when peppy days became pulsating ones..!

I apologise for the caption 'coming soon' which had been living on in this post for nearly a month now, and yeah, it still does exist, coz I just used it.. :D

How much more screwed up can life get..? I hardly have time to fill rubbish in this blog..! The semesters are a pain in the neck, and the way you get screwed by them, its even more pathetic. I am just referring to today's 'theory of computation' paper for which I had prepared earnestly, and then what happens..? Shit happens! I get a paper which looks pleasing on the eye, but I and many others(got company!) end up messing up every question because I do not know if the answer I've just arrived at is the perfect one..! As if that wasn't enough, I forget my wallet in the forest(my college! coz its deep inside the 'tambaram forest') and reach GST road.. all coz of this crazy examiner who says 'no wallets allowed for the exam'..! What am i going to do with a wallet..?? Is it going to tell me something during the exam or am i going to 'bit adichify' from that..!?!? Irritating..! I encouter that horrible journey to the forest once again, and luckily my wallet is just where i had left it.. And amazingly, the 100's inside are intact.. Who cares abt the money, the wallet was more precious to me..! I've been having it for some 10yrs now..!

I get out of the college and the stupid security says 'no more buses.. onli at 4.15..'.. and I look at my watch which says 2:30pm..! Irritation yet again..! Luckily a blessed soul turns up, he wuz going back home and he had come by car.. I smile, and make him an offer he cant refuse(godfather style). I get dropped on gst road.. and then the 170A takes me home..!

Er.. I've been posting under the wrong topic all this while, so lets make that right.. Straight into the story for this post.. Flashback.. buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..!!

A kid is born, his attachment towards the word 'vroom' is more than his attachment with anything else, and then he earns himself a 3-wheeled cycle.. He drives it inside the house like a crazy kid, takes it to the limit and breaks it into pieces.. Now thats the requirement for upgrading the vehicle, and 'upgrade', his dad does for him.. The now-LKG kid gets a 'bsa champ', drives it like crazy yet again.. for 6yrs..! Luckily it doesn break this time around, enabling good old dad to preserve it for poor old sis..! The kid was one level above everyone on wheels, but as time went on, the others went ahead leaving the poor old kid as shocked as chelsea were when they lost to 'burnley'..!

Ok..! The kid is me.. I'm bored of writing kid kid kid in every sentence, hence i shall continue with an easier 'I' here on..!

Seventh standard came, and it was time for 'Hercules Axn', the red beauty which to this very day rots downstairs in my apartment's cycle stand..! I wanted to cycle to school..! Watching swatkats everyday, watching razor ride his 'cyclotron' in style got me more irritated.. I wanted to prove my swatkat style and I wasn't given the chance..! It took me another 2 yrs to get the green from the 'scared' parents to go to school by cycle..! Man, I had to wait, wait and wait..! And then after 2 more yrs, cylces were 'history'.. The sound of engines excited me more now.. The only two wheeler at home was a godforsaken scooty, not even an easy start model, but I have to admit, it was heaven then..!

Psbb was flooded with two wheelers, my own section was.. Sa came by scooty, Yesh came by scooty and even girls who could hardly walk came by two wheelers.. Irritated, I really was! Hence I irritated everyone at home and got the green yet again..! It sure felt great to zoom to school at 8:20am(ten minutes late as ever)..

Two years went by, college life came calling, but the scooty still stayed..! The upgrade never seemed to happen.. I had even mastered cars by then. That super CityZX drive to pondicherry and back, was one classic trip.. But then, on two wheels, I was still stuck up with the scooty..

And then came 2008.. The calls of 'bike bike bike' went unheard at home.. But atleast, the scooty was now deemed to be too old..! And then came in the Scooty pep, it was the only vehicle that my mum found easy to ride..! Couldn't even convince her for an Activa..! The pep inaugurated my 'peppy days'.. It was a real pleasure to ride this little black machine which never let me down in traffic signals where I could show that 'the bike never mattered, only the rider did', during those numerous times when i raced easily, the so called 'cc' power bikes, tearing them apart with that peppy pick up..! But as time went on, it became a tough job to take the vehicle twice a week to adyar for the CAT classes.. It was time to change the peppy days into pulsating ones.. Argument after argument, home was the place where I experienced the two ever oscillating feelings- 'going to get the bike soon' and 'will never get a bike in this birth'..!

