Not at All Obfuscating. A Bit More than That

When PAN card came to the rescue

2010-06-11T02:56:00.001-04:00

Scene 1
It was 7 AM in the morning, and my blackberry started screaming in the loudest of the voices possible, without realizing that it is waking up an innocent, harmless chap. Even before there was a greeting from my side, Sathvik professionally, as he wants to call himself, took over the proceedings- as if to waste no time at all. 'Alright bro, wake up. It's time! 8.15 sharp, we will meet infront of the Chestnut Hall. You don't have any more time to lax away. Just hurry up'. That was one of the most serious wake-up calls, I have ever had in my life. I dragged myself out of inertia, got ready- and was at the indicated meeting point at sharp 8.15, expecting to see the rest, least aware of the fact that the rest were still resting. After half-an hour of waiting. I finally identified Kothi, and some distance behind him Sathvik- who was professionally and secretly organizing some other assignment of his, later that night. Their Singapore friend joined us too, very soon.

Scene 2

Sathvik, sensing that it was his time to speak said, 'Andrew has rented a car, and he should be here any moment.' This guy is known for his extraordinary ability to predict the wrong things, which not many of us knew then. Everyone was excited. It was just a delay by 30 min, which is acceptable by all standards! In the mean time, I realized that I was not carrying my passport, the only form of my identification here in the US. I have been too lazy to apply for a drivers license or a state ID card, even after close-to-an-year stay here in the US. I have had bitter experiences of getting thrown away from many places due to not carrying an identification with date-of-birth on it. Universities strictly keep your date of birth a complete secret on the university-ID card, making them absolutely useless outside of the university; unlike in India, where some 'gyaan' on shortcuts to clear JEE, will often result in a TTE in a train let you off with your IIT ID card. I expressed this concern to my leader incharge. He immediately retorted, 'don't worry; that should not matter. Sky-diving is only for people whose age is above 18. And with the amount of hair grayed, if there is any one in this world who believes that you are below 18- I'd murder him and go to jail.'I found it convincing. Coupled with my (our) laziness, I didnot really go back home to get it.

5 minutes later, Sathvik came back with a grave gesture as if to let us know of somebody's death. 'Ssup, dude', asked Kothi. 'Andrew couldn't rent a car due to credit-card related problems, like not possessing it. So this is not going to happen this time. Some other time guys', declared Sathvik again. Sensing that everyone still wants to go, our smart professional leader quickly amended the declaration saying, 'there will be a meeting to decide upon the future course. But peeps, don't have high expectations!' The meeting explored several unfeasible options, all involving calling different car rental companies and asking them to rent us a car. We said one of us has a credit card, one of us a drivers license and one of us is above 25 years of age. Unfortunately none of the car-rental companies seemed to have believed in team play. They wanted one person to possess everything. Kothi infact thought of lecturing them about team-play, but the action got postponed, as currently all his immense brain storming experience was needed in the meeting. When all the options got explored and when everyone almost gave up, I proposed the so-called 'worst option', which was taking a cab. Sathvik did some quick calculations in his mind, and surprisingly seconded this thought. Kothi went into shock, on hearing the 'C' word. Andrew backed out. Back in senses, Kothi was witnessing Sathvik bargain with a cab driver for a flat rate of 130, when the cab driver was actually charging 140. The bargaining part made him happy, but he not being involved in it made his madrasi marwadi blood boil. He immediately joined by saying 'nothing more than 70.'

On the other hand, I became nostalgic about the Chennai auto drivers. I remembered how we used to laugh infront of them at the rates they quote, even though we hadn't an iota of idea, what the actual rates should be; I remembered how we used to just walk away as a starting bargaining stunt. I was really missing all those here, whence thanks to Satty and Kothi, I felt home!

So, finally it settled at 200 -two way, with all the financial calculations that succeeded just staying in the error margin of +30, from the earlier thought-of budget. Everyone was happy. Half-way through the drive we realized that we have been traveling parallel to one of the railway tracks, all along. After all, public transport in the US is not that not available. Before people could decide on jumping out of the car and taking a train for cost-cutting purposes, I changed the topic to next week's Rahman's concert- but not without assuring that I am all in for a public transport option while coming back. 'Well then, one way - half the price it is', said Kothi- backed by Satty. Some humanitarian appeal by the cab driver made the final deal at 120 bucks.

Scene 3
It was 12 in the noon, and Sathvik had already informed that we were going to be delayed. 'All right, that's the airport- and that's how we dive', said Sathvik showing us what we were seeing, and informing us, what we already know. 'Hello, I am Sat. We have a reservation at 9.30. We got delayed. I informed you...', said Sathivk to one of the guys there. 'Don't worry sir; just fill up these things- and wait for 3 hours. We will arrange for your diving.' We decided not to go back even if it means Sat waiting for 3 precious hours, which otherwise could be well spent taking pics of hot babes for DP. 'Peeps, this form says that it is not their responsibility if we die during sky-diving. Just sign it. Don't believe it, though. They would take care of us like a mommy takes care of her baby,' briefed Satty, about the form that we were about to fill, probably trying to comfort us, but ended up more so trying to scare us. There was a column which asked details about the identification that a person is carrying. Satty realizing my worry said, 'don't fear, I am here. Sab sambaloonga mein.'. I understood it as 'all we need to do is go and put senti to them. Look at how the master does it, and learn.' With such words of assurance from a person who a while back promised to murder anyone who asks for my ID (more precisely, the age proof), I felt doubly assured.

Scene 4

'Forms, sir', said the guy. Sathvik gave all of them, he collected from us. 'ID's sir', the man said. Sathvik gave 2 passports and Kothi's Indian driving license and my Penn ID card. 'This is not valid sir,' said the man showing up my ID. I was half heart-broken. Satty patted me, and said, 'look sir, we came from Philly. This gentleman has forgotten to get his passport. He is above 18. I assure you that. And he has some form of an ID issued by the university. With this, I would appeal the humanitarian side of you to take a decision on allowing him.'

'Sir, I donot question the integrity of your claims. This man seems old enough and fit enough to undertake such an adventurous sport. But the rules of the day say that he should show us his authentic ID. I am nobody to break the rules,' replied the man like a slap on my cheek.

'In that case, gentleman- he can show you his ID (passport) on his email, if you allow us to access the internet,' said Sathvik. 'Well, sir! I am afraid the rules say we need to see the authentic form of the ID. Not a duplicate version,' virtually slapping me on the other cheek too. Realizing that this guy was trained by the SWAT, and about to work for the 'Blackwater,' when he was hired there at a better pay; I quickly interrupted and closed the argument about to build up saying, 'alright, I'll go back and get my ID- with no intention what-so-ever, of doing so.'

'Check your wallet', said Kothari. 'I did it', absolutely sure that not other form of ID is present inside that. 'Fikar mat kar. Agar tu nahi karega, tho mein bhi nahi karoonga,' said Kothi showing some compassion. Either it is a small world after all, or Gults surround the entire world, that one Gult couple agreed to drive Kothari and me to the nearest railway station, on insistence from Sathvik. 'So 12 miles it is, it will roughly take 20 min', said the person driving. It was 1.00 already and the next train was at 1.14. The train after that was at 2.14 PM. We reached the station at 1.30, taking long convoluted routes. The guy dropped us and left.

Scene 5
As expected, we missed the train. Taking the next train will bring us back in not less than 3 hours. Which means, by the time we reach the place it will be 6 already. Is it worth an effort? This simple math, led me to make a proposition to Kothari that perhaps we should do this some other time, and let the others do it then. He wanted to get team leaders approval for this unexpected coup. You don't get approval from the government for a coup! 'Sathvik will try to convice us by all means to come back. So let us not tell him', said I. Kothi was strictly against this, but Gods were on my side when coincidentally both our cell phones ran out of charge, and hence got switched off. We were detached from the external world, as both of us didnot memorize a single phone number; and nobody else could call us on our phones. For the first time, I saw some happiness in trouble. I don't know why, may be because I am a saddist or rather a masochist.

