty. Lohri on the other hand is much more popular. All the departments (except ours, i.e. UIET) were closed in the second half. We all bunked the post-lunch session unofficially. A DJ was set up in stu-cee during the lunch hour and everyone was rocking to the tunes of bhangra. Pieces of wood, logs, broken wooden furnitures etc were stacked up in every Department, Hostels, Stu-cee etc. ready to be ignited in the evening. Some of the departments also arranged for big speakers and DJs. Even our hostel celebrated Lohri and all of us were given a pack of peanuts. Since the mess was closed at night we again had dinner at the same Chinese Dhaba. But the celebrations were very short-lived and we are back to a usual college life. My struggle with the difficult subjects has resumed. Even the weather grows gloomier and it has started raining in Chandigarh. But there is one thing that I have been truely enjoying. "LOST". Thanks to Rungta who has sparked a craze in me. Hopefully this phase will soon be over and I will be back with a blog entry describing how good life is @ MyWorld. Winter blast! 2006-01-10T03:09:00.000-08:00 My winters holidays are now over, and I am back with a new post. Most of the time in Delhi I was busy doing only 2 things. Either I was riding the newly inaugurated metro (Line 3, the blues line from Dwarka to Barakhamba Road) or trying real hard to install Mac OS X onto my computer. Now if you have visited Karan Misra's Blog you know everything about it, incase you haven't here is the painful story. Karan returned from Stanford with a new Mac installer. Obviously I was thrilled to hear this news, as the previous one that Rungta has been successfully using for quite a few months does not recognize my SATA hard disk!! Now that the new installer is here and Mr. Misra is also here, WHO can stop me from having Mac on my computer?? And this question still remains unanswered. Well, I gladly carried my entire system to Karan's home hoping that by the next day I shall be proudly using Mac on my PC, but unfortunately the installer kept stopping midway. After spending two days working on it Karan realizes that the disk image might be corrupt. So the image is reacquired over a period of 4 days and then again the installation was retried, but again sKaran was unsuccessful again. This time it did not even boot from the dvd. Now after wasting about a pack of dvds, a precious week and quite an amount of data I am back to a usual Microsoft life and a computer which has been declared as ”MANHOOS” by Karan. Thanks Karan sob,.. weep you tried hard, but sob, unfortunately weep weep, bad luck... Now some of the bright parts of the winter break. Delhi Metro is definitely awesome that is an old statement. Now I have realized that the adjective 'delicious' can be associated with the Metro. Now everyone knows that I love to eat. FOOD drives me crazy! And now Metro takes me right from Dwarka straight into the heart of Old Delhi!! On 2nd of January I decided to go old delhi and have lunch there (and this was a good excuse to ride Metro). So I went. At noon I started off from home and reached the metro station at Dwarka More (The closest to my house as of now). I bought a smart card for Rs 100 (acutally Rs 200, including the security deposit) and boarded the train. It took me about 35 mins to reach Connaught Place. The ride from Dwarka to CP is excellent. You get to see very big Malls and Multiplexes, the highest station at Rajouri Garden (the tracks go over a flyover and the view is spectacular - the engineering must be appreciated) then you see a big Lord Hanuman statue and the train slowly moves underground into the Rajiv Chowk (CP) station. Next I go to the second level of underground station and change over to the yellow line (from Central Secretariat to Vishvavidyalaya). This train took me to Chawri Bazaar station. This station is extremely deep under the ground level. Three flights of long escalators separate the platform and the ticket counter (which is also underground). And as soon as you come out of the station you are greeted by cycle rickshaws, tempos, bonk bonk, horns, traffic jams (in short a complete chaos). I selected one direction and started walking for sometime enjoying the Old Delhi atmosphere. After some time, I looked for help to reach the Paranthewali Gali. A shopkeeper helped me to reach that place, called a rickshaw and off I went. The distance was not too much but the ride was extremely time consuming due to frequent jams and confusion. And after a tedious ride I reached the lane, the renowned Paranthewali Gali. This old lane which earlier used to be full of parantha shops, now only has three parantha shops left. I went to the shop that was recommended by the shopkeeper. He asked me to watch out for the one that has the photos of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi etc. That shop was the oldest and the best. Well, I located it soon and enjoyed a few paranthas over there. The food was tasty. The simple vegetable paranthas are for Rs 15 each and the special ones, namely paneer, rabri, chini etc are for Rs 20 each. You are given 3 different kinds of vegetable, mint chutney and pickle