The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 2) - The Two Blunders

Long long time ago, about 20 days ago (okay not so long ago), in the city of Nizams when weekends were boring and there were no new movies to be jeered at and nothing new to do except time to pass, 3 like minded fellows decided to take their horses err... bikes out for a ride rather than sleeping through the day. Anyway, the point of telling all this background is, just like that, me, Lord and SRK had decided to go to a far away place - the beautiful Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, about 175 km from Hyderabad on that fateful Saturday morning. Everything was so ominously set up for us, including the atmosphere as well. And then, with no real plan, no real map or exact directional route, no real inventory (first aid, mechanical kit) and not much currency in paper form, the fellowship of the bikers set on for the ride of their life (till date, that is). By the way, if you are reading this without reading the previous part of this series, please don't proceed ahead. You will only end up messing up your neurological circuits, trying to understand what this gibberish is all about. If you've already gone through that ordeal, then well, you're all set for the next part of the Motorcycle Diaries and the ensuing blunders.

1) Time Stamp - 12 June, 2010 (8:30 AM)
Place - Hyderabad outskirts, NH 9 begins.
Distance covered - 30 km

Having topped up the fuel tanks of the vehicles to the full capacity from an outside city petrol pump ("city ke baahar petrol sasta milta hai") and thankfully we paid it with SRK's credit card, it finally began. The weather was absolutely fantastic, with the sun shying and hiding behind the dark gray skies, but it never rained and with cool breeze hitting our faces while we pushed the bike to the highest gear - thus achieving the max throttle, that was a feeling to beat. Thankfully, the Hyderabad - Bangalore highway - NH 9 was surprisingly empty that day, at least early on in the morning. The kind of adrenalin rush you get, when you are driving at 100+ km/hr and that too for a period of more than 5 minutes at a stretch - its really unique and somewhat consciousness shattering. Some good news for those who have played Need For Speed Most Wanted- yes... the motion blur exists in the real world too... but please don't experience it for longer durations. And definitely not on corners. Extremely dangerous stuff, its like that one puff you take and forget it later, forever.

At around 10 AM after having covered around 120 kms, we stopped at a random place in between where we had a temple like structure on a hillock, which also offered us a dirt racing track with quite a steep incline. After testing our biking skills and some pretty narcissistic photos of us all, we then began the final stretch to Nagarjuna Sagar. It all turned out pretty awesome, just what we expected from this rage for speedy bike trips. The whole time some of the following bits and pieces of conversations popped out randomly and frequently -

Me: This is simply awesome man...
Lord: Kya jabardast view hai...
SRK: abe ulti feel aa gayi...

Me: abe ek bhi ATM kyu nahi aa raha??
SRK: load mat le, aage aa jayega...

2) Time Stamp - 12 June, 2010 (11:30 AM)
Place - Nagarjuna Sagar Dam/ Nagarjuna Sagar Lake
Distance covered - 180 km

And then it finally came in sight. And what a sight it was. Majestic, really. There is a reason why they call all the lakes in and around Hyderabad as Sagars. They are all unbelievably gigantic. (ok, not all of them, but most of them). Nagarjuna Sagar, true to its name was freaking huge and a pleasant surprise for us. My, the blues stretched towards the horizon as if it were a sea. And towards one far end lied a wall which obstructed this chunk of water body like the wall of Troy. Overall, pretty fantastic and worth 180 km and we felt great. The pain in the behinds suddenly went away and after having a decent enough lunch, visiting some panoramic view points and some more chai(tea) + limbu(lemon) /mosambi(sweet lime) sharbats(drink) later, we finally came down to the waters, down to those slippery rocks. And it was on these rocks, while SRK got full drenched, me half drenched and Lord still fooling around with his Nikon DSLR, that somehow we had the following conversation - which was basically was the foundation for "the Two Blunders". And it went on something like this:-

Timestamp (12 June, 2010 (3:30 PM))

(much time had passed while we loitered around in the clean waters of the Nagarjuna Sagar after having a refreshing lunch)

SRK: abe ek baat bolu?
Lord: ek kya, tu do baat bol... I'm very happy today !!
SRK: yaha se Srisailam kitna door hai?
Me: abe Srisailam is 240 km away from Hyderabad, and we've already covered 180, so its only 60 km away from here...
Lord: yes, that's correct, why what happened?
SRK: nahi, main soch raha may be we can visit that place as well since we have already come so far... what say?
Me: (after thinking really hard) lets go, it will be fun... we can still make it back by late night if we press hard...
Lord: yes, and the road to Srisailam is godly as well... it goes through this awesome forest reserve and its too good (google maps expert, we don't argue on this front with him)
SRK: okay, great !!

And thus, the fellowship decided to extend their trip further to Srisailam. Its a nice place where there is a very famous temple atop a gigantic mountain situated amidst a beautiful tiger sanctuary forest. The prospects of driving to and back from there was irresistible, in spite of the exhaustion. But before all this, one more blunder, a bit minor one was in store for us.

About 10 km from Nagarjuna Sagar, we had come to know that there existed a very famous waterfall by the name of Ethipothala. We decided to officially take a bath under it. But due to the lack of spare clothing, we were in a fix. No problem, we go to local village and buy everything (yes everything, right from towels to the undies) and get ready to be bombarded with vertical jets of water!!

3) Time Stamp - 12 June, 2010 (4:30 PM)
Place - Ethipothala Waterfalls
Distance covered - 190 km

After much huffing and puffing and admiring the scenery speeding past us, we arrived at the waterfalls. However, we were in for a blinder of a shock. This waterfall, yes, this very waterfall had made a super big fool of us all, mocked us and left us in total shambles. Why, you ask? Well, because it was just a waterfall you get to watch from about 200 meters away and there's no chance of getting underneath it - at least legally and without any danger to your life!! Goddamn!! And we spent half an hour in the market arguing and bargaining the price of those... Grrr... Disappointment and shocked that we were, we managed to hide it pretty well from the pretty faces present there and soon got out of there real quick to forget it. These waterfalls, even if they are not much pain for the eyes, they can mock you big time!!

4) Time Stamp - 12 June, 2010 (6:00 PM)
Place - Random T Point, some village
Distance covered - 210 km

Well, we were already 210 km, as far as our odometers were suggesting, but to add to our earlier feeling of shock and awe (Ethipothala waterfalls), we were wondering why we didn't pass through that super forest drive yet and why wasn't Srisailam any nearer still? We stopped for another Tea/ Bisleri Break and casually asked a person at the "tapri" (slang for tea stalls in India which can sell stuff you wont expect it to sell even in your dreams) about how far Srisailam was from here. Answer was - 160 km!! We were like "what the !@#$". We confirmed and we re-confirmed, the place was damn 160 km away... It took about 2 minutes for the fact to completely sink in and before any of us spoke again, as we were still in the process of recovering from the first blunder.

Now we had the following choices :-

--> head back to Hyderabad, a straight 210 km drive back, in all that growing darkness and torturing everything from top to bottom on that now very busy highway!! This also meant enduring a severe pain in the behinds since driving at night time meant reduced speeds.

--> Continue to Srisailam, try to reach there before dinner time, make a night stop over, explore the place next morning in peace and then return back to Hyderabad next afternoon. Seems like our earlier assumption of Hyderabad, Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam being 3 collinear points on a line stretching 240 km was not really factually correct. Hyderabad - Srisailam was 250 km, yes, but it was a totally different route altogether (see the map, that's the road we took during return journey)

Since the second option ensured more adventure than any sort of social life we could have had on the following day in Hyderabad, we just spontaneously decided to carry on. But seems like there were still more surprises in store for us. The thing is, Srisailam being situated in a dense forest, they stop entry and exit to/ from it at 9 pm at night. So this meant, we had to stop over even before Srisailam in a village called Dornala 50 kms earlier. According to the people in the village where we made this decision to go on, the road was not really driver's paradise and it goes through some Ghat sections (curvy, zig-zag, treacherous roads carved on the sides of mountains) as well. And being in complete darkness, the region was prone to Naxal attacks (dense AP forests + deserted roads + darkness = probable naxal attacks?) as well. Wow, this was scary indeed... What followed next that scary evening and the following day's unbelievably awesome morning, is actually the bestest and most amazing part of this whole journey. Please don't forget to read the concluding part, the finale of this series - The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 3) - The Return of the Awesomeness !!