But in the end, I managed to put up a real emotional show, which propelled good ol' dad to go to the bajaj 'probiking' showroom and book a pulsar 200.. 'Black' it was.. The bike landed where it had to one fine October evening. 11th to be precise..! My dream was realized.. It had been my dream for more than a year now..!

A girl once said to me "I want to see you on a 'pulsar', 'yours', and a 'black' one.." It was decided then, that this would be my only choice.. And I ended up sticking to it, though the real irony was that I couldn't show the bike to the very soul who wanted me to get it.. She was more interested in her space ride to heaven..

Crazy life..!

The bike has been my best friend of late, that good a friend that I've thrown the 'my girlfriend' tag around it..! Its been 350kms of probiking experience so far, a noiseless classy engine and lastly.. mind blowing pick up..

200 - yo! thats the name..!! when peppy days became pulsating ones..!

network problems..

how good it felt to have the question paper in hand a day ahead of the exam..!! a total of ten 2 mark quesions plus five 16 mark questions..! awesome, just what i needed to ensure my safety..! 

it was a sober friday, october the 3rd, I headed back home from college after completing my dbms exam.. I knew i hadn't done well.. Sleep had got the better of me, and i had been dozing thru the exam.. on the 170(its a bus), on my way back from tambaram, i had decided..! it was time to make amends.. i needed to step up my performance in saturday's exam.. 'networks'.. 

Reached home earlier than usual, and enjoyed a short nap.. by the time i woke up, it was 5pm.. i wanted to go n play.. football, my only solace.. returned home at 6.30 exhausted and it took me sometime to settle n get down to business.. Out came 'data communication and networking' by Behrouz A Forouzan.. I, with a bemused look started to scroll through the pages hoping to acquire some guidance from someone on the important topics.. 

And then... it started..! "Buzz!!".. A flash caught my eye.. It was my Nokia 3110 classic(not so classy though), which had made the sound.. '1 message received' it said.. and i pressed that big button right at the center and there appeared several lines of text.. 'Not another stupid forward..!', I cursed the sender whose name i was yet to see..

I read through.. It wasn't a joke.. It wasn't information.. It was the networks paper..

           "1. Explain about guided and unguided media with examples (OR) Draw and explain the OSI architecture..

            2. Explain the operations of Go Back-n (OR) Selective Repeat ARQ..

           3... 4... 5...!!!"

5 questions.. with choice..! "..Wowwie..!!" I said to myself.. and my eyes almost popped out the way it did everytime for 'Thomas the Cat'(Tom n Jerry) when he saw a good looking she-cat..

I closed the book that very instant.. and switched on the idiot box(honestly, it ain't as idiotic as you ppl think..!).. i had wanted to watch 'Behind Enemy Lines' for several months.. and this was the best time.. 'With the question paper in hand and more than 12 hours to go for the exam, what more do you need..! Therez nothing wrong in watching a movie..! Is there..!?!?'..

The movie went on till 11.20pm.. My dad approached me and asked me casually.. "I thought you had an exam tomorrow..?"..

I was extra casual with my reply.. "So what..? I know all the 5 questions..! No worries Pop..!"

I then read through the famous five.. with ease.. The topics seemed too easy now that i knew that they were sureshot questions..!

Bus journey the next morning was even more comical.. Beaming with over-confidence.. I slept through the entire journey.. And then waited with impatience for the 9.15 college bell, which signalled the commencement of the examination.. we guys got into the hall grinning, but it wasn't long before the grins turned into grimaces.. In front of us was this paper, with an entirely different set of questions.. I found one to two questions with the weightage of 8 when I had actually prepared to write the same for 16..! All hell broke lose..! This was more nightmarish than any nightmare..! There was a serious Network Problem in the exam hall..

"But then, why should i quit..??", thought I.. and wrote whatever I had read the previous day, not bothering about whether it was asked in the paper or not..!

Stepped out of the hall as soon as they let go of us.. headed straight out of the college without a word to anyone.. Reached home.. and slapped myself..! But I was happy for one reason.. It wasn't only me, who had got kicked in the teeth.. 

Our class motto of 'united we stand, united we fall' was exemplified once again..