with the paranthas. The shops are extremely small, stuffy and jam-packed with customers, but still the experience is worth it and the food is good. Next I decided to have the special authentic Muslim Biryani. I hired a rickshaw and went to Jama Masjid. The entrance to Jama Masjid is not very good. Even this place is pretty dirty and full of crowd and goats. I did not enter the mosque but managed to taste biryani at Meena Bazaar. And the biryani was excellent. The taste was toooo goood!! Mutton Biryani, 250 gms for Rs 10/- only and this is a must try. But I must tell you that only a real food lover should go there and have the biryani as the shops are dirty, you may find pieces of hair in the food (and whether that belongs to the goat or the cook?, I do not know) Just close your eyes, keep your nose open (the food smells great) and enjoy the biryani. And after the divine experience I went to the Delhi Main metro station (near Chandni Chowk) and went to CP. Here as soon as a climbed up the stairs leading out of the station I saw Wenger’s, the bakery. The pastries at Wenger’s are the best that I have tasted so far. Everyone must visit this bakery once and try out the flavors. After this superb lunch and desert, I returned to Dwarka. And finally I must repeat, Metro takes you to tasty food. Two more things happened this winter-break that I really enjoyed. Firstly the DPS RKP reunion. It was good to meet old school-mates, although many of them did not manage to turn up. One thing I must mention is that in the past 15 years of my association with DPS this was the first time we were offered a proper meal by the school. And secondly Rungta's B'Day. He rescheduled his celebration as I was leaving on 7th Jan. We had a good time at ‘Not Just Paranthas’. Basically this sums up my entire winter break and now I am back to college...and some bad time lies ahead of me........ A month and a half, in short 2005-12-12T10:58:00.000-08:00 Our institute fresher party is over, but that is not the end of it. Fresher parties still continue. Firstly we had a hostel fresher party. A few hours of cultural performance by the hostellers - dance, jokes, songs etc. An excellent lunch followed the performances. Unlike other days we enjoyed 3-4 courses, paneer, fruit cream, cold drinks and more- free of cost and as much as you like!!! And if you think two fresher parties are enough, you get more than enough in PU. University freshers!! The whole University is invited to the university grounds for Aagaaz 2005. This is a cultural event which begins in the evening and continues past midnight, organised to welcome the freshers of university. But one can not enjoy everything in life. Since it took place a day before the 3rd maths sessional, most of us could not attend it. I managed to enjoy it for a few minutes on the way to the library and back. The series of freshers was followed by boring sessional exams. Diwali is fun as usual and it becomes even better when a few drops of mischief is mixed with it. So late night when everyone is asleep, some loud crackers are burst right outside the hostel rooms. Diwali was celebrated in Delhi but the festive season soon came to an end as the Ist semester was drawing near. If sessional exams are boring and difficult, then semester exams beat it in every aspect. The exams took place from 16th of November till 2nd December and practical till 9th December. As a result we had a crazy hardworking time after the Diwali holidays. And since I am too lazy to attend the 'useless' fluid mechanics classes I fell short of the minimum required number of attendance in that subject. As a result I had to face some music till 15th November to get my admit card. The exam papers are of 3 hours duration having 8 questions of 20 marks each out of which only 5 have to be attempted. Although the questions carry a lot of marks, their answers are very short and no one knows how much to write. Questions are sometimes extremely vague - Write a note on a spreadsheet software. Still most of us managed to deal pretty well with the questions. Now that the exams are over I am free to resume my normal life. Meanwhile Hindustan Times published some good news for all the UIETians. Firstly our new building in Sector 25 is ready to use and from next semester classes will be shifted to the new building. Secondly the present UIET building has become wifi enabled. The whole Panjab University will be wifi enabled in 2 months including 10 hostels. Also a breaking news that laptops may be made compulsory from next semester onwards for students. Will post more often from now onwards. Leaving you with the most famous PU library... Tech-Shopping 2005-10-30T04:26:00.000-08:00 Durga Puja as usual was fun. Two of my aunts visited us with their family. Since most of the events are held at night I was the main driver during those days. Obviously we could not ask our driver to do an overnight duty and again come in the morning. The Puja days were over even before we realized it!! Dusshera was on 13th October and I went out shopping. I had been waiting for this kind of shopping for one long year. It is the Nehru Place shopping. Now that the fresher was gone