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The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 1) - The Fellowship of the Bikers

Well, first of all, this blog post is not at all related to the iconic Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. But yes, this one is about a legendary, ultra awesome and super godly bike trip. Continuing my bad habit of finding time to blog only on special occasions, the reason for you reading this is - that I've survived successfully for 2 years in Hyderabad and it has been quite an enlightening experience both personally and professionally. While I will be happy to en-cash my 24th pay check at the end of this month, this has been a unique phase of life and has seen its fair share of crests and troughs. Hyderabad, Oracle, 205-Silpa Emerald - there are so many things from these 2 years which have turned me over, flipped me inside out and changed me to some extent but this blog is not about all those things. Its about 2 grand days when me, Lord and SRK (names modified for the sake of protecting... usual stuff) "planned" a bike trip to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam and what followed next on the weekend was indeed, a tragic comedy of errors - but being engineers and being used to last minute management (read chaos), we ended up enjoying it never the less !!

To make this sound sweet and short (very difficult for me) I will just split this up chronologically with respect to time, assumption and the resultant blunders interspersed with moments of awesomeness. Read ahead at your own risk.

1) Time stamp - 11 June, 2010 (8 PM)
Place - Random cubicle, 3rd Floor, Campus Phase 2, Oracle IDC - Hyderabad

Lord - "abe kal nagarjun sagar chal raha kya? SRK and me are going. Its about 175 kms from Hyderabad."
Me - "Oh yesss... I've been dying to go to that place, or rather any place which is far away and would let me drive for a long time !! lekin ek locha hai, I've something important to do tomorrow, can we go on sunday please?"
Lord - "abe we need to get MOCKed at on sunday, we need to go tomorrow only"
Me - (cursing) "hmm... wait... (calls A - gives the number of B, calls B - gives the number of A, apologies etc) chal locha resolved. I'm in !!"
Lord - "chalo abhi ghar jaate, kal subah 5 baje uthna (what a joke !!), me and SRK will rap you at 6 AM "sharp", okay ?"
Me - "wokay !!

2) Time Stamp - 11 June, 2010 (time unknown, probably late at night)
Place - Google Talk

this is a fictional but somewhat true reproduction of the possible conversation in author's own words, as he was not a part of this conspiracy...

SRK/Lord - "abe, Nagarjuna Sagar is effing 175 kms far away man, it will take super long to go and come back!!"
Lord/SRK - "we knew this already right ?"
SRK/Lord - "but now I'm having doubts whether we can actually survive on bikes for that long. It will be dee-fi-cult, you know..."
Lord/SRK - "ok, let's go to some place which is a bit closer, what about cool_place_abc ? Its about 50 kms only."
SRK/Lord - "great, that would be easy. What about Suyash?"
Lord/SRK - "we can't tell him right now. We will drop the bomb in the morning at 5 am regarding the change of plans. He wont even know what swept him over !!"
SRK/Lord - "awesome !!"

3) Time stamp - 12 June, 2010 (6:15 AM)
Place - 205, Silpa Emerald (via Vodafone cellular network)

Me - (after snoozing off the alarm for 15th time) "abe kya hua, tum log abhi tak aaye nahi? (as if I was all dressed up and ready), kitna late karoge ?"
Lord - "Yes, both me and SRK were unable to get up at 5 am (surprise !!). Abe Nagarjuna Sagar Dam is very far, apne ko poora din bhar lag jayega and it would be too tiring, lets go to cool_place_abc instead, what say?"
Me ---> got busy in putting convincing skills into play and after a few more phone calls to SRK...
Lord - "okay, we are going to Nagarjuna Sagar then... Lets start at 7 am."
Me - "wokay !!"

4) Time stamp - 12 June, 2010 (7:45 AM)
Place - Samrat Darshini, Kondapur
Distance Covered - 0.5 kms

while munching on plates of idli and wada sambhar with backpacks containing nothing but cameras and a water bottle, we chalked out the following "pee-lan" for the day...

Assumption #0 -

The place is about 175 kms away. Considering multiple stoppage points for chai and nature calls if any, we should be able to reach Nagarjuna Sagar at around 11:30 am something. We have dinner, we roam around the dam, then dish dash to the lake, get wet to get rid of the sweat and after some more rest, we head back ( I always knew there was a poet in me !!). If all goes well according to plan, we should be back to Hyderabad by lets say, 6:30 pm - 7 pm. Sounds great !! (alas, things happened so differently though :)

Blunder Sequence #0 -

We plan to get wet, but we don't take any spare clothes. We have a super long drive ahead, but we don't know how much fuel we have. We would be traveling to a remote place in AP and yet we decide to depend on ATM and Credit cards more than hard cash. (atm to har jagah hota hai, load kya hai ??) And of course, none of us is completely sure of the exact route as well, just a rough idea, we go with the google maps expert and depend on sun and helping people of AP as guides. I hope this should provide a somewhat translucent picture of the disasters which were waiting for us in the near future!! It took us about 45 minutes to get outside Hyderabad city and we topped up our fuel tanks to the max limit (by credit card, thank God) before hitting the highway to hell... err Nagarjuna Sagar i.e. on the expressway called NH 9.

And thus the fellowship of us 3 bikers with our trusted motorcycles - pulsar 150 cc (new one), an xcd 135 cc (unique piece) and another pulsar 150 cc (old one) began a very very eventful bike trip - which lay in store for us some really unforgettable memories. Since the entire trip ultimately stretched further beyond our present imagination, I need to continue this further in the sequel. Please do wait with bated breath for - The Motorcycle Diaries (Part 2) - The Two Blunders.

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Life is an Agneepath

Disclaimer: What follows next is a truly random, crappy and perhaps illogical post, written in an absolutely frustrated state of mind. Please don't bother to read or comment. There, you were warned.

24. The number is indeed special. It represents so many things. Its the number of hours we spend everyday on this planet. Its the number of hours the planet takes to rotate around itself. You may ask whats the difference, aren't they both one and same? Think again. One definitely needs a wake up call if he/she thinks that something extra ordinarily unique like a day from his/her life can be equated with a super repetitive natural phenomenon like the rotation of a 6 trillion trillion KGs of mass around a hypothetical rod of length 12000 km. 24, for me represents Life - and now that I'm have completed my 24th revolution around the sun today, I am being made aware of the quintessential fact, that Life does not remain a bed of roses forever. Its a path of fire or an Agneepath and everyone feels the heat sometime or later. I guess the heat was always there for me but the coals are getting just too hot now to ignore it anymore.

I never thought everything would suddenly change like the way it has from the last 18 months or so. Some changes were welcome and anticipated, some unexpected and ready-to-be-faced but to see the smooth machinery of my comfortable existence to be brought down to such a grinding halt like this is scaring. I thought I would get used to it soon, but seems like I don't really like the fact that someone has moved my cheese. It hurts and it pains big time, and there simply is no looking away from the fact. So what should one do next? Introspect and think of a solution to replace what you're missing while retaining what you like from the new life?

Why is it so difficult for some of us to forget the fading past and race ahead for that bright future? I guess the answer lies in what a person's Ikigai is. Ikigai - translated from Japanese literally means - "something important one lives for". I absolutely hate it when I see people deciding on almost every important course of their life based on the "economic prospects" instead of doing something they are passionate about. How can someone be truly happy from within and live a satisfying life if he is not doing something he enjoys? The very fact that almost everything that happens today is being controlled by the greedy capitalist economies that we live in, nauseates me. Look at us, how we have forgotten to enjoy God's best gift of "growing up" and instead slog for that Engineering / MBA degree. Instead of following the pursuit of happiness during the flagrant youth life that we had been looking forward to, most of the times we dedicate more than what we are expected to, to the "productive" part of our life craving for that promotion/ raise/ appraisal. If one should eat to live and not live to eat, then why do we live to work instead of working to live?