These supposed question paper leaks..! Phew..! Have had enough of em..! But then, if I'm gonna get another paper today saying "Theory of Computation", I guess I'll take it.. It feels better to blame the 'leakers' for your failure rather than blaming yourself..!

Hopefully, I won't be posting anything on Monday titled "Computation Problems..!"..

Until then...

WALL-E

This is not a movie blog and hence thou shall not find WALL-E reviews encrypted on this page.. But then, i wanted to write a post a couple o' weeks ago titled 'Jaane Tu... ya jaane na', in reference to the day when I lied to my mother(first time) and went to the movie with a friend, and yeah, the post never came and thus lost its 'charm'. Felt this post must have the movie name, because the movie was the end product of a tiresome afternoon.

Woke up with a start, feeling the pinch of the newly bred monsters all over my body.. the mosquitoes were at it again aided by the loss of power, the only time the government projected their punctuality. It was a holiday(courtesy Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who once upon a time in once upon a time India was a teacher/vice president/president and hence eventually his birthday came to be known as teacher's day) and i had to start my day quite early! Coffee and Mahabharata(the book) hand in hand, I worked my way through the early hours and in the course of time was helped by ten sports.. Novac v Roddick live.. Nole as he is called kicked Roddick's ass eventually..

Then, the minutes swam across completing several laps, engulfing me into deep thought. It got to 10.45pm.. and I remembered my appointment.. On came the black bob marley t-shirt.. and my pep hit the trafficked roads.. first stop: the satyeki palace.. the genius and i were off once again and then we were stuck in the godforsaken G.N.Chetty Road.. Reason..?? The side fiddle man was in town..! Sorry, but thats what I've been calling the nation's Prime Minister since yesterday when I was stuck in traffic near the airport just because the Prime Minister was arriving by flight, and taking the next helicopter to Pondicherry..! Y were the bloody roads blocked when all the action was on the runway..!?!?.. And to top it all, posters were hanging everywhere.. posters of the Azzurri(Italian) woman.. posters in which the Prime Minister was of no relevance.. he was dumped into a corner to be more precise.. Anyway, back to today.. It took us more than 30 immovable minutes to move out of that place.. British Council awaited my return.. Entered the wonderland after 2 long years.. Hardly had time for a glance because it was already 1:00 pm.. WALL-E beckoned. Rushed out and back on Anna Salai.. Sathyam Cinemas was just a minute away.. One U-Turn in the next signal was all that was required..

Catastrophe hit us when we least expected it. We waited and waited to take the U-Turn.. But the option was unavailable, and there weren't any vehicles approaching from the other side either.. It struck me then.. Side Fiddle man and the Azzurri girl were about to go by.. And then came one car.. and then another.. 'Ambassador'.. 'ikon'.. they kept alternating.. and occasionally a 'Mercedes' caught my eye.. What a big convoy.. and what a waste of time..! Whoz gonna shoot down poor Manmo, the most educated leader in this country..

After the convoy raced away, we were all waiting for that U-Turn.. It never came.. The wonderfully efficient traffic police said.. "No U-Turn.. Go Straight.." and thats exactly what I did.. straight, straight, straight... And then suddenly, into view came a tower, with a board on it saying 'Doordarshan'.. Funny.. thats supposed to be near the marina..! I drove ahead.. and then came to face the beautiful Napier Bridge.. Marina on my right, it was a beautiful sight.. Drove on.. and I came to the 'end' of the Super Marina road... At long last.. took the desired U-Turn, one which I should have taken some 3kms ago.. But yeah, in the end, I was able to enter the gates of Sathyam.. Wasted Rs.10 on parking yet again.. They could give me a season ticket instead..

Satyeki went his way, in search of tickets that he never possessed.. I had already booked mine, courtesy Fuel Card.. Ash was already waiting for me.. Rushed to collect my tickets from the window.. and we got inside Serene.. The Movie had started..!! I cursed the Prime Minister once again..! The Rabbit and the Magician on screen were rocking the theatre.. and it ended..! Abruptly..! Was just some trailer.. which had been going on for some 10 mins.. And then.. 'Walt Disney'.. 'Pixar'.. 'WALL-E'..!!!

No comments about the movie except for the much deserved final verdict: "A Class Apart..!!"