and the ragging has ended, I decided to purchase a new computer. On Thursday, 13th Oct I went to Nehru place alone to do a bit of market survey. There were few points in my mind:- A powerful computer that would not be outdated very soon. No Pentium 4, I want to get over the Pentium 4 era. A good speaker is a must. The mother-board should be perfectly compatible with the processor I choose. RAM and hard disk should have a high capacity and speed. My desire: A Sony 17” LCD monitor!! To cut cost I will not buy anything that can be easily added later e.g. video/sound card. Now with these things in mind I went out for the survey. The configuration of the PC that I initially wanted was:- Pentium Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz. This processor has dual core, supports Hyper-Threading and 64 bit computing. It is the latest one that Intel has released. Intel motherboard based on Intel 955 chipset. DVD Burner Samsung HDD at least 120 GB Kingston RAM about 2 GB Sony 17” TFT LCD Monitor A good multimedia keyboard and USB optical scroll mouse Altec Lansing speakers First I enquired if the processor is available or not. Most of the shops claimed that the processor did not exist!! One shop on the other hand gave me the details of Pentium 4 Extreme Edition Processor. He told me that it would be expensive, and then enquired the price of the processor to the Intel Distributor. The price shocked me: Rs. 42,000/-. F*k man, it is bloody expensive. I continued my survey but did not enquire about the processors anymore. I met Prateek Chadha in the market and we went to few more shops until he was hungry. So we went to his home for lunch. On the way I called up Maanick and asked for some advice. He recommended Pentium D and a good motherboard combination. Since Maanick also had some work in Nehru Place, he helped me with the survey after lunch. End of the day I was dead tired, went back home and celebrated Dusshera. The next day I went to Nehru Place with the cash and a configuration fixed in my mind. But unfortunately the cost of the PC did not fit in my budget. And another day was wasted. On Saturday there was an Exun judges meeting. After the meeting (and eating) Rungta, Maanick and I went to Nehru purchase the PC. After a lot of negotiation the PC was purchased and assembled. But during assembly, at the end of the day we realized that the motherboard did not have an onboard graphics. So I was forced to go for a graphics card too. The shopping took five and a half hours. I thank Maanick for all the help during the shopping period. The next challenge was setting it up. So I went to ‘The Rungta’s’ to set it all up. Unfortunately Mac OS could not be installed in my system. But Windows XP is running well. Thanks to Mukesh sir for the Extreme Windows CD. A new problem popped out of the box of the monitor. The monitor had one dead pixel, and I could not bear that. That had to be changed. On Monday I went to the shop and got my monitor exchanged for a different model. On Saturday I was forced to buy D.A. chip based RAM as other companies were not available. Since I do not trust that company, I got it changed too. Kingston was out of budget, so I bought Hyundai-Hynix chip based RAM. And now my computer is rocking!! Thanks to Rungta for all the help that night (the help still continues). The configuration of my PC is:- Pentium D, 3.0 GHz Intel Motherboard D955XBK 512+512 MB RAM, 533 MHz Samsung 160 GB HDD Sony 17” TFT LCD Monitor, SDM-H75 Altec Lansing speakers, ATP3 Sony DVD±RW/±R/^CD Dual Layer, DRU-810A Sony 1.44” FDD Microsoft Wired Keyboard 500 Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse NVIDIA GeForce 6200 Graphics Card with TurboCache. 128 MB + 256 MB shared with the RAM Overall an excellent system and in spite of not meeting my initial configuration, I am more than satisfied. Since I do not have a photo of my system, here is a combined picture of all the parts of my computer. The Night Bus 2005-10-29T10:31:00.000-07:00 Mornings have changed since we have bought our football. Every morning should begin with a game of football. Although it may not take place everyday, we still try our best to play once before going for our classes. One of my friend's brother visited Chandigarh for some work. A tall stout fellow with good football skills. We asked him to play with us, which he obviously accepted. It was a lovely morning and about twelve of us were ready to play early (even before dawn). Such was the passion. It was a wonderful game of about an hour and a quarter. End of the game we all got a short briefing from the hulk. The football session was followed by a series of different feelings- excitement, anxiety, confusion etc. It was the UIET freshers' day!! The event was called Aagman-2005. Cultural programme 3:30PM till 6:30PM followed by dinner and dance party 7:30PM onwards. We were really looking forward to this day, not because of the party, but because it will officially end ragging. The day before the freshers' was the worst day in terms of mental stress. It is supposed to be the day when the 1st year students are ragged till the highest degree of satisfaction is realized by the seniors. That