But Alas, its something for which we don't have a solution yet. After all, the very survival and satisfaction of our material needs depends on the world we live in. So accept it, we must, anyway it is. But in the end, its imperative to take out time for oneself every single day. Because if you don't do that today, thats 24 hours gone from your life like Keyser Soze disappears... poof... just like that. And its important to mention here that, unless proved otherwise, we have only one life. Damn it. Only One. And the length of this solitary life is beeping uncertain. As Mark Twain once said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn`t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore... Dream.. Discover". But the point here is that, does the world we live in allow us to do all these things at our will? Certainly not. We need to slog and work and learn and earn to do everything. Why does that sound like a vicious circle looping us into captivity forever? If ever there exists a "day of redemption", I hope I get an opportunity to clarify some of these issues with "Him".

The only thing we mortals can do is to just pick ourselves up from the fallen depths and try to rise from the ashes like that mystical phoenix. As to the challenges we face, perhaps they too are required in the long run or else how would we cope with the unexpected events? All said and done, I guess its only easy to speak and write about such stuff but terribly difficult to act upon. Or is it? If life is indeed meant to be an Agneepath then maybe that heat does act as a catalyst to surge us ahead or else we might just limp towards nothing. Its the fire that enables us but at the same time we need to carry that compressed CO2 Can with us to cool off things as frequently as we can. When things get bad, you should stop being sad and be awesome instead (True Story, Barney Stinson). When it seems that things are becoming impossible you need to shout back to the world, "It ain't over till I say its over. I'll be Back". And to top all the cliches that I've used so far, I would like to end it with what Hariwansh Rai Bacchhan once famously penned down and I now agree with:

Vriksh ho bhale khade, ho ghane, ho bade...
Ek patra chhav bhi mang mat, mang mat, mang mat...
Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath.

Tu na thakega kabhi, tu na thamega kabhi, tu na mudega kabhi...
Kar shapath, kar shapath, kar shapath...
Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath.

Ye mahaan drishya hai, chal raha manushya hai...
Ashru shwet raqt se lathpath, lathpath, lathpath...
Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath.

P.S.: I love the concept of Head Fakes (Randy Pausch - really achieving your Childhood dreams) and the head fake here is that the above blog post was actually meant only for me. The rest of the world reading this is just a bonus.

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My Quarter Life Crisis

Well, I officially turned 23 this year on 3rd Feb, 2009. No Big Deal, since I'm not traveling at speeds more than that of light, I'm going to age forward only. (For more info on this, do read "How to build a Time Machine" by Paul Davies, awesome book there...) Anyways, the point is, this birthday was unique since it was the first time probably that I "celebrated" this day away from my home and family. It kind of brought home some sort of awareness, since the last 9 months of my life have not been the same as they were for the last 22 years. Some things, or rather many things have changed after I left the cozy comfort of family, friends and college. This new life, where I go to "work" is not something I could take less seriously since with freedom and power comes greater responsibility and bigger challenges. And I'm not really sculpted for them yet. Though the iron hammer of life and the experiences I'm undergoing act as the required heat/catalyst to mold me as an individual (Don't think much about metallurgy references there), I realized that day, that indeed, I'm also undergoing some of the symptoms of the well known Quarter Life Crisis.

According to the Wiki, The quarterlife crisis (QLC) is a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the early twenties to the early thirties. The term is named by analogy with mid-life crisis. This is what being in twenties something makes me think about.

It was only after I came to Oracle, Hyderabad and after I stopped going along with the crowd, I started realizing that there are many things about me that I didn't know and some of them were something that I myself don't like. Due to the things I feel I'm good at and due to the things I hate myself I did get me that mixed feeling of being confident and insecure at the same time about where I will be in a year or two. And then I get scared because I barely know what I'm capable of doing and what not.

I started realizing that some people are really selfish and would go to the extreme to achieve their ends and maybe some of the friends that I hanged out with earlier aren't really the greatest people living on Earth as I get to meet new people. Also, its a really sad thing to acknowledge that some of the friends with whom I lost touch with are those I am missing the most. Maybe everyone isn't really so cold, mean or insincere because even they might be undergoing this same state of confusion.

One thing that I like though is at least I got to choose the right job that I wanted. It would have been a personal disaster had I been working with something that was not even close to what I had planned. Although, it does make me aware of how vast the canvas of professional life can extend if everyone tries their level best to succeed, whether it's about PG programs, scaling up the ladder or becoming an entrepreneur!!

My opinions about some things have really gotten stronger. Whether it's about communism or equality, about balancing personal and professional life, about India as a country - (is it really united due to the religion diversity ?? ) or about my beliefs, I now really am looking out to find a purpose to my existence. And at the same time I'm questioning more and more about why the universe has formed the way it is and about meta physical things like God and Death. Someone needs to provide me these answers real fast or I'm soon going to suffer with insomnia!!

I can understand and judge other people why they are doing things in a certain way and I constantly update my list of things of what is acceptable and what is not. What is good and what is bad are really relative. And this scares me to no end.

Sometimes I laugh and sometimes I cry with the greatest force in my life over what's going on around me. Talk of being alone, confused and scared. Suddenly, change is the enemy and I try to refuse to come out of the shell that I hibernated in the last 22 years. But I can't really cling on to whats dear to me since the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

Some people affected by QLC get their heart broken and wonder how someone they loved could do such damage to them. Or they lie in bed and wonder why they can't meet anyone decent enough that they want to get to know better. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. They go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with their friends about the same topics because they cannot seem to make a decision. They worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now everyone would just like to be a contender!

I believe many people in their twenties something might relate to the QLC factor. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure out what really this whole thing called LIFE is all about.

Please let me know if anyone has some cure for this "Quarter Life Crisis". Please feel free to post your comments by clicking here.

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Why so busy?

As you must have figured out by now, I have not been much active on the blogging front from the last few weeks. I will be trying to give the reason for the same through this hurriedly typed post, so please excuse if there are any grammatical mistakes or typos. It seems that life is really a blur now, and quite routine which really contrasts what I had been living earlier. Its a new day, says Brian Adams, and how truly... Because the things around you are new, the people are new and the activities that define your life are new. Some of these aspects are pleasantly good, and at the same time, some of them are too bad to remind you of the luxuries you enjoyed earlier at home. If you are still with me, kindly proceed forward to read about the recent transition of ways, which I'm braving like a brave warrior caught unawares amidst an infinite sea on a black stormy night !! I know, I know, I am extremely good at Hyperboles :-)

Que.1) Exactly When and Where did I first become busy?

Day : 21st June 2008
Time: 11 PM
Venue: Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad
Occasion: Suyash Joshi arrives in the Tech Capital of India.
Status: Feeling sleepy...

Que.2) Why did I become busy?

Because after completing graduation and spending a glorious summer at home, I decided to join Oracle which is a multinational software company at Hyderabad, and about which you can read more on Wikipedia. I could have ranted more about Oracle, but if you remember, this post is about me being busy. So Later... :)
Status: Getting pumped up...

Que.3) What (was/am/will be) I busy in?

Pre-Induction and Joining Process - I've never done so much paper work in a span of 6 hours in my life. Joining formalities, Company policies, Finance, Accommodation, Bank Account, Mobile Connection... and many others - I gave a lot of autographs for sure that day !!

Setting up Desktop - Arranging for your own system and phone, stationaries and other facilities. Also includes opening and configuring many (yeah, many) accounts / login id's for various services, even the machine login

Interaction and getting to know more about the work and people around you - My team is a very good one, and I am fortunate enough to have got such cool friends right away. And then there are the experienced guys, the Manager and HR Representatives etc. Everybody sure makes it a point in Oracle to make freshers feel at home, and boy do they succeed. But then they say, everything is nice and a storm is just waiting for you in the next corner (work, after training)

Training - Ahh... Now that I am finished with this part, I'm really relieved. Some of our technical skills were "enhanced", some were entirely new and we also got to know more about what "eggjactly" we are supposed to do and how to it. Platform, Framework, Standards etc. Pretty boring stuff. Hopefully, when atmy workstation, I will be allowed lotsa extra curriculars (:D ...hehe... The only part that I hated was the duration. I mean, 8 hours a day - that equals a week's quota of classes what I attended while engineering. Seems like we are better off at self study (last night study, tu put it up in a better way). Thank God - It's August. Training over. Work Starts. And 31st of last month was my life's first Pay-Day. Feels good !!