Scene 6
We went to the near-by Pizza place, and ordered for a couple of veg-pizzas. Since, it was all my mistake I took the moral responsibility of paying the bill. While removing my credit card, some other card fell down out of some remote pocket of my wallet. It happened to be the Student Travel ID (ISIC) issued by UNESCO, without my photo on it. So then the necessity to call Sathvik arose for me. He needs to inquire if that is a valid form of ID, that would allow my sky dive. We took the Pizza shop owners cell phone, exchanged our SIM's and called Sathvik. In other words, we used our engineering brains, to get the lost numbers. Sathvik picked up, and when I explained him the situation, he reassured me giving his view that it would work. Having experienced first-hand, enough assurances and predictions from Satty, which failed with a success rate of 100%, I asked him to put the SWAT guy on phone. He didnot assure me of anything, but ended the call on a note that gave hope. But he insisted on that card having a photo, even if it means I stick it. I had some passport photos too in my wallet, the ones I took for getting my US visa, and was prepared to cut them into stamp size and paste them on the card-which I always did whenever I needed a stamp-sized photo. While pulling out these photos, some other card came out.

Scene 7
Back in time, when the younger Jimmy was involved in the huge packing ceremony before leaving to the US for the first time- which incidentally happens for several days, with all sects of relatives having their own share in what he was supposed to carry, mamma said, 'Beta, you got your PAN card. Take it with you to the US. It can be of some help.' The arrogant Jimmy retorted, 'this probably can't be used even to wipe somebody's ass in the US.' Mamma, the wiser of the two, gifted the younger Jimmy with a wallet with a PAN card inside in one of the unaccessible pockets. The arrogant Jimmy, though was happy with the gift, found the card a worthless bauble in the wallet. He argued with mamma, disproving its right for existence in the wallet. Mamma appealed to him by indicating its harmless nature, if not helpful nature.

Scene 8
'Government of India, Income Tax Dept' was printed bold on this card that just fell down. I completely forgot about its existence. All that the SWAT guys rule book said was a Govt issued ID card with DOB on it. And Kothi's Indian drivers license has been accepted as a valid form of ID. So why not my PAN card? I have never been more thankful to my Mom's insight than I was then. 'Thank you Mamma; the older Jimmy is always going to be less arrogant,' said I to myself.
We ate the cheese filled Pizza, called for a cab and waited for it for an hour. Once it arrived, we reached the place back at 3, and showed this to the SWAT guy. 'Perfect sir, and thank you for coming back', said the SWAT guy. 'You along with your friend will be flying in the 14th batch sir', said he- indicating that Sathvik and co would fly in the earlier batch. We silently nodded.

Scene 9
'Gentlemen, we are waiting for the wind flow to recede. The 12th batch (Sathvik's) will take off only if the wind slows down in the next half an hour. Else, I am afraid- we will have to reschedule for the rest of you.' 'Oh Holy Ravioli! thought I'. 'Perhaps, Gods don't want us to sky-dive. It could be an omen', said Satty justifying the situation. But the winds have gone down, Gods blessed us, and I thus had one of the most awesome moments of my life, and the rest of it was facebooked! .

Acknowledgements: Thank you Income Tax Dept of India, and Thank you Mamma!!

Tussi Great Ho! Tofa Kobool Karo

2010-02-28T18:55:00.000-05:00

I D R: 100;
http://www.thehindu.com/2010/03/01/stories/2010030155311100.htm
Well, well- I know this guy, and he knows me too :)

Right Ho Jeeves

2010-01-21T20:38:00.000-05:00

I am a fan. Thanks to Ugri dude for introducing me to PG Wodehouse and his classic comedy. I have spent complete two days reading it. For all the gults out there, this reminded me of this classy Telugu humor, 'Barrister Parvatisham'. This leaves a couple of long experiments, a discussion on thesis (120 pg long)- which I need to start reading now, and an assignment due tomorrow.

Right Ho Jeeves :P

Story of two Brothers

2009-12-11T01:50:00.000-05:00

I learnt this story, perhaps when I was in my 3rd standard.

There were two brothers Ramu and Shyamu. Their Dad in his will had mentioned that all his wealth, which comprised of a coconut tree, a cow and a blanket, will be shared equally by both the brothers after his death. He never really specified what equality was. Shyamu, the intelligent of the two devised an equal sharing algorithm, which stated that the bottom part of coconut tree will be Ramu's property, where as the top part will be his. Similarly the front portion of the cow will be Ramu's and the back portion will be his; and Ramu can use the blanket in the morning- Shyamu will use it in the night.

Ramu respected the brothers decision for sometime, but sooner realized that this algorithm of 'equality' is a flawed one. He negotiated this with Shaymu when the deal finally compromised at - once in a week, Ramu being able to use the blanket during the nights

All this time, while Ramu was buying grass and feeding the cow, Shyamu was making money by selling its milk. In Shyamu's defence, yes- he did some hard work too, in the form of cleaning up the cow shit! While Ramu was manuring the coconut tree, Shyamu was drinking the coconut water. Blanket, let me not speak about it!

Ramu tried once more but then quickly, in his time scale, realized that Shyamu is going to no longer relax his claims on his fathers wealth. The story then takes a different turn. Ramu teaches Shyamu a lesson. But let me modify it a bit here. Teaching lessons donot generally occur in reality. They are just restricted to class rooms or stories. So what happened next was as follows:

Ramu wanted to split with Shyamu, perhaps rightfully claiming whatever he deserved to get. In that unfortunate world, he needed Shyamu's permission to do that. Shyamu, by this time, who was already a lot benefited by Ramus resources, ofcourse did not accept for the split.

Ever since, Ramu continued to fight for a split. But again, Ramu's world was unfortunate. Shyamu never agreed for it. Some people are just born to be on the receiving end of injustice, may be!

My question: Why does Ramu need Shyamu's permission, which is certainly not possible to have, for the split ?

If an ill treated house-wife files for a divorce because she feels her hubby's not treating her well, and more importantly, not letting her work; she better get it. She should not not get it, because husband does not want her to get! Ofcourse, he is concerned about his fat belly thinning down because he needs to cook for himself following the divorce.

I guess, the point is made!

Likes, Unlikes, Attraction, Repulsion!

2009-12-03T20:10:00.000-05:00

One of the arguments I hear most of the times against the issue of gay marriages is morality. Well, different people have their own definitions of morality. So if something is right in one reference frame, it could be wrong in the other. I have no issues what-so-ever, with it.

But certain arguments tend to appeal to the science inside us. One of them is, like poles should repel as a law of nature. Hence do not fiddle with this law. Without taking names, let me just tell the readers that I personally heard several 'sane', 'respected' people talking this way. I have the following comments about this:

a. Lame !
b. Like poles repel, alright. In solution thermodynamics, like solutions attract. You could choose to use which ever statement suits your side of the argument to make it sound scientifically convincing
c. Why do you want to wrongly explain something using psuedo-science (infact nonscience or nonsense) and claim that there is a scientific explanation for it ? Some sense of insecurity or something, that morality arguments are not good enough?

There are infact several instances where people try to give scientific explanations to some well established practices. While some of them carry merit, I do not see any science in constructing a house with bathroom on the north eastern side, and facing terrible consequences with my life if it is not done so.

Penn

2009-09-22T23:06:00.000-04:00

Nice first impressions. Penn's good. I am enjoying it; especially the courses part. May be it's the Matak in me speaking :) Incidentally, one of my profs happens to be a Feynman's student (his masters thesis co-mentor was Feynman), and the other one, V.Balki's (Indian Feynman?) first PhD student !

Will keep updated about the rest soon!

Law Making

2009-09-06T20:41:00.000-04:00

I was traveling on a bus from Kalpakkam to Chennai. As soon as the bus entered Thiruvanmiyur, there was a huge traffic jam. And what I observed was, large cars moving on the road with not more than 1,2 people inside them. Sitting in the bus, I day-dreamt of making a law which allows cars on main roads only if they have atleast 3 people in them during rush hours. Next few seconds I was proud of identifying a solution to one of the serious problems that India is facing.

Then came the question of what if there is substantial amount of luggage and no place for the second person to fit in. Then I added a clause to my older statement- cars will be allowed only if they carry an equivalent of 3 people or more on the main road during rush hours. Equivalence of cargo to people can be established based on some standards and statistics.

But then a very apparent loop hole in this proposition is what if people just carry some dead load on the name of luggage whenever they want to go single? The situation will be back to square 1.

I thought of it for a day or so, and from then onwards started respecting the law-makers !

My Philosophy of Mathematics (MA 001)

2009-07-05T15:59:00.000-04:00

I was the Maths and Science secretary of my school during my tenth standard. During the investiture ceremony, I marched onto the stage and collected a badge from the chief-guest which read 'Science Secretary'- (no maths). I took oath infront of the chief-guest as the Maths and Science secretary, though. With a bit of surprise, as if the maths part missing on the badge was my mistake, the chief-guest asked me why it was so. Immediately, I retorted saying, 'Math is the queen of sciences, which means it's a part of sciences. So science infact, is a superset- and adding a math to it would be redundant.'