is why we stayed out of the campus for a long time. At night no one came to our hostel as very few UIET freshers live in hostel 6. Some freshers from other hostels were not as lucky. Obviously we very excited about the party but we were really confused about what to wear?? Formals!! We do not have any of those with us!! Some students went back home to get clothes, some of them bought new ones and few lucky ones had their clothes sent to them. The rest (my category) had to work out without proper formals. I had to manage the day in simple trousers, shirt and sneakers!! In the first half we enjoyed good cultural performance by the first year students as well as the second year students. But unfortunately only the group performance which involves dance performance or drama was appreciated. Most of the audience made fun of the individual performance like jokes, whistling talent. These performers had to leave the stage annoyed, humiliated and embarrassed. The events that we enjoyed the most were the dance performance on rhythmic Punjabi and western tracks. The whole Audi was up on its feet dancing to the tunes. The 'Whenever Wherever' performance was enjoyed the most by the male seniors. ‘Julie! Julie!' they shouted at the female dancer. Rounds of Mr. and Ms Fresher were taking place between the performances. The last programme I saw was Punjabi Bhangra in original bhangra outfit - pag, kurta and chadra. They were dancing to the beats of dhol. Even the teachers joined the dance on stage. Although Mr. and Ms Fresher were not declared yet, we left the Audi as we were getting late for the dance party at night. It was 6:30 already and we had to freshen ourselves, arrange for a transport to the Chandigarh Club. So we all arranged for the famous 'Dus Rupay Savari Autorickshaw'. About 9-10 of us in each auto and we all reached club by eight. The party had already begun! The whole Chandigarh Club lawn was booked for the party. The Disco setup was at one end of the lawn and the arrangement for the food was at the other end of the lawn. Snacks were being offered by the waiters- Gobhi roast, spring rolls etc. There was arrangement for juice, soft drinks and coffee. Some of the seniors were having hard drinks. Dance was going on at its best with some refreshments at regular intervals to compensate the energy lost. Although it was quite chilly, the shirts were drenched in sweat. Finally at around 9:30pm we were offered dinner- one plate per coupon. All UIETians like me are real gluttons. They were so desperate for food that they started filling up their plates from both sides of the buffet counters. As a result the waiters were unable to refill the contents in the dishes. Thus initially there was a shortage of food. The problem was solved after a long time. The menu was very good but the food was not tasty as almost all the items lacked salt!! The sweet dish was very good - ice cream and gulab jamun. At the end of the day, around 10:30 most of us had run out of energy and the music was stopped as loud music is not allowed in Chandigarh after 10pm. But our spirits were still high. Some of the friends decided to go for a movie at that hour. I, on the other hand had to return to Delhi after the party for Durga Puja and Dusshera celebrations. So, some of us returned to the campus. Finding an auto at that time is really difficult. We had to walk a long distance to catch one. As soon as I reached my hostel I picked up my packed bag and took the same auto to the bus-stand (ISBT is called Bus Stand in Chandigarh). Busses to Delhi operate round the clock. But since I had to travel with my tired body overnight, I decided to go for the deluxe bus. The deluxe bus costs a bit extra but offers comfortable seats whose backrest can be tilted. Also it only stops once at a Mid-Way and goes directly to Delhi. The last deluxe bus is at 11:45pm unfortunately I was the second last person to buy the tickets. I got the last row seat and my backrest could not be tilted. The bus took only 4 hours 20 minutes to reach Delhi, which otherwise can be as long as 6 hours on a normal inter-state bus. The fact that I was returning home to celebrate Durga Puja with my family compensated all the problems I faced during my journey. I leave you with some of the moments:- A Request... 2005-10-26T02:22:00.000-07:00 From now on I will start posting fresh posts i.e ones that I have not mailed before. I would like to know who all are visiting my blog. Please leave your name as comment. SSSSSSSSSSSSSSimple Harmonic Motion 2005-10-24T01:35:00.000-07:00 8th October 2005 Well, the subject of this post might sound a little peculiar, but as you read on the subject would be justified. Lots has happened since my last post on ragging. Firstly my second sessional exams. BORING exams again and again. It seems that engineering means giving exams again and again till you drop dead. Short one and a half papers for 20 marks and syllabus are topics written out of 20 kg ink. How to study for that?? For me there is only one way. Go to the library reading room. There is no way I can study in the hostel. Someone or the other knocks at the doors after every 15 mins, either HE(oh! why