Que.4) Proof that I was busy...?

- My last blog post was 41 days ago.
- I wasn't able to catch up with my regular quota of Gtalk"ing" and Orkut"ing".
- I missed the complete Asia Cricket Cup and also the India Sri-Lanka test match !!
- I was not able to communicate (in detail) with friends and relatives via mails / phone calls.
- I saw only 2 movies since I came to Hyderabad... :(
- Forget computer games... I don't yet own a laptop yet...
- I have not yet taken any pics of my workplace, Oracle or Hyderabad. Will be doing it today.
- I hardly got time to read news paper in the morning.It was rush rush for training everyday and in the night we slept late. These people who stay with me are night hawks !!
- I could finish up reading only one book in the entire month...
- We didn't spend much time shopping (now my new economical state played a role in that too...)
- and lots more for sure.

But come August '09 and things will change. A new era will begin. I might post a few more blogs to this infinitely expanding blogosphere and bore my readers even more. and amen to that [:D] !!

And before we depart, let me tell you. Batman - The Dark Knight is the most awesome superhero movie, in fact the most awesome movie ever made !! More on that in the next post...

If you wanna squabble or complain like me about how not to be busy, then please Click here and offer your feedback.

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Crazy Engineers.com interviews Suyash Joshi

If you are an Engineer (by profession or by thought, inclination, aptitude etc) and still haven't heard of Crazy Engineers, you are surely missing something great. You can read more about the same from this earlier blog post of mine. Since I had nothing to post today, I felt like blowing my own trumpet for a while. (If you are thinking whats new in that, then maybe you are at loss... hehe) Anyways, instead of gloating over my likes and dislikes like I've done in my Orkut profile, I will only like you to kindly read my interview taken by CE which was a really good one. Hopefully, it covers almost everything you need to know more about me. It will be even great if you read the interview directly on the website, which will surely have you hooked on, since it is a vast resource of informative reading and knowledge storehouse!!

CEans, We all know CEan Suyash through his posts on CE Forums. CEan - Patty aka Prateek got in touch with Suyash and grilled him for "Know your CEan": Suyash, first of all, congratulations on completing your B.Tech. You have been an active member of CE for quite a time now. We would like to learn more about you for the benefit of the future generations of CE (and for the present too!) -

Q. What are your most memorable experiences in college?

Suyash: VNIT (Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology) has indeed been a great chapter in my life which has made me what I am today and I will continue to draw inspiration from the various events that occurred with me during the wonderful four years spent here. Amongst the most unforgettable experiences in college, I can list quite a few of them: hanging out with my friends, eleventh hour exam preparations and spending quality time to continuously upgrade my technological knowhow... and of course campus placements also have been an exciting phase in the final year !!

Q. Tell us something about your Engineering Trade i.e. Metallurgy and Material Science.
Suyash: Metallurgy and Materials Science Engineering (MME) has always bought me mixed feelings (mainly due to the highly theoretical approach in some courses and some of the really advanced modern applications of the others). Nanotechnology, which will definitely be at the core of the things to come in future, promises scientific breakthroughs never imagined before. Selection of Materials has never been so crucial before, given the stringent requirements based on modern applications. My final year engineering project too gave me a very critical insight into Materials Science and it will be really great if aspiring graduates turn up their sleeves for research and development in this field.

Q. How have you planned your future now that your graduation is over?

Suyash: Despite my engineering trade, I've always found myself fascinated with the world of Computers and programming in general (which can be associated to my penchant of playing games from a young age). As a result, after being placed in Oracle India Pvt. Ltd via the campus placements, I'll be looking forward to enhance the technical skills that I learnt during my engineering curriculum to the fullest extent. I've planned to complete an MBA program affiliated with Software Enterprise Management and then return back to IT industry. Ultimately, it would be dream come true if I could be a part of an organization which deals with high end gaming development for the PC platform!

Q. Tell us about your extra curricular activities in college.

Suyash: VNIT provided me a plethora of activities to indulge into and they have been a really great source of entertainment, learning centers as well as a pathway to let the academics heat out. I have been involved in managing and organizing of Aarohi - Cultural Festival (coordinator Quiz), Axis - Technical Festival (Manager - Lan Gaming Contest) as well as being part of the college Cricket team. Besides these, I am also involved in participation of quizzes, programming contests etc.

Q. When not studying, how does Suyash Joshi kill time?

Suyash: When I am not studying (which occupies the larger section of my 24 hours) I indulge myself with reading books ranging from fictional to biographical and other great works. I also heavily pass time by playing games on my PC, which I upgraded recently to give a performance boost. But Crysis still demands more juice out of my gaming rig L. Other than that recently I've developed a keen liking for solving puzzles (began during campus placements) and of course CE and other such great sites ensure that I never get bored. Watching movies and playing Cricket with friends ensures that not a single day of my life can be labeled as a boring one :)

Q. You ask(ed) people (your friends) to subscribe to your blog (Time of your life - Suyash Joshi). Why do you think people should read your blog & what makes you think that you are maverick - blogger?

Suyash: Ahem... I knew this one was coming [:D] . I think that in my blog I post articles based on absolutely anything, from my personal idiosyncrasies to diverse topics like sports, entertainment, computers and gaming, jokes and whacky ideas. Given the range of the crap that I post, I feel that my blog is an entertaining read for most of the people (my friends [:D] ) and hence the title "Maverick" - since I am someone who feels it's necessary to exhibit great independence in thoughts and actions. I ask(ed) people to subscribe to my blog via email so that they don't have to check my blog every now and then for a new post. Though, these days, services like Google reader serve the purpose very well, but still I feel email subscription is one of the best ways to keep your readership alive and kicking. Anyways, there is always an option of unsubscribing at a later date.

Okay here is a Rapid Question Round

Q. What do like the most about CE?

Suyash: CE - the conglomeration of crazy engineers from around the globe, gives me an opportunity to interact with some of the great brains of the world, to share ideas and actively participate in some really interesting chats about the latest path breaking technologies, scientific discussions and lets me have real fun, and most importantly, is one of the best platforms for an engineer to be himself.

Q. One thing you don't like about CE?

Suyash: Not much really. But it would be great if we can have a better participation from the elder generation of engineers (Since I feel that the majority of members on CE are youngsters like me or just about to be engineers). Having a record of the experience and wisdom of the tried and tested hands is always beneficial whenever you try to innovate or create something. But I'm sure, with the given track record, the average age of CEan's is definitely going soar real high in a matter of time.

Q. Name three CEans that you would like to meet in person

Suyash: Since I've already met Big K in my college, I feel it would be great if I get an opportunity to meet Kidakaka (hopefully in Hyderabad in the latter half of 2008), Maro (don't know when the trip to Egypt will materialize, at least in the near future) and Mahul (I'm still yet to complete the NFS MW Challenge Series dude, stuck on #61)

Q. Describe yourself in 1 word

Suyash: Maverick

Q. If not an Engineer then....

Suyash: I always wanted to be in the Indian Air Force, but certain unfortunate events made it sure that I became an engineer instead. In foresight, not a bad alternative career though.

Q. Your best achievement till date

Suyash: Campus Placement in Oracle India Pvt. Ltd.

Q. Your most embarrassing moment

Suyash: Scoring negative marks in Data Interpretation in one of the Mock CAT (Common Admission Test). That was a rare blunder though, which only happens when you give an exam in a sleepy state.

Q. One thing you would like to change about yourself

Suyash: It seems that the world wants me to be less impulsive in doing things the haphazard way, to think for a moment more before taking that last step, since I believe in the "never-fret-about-anything-ever" policy. Of course, I'm still trying to work on it.