The chief-guest seemed pretty satisfied, but it was my principal who had a problem. He was quick enough to react and snatch away my moment by saying, 'Math is not the queen of sciences. What makes you think so?' I didn't have an answer then. My only reaction was to despise him for his untimely remark. I was determined to butt down my principal on some other occasion, and hence started reflecting on why math can be called the queen of sciences.

With the passage of time I got answers, not to disprove my principal's statement, but to prove them. Balki in one of his lectures remarked, 'math is a tool to understand physics/science'. Well, I now feel it is something more than just a tool. I would love to look at math as the language of the universe. And science as a human effort to understand this language of the universe.

Think of it this way. A protein is folding itself in a particular way because it needs to minimise its statistical potential- a mathematical operation on a mathematical quantity. So, a proteins are in otherwords, the set of minima of set containing different statistical potentials (translated into english). Similarly music may be seen as a subset of all those functions of frequency with a function called power density proportional to 1/f (formal definitions are yet being researched on; frequency is a inturn a function of time, which is one of the dimensions in the world). Matter is the set of all the solutions of Schrodinger equation. Light is the set of ordered pair (E,B) satisfying four Maxwells equations (in 3 dimensions). Consider a transistor, a quantum mechanical device. It is easy to see that it can have, may be a complicated, nevertheless, a mathematical definition. Infact one can trace its existence back to infinite dimensional spaces, seemingly abstract concept for many of us, the real world champions. Give me any phenomena/process/device, I can assert comfortably that it can be converted into a mathematical operation/ set of mathematical operations on a mathematical functional or a set of mathematical functionals.

The real world is a graphical representation of the mathematical equations from which it's made of!. So what the scientists are doing is essentially making a graphical representation of the information nature has conveyed through its language.

What is called the real world depends on how much of nature's mathematics understood by our mathematicians, has been attributed to physical systems by our scientists. As we understand and attribute more of it, our sense of the word real keeps broadening. Infact, I would suggest real world be called the understood world. Or else, I am afraid, we may be doing the exercise of a frog in the well that thinks that the well is its complete world. 80 years ago, the real world consisted of only three dimensions. Later looking at the simplicity in Maxwells equations expressed in 4 dimensions, scientists thought perhaps universe operates in 4 dimensions, and what we call real should be expanded. Mathematicians worked in n dimensions way before that and even tended n to infinity. Abstract mathematics, which was seen as mathematics done by some geeks just for fun, started finding its physical application. Group theory in particle physics, vector spaces in devices are classic examples.

Nature explained itself to us in a language called mathematics. I would love to extrapolate this to such an extent that if Gods were to exist, they communicate- not in Sanskrit, Hebrew or Arabic, but in Mathematics. Now, if a Telugu person were to understand Tamil culture, he would explore it to the fullest if he learns Tamil first. Similarly if a human being were to understand nature, rather-nature's culture', he would better learn mathematics. Kudos to all people pursuing mathematics for taking their first step in understanding the nature's culture.

In the next post I would like to share my thoughts on the process of mathematics- how would it have evolved! Wait for it. For now, I would love to welcome some interesting/ refreshing remarks/discussions on my take on mathematics.

Mayawati's Brilliance

2009-06-30T16:26:00.000-04:00

I was watching NDTV's panel discussion on Mayawati unveiling her own statue. Here is a prologue to that discussion: To a question on why she wasted so much of tax payers money, she retorted back with an absolutely irrelevant answer. She infact released a booklet in a press conference which detailed how the Congress and the BJP are not the parties that Dalits should look forward for. She came up with issues like why a dalit-ki-beti can't become the PM of the country under congress' regime.

Whaaw, what a trap! Even the best of the journalists like Sreenivasan Jain of the NDTV have fallen for it. Nobody discussed on unvieling her statues; rather this discussion went on to caste politics. I saw almost a repeat of it happening with Sagarika Ghoshe' panel in the CNN-IBN an hour later. Any politician ready to criticise her unvieling of statues is bound to get questions based on caste politics, from the media. In this way the main issue would trivially be sidelined for a sensitive issue. Especially with diplomacy being the order of the day. Utter brilliance! Mayawati has exposed and skillfully made use of the fragility of the indian politics. She deserves a statue for this :P

After being successfully able to con the media and shut the mouths of the rest of the politicians (this issue came up yesterday, there was no mention of it in the news today), I very much want to wait and see how this dalit-ki-beti is going to con the supreme court. Quite an interesting battle on cards! If she can successfully pull it off, I will be more than happy to visit all her 50 statues and pay my tributes :P.

Addendum 2: (Courtesy Danda)

2009-05-27T06:41:00.000-04:00

What is common between SRK and Mahatma Gandhi?

Both went to SA, got insulted and came back !

Addendum

2009-05-24T15:43:00.000-04:00

(To the previous post.)

21. Ross Taylor walking across the wicket to hit the ball for a maximum

22. Emergence of a completely new terminology in which a sixer is called a D.L.Effer

23. Every moment of the grand finale

24. And ofcourse, the victorious gults

So make that 24 folks. 21 and 22 have been forgotten in the previous post. 23 and 24 had to come because of that brilliant match.

20 Things Why I Remember IPL 2

2009-05-23T14:23:00.000-04:00

1. Rise of Kumble as one of the three best captains the other two being MS and Shane, and ofcourse rise of Sachin as the worst captain:. The age old adage, think like MS or think like Warne, is now modified to think like MS or like Warne or like Kumble, but never like Sachin

2. Clash of the legends, Sizzling Sachin vs Magician Warne

3. Manish Pandey, the wall of the making

4. Siva Mani

5. Dravid's fearless and confident batting style

6. Gilly's 50 from, guess what- 17

7. Kumble's 5/5 and Murali's 2/8 (against Punjab)

8. The fall of Bollywood and associated teams - with Katrina as an exception, and the rise of South India and Gult patronised teams ! (in your face- all you gult haters)

9. The fake IPL and Appam Chutiya

10. The jinxed Kolkata roaring towards the end

11. Dwayne Smith's half century during whose innings DC almost seemed like winning the match against CSK (DC lost by 70+ runs)

12. The cheer leaders

13. Introduction of the super over, and Yousuf Pathan's cameos

14. Haydos performance in almost every match

15. Peter ka beta's utter failure (Schedenfraude here!)

16. Mandira Bedi and Ramiz Raja consistantly proving their incompetance for their jobs

17. The narmad third wing's 'fantasy IPL' craze

18. Entertainment during those looong days of thesis writing

19. Giving me a topic for a come back post

20. Last but not the least, emerging as a phenomena for cutting off all those boring ManU vs Liverpool/ Chelsea vs Barca discussions. When somebody starts the footer talk, one can very adeptly change the course of the discussion by introducing IPL ( told out of experience)

Looking forward for the grand finale!

The day that just wasn't mine...

2008-06-04T10:10:00.000-04:00

May 31st, Saturday:

Bombay city works on Saturdays too. 'Be a Mumbaikar when you are in Mumbai (and definitely not a North-Indian).' Thinking so, and deciding to work on a Saturday, less partly excited to see the results of my code and more partly excited to read the rediff and cric-info reviews on how the Royals thulped the Dare Devils, I woke up at 7.50 to take the only TIFR bus at 8 from Wadala. Having developed the knack of getting ready in 3 min after waking up at 7.50, which includes taking bath, answering calls- the not-so-unnatural ones- and the other routine things; and going to an 8'O clock class half a minute early, I executed it to more than utmost perfection. I looked at my watch. It was still 7.50. I was slowly walking towards the bus, trying to resolve this paradox of apparent singularity of doing finite amount of activity in zero time whence I suddenly spotted the bus taking off. What followed was me chasing the bus in the typical tam-hero-bus-chase way and shouting in the typical-sayan-oye-oye way. The driver responded to the latter of my efforts and stopped the bus with everybody in the bus taking a scornful glance at me. I ran and got into the bus, just to realize that the mood of the people inside, didnot change. I heard people murmuring, and one thing I was sure was that, it was all about me. I saw my watch again, unable to understand the apparent 'before-time' mentality of the Mumbaikars. After all even they are Indians. It is 7.50 still.

'Eureka', I cracked the paradox. The apparent singularity of doing a finite activity in zero time is as a result of flawed measurement of time, which in this case may be attributed to a motion-handicapped hands ( seconds, minutes and hours) of my watch- which has been used as the measuring device throughout the experiment. With a sense of satisfaction of solving the puzzle, seeing it as an indication of my enhanced 'research' capability, I proceeded backwards from the entrance of the bus just to find two seats empty in the last row.