not SHE) wants something or just to talk/chat/gossip, listen to music etc etc etc. So if you want to study peacefully, go to the library just before dinner time, have your meal at STU-CEE (short for Student's Centre) which is right next to the library and then enter the reading room. One thing you must ensure is that you should satisfy all your requirements before entering the library (eg emptying your bladder) because if you leave your chair even for a micro-second, it's gone. Uptill midnight there is a huge rush and thus you have to take over a seat and not let it go till midnight. Obviously you must have figured out that the reading room is open 24 hours. I always need some music while studying and so do some of the others. So generally I carry my iPod and connect it to iTrip. Serves two purpose!! All of my friends can listen to it as most of us have mobiles with radio. Secondly I can protect my iPod from seniors. The iPod is kept inside my bag and everyone thinks that I am listening to the radio. The best thing is that all radio-stations shut down at 11pm. A few times the seniors have had doubts- "Radio is time chal raha hai??" And I simply say yes and show them the frequency- 96.1 Mhz (Which I can change at my will!). Now none of them have a radio enabled phone, they just accept the fact. No one can think of a portable radio station!! Now after studying till 2:00 AM, one has to feel sleepy and hungry. What to do at that time? Three options- Drink Expresso Coffee/Tea, the Nescafe outlet is open till 3:00 AM. Next option:- Go to PGI canteen (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research). There is a hospital inside the PGI campus(right opp to PU campus) and the canteen is open 24 hrs. Last option- Go to the taxi stand right outside the gates of PGI and PU. You will get wonderful Paranthas, Butter, Bread or Eggs. Paranthas of this taxi stand is famous. 3 aloo paranthas for Rs 10. A very satisfying meal at that time. So after the break go back to study. Slog it out till 4:00AM and then go back to the hostel (if you are sleepy). Some of the students there lie down flat out on the reading room tables/line up 4-5 chairs which acts as a bed. Enough of studying. Now some sports. Well we have a group that has a passion for playing football. So do what? Buy a good Quality ball. So we went searching for a good football. On foot we crossed sector 14(PU campus), sec 15, sec 16 and then finally got a good football at sector 17 market. Checked out lots of brands- Puma, Nivea, Umbro, Nike and then finally selected an Adidas football- 10ppl contributed 119 each to buy an excellent football. Now we are having a good match everyday morning and evening. After buying the ball we straightaway headed to Fun Republic to watch a late night show. Why go at night?? The same eerie feeling- ragging!! The exams are over and the seniors are out- searching for a prey. The SSSSSSSSSSSSSS factor- What does SSSSSSSS remind you of? SNAKES. For the first time we faced a snake in our campus- just outside my hostel entrance. Crawling on the road leading to my hostel. Quite a long one (atleast 2 metres). Creamish in colour with greenish tinge. Don't know which breed, but in any case every breed looks dangerous. It was killed using a wooden stick :-( . We are living in a very natural environment, isnt it? We have always had Dogs, Monkeys, Eagles and now a new addition- Snakes!! What the monkeys do is a long story and will be covered in my coming posts. The SHM factor. A fresh experience(latest one infact). Three of us were in one room(the one adjoining my room-that shares a common balcony with me.) I was sitting on the chair listening to music. Varun, lying on the bed. Saurabh, standing next to us. Suddenly Varun said "Abbe palang kyun hila raha hai?" Saurabh:" Main nahi hila raha" Varun sits upright looks at both of us and shouts aloud:" Bh*nch*d earthquake aa raha hai" We all felt it. The water in the bottle started oscillating- as high as a mini tsunami. The table fan started vibrating too with an amplitude of nearly an inch. We all got up and said" Bhaago Bhukamp aaya hai" Quickly ran for my key, and the shocks I felt during locking the door was unbearable. And then I ran- faster than a mouse. Down three floors, along the long corridor, and then out of the hostel. All the hostellers were out trying to control their anxiety. Now this was the strongest and longest tremor I have ever felt in my whole life. Those of you who has never felt an earth quake before, has missed something. After that, the odd feeling continued in my stomach and feet for a long time. Hopefully next time we will be warned before it comes. The epicentre was at Muzzaffrabad in Pakistan measuring 7.6 in richter scale. Lots has been clubbed in this post and I already have more to write. Will post again soon! The Phantom Returns 2005-10-20T23:41:00.000-07:00 25 September 2005 Every one knows that the Panjab University Elections are over. And the end of elections marks the continuation of ragging season!! Fortunately the sessional exams were scheduled just after the elections and the seniors (as well as the freshers) were busy studying. But unfortunately