Q. One thing you wish you would have invented or discovered

Suyash: It would be great, (and it's high time) if someone works with me to find a shielding material for the obstruction of disasters caused by nuclear radiations emitted by atomic bombs.

Q. Suyash is a Crazy Engineer because:

Suyash: There's no point in living life the ordinary way. And to obtain extra ordinary results, you have to be crazy enough to venture into that unexplored territory. Believe me, it's really a wonderful combo to be an engineer and be crazy to think about seemingly impossible ideas and to actually put them into action.

Patty: It was a pleasure talking to you and getting to know you better. Have a nice day and a great life ahead. And enjoy your vacations.
Suyash: Thanks for providing me space in "Know your CEan" section on CE. It's been a real pleasure to be a part of CE.

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Super Sunday

I came to Nagpur when I was about 6 years old or maybe just short of that. I can say that with total confidence because I had completed pre-primary education in Chandrapur till KG-I (that's kindergarten stage 1 (?) for those who missed it from their life) and I hadn't flunked even once before that. Anyways, the point behind all this crap is that now I'm 22 years old and that means I've spent more than 70% of my life span in the Orange City - Nagpur. It's only today, when there are just 5 days left for me to leave this beautiful city for another, that I have begun to appreciate my life here in my home city. As you all know (and damn you if you dont...hehe) I'll be leaving for Hyderabad soon to begin a new phase of my life. Must admit here, that this time which lies between post-engineering and pre-joining your workplace, is simply the best time of your life. And it was on 15th June, 2008 that I spent one of the coolest day ever with my family and friends, one which falls under that ideal day category and hence has been christened as "Super Sunday" by me...

Being an Engineer, generally I like to be technically correct. So this Super Sunday of mine begins at 12 noon. I wasn't asleep then, of course, but was busy surfing the net for some useful stuff (really, believe me), while simultaneously chatting up with night hawks like me on Google talk. Later on, just before sleeping I saw another great episode of a TV show called "Numb3rs" on my computer and then went to sleep when BSNL's free downloading zone (2 AM, IST) was initialized.

I woke up at 8 AM, to the loud voice of some irritating cartoon of "Shin Chan" being watched by my 16 year old brother... of course watching cartoons is not at all a bad thing, but I prefer the subtle ones like "Tom and Jerry" and "Batman" etc. After going through the newspapers (mainly the sports pages) I got a call from my cousin brother for playing Cricket with his friends!! Since I had been deprived of the fantastic sport from quite a few days, I decided to grab the opportunity hands on with no delay. But alas, I had to quickly devour a tasty break fast of hot and fresh "Idli Sambhar"... now delicious food and cricket always need to be adjusted delicately in balance, since neither of them can be compromised for the other. After a rather dismal performance on the field that day and saying Adios to fellow cricketers (since I won't be coming next weekend) I came back to home to find another surprise. My mother had prepared a great home made "Tomato Soup" for starters and "Palak Paneer" for the lunch and now did I realize why all the hustle and bustle that was going around during all the morning. On inquiring if I was missing something, my father told me that since it was the last Sunday that I was going to spend in Nagpur before leaving for Hyderabad, all of them wanted to make it a special sunday... and boy, the splendor of the day exceeded by leaps and bounds even beyond my own expectations !!

After eating to my heart's content, I settled down lazily in front of the TV to find my all time favorite movie "Swades" and decided to watch it again, if I am not wrong, for the eleventh time!! My father gave me company while shuffling between news papers, my mother took a deserving nap and my brother ran off to some friend's home to do something else. When the movie finished at 4 PM, I spent the next hour reading the book "The World is Flat" which I am trying to finish from the last two weeks. Not that it's bad, but it has many pages and a very small font...hehe... As if the special treatment so far was not enough, my mother offered me with another delicacy for evening snacks known as "Shankar Pale" (which by a definition given by my friend Kartik is - square shaped sweet flat cookies made out of wheat) which were gobbled up by everyone with tea/ coffee almost instantly.

Later on in the evening Pravin came to my home and we went to Chaitanya's place to see him off, since he would be going to Mumbai for his visa interview and we won't be meeting for quite a time. So we spent some quality time at his home (?) watching tv and discussing national and socio-political issues :) and culminated the meet with a hurried up gathering at a nearby food joint for one last "Kulfi" (flavoured frozen milk wrapped around a wooden stick) or cottage ice cream (this one from Ameya) and later we went home. That was because, my uncle and aunty wanted to treat me for the same reason which was responsible for most of the events on that day. And on top of that, I also got to take the family car for a long drive and the experience behind the wheel was a good one. The dinner was absolutely smashing which comprised of the conventional Suyash Joshi favorites - "Crispy Veg" as Starters along with, you guessed it right, "Cream of Tomato Soup" followed by the all time "Paneer Butter Masala" and "Aloo Mutter" along with a helping of "Steamed Rice" and "Dal Fry". What more does a man need, other than such feasts and a great happy family to chat up with !! The day began at 12 AM so when it ended, at midnight, at that moment I was busy enjoying the Matt Damon starrer and Oscar winner "Good Will Hunting" on my computer. Great movie indeed.

Later on that night, I really felt that it had really been a "Super Special Sunday" for me, as my father had remarked earlier. After all, who gets to have his cake and eat it too? If destiny permits, I would like to live my life this very same day - get up late, play cricket, eat tasty home made food, spend great time with friends and family and watch movies and read good books !! Alas, all this is going to change soon. I, suddenly, had this sinking feeling in my mind, that the world should go static, as in not in the literal sense, but everyone must remain of the same age as they are right now. No more growing up. That way, my loving parents never get old and I always get to spend this carefree life that I've taken for granted for so many years. But as Uncle Ben says, "With growing powers, come greater responsibilities" I must get ready to tackle this new phase of life with courage and common sense. However, life would have been good if I had got a job here at Nagpur only. Am I feeling homesick already?? None the less, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family and friends for this Super Sunday !! Simply loved it... :) I can assure you, there will be many more like these in future for sure.

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B.Tech. today... Engineer for Life !!

Hello everyone, as you can see from the title, its finally done. Yes, I don't know how it will change the world around you, but this day, will remain forever in my memories as one of the great days which you share with your grand children while sipping hot coffee in a comfy rock chair! Of course, there have been other such magical moments earlier too, when I felt really proud (Click here), and there will be others as well (Click here, in future), but this will forever be one of the greatest ever.

Anyways, to come to the point straight away, let me first create the exact scenario. It was roughly 12:25 PM on 1st May, 2008 and the sound boomed loud and clear in my ears, "5 minutes remaining (and enter your roll no and tie your supplements, as if I ever use one !!)." It was then, that I gave up. I turned around carefully, to see my colleague scribbling something forcibly in his answer book and when I finally got "the moment" to speak to him, "Hey, please tell me the answer for the 4th and the 5th... and the... ahem... 6th fill-in-the-blank fast dude!!". The dude looked petty disturbed at this sudden late interjection of mine, which kind of obstructed the smooth flow with which he was drawing a diagram. After he kindly objected to my demand, thanking him dutifully, I later found out that I had not attempted one small question, which was placed as if it was some "conditions apply" type thing they have in the ads. As I frantically began to pen it down, the clock struck 12:30 PM (IST), and the examiner snatched my answer sheet from my desperate attempts to finish that one last answer !! After cursing him soundly along with my bad luck, I finally knew this, ultimately, was the end. After all, as Neo says, everything which has a beginning (16th August, 2004) has an end (1st May, 2008). And this was the way my stint as an Engineer in Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur (also sweetly referred as VNIT, in the local circles) was put to a grinding halt.

Soon, as the dust settled (i.e. when the examiners left the hall) all of us fellow warriors leapt out with a jubilant cry of victory. Yes... this was the class of '08 , which just had just finished with Metallurgical and Materials Engineering on an all time high... !! Some of the people hugged each other with delight, while others gave a thundering Hi-five; some of them laughed like monsters and some even had tears of nostalgia. Most of us had felt greatly relieved as the exam had ended while simultaneously knowing the fact that we are going to see very little of each other after this day. Truly, this bunch of 40 people, coming from different parts of the country, had become really one big ensemble of awesome friends and legendary memories shared in VNIT, which was going to be missed big time hereon. As everyone gushed with each other about how happy everyone was, there indeed was a feeling of void, as to how life will shape out for each of us ahead. With mixed feelings of joy and sadness, everyone spent this day like none other.

