Numb

The Linkin' Park song playing on songbird right now is so apt for my current mood. 1:00 am and you find out that the bug in the program has rendered your work of about 5 hours corrupted. You cannot but smile at the laptop and say this has to happen just now - 3 days before the DVLSI mini project submission.

How I wish the submission date wasn't extended last week and everyone would've been the same kinda ***t I'm in right now. The bright side is I get something to write on in the blog because.. because I dont have anything to do now! God save our souls..

Potluck

Every time I think it's over now, somehow she returns back into my life with more challenges. I'd been under the impression that after not getting through the Rythmica auditions at IISc, it would really be the end. Then came Potluck and the challenge was much greater than previous times for me.

We always had someone doing the directing/coordinating part in the band while in CET. I just had to simply sit around and watch them all practising. But this time around I turned out to be the senior-most guy, in the sense I was the only one who'd actually performed with a band. Determination and love for music are the two things required to keep it going. We had enough of both and with the fun added, we got it through. And the CEDT freshers band was formed - Mitsu and me on Vocals, Gaurav and Bach (Suraj as he is known here) on guitars, Navyendu on Violin and Abhishek and Makarand on Keys. We did a pretty good show on stage for first-timers, though it had moments like Gaurav breaking the pluckdrum half-way into the final song. Hoping to continue with the band in future..

Though the band performance was the most important part of the event for me, Potluck is much more than that. Let me start from the beginning. Potluck is a family gettogether of our department. The 'crazy' CEDT family, including the faculty, alumini, seniors and freshers. We, the freshers are in charge of organising the two day event involving sports, cultural nite and dinner. I'm happy to say that both sports and cultural events went very well. Esp. cultural events since Akansha and me were heading the cultural comittee ;-). The night ended with a sumptuous dinner and long photo session.

Our Potluck day didn't end there. Gaurav, Bach and me set out to airport on Gaurav's Honda City at around 11pm. The route to airport is one of the best I've seen. The new airport looks really great. We sat down and had drinks at CCD outside the airport. Too bad the parking cost us Rs 80/half hour or we'd stayed longer. Thanks to Gaurav, I got to drive the car back to IISc. It felt awesome. Thouroughly enjoyed the ride back. Thus ended a really nice saturday and it was back to work from next day.

People

My roommate left yesterday. Though he had reservations about taking PhD from the beginning, the news kinda came as a shock to me. The stay here was brief, but we had some nice time together.

IISc is the first time I'm properly staying in hostel. The only thing I was sceptical about was having a roomie whom I might not like. Thankfully Soumya turned out to be a nice guy and we never had problems adjusting. We met only once or even less a day and had a few good chats. While leaving, he left behind a note which was very thoughtful. Now all of a sudden, the big room seems void and very large with just me.

The news also put into perspective my thoughts about people we meet in our lifetime. Some we see and never see again. Some we meet and still never meet again, but wish we could. There are still others who remain with you through your life and finally those who are far away but close at heart.

Treading Unknown Waters

Some day in week 1: 11:30pm PD-220
Just back from my own beautiful moment of the day - the midnight walk back to my IISc hostel room listening to iPod. I didn't know whether Soumya, ma roomie, is back yet. Seems he's back early today and out talking to someone. Tomorrow it will be a week since I left my hometown.

IISc
I feel blessed to have been part of three awesome campuses. Right from the beauty of Loyola in school days, to the elegance of CET and now IISc. All three have something in common - unlimited greenery, and that's something I enjoy very much. It's said that the temperature in IISc is three degrees below the normal temperature of the city. All the roads are bound on both sides by trees. Though it's not the spring season, I can imagine how it would be during full bloom. None of the buildings are more than 2-3 floors high, each unique in design. They seem to pop their head occasionally out of the green and does not stand out from the surroundings. The main building is an exception. Made of some kind of white stone, just one view of it takes us to the grandeur of 1900s. Our admission procedure was held in the main building. Before that we'd to pick lot to decide our hostel room and I got PD-220.

Hostel
The walk towards my hostel room seemed an endless one, esp. with a bag full of stuff. I'd to cross a busy road. Thankfully the guard in the gate opposite guided me to the hostel. The room is a double room. It's really spacious with large wardrobe, well furnished and even a small balcony to top it all. There's also a terrace nearby. The area is very silent at night (which is pretty much the only time I'm there). My roomie is a bengali - Soumya. I got quite a shock when he messaged me for the first time telling name and informing that 'd arrived ;-). The name is pronounced Shomu, pretty nice guy about to do PhD in ECE dept. Though the hostel is about a km from main areas, I like it and the walk back to the room at night.

12:00pm PD-220, a week later.
CEDT
The department had impressed us a lot the first time we were here for the test and interview. On the official day 1 in the department, we were taken around the department, shown the labs and given a briefing about the subjects. Both Suraj and me felt like the labs comprised of our favourite subjects clubbed into one MTech course. The teachers were jolly, even overdoing it occassionally with chalus. Now we're past a week into classes. Labs are about to start soon. That's gonna be the tuff and time consuming part according to seniors and the dept would virtually be our second home. Four of our subjects have lab and we get to have a hands-on experience in electronics design.

September 5: U-47
Now in Sreejith's room. It's more than a month now. Starting to taste the real IISc life. The past month was pretty good with not much work. But towards the end we got to know what's going to haunt us for the next 22 months. Lab assignment submissions seems to be the worst of that nightmare now, but who knows what all are going to be thrown us at from now on. Lab work is enjoyable if you know how to do it. But sitting in front of some problem without a clue how to solve it for hours at a stretch is plain disappointing. Hmm.. Hope the situation gets better if we start studying. How to find time to that is another question.