TIFR buses have this unconventional ability of shock amplification which keeps increasing as a function of your distance from the driver. Microserrations on the Bombay roads are manifested in the form of the back seaters flying in the air during almost all the time of their travel. The average position of a typical back-seater would be 1 foot above the seat-level with a standard deviation of one foot. This is precisely the reason why people crowd in the front seats and leave the more privileged seats to the late comers like me.

Resigning to my fate for the next 40 minutes, I sat in the last seat with Mr.Sun welcoming me through his rays. And yes, the road is straight and treeless, the sky is cloudless and my glass window, completely reflectionless. As if to forget the upcoming difficulties, I greeted my neighbor with a smile, without having a slightest indication that my smile could remove the safety valve of the boiling anger in him. 'Dude,' he started- 'We have been waiting here for you since half-an-hour. blah...blah and blah...' The counsel went for long enough time, but again, I have no records of quantification because of my stopped watch. During the event of his animated counseling- animations including the hand-waving, in them- I somehow peeked into his watch and noted all this was just for being 10 min late. Anyways, the next 40 minutes passed by with nothing less than expected happening.

I entered the lab to see my computer switched off . Reason, I figured out again with my enhanced researching capabilities was a power cut, the previous night and my comp not being equipped with a UPS. 'OMG', 10 more hours for the code to show me the result. I set my code running and was peacefully following the rediff/cric info cricket updates, the ndtv, cnn-ibn, the hindu and the times news. I gave a final try to get the 'IPL final' tickets just to know that the starting cost of the available tickets is 6000 bucks- my one month's stipend. I convinced myself and put a mail convincing my IITB friends that 'all this is a waste of time and money. We are all here to achieve higher and nobler goals.' Irked by my vetti fart and in an attempt to change the topic 'Mal' pinged me saying- that nights plan was Siddhivinayak temple. I didnot want to miss the siddhi and hence readily agreed. The plan's execution was to be as follows: 'Reach Dadar station by 8 PM. Send Castrol off by Dadar-Chennai express. Meet the others there and everyone set out for the temple. ' Fine, agreed.

Excited about the evening, I spent the day vettily reading others' blogs and commenting on them, and of course chatting. At around 6.30 my code seemed to have given me a familiar result. The result which I saw a couple of days back. Once again with the 'budding researchers' capabilities, I figured out, I forgot to change the parameters and ran the same old code. Frustrated, I switched off the comp, wound up for the day and set out to the beach. Spending some time in solitude, I took the TIFR bus again, this time to CST and guess what, the first seat this time- as if it would have mattered: Colaba roads are too good that even the TIFR buses cannot trouble their passengers when they are on them (seriously).

At CST, I took a ticket to Dadar and striaght went into the train as if to give an impression to the observing few (actually none), that I am not new to Bombay, not atleast to CST. I made myself comfortable in a seat and the train started. Now started the big trouble. I donot exactly know when Dadar comes. I have always travelled to Kanjurmarg (7 stations ahead of Dadar), but never to Dadar.Hence I know all the stations that come after Dadar but not before. Nevertheless, I reminded myself, the fact that my intution always gave me the correct sense of direction and destination (really!!). It was already 7.30. My source of time was the watch at the CST, btw. Stations kept coming, train started getting crowded. At this point I would love to quote wiki on Mumbai suburban railway which runs as follows:

'Due to its extensive reach across the 'Mumbai Metropolitan Region', and its intensive use by the local urban population, overcrowding has grown to be a compelling problem (5,000 + passengers are packed into a 9-car rake during peak hours, as against the rated carrying capacity of 1,700). This has resulted in what is known as Super-Dense Crush Load of 14 to 16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space. Trains on the suburban line are on average more than 4 minutes apart, contributing to the problem of overcrowding. The impending introduction of new higher speed rakes may help address the issue.'

Wiki couldn't have been more correct. Some time when the train stopped, I asked somebody -who made his way inside just then having struggled since two stops before that- shedding all my shyness and probable fears of not being able to communicate in Hindi fluently, 'Bhaiyya, yeh kis station hai?' Answer I got, 'Dadar' .See, again my intution worked. Huh, now is the time for me to get down. I stood up and tried moving an inch, whence the train took off from Dadar. Okay, Matunga then, I thought. Zero outflux and only influx at Matunga. and I have been pushed an inch away from the gate. Then I made an intelligent move. Kurla is a station where all the passengers near the entrance are thrown out of the train. I had such an experience earlier. Until then I thought Kurla was a danger station. Not any more. It's my saviour in such a situation. From Matunga to Kurla, I progressed to some position in the vicinity of the gate. And yes before event the train could stop at Kurla, I found myself outside the train, almost about to collide some sitting-bench. Having controlled myself and having admired my intelligent move, I proceeded to the other platform, just to find the return train too equally crowded, both inside the train and outside it. For some strange reason, I found the vendors coupe relatively accommodative. Yes, I got into that and spent the next 10 minutes near the door-whence even that was getting crowded. So Matunga left and next is Dadar. While entering Dadar, I realised that my side of the door doesnot have a platform. So again Parel and then back? Am I doing some damped harmonic motion around Dadar? 'No', I decided. 'Let me get down on the track. Luckily for me, no train was there on the track on which I got down.

I entered the Dadar main station again to realize that I forgot to ask Castrol's coach number. So I was doing a binary-search then. Searching for either Castrol or a telephone booth. I found Castrol first. Huh, some sigh of relief. On approaching him, I found there was only Castrol there and no Mal, with whom I had to go to the temple. As if having sensed my puzzling expression , Castrol said 'Mal left just now. He was waiting for you all the time.' Without giving me any time to reply he immediately called Mal. Adding to my frustration hidden under the mask of composure, Mal's the phone was switched off.

I was then reminded of a very apt gult adage 'Asale koti, aa pai kallu taaganu, aa pai daiyyam pattenu, aa pai cheema kuttenu' (which transliterates to 'Anyway a monkey, added to which its drunk, added to which its haunted, added to which an ant bit it.') Finally for some reason Mal called Castrol back whence I snatched the cell from Casti and ordered Mal to be near S6 of the Dadar express. When I cut the call, the train started, meaning the mark of the location I mentioned to Mal is completely erased. 'Come what might, I am waiting there for how much ever time it may take,' I thought. Finally after some 10 minutes I pointed out Mal aimlessly searching for me. Immediately, I waved hands and met him. Fine, mission 'Siddhi Vinayak' now to get 'siddhi,' ofcourse.

Mal warned me about the TC's who were fining people for not possessing platform tickets. Before the conversation could end, we spotted one and Mal was trying to escape from him, indicating me to do it. I royally walked across him for I had a ticket, the CST to the Dadar one. The scene there was buckets and buckets of tears from some ladies who didnot possess the requisite tickets and an adamant ticket collector. 'Ticket', he asked. Expecting it, I gave the ticket, the only one I had ofcourse. He looked at it for a while and said 'this is not valid.' 'You need to possess a platform ticket.' 'Oh!', I replied,' I never knew it. I got down at the other end, rushed onto this platform to send my friend off and now I am getting back.' 'Hmm, the funda is this is the main station and local train tickets donot work here,' he said in a soft pedagogical way. 'Fine, in that case next time I'll do that'. Well, I never said this. When I said 'fine', he said '150'. Then I had to act. I tried explaining him how new to the city I was, that I have never had experience in north India and especially in local trains blah blah and the usual senti, though not a drop of tear came from my eyes unlike my lady counterparts who were still there. Just to prove my South-Indian origin, in the middle of some conversation I said, ' Saar, enna saar idu,' and was thinking about the tamil version of what to say next. 'Idu ellam regular stories, appa. Fine pay panni, ponge', replied the TC. Okay, I wasn't so helpless anytime. I never expected a TC in Dadar railway station to speak better Tamil than I do, that too when his name happens to be some 'Shinde', as written on his badge. So detatching myself from this money minded world, with no sense of losing out the valuable 150 bucks with which I could have 20 Wada-Paavs, I gave it off to him. He said ' thank you, sir.' 'Nice send off, atleast,' I thought.