Started from Sathyam, and chose the bad option of hitting the 'psbb' area.. Reminiscence prevailed.. School beckoned.. Teachers day wishes were to be delivered.. the phone buzzed at that very moment.. It was my friendie 'jan-e'.. she wanted company to get to school and meet the gurus of psbb..! My art of avoiding things and people has reached great heights these days and this helped me convince her that I wasn't worth the company.. the actual reason though was that I didn't want to step into the school, atleast not for now..

And then 'Buzz..!!' WALL-E got back into my head..

The Short Essay..

Alas, I am back with another post, stupidity to be portrayed as ever in this one too..
Well, I had a GD session at IMS today, and hilarious it was. We were asked to write a short essay within the span of five minutes. The topic was given and the ink started to flow. Insanity was embossed on the white papyrus of my classmate notebook. The funny thing; I read out the essay aloud when I was asked to, and in the end I earned a 'well written' compliment from the eminent(?) faculty from British Council. I simply marvel at the praise which was very much unprecedented considering the fact that I always write horrendous stuff, and also the time available here was very less. Probably, my rubbish looked better to them when compared to the work of others.

I've posted the essay below for enlightened souls to read and ponder upon how the faculty from the British Council erred in their judgment.

The Topic : In the past, success was certain if you were wealthy but its not true anymore.

The Essay :
'Throw in your cash, life becomes a bash' was the common notion in the earlier days. The rich continued to thrive in the society where their wealth was the focal point.

In our country though, stepped in the government with rules, that did its best to reverse this trend. The first stop was education. Reservations became the order of the day much to the delight of the less privileged who for generations had been struggling to break the shackles to reap the benefits of quality education from the elite institutions.

The Universities which once upon a time accepted cash to educate the undeserving could do it no more. The same was the case when one had to hunt for a job. Recommendations were not much of a lifeline anymore. The resume had to speak for the candidate and this depended upon the qualification which had to be obtained purely by merit, and not by splashing wealth.

But at times, personal wealth has shown its ability too. Take the case of Abhinav Bindra, who is now considered a legend in our country. He used to travel to his range for training in a Mercedes accompanied by his driver and his servant. He was one who had never experienced the strenuous life which was endured by several other aspirants. The truth is, his wealth, apart from his talent enabled him to grab the Olympic Gold. An exceptional case.

The times have changed though. The equation for the majority is pretty simple: 'You don't get success from wealth anymore, but You do get wealth from success.'(punch dialogue)

The Destiny..

It was one weird incident that evolved, that day.. He, was on his way to the theater, to witness the screening of a movie scheduled to start thirty minutes from then; two hours from noon..

It was a pleasant day, reason one, being the weather; reason two, being the day, on which sixty one years ago, the nation was rid of the British rule for the supposed good.. The roads were void, with plenty of room to gallop; the sun was up there taking shelter behind the puff of clouds.. Three special colors had taken shape everywhere, forming their outline on vehicles, on attire, and in the hearts of millions..

He though, was trying to decipher the solution to an enigma which he had foreseen en route. And then suddenly, though not unexpectedly, he was stopped on his way by one grotesque figure, clad in strange attire with a mysterious look upon the face.. He knew that he was staring at those eyes, which belonged, to the 'God of Death'..

"The time.. is now.. The life of thy, has an end.. And the end is here.." said the God with a cunning smile upon his face..

"No, it ain't possible.. Housed in my heart, is an ambition, and I believe it is my destiny to fulfill my goal, and achieve my ambition.."

"Son, the world has got ambitions.. The young and the old.. Dog or Man, an ambition exists.. An ambition is like a phoenix.. One ambition is done; the next is reborn.. Its a chain.. If I were to let people to get to their ambitions, none will ever leave this domain, the cosmos will have to suffocate.."

"My destiny is mine to create, and so is my ambition. Nothing can stop me, not even you.." said the lad..

"what is that ambition of yours..?"

"It is 'to live on'.."

Escaped, those words from the heart of the young lad, words fueled by undying desire causing the grotesque God of Death to think.. 'This encounter was quite unprecedented', thought he..

The God of Death too had a destiny, that of to meet the one who would repel the almighty himself away.. making him realize, that he was not the one to decide the destiny of his people.. One had the power to control their own destiny. That which was needed to achieve it was only the 'belief', which was the actual God..