How I spent the rest of the day? In the aftermath of this event, we later went to a really expensive restaurant that day (out of sheer compulsion, since it was a local holiday that day) and ate to our hearts fill. Then most of us slept in the afternoon (to complete the sleep deprivation caused due to the night out yesterday, instead of the earlier thought of plan of watching the latest movie) and in the evening it was time to celebrate the euphoria again along with other batch mates!! The feeling that my family too was proud of me for the completion of B.Tech. gave me tremendous happiness which I will cherish forever. After all, this won't have been possible without their constant support, motivation and encouragement !!

It's indeed been my privilege to be graduating from such a prestigious institute, due to which, most of us have achieved what we have so far. Some of us have bagged great jobs; some have humbled the exams like GATE and CAT and GRE (the list is countless...) to continue with further education; while some have plans to become entrepreneurs !! Talent overflows like a tsunami here and I am grateful that I got to rub my shoulders with it. As someone said, "God Created the World. Engineers Created the Rest." And all of us, intend to add value to this statement, by contributing, in every possible measure by the application of the knowledge earned here. After all, in spite of the type of career or life style one chooses, once an Engineer, always an Engineer !! I'll be looking forward to joining my work place 2 months later in Hyderabad, but till then, I will ensure that these days, which shall never come back, are spent so that there are no regrets in future. The wheels of fate and destiny are now smoothly placed in motion and the steering wheel is in our hands to choose the freeway of our life to reach the destination. Here's congratulating the class of '08 once again, for achieving brilliantly, what we set out for 4 years ago and wishing all of us the really best in future!!

Adios VNIT !! I will miss you... [:(]

For posting your comments, views and sharing similar experiences, please click Here.

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IPL and Engineering Exams... HELP me !!

Tomorrow (24th April, 2008) is my first paper of Financial Engineering (End Semester), and I'm watching a cracker of a match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians while shuffling through zerox pages of some numericals book related to the elective subject mentioned above...

Please do vote in this poll and make the world a better place to live... hehe...

Please refer your friends, relatives and unknown personalities that you encounter and redirect them to this page to save me from this confusion...
and by the way this poll closes on 1st May, 2008, So HURRY !!

P.S.: Please click here if you can't see the poll. Thanks.

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My new year resolutions

When the clock strikes twelve on December 31st, people all over the world cheer and wish each other a very Happy New Year. For some, this event is no more than a change of a calendar. For others, the New Year symbolizes the beginning of a better tomorrow. So, if you look forward to a good year ahead, spread happiness with these wonderful New Year wishes.

But one thing that I find really amusing is the concept of new year resolutions !! Some say they are sweet, some they are meant to be broken... But this year, in 2008, I have decided to follow a very unusual list of resolutions. Yes, its not about getting thin or about being a better person and neither about scoring better in exams nor about indulging less in the time pass activities. Since this year will mark the end of my engineering education (?) where most of the time I have spent in gaming, this was the best that suited for me... Here you go !!

* My gaming resolutions *

1) I will not start playing games on the "easiest" difficulty level...

Yeah... when I finally get "Call of Duty 4" I wont be playing it on "greenhorn" level. Sometimes the temptation to select the easiest difficulty setting (prior to even experiencing how hard the game actually is) is just too overwhelming. This is especially true when you start to doubt your gaming skills and worry about the possibility of getting stuck indefinitely at some later point in the game. We've all been there, but we all also know the consequences of automatically picking the least difficult game setting: the game becomes too easy. You begin letting enemies wail on you because the damage you take is so infinitesimal, you stop caring about preserving ammunition/items, and you ultimately don't have as much fun because you're not faced with any real challenge.

2) I wont start a new game unless I complete the one I am playing currently...

For most gamers, it's unrealistic to think that we'll be able to complete 110% of every game we own, but if we put too many games on the backburner it's easy to completely lose interest in putting forth a decent effort to play through them. Just because Need for Speed - ProStreet was released doesn't mean we have to give up on the game(s) we're playing and run to the store, right? Complete the Need for Speed - Most Wanted's "Challenges" first, I can assure you, they will give you a run for your money !!

3) I wont rely on a single source before rating a game...

Be it GameSpot, IGN, or AmputeeGaming, we all have a favorite gaming pub, and sometimes we give too much credit to the reviewer's take on a specific game. Obviously, when GameSpot gives a game a "6.0," the game is more than likely a turd. But when a game that you're excited for receives a less than perfect score, do the right thing and check other media outlets and/or ask your friends. One of the best examples that I can quote here is "Marvel : ultimate alliance" suggested by a friend of mine and its a cool game though most of the gaming sites have rated it on the lower side. As SRK says, "Listen to your heart !!" or whatever...

4) I will limit the number of hours that I put in gaming so that I can get more out of the outdoor life...

The next GTA (yeah, GTA-4 is coming !!) is released and the only time you have to lay your hands over the game is after work. By the time you manage to slip out of the office/college, get your a** to downloading / buying it and you're minutes away from passing out from exhaustion. Before you know it, you're asleep with the controller in your hand and you're barely past the title screen. As a result, you call into work sick, skip college, cancel plans for the following day. Even we've done it at times, but this year we're going to try to keep the number of instances we devote to an entire day of gaming to a minimum. Though I don't fall short in terms of the fun that I have with friends and relatives, from this year I intend to explore even more !!

5) I will force myself to play different genres of game that I was hitherto not so interested in...

Who hasn't said one or more of the following?

"I don't have the patience to sit through the endless lines of dialogue to play RPGs." "First-person shooters make me nauseous, so I don't bother with them."
"Sports games are simply too much boring, same stuff infinite times"
"Racing games require skill, who wants to be a pro??"

And so on and so forth. We all have our favorite genre, but why limit your gaming experience simply because you're too stubborn to try something different? Hate RPGs? Try Mass Effect. Don't care for the mindless shooting of FPS games? Give BioShock a whirl. (though you will require a monster of a system to play them !!)

That's all on the gaming front for this year. Happy gaming to you too. Click here to post your comments.

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My PC gets upgraded !

This time I will let the "config" do the talking :-)

1) AMD Athlon 64 bit Dual Core AM2 based processor (4400+)
2) ASUS M2A-VM motherboard with 128 MB ATI Radeon Graphics Card
3) 2 GB DDR2 RAM
4) 320 GB SATA hard-disc

Life is peaceful once again !!!

and of course the aero theme on windows Vista absolutely rocks beyond anything... Microsoft has done a great thing finally...

P.S.: The ultimate joie-de-vivre will be complete when I get a 17" wide screen LCD monitor after the exams...

High end gaming... here I come !

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Of Metals and Materials...

Well, finally I have a guest blogger... After much persistence I have finally managed to convince the great PG or Priya Ghatwai, who is an academically distinguished and illustrious all rounder of my batch in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in VNIT and has finally relented to pen down her views. And they say that its worth the wait. Just find out what I mean in her own words. Everything that follows below are her opinions and if some one wants to sue me for something below, let me remind you I am just a platform, the culprit is PG, herself. With such a modest and humble beginning, you might actually have a good time reading this great piece about our Engineering life in VNIT !

PG speaks :

"It's finally time to honour my commitment to author this sketch about the meta department. If it's sub-standard, it's because I'm lazy, if it's not, well frankly I am surprised. I was asked to cover these aspects by the generous soul morally attached to me as the legal proprietor of this blog in whose territory I will now venture to trespass ( upon his tireless insistence ) and they are as follows :

1) Weird stuff happening in meta dept...
2) Stories about the "efficiencies" of the Professors, Staff and Implementation of good student friendly rules...
3) the unsung heroes of our class and the tales of their exceptional bravery...
4) And other such stuff...