Finally we set out to Siddhi Vinayak temple admist all Vighnas since morning. Mal bought me a wada-paav, pitying my situation. I ate and then set off to IITB , for I didn't want to take any more troubles alone. We wandered across the streets of Mumbai in our search for Dadar station during our return from the temple, for we got no empty taxi. Finally reached it, took some train- which we later realised is slower than the slow trains. 4-5 trains have overtaken this train. We were the silent-standing spectators. Finally got down at Kanjur Marg and set to IIT B in an auto- halted it miles before Mal's residence to have a sugar cane juice. Ill fate again, there's no kind of juice what-so-ever in that shop. Walked from here to the hostel, drank water and as a short-respite from the bad day, I had, I heard Chennai won the match against Punjab. I rushed to the common room and rested in peace there.

2007-11-17T16:14:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine (Geetla) has this amazing quality of keeping a track of his dreams. Of what use is it? Well, it will open up new and witty conversations on a social front; brooding over those dreams at a later point of time can be a good time pass and most importantly it can be of some use in courses like creative writing. The inspiration for a creative writing story can be your dream. Having known all these uses, even I tried absolutely hard to keep a track of my dreams. Here's one of my successful attempts:

CC (Narmad's lit sec) goes onto the stage and announces- 'We'll have the DJ now. This will be followed by the toasts. Junta, enjoy the DJ.' After an hour of rocking and shaking, we settle down finally for the most awaited part of our four years' lives- 'The RG's.' Tarun in his formal attire, as if paying his final respect to the seniors, says 'Let's start with the third wing because Bhaand is finally passing out of the insti from that wing.' And a huge round of applause from all around. The entire insti is in our hostel to witness this rare event of Bhaand passing out. Tarun's assigned the duty of reading a 50 paged toast to Bhaand, and the surprise package is that a page in Bhaands toast will precede the toasts of other pass outs. This is to keep the night alive and memorable. So, Tarun's a dressed up man with a huge task infront of him. Anyway, the objective of the dream is just my reflection about my wingmates, with a statement about Bhaand preceding all my speeches on the others. Later in the morning when I was reconstructing my dream, I was forced to believe, so as to avoid logical inconsistency, that
everybodies reflections on everyone else would have opened with a statement on the thalaivar.

Since the dream had a well defined objective, I will ignore all the minor details and only focus on my comments in the videos. Ofcourse in the hostel videos, thanks to ATM, I look better than I did in the Chandrayaan one. So, here I am on the screen talking about my wingmates:

Its a privilege to our batch that the thalaivar is passing out with us. Our batch is a blessed one.
Ashok Gurumurthy: I remember the meanings of the GRE words hypercritical and hypocritical by associating them to him. He is too self-centered. He demands perfection in anything. A bridge GOD. Highest GRE scorer in narmad:1570. A gen vague stud, disliked by many.But, I personally learnt a lot from him.

The thailaivar would still claim his age is barely 25, and he's too young to get married.
Bala Subramanyam: A muggu as well as an academic stud. Will talk to anybody with a pleasing smile on his face. Always greets me with a big hi. I enjoy my conversations with him.

Thalaivar knows each and every minute detail about anything and everything in the insti.
Mukund: A silent boy, with a great sense of humour. He can dangerously defame you, if you are not too careful in conversing with him. Very nice guy, though.

Thalaivar has seen batches and batches of people come in and go out. He himself doesnot very well remember when he joined the insti.
RK: A very active member in the list of my H-group members. A fight putter. He's the hostel opener in our batch. He can put an S in vague T.Pradeeps courses even. Claims he's a quake God before me, but I heard reports from the other quakers quite contrary to this claim. The famous RK's omens are like the Tuck's TNR, just that they didnot receive enough publicity through filter copies and beloved news letter coords.

Thalaivar has this uncanny knack of getting ragged by freshies.
Thanu: One more chweetie, cutie in my list. Very very nice guy. Tries too hard to get girls. In the process attracts guys. Brilliant wit and an awesome sense of humour. Bastard, was a non working member of the hostel council during 3rd year. The worast aas that narmad ever had :)

A fart session with the thalaivar would range anywhere from an hour to a day.
Siva: Didnot interact much with him. But, I am aware that he's a huge elec stud.

Thalaivar's juniors are presently teaching in IITM. Prof. Pattabhiram from physics dept is one such example.
Karthikeyan: An innocent, ideal person. A big muggu. Used to mug even during power cuts in our fresh year. A very principled and organized man. Will put lot of fight to achieve whatever he wants and finally achieves it.

Thalaivar's a big carnatic music stud.
Bose: A food freak. If you get food from house, be careful about bose. He might complete the entire thing without it reaching the others. Has some annoying habits. He would want to work on your computer when you are doing something imp on it, even when his comp is in a working condition. And what does he do, if you give him a comp? Watches a gult movie. I still can't forget the incident where in he generally walks into my room while I was watching a movie and switches off my comp. But, a great guy at heart. Surely helps you, if you ask for it.

Thalaivar has an unsuccessful political background. He contested for the gen-sec elections twice and lost both the times.
Sameer: Huh, where do I start? A certain legend. Has lots of fundaes and is a big stud. But his CG speaks the other way. (Btw 8.75 in CS means he's a cupper.) Then, the entire Sharavti is his. Gives a lot of opportunity to Rohit and me to propound new theories about him, a few of them being the Analog-Digital theory, the famous mango story. If 75%attendence rule is applied to the residents in the hostel, Sameer will be the first one to get kicked out of this place. And guess who named him NIL? Its the thalaivar.

Thalaivar has the credit of being the best GCU head over the years. He actually worked in some post which doesnot require anyone to work.
KT:A man with a huge history. He reminds us of heroes in typical factionist gult movies having a painful flashbacks. He has a knack of creating apocryphal stories and actually making people believe them, details of which are divulged in the toast. He puts in lots of effort to solve math problems for arbit orkut girls. He would have improved his CG, if only he translated all that enthu into proper acads. A classic example of the famous statement 'Behind every mans fall, there's a woman', with a slight modification that 'there are women,' in this case.

Thalaivar got a new bike of late, the pleasure, after which he's reported to have become a hedonist. He was quoted saying, 'my pleasure' 'with pleasure', 'I have pleasure' etc.. lot of times.
Rohit: Stud, studder, stud max. This describes him completely. Any problem related to technology, Rohit can solve it. He belongs to the invincible force of PJ Gods family in my batch.
Has a clean history. Everybody likes him and not to forget, he's good at raping people.(especially sameer and kt in matters pertaining to across the oat.) Architect of all the Sameerian theories and ya, Namcy is due to his creativity.

Thalaivar has been the subject of several ignoble papers, filter copies and shaastra news letters.
Harsh:An elec God in EP. He has a great sense of humour. Very busy person. Will be in China today, Chennai tomorrow and Australia the day after. Atleast, this was the reason attributed for him not being found in the hostel too often.

Thalaivar is the architect of classical dance at Saarang.
Cum Boy: Never stays in Narmad. He's like a permanent resident of Ganga. Lit god. Perhaps the only guy who has a bad impression about the wing.

Thalaivar has maintained versatality in taking up Shaastra/saarang coordships and volships over years. He has toured over all the departments in both the fests.
Shoban:My room-mate. A fundae God and stud, but very down to earth. Generally agrees with anyone with a smile on his face. But believe me, if he dissents, he makes sure the other ones views are changed. A typical argument with Shoban starts with 'HVallooooo', in the typical Shobanian style.

Bhaand contributed a lot to the IIT lingo in the form of WTTit, WTTak etc..
Anup: Anup's room marks the beginning of the quake team of narmad. One thing that amazes me about him is that he's a quake god as well as an 8 pointer in elec. Both DONOT go together, and Anup is the only exception to this rule. Always greets people with a great smile. And did I forget, he is a silent lit god. The famous Anup poems are yet to recieve patronism.

Bhaand was offered asst wardenship of Krishna hostel and asked to move out of Narmad. He showed middle finger to the CCW people and refused to move out.
Vickram: Fuckrum as popularly called is a big bull. He loves bullying and physically assaulting people. He came close to breaking my hand one day for taking a gold finger from his plate during grub. A confrontation man. He led a rebellion against Pandu (CS Prof) for the way he graded them and ...I donot know what happened later. A PJ God and a fart lover. Belongs to the gumble of quakers.

Narmad GBM's may be classified into two categories: Those dull ones in which Bhaand is absent and those fun filled ones, funny because of Bhaand raping every possible secretary. Even Helmet couldnot escape the Bhaand rape.
Kai: Kai Vela meaning hand job. I hear, true to his name he's very good at hand jobs. When I first saw him, I thought he's some gult movie villain. Now, I think he can be one. Chain smoker, quake God, has a good sense of humor. And you know what, our man hosted a booze party being madras eyed once. Junta have actually turned up for that just to create that entire episode of madras-eye in the 3rd wing.