Retreated the God of Death, from the scene.. It was decided. He would never meet this lad again.. The lad, continued his journey.. knowing that nothing could stop him from reaching his destination.. If there was something that could stop him, it was he himself..

The Act of Stealing..

Well, this might end up being like the confession of a crime topper, but yeah, I don't mind being called one such person though I guess I no longer am the same..

I remember, once upon a time, after I got back home from college one day, I was talking to this friend of mine with whom I used to talk quite regularly.. She asked me

"how was your day..?" to which I answered

"One awesome day, and you know what.. I helped the college incur a loss of Rs.50.." and she asked me

"how..??".. to which I shamelessly replied..

"I just took out stuff from the canteen when they weren't noticing, some talent to do that..!"..

And I really got slaughtered by her that day..

"You stole huh..?.. Thats not a great thing..! Its probably the worst thing ever.."

..and I tried justifying my act of insanity, projecting this villain as the Robin Hood who was performing the act of 'stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor'.. (I considered myself poor in this very case).. But she persisted.. saying..

"I dunno, but its not right.. I don't feel good when you do all this..".. and this dragged on to set shape to an argument which lead to a fight..

Days went by, and so did the months.. And now, I realize that she was indeed very correct in what she said.. 'Stealing was and is an act of immorality..'.. Its probably the worst sin ever in this world..

I just finished the book 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini, and at a particular instant in the book, the story brushes upon the definition of sins and stealing.. 'Amir' asks his father about sins to which his father replies..

"When you kill a man, you steal a life.. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father.. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.. There is no act more wretched than stealing.. A man who takes what is not his to take has supposedly committed a sin, one which can never be forgiven.."

I am not trying to preach values over here, I merely am talking about something which I very recently realized.. And I am sure I will never commit the same mistake again.. Even an attractive Parker pen which lies unclaimed on my desk will not attract my attention, owing to the fact that it rightfully does not belong to me..

I had been thinking about this all day long, which is the reason for this post.. I have now understood the mistake that my friend was trying to point out to me long ago..

To my friend who bestowed upon me this bit of sense..

"Thanks..! I owe it all to you.."

Fifth Semesters..

Semesters are eight in total in the engineering course, only six of which are quite relevant to my life.. I've gone through four already, with only its reflection yet to be conquered.. I would like to touch upon the beauty of one day in one such semester which is in fact this very day, the 12th of August, 2008..

The day started as usual with my late entry into reality from the now seemingly distant dreamland; when my mum had to pour water on my face to achieve the unachievable.. 'My awakening'.. After some last minute scurry and filling in my bag with the right 'fiction books' to read for the day, I stepped out to be escorted by dad in the ever so peppy 'scooty pep' to my kk nagar stop.. and there I ascended that heavenly abode on wheels, and it took me a couple of minutes before I covered myself from head to chin with my kerchief in the intention of repelling the dust that had been thrown up by the roads, and took out my book 'Joker in the Pack'.. a book with an irreverent view of life at the IIMs..

Lost in the book, I had hardly noticed the distance traversed by the bus for we had already reached the holy land.. I crept into my classroom without being noticed for that saintly look I now possessed.. Then rang that siren, quite similar in sound to the ones that are heard blaring in jails, though I've seen it only in the movies.. But the siren carried a bit of truth in itself depicting the college to be one such jail..

In came the Queen of Computer Networks, 'Mrs. Wall' and I did the only thing I'd mastered at college, a "YES" when my name was called out to collect the days attendance.. And then I was totally lost in time. With my '6 subjects in 1' notebook on top and 'Joker in the Pack' at the bottom, I shifted all interest on the latter turning page after page at a steady rate.. And thus the hour was spent..

And then entered probably the only teacher at 'holy land' with heart, 'Professor M' .. to enrich our infected knowledge on microprocessors.. And yet again, I was caught red handed while I was looking out of the window admiring Mr.Ramasamy.. "Ramasamy who?", might be the only thing up your heads at this moment.. but I assure you that I am no gay guy, for he is not one of those absentminded professors, not one of my so called mates, and definitely not the man behind the "Ramasamy Road" in kk nagar, whoever he is/was..! Rather, Mr.Ramasamy was the tiny humble owl, that seated itself on a nearby branch observing without much ado all the boring lectures that we students endured during our hours at the premises of the holy land.. Camouflaged by the bark of the tree, he spent the day without moving a muscle, sometimes earning my jealousy, as I wished to become like him someday, 'idle'.. Before I get into the next hour, I would like to convey my gratitude to Mr.Quake for suggesting the brilliant name 'Ramasamy' for the tiny owl..