Well sub-topic one is a meaty one, and as for the second , you will have to make do with my interpretation , not Lara's (And as per the promise by PG, she would be talking about this in more detail in a soon to come update). I am not sure whether he wishes his name to be included in the third writing task - I will modify the topic to encompass all members of Meta- Batch of 2008. Don't know if I'll ever make it to the fourth."

1) Weird stuff happening in meta dept...

"Well, the Final years have four ACs in the classroom and the attendance is at an all-time high though some people are of course never happy. The idea is of course to avail the luxury of sleeping in conditioned comfort at no extra cost. It's a win-win bargain.

Ok, truly weird about our department is that we have people who are ever-ready to take unwarranted unnecessary risks by way of experimenting with unheard of ideas almost absolutely certain to backfire. Sample the way the project allotments were done. Fourth Year students, who , generalizing grossly, cannot tell a TTT from a CCT; peritectic from monotectic; plain stress from plane stress - the very same students who feel ashamed that the youth from the adjoining department are fortified with enough knowledge to earn them dual degrees in mech n meta while they themselves fail - morally - if not technically - to appreciate the single degree that they have been destined, nay, constrained to half-heartedly pursue for the past so many years, ya, well, these same final years were asked to pick their projects based on one-line statements. The names of the project guides were resolutely and deliberately sheathed (steeped ?) in dark mystery. Well, all we can say is, this college has enabled us to know people better than our subjects and on those grounds alone we feel compelled to question what could have been disclosed about what could not. Right to information! Whither thou?

So many of the courses seem like flashbacks from the past. That's because we never really followed when we had the opportunity and of course in seventh semester, we're too disinclined to make amends! All we know is that it's the same course that's being repeated after a gap of one year, marketed under a differnt name . Old wine in New bottle. Doesn't taste any better though."

2) Stories about the "efficiencies" of the Professors, Staff and Implementation of good student friendly rules...

"Coming soon at a later date in the next update" - PG

3) The last stop - the classmates.

SJ - "Since the list provided was incomplete, I had to chip in between to ensure that justice was done for all the people."

• Hemu, Renu, Sweetu, Paru --> The Famous Four - Claim to fame unknown.
• Band --> Keyboard artiste. Rehmaan maniac.
• Vivek --> Studious, very helpful especially during St. Met Pracs, very resourceful and sincere.
• Roshan --> Did NOT get baingan bharta to class due to lack of availability of raw material as evident from a thorough search of the market. (Currently popular as Babuji)
• Alok --> Sports Sec. (Founder of biker gang)
• Sidharth --> 1=0 and nothing else and of course you'll be convinced because there just isn't an option to argue about.
• Ashish Jain and GJ --> Oracle Men, they make simple things difficult - Hey, nothing personal - only referring to their wizardry at contraption.
• Shukla --> Well, depends on whether you want comments on "what he was before woh badal gaya", "what he is after woh badal gaya", "woh badla ki nahi" or "woh kab badla". Kindly clarify and I will gladly expostulate.
• Vibhav --> music@tt.
• Sachin, Digvijay and Sujeet --> The trinity/triumvarate. (Amar Akbar Anthony, anyone?)
• Anand, Suyash, Jraman, Rupesh - The N-gage gang. The first three are the CRs of the class and last one very is very helpful especially during St.Met pracs and if cycle chain falls off. Since the blog belongs to the second one, you'll get more on him - autobiographical and authentic. He is a great fellow and his greatness is amplified by the great honour bestowed upon me by him in asking me to embellish his great blog. The third one is synonymous with studies/marks/load. Placement ke baad shayad kuch badlaav lag raha hai.
• The Quam --> Gen.Sultan will be glad to comment about this.
• Saket --> Tao(/u) of perseverance.
• Kuku --> One in a million - Mass bunk karna mera kaam hai, karvana nahi.
• Neeraj --> The Marathi maanus, simplicity personified.
• Lakshminarayan --> Apparently most appreciated by the professors - be it his taste in selecting books or charming unexpected people into yielding over the sensitive issue of mass bunk.
• Mahapatra --> The Gamer.
• Zindal --> The Silent warrior.
• Pandit --> Enigmatic human being beyond comprehension.
• Dinesh and Poku --> These individuals have been brought been together by the "wear" project!
• Pankaj and Niranjan --> Laloo is proud of them.
• GSVN --> Computer Science Wizard...

"If I have missed out on anybody, please don't mind and feel free to enrich this scraggy bunch of scrappy doodles."

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Placed in Oracle - its a Dream come true !

Well its been a long time since I wasn't blogging and there really is a big reason for that. The thing is that the whole of VNIT was sort of gearing up for the second round of placements, also called as the "Dream Job" round. OK, the thing is, though VNIT is ranked 4th in the NIT's in India and ranks among the top engineering colleges, it really suffers big time when it comes to campus placements. Of course, its a matter of perception of what you are comparing to when it comes to placements, because according to one school of thought, just getting a 100% placement record is simply not the done thing if most of them are being recruited by the ever expanding IT companies who have more orientation towards service and lesser on product development. Anyways, I wont be wasting my time here talking about what is good and what is bad because this is my blog and I must write what happened with me.

Yeah... so here we go. In case you don't know much about VNIT and my eventful existence in here for the last 3.5 years you might as well click here for starters. But if you don't feel the need for doing so read on. After the completion of the 6th semester (or 3rd year) of the engineering curriculum we were all faced with the prospects of campus recruitment program which in itself is a pretty intimidating task for one and all. And why not, because for those who are planning to do postpone their further studies/ post graduation or are planning to skip it completely, getting the best first job is an absolutely crucial thing and people do make the most of it whenever the opportunity is available. Well, besides being a Metallurgical and Materials Engineer, let me warn you that my interest in the Software and Computer Science is more due to the work content than the green bucks to be made. Having said that and done everything I got placed in TCS with 60 other guys and it was awesome then but I wasn't aware that more was coming in my platter. And the thing actually came true on 8th September 2007. But lets roll back a little before that.

24th August 2007, 21:59 PM

Life was going on like as usual, with the same boring lectures spiced with even more boring assignments and tests. Final year, it turned out isn't really much fun as purported by the people who were through with the degree last year. Though some people were busy making preparations to bell the CAT and some giving PowerPrep's to boost their GRE score, there was an air of the dream job round of placement to begin soon. Work less get more kind of students like me were on the prowl to sniff any new developments over the Training and Placement' Notice Board. And then at the above mentioned time, my friend from the Computer Science Department, Pravin, sent me an sms containing this exact text, "Oracle aa rahi 3 sept ko"... and all hell broke loose that day !! or that night to be precise.

How desperate I was to know more about my prospects in Oracle Corporation (which by the way is world's second largest independent software company) and whether it was actually possible can be gaged by the following steps I took in the couple of hours on the same night.

• I phoned the informer, who must have been chatting with his girl friend, and asked if he wasn't really joking, since not many people were averse to my inclination to join such a firm...
• Later on I phoned the T and P Secretary of the College ( of course, from the students...) and asked him about the dates and the eligibility criteria, who was in a theater watching a hindi movie...
• I actually went to college at 12 midnight to satisfy myself about the CGPA required for the same and other details etc.
• Then I also called up the another friend who was sharing a similar interest and discussed more about that. And all this on the same night. Not much big deal. Read more.

25th August 2007 to 2nd September 2007

Well, it was preparation time. It was time to get what I had dreamt of while entering this Engineering College and for some reasons which I wont like to state here right now, Oracle was the last company for me to appear for at least in the IT sector. I began by asking the already harrowed seniors for the elimination test and the interviews which were giving an impression of being quite geeky. So I revised all the stuff I had gone through the last 3 years (learning those languages (C and C++ being put major emphasis on) which you can use only with the computers !) and some metallurgical stuff too. Solving puzzles became a huge hit with me during this period and it found a space in my resume pronto. OCF Berkeley and Techinterview were two really great sites where I spent lots of quality time. Also I had to pay some attention to those areas in mathematics and logical reasoning where I was taking more time than required because the aptitude test was supposed to be for those wisecracks who can think fast and accurately. After a brief pumping up of resume and revival of the activities mentioned (the internship, the training and the extra curriculars etc) I was finally ready for the 1st installment of the huge battle that lay ahead, where only an upset could sail my ship through ! And yeah, I also was appointed the placement coordinator of Oracle Ltd. And it really helped, later...