the sessional exams ended and ragging resumed. Generally ragging takes place during the weekends and we are always on the run during the weekends (Best is to spend a long time outside the campus or visit home during the weekends). But last week we were not lucky enough!! Last Saturday we decided to watch the movie Chocolate which would serve two purpose- entertainment and safety!! We went for the 6 to 9 show and as usual we bought the upper stall tickets and watched the movie in the balcony. A wonderful suspence movie, you all will love it, if you like suspence stuff. When I returned back to the hostel hungry and starving at around 10:20pm a senior caught me at my hostel gate. The senior was from hostel no. 7 (the most dangerous hostel as it only has UIET 2nd year students). I was instructed to wait for them in the mess while they hunt down the other freshers in our hostel. I quickly informed my other friends who were also returning from the movie to stay away from the hostel but by then they had already reached the hostel and the seniors soon caught them too. Ok, fine, no way left to save ourselves. We were taken to Hostel 7 and then it all began.... Firstly their instructions:- What will follow is not RAGGING. It is PDP. Full form? Personality Development Program. Incase they abuse us then some of the definitions:- Behen - Girls who study wth us. Maa - Girls who study with the seniors. Baap - Guess who?? the male seniors of course. Not a bad concept. So if you face some of the abuses related to them, need not be emotional. All Right, All set. Firstly intro:- You must specify the following things. Name, School, X and XII board results, Father's name and occupation, AIEEE rank and branch. Select one language(English/Hindi/Punjabi) and you must not speak even one word of any other language throughout the introduction. Next you have to turn into Phantom? In case you do not know what phantom is then look at photo (If you still don't understand, ask me). The lights are switched off and you are given 1 to 2 mins to transform yourself into phantom. Next everyone must take off his shirt. Then you are taught a few things:- UIET wish, how to apologise, UIET song, UIET anthem, how to think(instead of scratching your head you have to scratch something else...). "DO NOT FORGET THESE" is the instruction. Now you have to dance, to what?? NOKIA 1100 ringtones. Thus your steps have to match to those ringtones. After that we were made to dance and sing the anthem to the beats of the ringtones. And then the MunnaBhai stuff. You have to give your intro exactly the way it is done in the movie MunnaBhai MBBS. Show you muscles(doesn't matter if you have a well built body or not) and give your intro. This was followed by several questions/sex oriented quiz etc etc etc. It continued for nearly 3 loooooong hours. And finally some favours like filling up their water flasks etc. We were also given a homework- difference between CDMA and GSM in details(which like any other homework has not even started). They also told us a policy that the institute will return us Rs 25000/- if we lodge complain of ragging. Thus the instruction was that if we get the 25000/- bucks we must give it to them!!! Finally when it ended they introduced themselves(only their name and branch, not the way we have to do it). They also gave us their mobile numbers and took our mobile numbers too. And the final instruction before leaving, until the fresher's day party, they may call us again ANYTIME and obviously we have to respond!! All those who have not been ragged yet- Beware you might have a worse experience. Election Nightmare... 2005-10-19T07:13:00.000-07:00 5th September 2005 One thing that I have learned in the past one month is that college life is more of an adventure than fun. And if one does not agree with, come to Panjab University during the elections. The following are a list of things that you can enjoy during PU elections. Chandigarh Police checking you vehicle from boot to bonnet Ocean of leaflets, hoardings, posters, etc. Tents of different parties, unions , associations Door to door campaining, which can take place anytime(literally they can come "Any Time" of the day) NO CLASSES due to mass cut or campaining in the classrooms etc Movies, Disco etc- the leading parties take you to these things, although it is not always well organised. For example the party that took us to disco had arranged for transport for going to the disco. While returning there was a serious shortage of vehicles. So you have to manage yourself. Also you have about 600 people at the disco which is designed to accomodate only about 200. We were taken to a movie in Fun Republic (the only multiplex in Chandigarh), we first entered the audi showing 'No Entry', but we never got a seat that was booked by the party. Thus we were thrown out of the audi within 10 mins. Then we entered the audi showing Iqbal, again we were kicked out as the row which we occupied was not booked by the party. Finally each of us was handed over a ticket for Barsaat which we all enjoyed finally. Reason for this mismanagement:- they initially booked 120 seats and 350+ students turned up. No Ragging. Police