Then came the super hour, and in came the discrete mathematician, Mr.Sunk, 'a legend', which he deemed himself to be, with a one in a million brain which had enabled him to get his PhD.. It was not his wish to bore us today with his stories of 'How he left his discrete maths(d.m) paper blank just because he didn't know one question which would have earned him only 98%; and how he came back to write the arrear and score a centum in that to get that coveted gold medal of his..' He was to continue today with another routine of his, 'testing us at something we never knew'.. As usual, the man, went to the last bench, took his seat and dictated a set of 6 questions.. an increase in number compared to the previous days.. And we happily copied the answers from under the desk, from the book, which we had surprisingly bought as we had had enough of his so called self boasting stories, when we usually failed to solve the sums.. Then, the man came to my desk, looked at my paper, talked to me about alternative techniques to solve the sums, to which I confidently nodded though I was quite perplexed at his sudden intervention when I barely knew a thing in the subject.. He kept talking to me about some 'lattice', and the only lattice I was thinking about was in Adyar in the form of 'Lattice Bridge Road' where I had my CAT classes... And then the hour was gone..

Then came Professor Ball.. and I won't be taking much of your time discussing about this hour because I hardly know what happened.. The man who resembled a lighthouse in the midst of two storied buildings entered the class and started his nonsense on DBMS referring to bucket as 'bucketu', packet as 'packetu' and more of that induction of tamil slang into that already horrible English.. Joker in the Pack, though, was my choice, with its 'internships' and 'love life with girls doing humanities in IIT Bombay' far more interesting than dbms.. And there was that terrific siren again, tickling our brains with reminders about the lunch hour..

I would not want to talk to anyone about the lunch, because I simply do not consider it to be one.. Apart from the so called lunch, I enriched myself with the mango pulp in the form of the 'Mazaa'.. and then back to class I went to Joke with the Joker.. After sometime, it was Siren time! again..!

DBMS Lab.. probably the best three hours in fifth semester where the queries seemed easy, and the teacher seemed easier that one program could shut her mouth for good.. Mrs. Wall, she obviously was. Surprisingly, today.. the lab was cool for they had switched on that wretched AC for a change.. The teacher seemed least interested in us, and so was I busy with the Joker again.. and then I did reach that epitome of sadness, erupting in the form of emotions.. The reason?.. I had finished the book, though i enjoyed every bit of the reality in it... The 'love for the IIT girl' was lost, life seemed 'miserable and cursed in every aspect but for the financial one with the huge Pay packet from MNCs'.. the magic of the IIMs i guess.. 'to gain something, sacrifice was undeniable', was the moral in a way..

Back to the holy land, I was wondering as to what I must do, when my senior came to my rescue taking me away from the job of being idle by assigning me the job of a 'test gamer'.. All I had to do was to play match after match of FIFA 07 with him on the network, 'just to pass time' according to me, and according to teachers 'make sure that the LAN connections were in order' so that the gaming event would not be a flop show during the symposium scheduled to be held on the 22nd of August.. Apart from gaming, I got my report card, with the results of the first unit test and I was beaming with pride, because the comment read "GOOD" and I had achieved a 'not so mere' feat of passing all the exams in the unit test for the first time since i joined college.. I was now a 'Six Piece'.. or rather.. my report card had '6 Ps', each P referring to an otherwise unfamiliar word, 'PASS'..! And then for the last time, blared the jail siren, disrupting my report card celebrations..

Back onto the heavenly abode on wheels, I was off to sleep infested dreamland soon, because of the lack of company during the journey, for I had not expected to finish the book so early..

And then I got down in kk nagar only to enjoy a ride back home in a 200cc pulsar driven by a mechanical mastermind, who verified the vehicle's quality pickup in that short journey.. This is how fifth semesters are.. Or atleast.. seem to be...