3rd September - The PAC Test

Oracle, for the last few years has been outsourcing the job of conducting aptitude tests for its campus interviews to PAC - Professional Aptitude Council and they do a really great job when it comes to test the analytical and problem solving skills required in the world of Information Technology. The test was, surprisingly, a cakewalk ! (?) and I was expecting not to get through only in the case of some evil conspiracy against me.

4th September 2007 to 6th September 2007

Amidst the gripping tension of whether I would be shortlisted or not, I attempted to improve upon whatever I could and in the process ended up bunking about 20 lectures on the trot since I didnt attend a single day during this tenure. Those were the crazy days and more were to follow. Thanks everyone who helped me to stay mentally fit !

7th September - The interviews begin !!!

After a superb pre-placement talks with the executives of Oracle India Ltd, (where I also got the opportunity to flag off the ceremony) where we were told about the exact nature of job profiles being offered - Oracle Application Software, (Development and Programming) and Oracle Solution Services, (Consulting). Later on, based on the preferences given by the aspirants we were shortlisted in the two categories. Apps had 30 students for the interviews and then it began. I had two really great and amazing rounds of technical interviews which challenged my technical ability to the maximum extent. The conversation was really candid and ranged from all domains like programming skills, mind blowing puzzles and riddles, stuff about oracle and life and what not. The HR interview was a stress reliever in the true sense and it was really cool to talk with these brilliant minds indeed. I was among the rare group of people who had finished all the process on the first day itself and was supposed to wait for 17 agonizing hours for the results to be out, while the other candidates were interviewed. I resumed my coordinator activities next day since I had nothing much to do than wait with all the suspense in the world.

8th September : The day that I wont forget !!!

Yeah... Like in the movies... we are back to present after the flashback. Zip Zap Zoom. Its 4 pm in the afternoon and all are waiting with a gulp in their throat. Everyone was eager to know who was in , who was out, who was flushed out and who finally made it to Oracle ! Well, in the end, my name was there among the 8 people selected in Oracle Application Software and everything went hazy and inexpressible. The thing is, it was really a great and ultimate experience to break through Oracle's selection process (Cant break in, Cant Break it --> as they proudly say... :-) and being a non Comp Sci graduate to do that made it even more special as the Apps profile was preferably oriented towards product development. It was a really euphoric feeling and I came to know what it is like on Cloud nine or whatever it is. For a freak moment, I was on top of the world and the feeling took quite some time to sink in... All the adjectives in the world fall short to describe this, and I would nurture this day as a landmark in my college life. It was a dream come true, indeed !

Do let me know how you feel about this part of my life, which I call being happy... (borrowed from Pursuit of Happiness...) Click here to post your comments.

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Finally in final year of Engineering !

Once upon a time...

This dream story began about 5 years ago, when I decided to opt for Engineering as a viable career option for my future life, since it was the best graduation degree that I could get, so as to satisfy the childhood dream - "Software Engineer". There is no such thing though... Technically speaking its more like Computer Science Engineering... Started preparing for IIT-JEE, known to be the toughest of them all, and it must be so, because it caters only to the best of the minds. Sadly, I couldn't make the cut - the blame lies on me entirely - you have to study too hard for that... But then there is no dearth of Engineering colleges in this country (the figure runs in many thousands! ). The next in ladder were the NIT's - National Institute of Technologies and fortunately I didn't screw much in the AIEEE (another entrance exam...) But the Computer Science Engineering dream remained a dream since I somehow got into Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. (please don't say YUK... some of our courses will fetch anyone career options that will be the envy of any engineer from any institute... more of that later...) So here I was, after 2 yrs of HSSC and Engg entrance prep, in VNIT - Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur itself, in my hometown. After a lot of dilemma over choosing over the discipline in engineering and the engineering college, I finally decided to go with the institute. And I can say proudly that its been a great decision so far !!!

VNIT - 1st year - The "FAST" year

Almost everyone, when they are to think about the first year engineering, the first word that comes to his/her mind is ragging ! Yeah... its just like that, but here in VNIT, I found an entirely new dimension of it. The word is "Interaction" - yup... thats the basic purpose of all the leg pulling that went around when we first years, all clad in that boring dress code gathered in the Aarohi Room where lots of thirsty seniors were vying for fresh blood... I loved it all and seriously got grooved in all the fun that went along with the seniors, even on the Cricket Ground. The way they showed us around in all the walks of life of campus and imparting the off-classroom education, I am really grateful to one and all to make me gel in the complicated webs of VNIT. The first year subjects were something that I found really great - whether it was drawing sheets in ED or solving fundoo problems in EM, it was something that fueled my liking for engineering to the fullest. I don't even remember how the first year drifted by as I explored the various 'hideouts' - the canteen, the library, the hostels, the computer center amongst the many others. This was the year when we start at the bottom rung of organizing many events - Aarohi - the cultural festival, Axis - the technical festival, Krikmania - the cricket tournament... it was just amazing. And the day we got freshers was just so memorable as we began flaunting our status as undergraduates to the whole world with unabashed pride smacked on our faces.

The "Second Coming" year and The "Third Grade" year

The activities remained quite the same except for the studies, which saw a new low. The "level" of fun and frolic increased with the feeling that someone below can bear the brunt of our misgivings! All the communities and organizations had the opportunity to be blessed with our skilled managerial tactics and were uplifted from their drudgery. Considering the academic viewpoint of my engineering life, I totally neglected the meta stuff (and that wasn't a good decision, in hindsight) and went on to learn new stuff about CSE (and that was indeed a better decision, in foresight). Went on to do some mini projects, an internship at an upcoming SW company and also went to an industrial excursion to a Steel Plant. Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, IIT Roorkee, Pune and New Delhi - all happened, for all sorts of reasons and suddenly I had travelled a lot during these two years with family, with friends all alike. It was just a glimpse of the great country of mine and I am sure I have not quite have had enough of it. Life took many turns and suddenly I was living on a freeway full of sheer crazyness - bunking college, lots of movies and sitcoms on the PC, orkuting, surfing and going on to new hang outs with buddies. Campus placements gave me a job at TCS - one of the best IT companies in the world and VNIT says that I still have one more shot at it. Started preparing to bell the CAT and get to IIM's, but right now its a distant dream. And then even before I could blink my eyes... It happened... I was suddenly in the Final year of Engineering... gulp !

At the end of the world...

Standing on the altar of 7th semester in this battle to achieve a piece of paper which will have "B.Tech" stamped on it (just kidding, it means a lot more to me), I am feeling really nostalgic right now. VNIT, formerly VRCE, was the place from where my father completed his graduation in Electrical Engineering and there are quite a few ties with VNIT. I hope that I have made them all proud, though, looking back I know that I have been more than a disappointment to everyone's expectations by not doing the required hard work at the right time. But Hey... thats the way I am, always living the moment rather than fretting about the future. And now the Institute seems a lot different to me. More responsibilities, more respect to the ever hard working professors, more yearning for "interaction" with juniors, more studies and more fun. I intend to spend this last year with a new outlook to life. To explore the hitherto unknown dimensions and to find more about the meaning of life... the purpose of existence - thats crazy, I know... But I am far from becoming a hermit right now ! Anyways... I think I owe a lot to VNIT. It has taught me many things which are just indescribable since they are all abstract nouns. When I finally complete it, I hope that it doesn't make my eyes wet. The joke goes around that I shed tears during senti movies, but the only thing that shook my rigid soul was "Swades". I have had the time of my life in this college and can go on continuously. Looking forward to another couple of great semesters where I can continue to extrapolate my stay in this magnificient campus.

Fellow VNITians, please post your comments if I have missed out something worthy of mention. Other blog readers, no one is stopping you to post your feedback and views !

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