Raids at each and every hostel room late at night (or early morning) between 4:30AM and 5:00 AM Every one is tensed- you might be caught by a party you are not supporting. So the key is to remember each politician and keep him happy. How? With a big smile tell him that you support his party even before he asks you anything. And you better not mix up the party name and the politicians. Riot control police vans all around the campus. Leaders giving BHASHANS (Speeches- I am the best. Better than the rest. etc) If you are lucky enough you might see the parties doing DANDIA. In other words trying to kill each other with sticks, hockey sticks etc. Kidnapping. (This is the true adventure part) If any party gets to know that you are not supporting them then you might find yourself in either Patiala, Rajpura and other places far away from Chandigarh. Reason? They do not want you to cast your vote. My experience with kidnapping:- Late night on Thursday, 1st Sept there was a knock at my door. Seniors! I thought. But actually they were politicians from the leading party (whom I support). They asked us to carry our books, I-cards and come with them to their hostel as otherwise we might be kidnapped by opposition party. My room partner was really happy to see them and quickly agreed to do whatever they said, I did the same reluctantly. First we were taken to their tent- the safest place in the campus (according to them). Then we were asked to follow them and seven of us followed them. A car was waiting for us outside the campus. It took us westwards away from the city. A long ride and we reached an extremely dark village. We stepped out of the car and were guided into a single room on the first floor where there were a few pillows for us to sleep on the floor. We were really nervous (which we ought to be). The senior asked us to trust them and he took our mobile phones and did not allow us to make any call. We spent the whole night in that small room with one senior and no electricity. We had no means of communication and we did not know where we were. They refused to tell us anything, just that we were safe there and they got us here as their hostel was sealed by the police. I did not sleep the whole night and in the morning we met a few other seniors who asked us to be calm and offered us food. They took us back at about 11:00 AM and then returned our phone. The next day the same thing repeated but one of my friend and I managed to escape somehow. I told them that I would go to my Local Guardian. The elections took place on 3rd Sept. We were driven to the polling booth and we met our friends (who in short were 'kidnapped') over there. And trust me that is quite an adventure. A few facts:- In all there were 110 polling booths in the campus, more than 7500 voters with UIET being the largest department with approx 1250 voters. Now finally the elections are over and every senior is free to rag us all over again. If you have not experienced something like this- JOIN PANJAB UNIVERSITY. The campus... 2005-10-19T06:48:00.000-07:00 23 August 2005 You all must be knowing that I am studying in University Institute Of Engineering And Technology, Panjab University, Chandigarh. PU campus is huge and really cool. There are 7 boys hostel and 5 girls hostel inside the campus, roughly 4000 hostellers can be accomodated in them. It is not very good for the first year students as most of the rooms are single occupancy rooms and two of them have to share one single room. They shall get individual rooms next year onwards. My roommate is from Sirsa, Haryana - Mohit Singla. A cool guy who also likes to eat like me!!. But a vegetarian (that is the most important difference). He is in Computer Science stream. The room next to mine also has two students from UIET. Varun (from Delhi) and Saurabh (from Agra). Both the rooms share a big common balcony. Common bathroom system exists here. A decent mess and canteen in each hostel. 'Girls' - Well the ratio is not too bad (as this is a university campus and not an engineering institute campus). Ragging: We are relatively lucky in this respect. I am in boys hostel 6 and there are no UIET seniors in our hostel. Hostel 3 and 7 are the worst ones in this regard. Other features in brief: 24 hrs library, sports, swimming, we have everything here. What we do not have is WiFi or internet in hostels which ('they' claim) will be arranged by the end of this year. Till then we have to come to the our institute internet lab to surf the net which is open till 8pm. Visitors Please Note!! 2005-10-17T08:16:00.000-07:00 First I shall be posting a few old stuff that I have already mailed to some of my friends. This is for those who do not know what has been happening in my life till now. Those who have read the mails, please bear with me. A Welcome Song... 2005-10-16T20:39:00.000-07:00 Here I am, this is me I have come to this world but I am rarely free Here I am, so young and gay, right here in the place where I belong It's a new blog, it's a new start It's a life in need of new hearts It's a new day in a new blog, and it's waiting for you Are you there?? Those new hearts who are here, please give a thumbs up!