Bhaand has ideas of giving CAT and spending another phase of his memorable long-lasting life in IIM. Implications of this will be profound.
Pondy: Here goes the story of a certain Pondy, a JEE cracker without any coaching. Once upon a time he was a stud; stud in everything: acads, cricket, table tennis etc.. Then came quake, like the lady Macbeth and removed all his enthu. Who would believe me now, if I say Pondy received the 'Best enthusiastic freshie' award during our first year? A very soft spoken guy.

Bhaand is equally famous among the faculty as he is among the students.
Kid: Kid is what mothers would think kids should not be like. He has all possible bad habits in the world. Added to which he's an RG god. He puts too much senti to cover up his RG.

Bhaand claims, he is the co-founder of the anti-gult committee. But the fact remains, Bhaand loves gults and gultiness, another term coined by him.
Gigolo: Kadamur Bhavani Ganesh, a digo-gulto-tam. The famous KBJ's were as famous as the TTN PJ's. But the KBJ era terminated with Giggs getting too busy with less serious things like Shaastra coreship. He leads a silent life across OAT, and I blame it on the tit for not publicizing it enough. His gayness is never revealed. Sometimes reciprocates in a weird way when greeted with gayness, sometimes initiates it. May be he is influenced too much by the TITTIAN philosophy. And lots and lots, let the toast take over.

Even after being so aged, Bhaand doesnot have a single white hair. All the countable hairs on his bald-head are black. I envy him for this.
Left-Tit: I love you, leftit!! Where do I start about Tittappa a.k.a Sandeep Makam a.k.a Leftit, a.k.a, in short and to put it terse, the tit? Pointed sisters, Mechatronics, G cubeness (Gult Gay God), wing icon for getting bumped? Every concept of Tits life is a big episode.
The tit is a robotics stud with lot of tech enthu.
More in the toast.

Bhaand is credited for giving dressing down to some great bullies like Preetham Singh Meena and actually making them feel bad about what they have done. This happened when Bhaand was playing footer in the quadrangle for the first time, and perhaps the last time in his life.
Nikhil: One of those stud-cs-guys kind. But a very reasonable muggu, unlike the elec kind. He has boundless enthusiasm for acads. Back in time, he used to mock everyone who mugged at any point of time; and when he mugged, all the doors and windows in his room used to be sealed.
Now, he's changed. Nice cricketer. Puts amazing fart, especially on politics and tit. Of late he's into hobby club.

Bhaand is a polyglot. Apart from gult and tam, he can speak dig, hindi, mallu and several dialects of local Indian languages(atleast this is what I think when he starts 'singing'). And as already mentioned, he contributed an important part in the evolution of IIT lingo as a new language.
Raghu: Silent boy, robotics stud. Belongs to the set of BC putters in first year. We both enjoy a beautiful gurunath partnership.Whenever I go towards gurunath he goes away from it and vice-versa. One guy who actually loves to learn stuff.

Bhaand is Gyaad. I repeat, Bhaand is gawd.
Paedo: Person with lot of self confidence and self esteem. Belongs to the rarer kind of BS putters from Aero to BT. If there's somebody who isn't raped in a presentation, by T.Pradeep, it's Paedo. One more of the home-sick kind. You never find him in the hostel during weekends. A big-big stud, but maintains low profile.

8RF

2007-09-11T08:34:00.001-04:00

The Paramanu Visphot is over, though with lesser intensity than expected, yet proving its point. With no other quiz in the immediate future and having done with my GRE last week, I feel relieved and relaxed. To put in GRE terminology, ensconced. In celebration of this relief, I am back to blogging, in about just less than an year after I've published my previous post.
And, thanks a ton to Baille for giving me the topic for blogging by tagging me, thus in a way motivating me to make this come back. Thanks a million tonnes to the same dude, for saving me from the embarrassment of not having been tagged and thus also preventing me from resorting to remedial techniques of self-tagging, as done by a famous shaastra events core. I promise to stick to the rules of tagging, unlike the aforementioned self-tagger, who questioned the rules of tagging. Let me also take this opportunity to publicize this famous dictum 'A tagged blogger is worth 8 non-tagged bloggers', coined by me.
Anyways, here are the rules of the game:
1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Let me get started
1. People think I have a horrible handwriting. So horrible that, once in my 9th std when I wrote one page of notes legibly, my math teacher treated the entire class with pastries and samosas. She later regretted it, for it was just a transient change. I however, have different feelings about my handwriting. I feel, I am one of the very few people who write in a matured way.

2. My school is a part of a Christian missionary called the Montfort association. Every year, different schools from this association have a literary and cultural meet, which is called the'Montort Fest'. Our school hosted the fest in my 10th std. I was the head of all the student volunteers that time, which is like a facilities and hospi core for saarang (oh...ya, I agree- it's a hyperbole). As a part of hospitality, I had to make sure that all the rooms (which were our class rooms) that the guests would occupy were well attended and facilitated. In this connection, I got this weird idea of writing some brain teasers on the board with two intentions. The major one being pseud putting, and the minor one being, that serving as a pass time activity for the guests. Worst part was that all those teasers were questions from Resnick and Halliday, for which I myself didnot know the answers. Much worse was that I had announced prizes without consulting the higher authorities, with a definite hope that no one would come up with any answer. One of them actually came up with an answer for some teaser, and my replies to him were 'may be, but think of it, You are almost right...I want the exact answer.' After repeatedly saying so, he got shit pained and asked me if I knew the answer. I immediately escaped from him saying, I was busy and had some work to do. After that whenever he saw me, he used to smile. This made me bunk the last day of the fest, because of which I was looked up as a malingerer and eventually didnot receive my certificate as the head of the student volunteers.

3. I very proudly acclaim here that I have split up the faculty in my school into two factions. One faction that likes me and one faction that severely hates me. This was exposed when the teachers were deciding the list of best out going students in the school. At first, my name didnot find its place in the list. But later, thanks to 'my faction', a separate best student award was created just for me. It was called the 'Best Science Student.' I bragged upon it for a long time after that.

4. My biology madam had a daughter who was my classmate. They were the residents of the same colony as I was. So, I used to converse with them quite freely. My friend used to mock me at this intimacy and used to make all vulgar comments about me and this girl. I waited for my chance and got it. The same guy's interest in biology had deepened as we stepped into class 10. So then, he got closer to the madam and hence her daughter!! I retorted by mocking back. I enjoyed the way I was requiting, until he complained about the same to the madam. Gawn was all her impression upon me; this made her cross the floor from 'my faction' to the other faction.
This dude is now pursuing his MBBS from Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad.

5. I had this great obsession of writing on the blackboard. One day it so happened that one of my friends had drawn a middle finger on the board. This made the class teacher appoint a post called 'The Board Incharge', and only he among the students would be allowed to touch the board, for decorating it or filling in information about the daily attendance etc..Because of my obsession, I was the only proper contestant for this post and eventually got it. My duties: Write a proverb on the top of the board once in every two days and fill up information about the no. of absentees everyday. One day, the proverb I wrote read 'Chasity is the first virtue in any man or woman.'My english teacher pointed out the mistake and asked me to correct it. I forgot to make the correction and the next day 'brother principal ' (this was how we used to address the principal), John Kallarikal walked in. He is a big big stud, and this is the only man in the school to whom I used to be afraid of. The pocket in his frock used to be very big, specially designed for him to carry a cane in it. Any indiscipline wouldnot be tolerated. He was known for caning the SPL infront of the entire school for a stupid act of his. On entering the class he asked, 'who wrote this.' Nobody claimed responsibility. His repeated inquiries went in vain. Sensing that the situation is getting heated up, one of my friends slowly uttered my name. Followed the others. Some pointed at me and some looked at me as if giving him a hint about the culprit. I was saying my prayers. Then I heard him speak 'Success has many fathers, but failure is often an orphan.' This removed all the fear out of me and I raised my hand . All he had done was to say "it's 'chastity', which means purity and not 'chasity'". The next day's proverb on the board was 'Success has many fathers. Failure is often an orphan.' I can never forget it. Subsequently, I became a good friend of his and a great fan.

6. Before Bro.John, Bro.Chacko was the principal of the school. I was in 4th std at that time and obviously I was a cute looking boy :) I was passing by him; he immediately took a chocolate and gave me. I ate it. That night I had a serious stomach upset and I was accusing and cursing the principal, citing his chocolate as a reason for my stomach upset.The next day I stepped into the school and heard an interesting news. The principal had been beaten up by some unknown persons, popular guess being the naxalites,( for he was taking lots of donations) and hence admitted in the hospital. I kept quoting this incident to whoever troubled me anytime after that.

7. I love to live with an IITian tag. People keep believing whatever crap I talk about science and math, so much so that I taught a relative of mine pursuing her MCA, Graph Theory, without having a clue on what it is.

8. As a Chandrayaan coordinator for Shaastra, I mailed the speakers from my gmail id, which is jimmy87.pavan. Now they think Jimmy is my surname. (Btw, my name was Jimmy even before coming to IIT because I played cricket like Jimmy Adams, a West Indies batsman.) I mailed the PR director of Chandrayaan, DrKrishnamurthy addressing him Dear Dr.Krishnamurthy. He replies me back saying 'Dear.Dr Pavan.' Is he mocking me?

So now I tag the following people: Sameer, Sayan :), Giggolo, Leftit, Pressure, Jaanwar
sdk, rampi

PS: @Sayan: No offence intended. It was only for humor.

2006-10-24T13:28:00.000-04:00

It was the Diwali day. Everything for the day was planned. I was supposed to spend the night in my Local Guardians house. I was invited to have my share of enjoyment in bursting crackers, and then counsel my cousins (younger to me) because of the obvious fact that I bear an IIT tag; believe me, I am adept at doing the latter thing (It all comes with experience). The accessories being many- get my clothes washed, get some great food and so on.
It all began well. I reached Guindy railway station in some 20 minutes. A 10-minute train journey from there, followed by a 2 min walk, I would be at the doorsteps of " enjoyment". I took the tickets and was going onto the platform. I had only a rupee in my pocket, and I was very much aware of it. I denied it from going into beggars' possession who made many unsuccessful attempts to get it from a certain me, who was stubborn at that moment. I've decided to use that insignificant rupee coin, to know my weight, and I was proud that I didn’t waste it. The moment came. I saw a weighing machine in front of me, put my bag down, removed my chappal so as to avoid any possible perturbations in my weight due to the presence of extra stuff (except clothes), and stepped up onto the machine. I delivered the rupee coin in; it went in and nothing came out. The only rupee coin I had was lost and lost forever. . Then started the moments of regret. I looked at one of the beggars and the smile on his face when he received 50Ps from somebody else. I was ashamed of myself for my act of wasting the rupee, which neither benefitted me, nor the beggar.

All these thoughts disappeared from my mind as soon as the train came. I was thinking of the future to come and mentally preparing myself for the lecture session, a hithopadesa to my cousins which will be dramatized in such a wonderful manner that, if you are an alien to my counseling (to be read as cock putting) abilities and happen to listen to one such session, you will write JEE again and pass it. My cousins are very much immune to scenes like this and they do their part in the drama (listening and posing as if they are impressed), well. Everything is forgotten, and I’m forgiven afterwards.
The train halted and I was back to my business (a very tough task) of finding a non-ladies compartment and getting into it. It always happened that whichever compartment could accommodate me was a ladies compartment. A normal compartment in Chennai local train is always crowded. This makes the task of getting a place in non-ladies compartment all the more difficult. I managed to get some place in some vendors’ coupe, atlast.

The train started, and so started a song just beside me. A small girl started singing standard 'train' songs. Her sister, barely 2 feet above the ground, went to each passenger and begged for money. When this little girl approached a gentleman in shots, he immediately started a conversation with his neighbour about the pathetic situation of such girls in particular and beggars in general. The gentleman introduced as his neighbour, is of a diametrically opposite view. He feels that begging is a way in which the laziest of people are assured of their livelihood.
An interesting debate triggered. The girl had to wait for her rupee, which I doubted if she would ever get. The debate got hot and suddenly the song stopped. Reason: the girl singing the song was hit by a man, who felt that the song was a disturbance to the passengers in train. The girl looked helplessly at him, and at others expecting a possible support. The debate went on as if nothing happened. The little girl near the gentlemen was signaled to come back.

The train halted at St.Thomas Mount. Girls were asked to get down. The elder one of the two received one more shot. I wanted to stop him and say that he didn’t have any right to touch her, and under article 14 of the indian constitution he is liable to punishment (child harassment.) But, I needed support. ‘It takes guts to retaliate’-I realized my friend Shantanu’s statement. If somebody started a revolt, I could take over. The girl was obviously unaware of her rights and looked around helplessly again, with anger on her face. No response from anybody. Even from those gentlemen who had very strong convictions apparently. The girls were shown the way out. They got down from that compartment and got into some other compartment. Our man wasn’t satisfied even then. He wanted them out of the train. There wasn't much that he could do then as the train started.

The next five minutes passed as if nothing happened. Then came Palavanthangal, my destination and also the man’s. Our man went to the next compartment, caught the elder girl's ponytail and started one more kind of torture. I stood there, and seriously wanted to stop him. But, motivation couldn't overcome inertia even this time. Train started and went with the girl in it. Man went home as I did.

Nobody was sensitive to the girl’s feelings. Even if they were, they were too lazy to revolt as I was. At the end of it one fact remains obvious: " We are all very good at debating on social issues and addressing the concerns of the speechless and the downtrodden in the form of giving speeches on insignificant occasions. But when it comes to real situations, we are too lazy (to be read as- don't care as it doesn't involve me) to deliver, for it requires something far greater than the jugglery of vocabulary in which we are all good at"

2006-08-22T12:45:00.000-04:00

" The GRE season has come and I'm back to blogging, after a blogging sanyas of around 4 months "
Immediately comes the response "So what?" Speechless, I was for the next few minutes. How hostlie can he be? Silence surrounded our space and time coordinates. When will I reach the Himalaya (Giga mess in IITM) ? I want to keep silent, which probably may be sending signals of the boiling blood in me to him. This guy doesnot seem know how to behave socially. Why shouldn't he say the next word? Why should I be the initiator always? Let me keep silent. He doesnot deserve to be previlaged of enjoying my conversation. But then, some feeling of guilt somewhere deep. Let me be social, atleast. " How was your D-Slot today? ", I continue. 'He is a dunce who speaks about acads before lunch'. What would " dunce" mean? But two things are clear: a) he is scolding me, b)he is trying to show off his GRE skills infront of an innocent chap. Why did he prefer to walk along with me? May be because of the latter reason. So, Jimmy... Prepare yourself to hear more of latin (an understandable english.)Now I decide to keep my mouth shut, come what might. Two more minutes of silence. Then, he starts:' This time the freshies are a bunch of dolts daa...' Dolt?? Anyway I would better hide my ignorance than let it out before an egoistic person. Hope I got the sense right.Why did freshies come into the discussion now? The answer is before my eyes. Somewhere in the woods of IITM, my companion points out a freshie, and one thing is sure : he is going to call him now. After the freshie night ? Anyway, there's no rule that one should stop paining the freshies after freshie night. 'Oye freshie ...' An unexpected interruption to that freshie, heading towards his destination with full of concentration; probably analogus to the hypothetical situation where a bird had shitted on Arjuna's right eye when he tried to shoot an arrow into its eye.
'Put intro', "My name is 'blah blah'. The funda is, my seniors asked me.........My branch is mechanical engineering, dual degree. My rank is 978. My hometown is Vizag. My native place is Vijaywada. My hostel is... " My height is, my weight is", I add. My neighbour takes a hint and says "How asinine can he be?" " What is asinine, anna?", dares the freshie. "It's you asshole . Just stop being bloody smart." ' Okay ,' with his eyebrows raised as if the freshie beside him is a fool and he's tired of educating him, ' are you virile or effeminate?' Freshie obviously doesnot understand anything happening there. So is my state. Then, I see heaven infront of my eyes: my hostel. 'Ciau dude. This is my hostel. I'll take my lunch later. You carry on.' "Okayee bbye"... Do I believe my ears ? ha atlast, atleast a nice farewell.
Without any further delay, I run to my senior, one more of the GRE kind, to take him through the conversation that I've had with my companion. My senior asks " Is your companion taking GRE?" . "I think so. But preferred to keep silent on that issue as he wasn't letting me discuss any issue that I initiate"
He bursts into laughter and after a 15 minutes of continuous loss of energy in the form of laughter radiation and its after effects, he says " O my dear bulber. That guy must have mugged the semantic field of the word 'stupid' from Barons yesterday. He was trying to brush it up with you guys."
Out of curiosity I go back, take my dictionary and find out the meanings of 'dunce', 'dolt', 'asinine' . All mean the same; a stupid, a moron.
In the evening I find the freshie going to hockey practice, NSO, whence I ask him to list out the new vocabulary he remebers from his interactive session with my companion after I left the centre stage.
"Anna, I dont remeber all, but later I found that all of them were the synonyms of the word 'stupid'. Two of them being 'fatuous', 'inane' and one more... something like vacuuuum...". Bubbling with fresh knowledge about the word 'stupid', I take the hint and complete it 'vacuous'. " Yes anna. It's vacuous. Are you also preparing for GRE?"