Life @ MyWorld

Looking Back At That Decision

A cup of coffee

Public Transport – I’m sold.

Food for thought

Not my Cup

In the State of Flow

Interruptions to Miserableness

The beginning and the close of a Chapter

Who wants a trouble free Laptop?

Habits, Addictions and Obsessions

Back from heaven...

New milestones...

Not given up yet

Size does matter!!

Since the end of 3rd year...

"Reservation"

RDB Fort

NTU vs PU (not really...)

Midnight Adventure

Minus!!

Busy Schedule, no time to spare

Video: Shimla Kufri Trip

Leopard got some ticks

Happy New Year

To the newer cat

SDG-Express

Shimla-Kufri

Sunny Affairs

End of semester syndrome...

Unix.. Who cares??

Atlast...

A small glimpse of Panjab University

Bizarre, but a must read.

Side-effects!!

शुभ दिपावली

Advertisement

ढिश-के-आ-उ

10..9..8...7....

पेहली कामयाबी

Sun Microsystems

The same excuse....

ah!! iPod

Last few days...

Think Different - think again!!

Mac-ish... eh thats history

Sleeping??

Embedded C

Is it really a 'Happy' New Year?

Biography of a fat boy

Sweating at seventeen degree celsius

बहुत िदनो बाद

Dare to Wear

Think different.

I feel… Mac-ish….

PDP resumes...

The 'excess-time' Problem

Hathoda aur Chingaari

PU, a small glance

Another Unofficial Committee

Read Urself

The Conspiracy....

Back to the Ministry

Rock(-ing) Week

Goonj 2006

Me vs The Technical Committee

Back to college

Winter blast!

A month and a half, in short

Tech-Shopping

The Night Bus

A Request...

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSimple Harmonic Motion

The Phantom Returns

Election Nightmare...

The campus...

Visitors Please Note!!

A Welcome Song...