2006-03-21T06:51:00.000-05:00

"`Young' party to contest Assembly elections"-The Hindu dated march 3rd, 2006. This young party, called 'LokParitran' has been launched by a few IITians. There's a lot of debate going on in our hostel whether the IITians who established the party borrowed the idea from a movie or whether the director of the movie has borrowed it from those IITians. Needless to mention, the movie is Yuva. Whatever be it, it may take some of you to surprise if I now claim that it has been my idea for quite a long time. Long- atleast longer than the two things mentioned ,have taken place. If you ask me to prove it I can't. Simply believe me ...thats all. Anyway let me tell you my ideas about this.
Along with some of the like minded friends of mine I'll go to each and every village in AP - to start with -because thats the state to which I belong. I'll address their problems and possible solutions to them, become very close to them and it eventually happens that they themselves force me into politics and so along with my team, I float a new party called the APPP (Andhra Pradesh Peoples Party.) It shouldn't take more than 10 years to do this. Having done this, there's a lot of possibility of my party securing a good number of seats in the AP assembly. Thus a base has been established in AP. Now, with the help of my like minded friends in other states I'll try to establish a base in other states even. This shouldnot take more than 5 years. By then , my party would have gained the respect of the people all over India. Then, all the state units of my party contest in national elections, under the name NPP-National Peoples Party. From then on, an entry into my party requires people to take an entrance test, followed by an interview.This is how I make sure that my party adheres to its moral values. With such a ground work done I see no reason why my party would not win. Then I shall not be the the PM of the country. I'll be the Railway Minister as I've many plans for the upliftment of Indian Railways. I shall not list them all in this speech . Read my party's manifesto then. Indian Railways shall be made much better than those in other countries ;I promise you. Then, ofcourse a second term and a third term and a fourth term and it goes on. No question of anti-incumbency factor, as this will be a selfless, corruptionless, development oriented party and thats what people like to have. I shall then retire from active politics, thus paving way for the younger generation to take over.
Then.... a slow muffling sound of a door knock, intensity of which was slowly increasing... Suddenly , the background changed, the audience listening to me disappeared and disappeared forever. Where's the mike, where are the newspaper reporters who asked me about my future plans?With a lot of effort, I got up from my bed and opened the door, only to find a fat little pod standing before me and asking, " Jimmy! What's the D-Slot portion." It took two minutes to me to realise that , that fat little pod was Taru, my classmate.

I Have a Doubt. What is a Doubt?

2006-03-02T05:38:00.000-05:00

" Don't feel shy to clarify your queries. If you have any, donot hesitate to ask them." I haven't seen a professor (any damn lecturer in IITM is referred to as a professor by the students, for reasons the readers have to interpret) in IITM who hasn't told this to his students in some form or the other.

The B- Slot prof says 'alloy solidification', the name of a topic and nothing else; and people have a couple of 'Doubts' about it. Then he continues with the principle behind it-suddenly,I see a series of glittering faces,each with all the 32 teeth out- whence MSB 208 looks like a room where auditions for Close Up advertisement are taking place. The reason for this enlightment in the 'Young Genious' of the country is that they have heard of a similar concept in E-Slot a few days before and they recognise that they have heard of it. And as expected by you now, not by me then , a 'doubt' springs up: "Sir! Is this the same as the 'zone refining ' method that we have done in our E-Slot." Tone used in asking this so called doubt-needless to mention-"Don't worry. I knew about this since my childhood and how I pity my classmates that they donot know of this." If both the methods are the same how can they be named in two different ways. Moreover, the names of the topics suggest that one is a phenomena and the other one, a method. The prof answers saying ,"Not exactly..mmm...we use this principle in that method."The guy is quite happy about the prof's answer and his face is filled with subtle pride as his 'doubt' was well attended which indeed is a confirmation that his 'doubt' is a 'good' one. He achieved something.
One more example: Mr X asks Mr Y something about which he's almost sure that Mr Y wouldnot be able to answer, just because MrY didnot read the book that Mr X had, very rare of its kind. Wonder of wonders,Mr X has a feeling of satisfaction iff Mr Y doesnot answer him.Incase he does , Mr Y turns the arch rival of Mr X.

A person sincerely attends all the E-Slot classes, sits in the first bench, takes notes. Before the exam he comes to his friend's room on pretext of doubts,almost certain that he is better of the two. Incase of a flawless explanation for the 'doubt' by his friend, he would rule out his friend from becoming better of the two, by atleast saying that his way of explanation is somehow not very catchy.

One more guy, fanciful of using the word 'pedantic' in particular, and demonstrating his skills of 'english' in general creates some 'doubts' and asks the profs. Worst of all, he involves the entire class in his doubts. He is the self appointed representative of the class and by and large feels his 'doubts' are the 'doubts' of the entire class.

Just to make his presence felt , a guy asks 'doubts'. Just to make people believe that he is interested in something, a guy asks 'doubts'.

'Good doubts may yeild good grades. So keep on asking doubts, as repeated number of trials remove the noise (silliness) from the doubts .' This is Mr Z's logic. In an institute like IIT, though this is literally impossible with qualified teachers all around , there may be a meagre probability of this happening in labs. Some smart guys like Mr Z do try and exploit it. The whole point that they miss is what I call an 'efficiency factor'.

Until the incidents like these have taken place, I thought ,a person asks doubts if the instructor speaks something ambiguously or if he didn't understand what's being taught or if some concept as told by the instructor was understood but still unclear. I also thought that there should be an element of thought involved before asking doubts. But after all these incidents I've a doubt: What exactly is a doubt?If at all I were asked for an advice by any lexicographer, upon review of his dictionary, I would ask him to consider all these while defining the word "Doubt"
PS:No doubts on this topic shall be encouraged.

2006-02-17T03:20:00.000-05:00

It was friday morning. Normally I wake up very late on friday mornings, for fridays are holidays for people in meta level (what I mean is the people in meta branch). But this is a very special friday; not only for me, but for the entire bunch of people sharing the common meta level interests with me. I woke up at 7.OOAM and for a moment thought of the devil about to approach me in about one hour from then-that was the E-SLOT quiz ;and shall I name it? EXTRACTIVE METALLURGY. I knew something was going to happen. Superstitions donot direct my intutions but clearly statistics do. Never had I managed to do well on any important occasion. Poor performance in exams became a habit to me. I had a notion since my Ramaih days, that I was the best among people. Though it had been consistantly proved wrong , I never had the courage to accept it. Whenever my performances and scores were poor ,the occasions being more in number, I used to remind myself of the good scores that i got and thus console myself that still I remain the best.

The JEE results did shatter my convictions. For a while I thought whether I was worse than Tom,Dick and Harry who got better ranks. Worst of all, my public image was affected. A bit history about this public image. I was one of the very few chaps who made it into Ramaiah, literally countable on fingers, from my place. So, obviously people had a very good opinion about me. Moreover, a senior of mine, who is one of my kind(who got into ramaih from my place), set a precedent,a very bad one -I realised later, by getting a rank in two digits in JEE. So, there were lots of hopes on me,all of which were shattered by a simple rank card reading " Your JEE rank is 2057."

Later I got a reason for my poor performance in JEE. I attributed it to public pressure.Seemed logical then. I thought of proving myself after coming to IITM and as expected I've given up. Quizzes seemed no longer interesting. My feelings about myself changed. I thought, there is nothing to prove in me. Worse, during the first and second semesters I did courses with the computer science students . What else better reason can one have for giving up.
Things began to change from my third semester onwards. People started asking me doubts and praised me if I clarified them. I was in a state of complete confusion.When I thought,I was the best,I was proved wrong by the society,when I thought I wasn't , I was asked to rediscover myself again by the same society. Is this not obfuscating?I mean, the concept.
Having thought all about this,I looked into my watch. My God!! It was 5 to 8 and E-slot exam in five minutes. I still had to brush my teeth.

PS: All characters (numbering one) in the above post are fictitious. I wanted to start this post with "it was a friday morning," because great writers generally start with "it was a saturday morning" and obviously had to create some idea to continue it.