Sept 7/8: Lab
Riding back to hostel at 4:00 am.

IISc beckons

I'm off to IISc, Bangalore today. I'd thought I would write something long enough about it, but seriously nothing coming into my mind. Cya all. The good thing about net is that it does not care about geographical locations. So the me in Bangalore would be the same here. And hopefully I'll get enough time to keep blogging. KU has been kind enough in that respect.. :-)

HOTC Ch 7: The Rains Went By

It's almost a month since CETlife officially ended. I hadn't thought about taking the series this far when I started off back in S6. The final two sems have been as happening as the previous ones but thinking back about it when it's over is tough. But I've got a feeling that HOTC's gotta be completed and if dont do it now, I never might. So..

A new semester, a new hope, a new beginning.. No No! we were right in the middle of the storm like in the beginning of HP7 and we didn't have time to appreciate the change in classroom. We were Potters in search of the horcrux jobs, with Albus Samson helping us out at CGPU. That's when the bubble-that-must-not-be-named burst (literally) into scene. Things never got better after that and even after a year our batch is still bathing in the aftershock. (pardon me for the absurd allegory in previous statements :-) . The fact that our class secured the most number of jobs in the batch was little consolation for what happened.

Looking at the smaller picture, the placement season was an 'experience'. There were the PPTs of companies in the beginning. The real deal didn't bore us as much as the PPTs though. It was a special sight seeing us dressed well, as executives for a change (got to say our ladies looked better those days too.. ;-). Those days provided some unforgettable scenes.. The joy after getting a job, the disappointed figures being consoled by friends. I was able to stay back many of those days 'cuz of the proximity of my house. Saw a lot of gr8 friends groups around CGPU including ours - staying together during the hard times. It had the funny moments too.. Sure going round and round the pillar before an interview and three guys doing the same after he'd gone in, AS claiming 'I love japanese people, I love japanese culture' at Toshiba interview and a lot more..

Then came one day that could be named the Happiest day in HOTC. It was our onam celebration. There wasn't any celebration to tell about the previous year. But this was to be our final onam celebration and the AE batch of '09 rocked it Applied style. Back were the laughter, the energy that had gone dim after S5 tour. After our customary trip around the campus (esp civil for obvious reasons), we were back in our class. Thanks to some organising by LN, we'd plenty of payasam and sweets. Then a session of onappattu accompanied by traditional dances (dappankkuthu). There were many cameras around and none of them were disappointed. We made all kinda permutations and combinations for group photos sessions which lasted well into the evening. There were even absurd ones like Akashagopuram kandu thenjavar.

Robotics was still in our veins and another Shaastra was coming along. This time we secured entry in two competitions (thanks to AS). Sleepless preparation nights (mostly just chatting around) and countless screwings (?) 'n debuggings later, we'd three bots ready. One was shaped futuristic-ally like a bat-mobile though it ended up having stability issues. This time, there were more of us making the trip. But we couldn't roam around the campus as much as previous time 'cuz we'd competitions on two days. The robotics competition was real tuff and we were a tad disappointed by it's organisation. Else might've had a chance at winning a prize. The laser show was stupendous! We did go to the beach and spencer plaza. The time we spend at CCD were enjoyable too.

Towards the end of the sem, we went for another robotics competition at GEC, Trissur as part of their tech fest - Resonance. Our group had become professional by then, each knew his part of the work. We were rewarded with 4000 bucks too though the organisers were reluctant at giving out prizes. We also witnessed the first and last Sargam (inter-sem) which went through without much fanfare. I believe Jisha (in pic) won many dance prizes. Another thing to take notice was that the teachers were in charge of the events, which told a lot about the political scenario.

In academics, lectures became more of a formality even though teachers showed their love by drawing hearts in class. We had our seminar and preliminary presentation(s) of main projects throughout the sem. We'd thought of them with reverence in the previous sems. But as usual, most of the work was done at the last minute, keeping up the CET tradition and most of us got through fine. The university exams came along dragging it's feet. We didn't have proper answers to his questions, but survived somehow thanks to our combined efforts. Thus ended the prefinal semester of CETlife and the fact that it would be ending soon was dawning on us.

Inspiration

There was a time when I admired his academic proficiency and excellent teaching skills, but towards the end of my schooling days AO sir (as we lovingly and often fearfully call him) became much more than that for many of us.. a true inspiration. Today we went to visit him again and could just sit with awe at what he said.

My pals, Ram, Appu, Gokul, Somu and I used to sit nearest to sir during the classes, in the side bench. He would sit down at a chair beside me to rest after solving problems on the board. The whole class would still be pondering over whether to try doing the questions by themselves or just take down what's written on the board. We, the ones nearest to him knew his eyes would be on what we did. That must be the time our brain worked to it's fullest capacity till now. Physics stopped becoming a subject to study. It became our passion.

I don't know how to explain the change in our minds towards AO through the two years. What was once fear, turned gradually into respect and finally admiration. His persona must have been the inspiration of so many students, students about whom he still talks in abundance even with his failing strength. Cheers to my greatest teacher. Thank you sir and we'll try to make the best of the faith you put in us..

Quotes over the ages

There was a time when I used to study from my notebooks more than any text. All that became a thing of the past when in college. Notebooks became more of a symbol of expression during the lectures (often monotonous). One habit that I caught up was writing down a quote on the first page and omit writing down my name. Due to the fact that I didn't have many notebooks during the four years and cuz I might have lost one or two, I could recover only 4 of them:

S5:
Science is an ongoing process. It never ends. There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which scientists can retire. And because this is so, the world is far more interesting, both for scientists and for millions of people in every nation who, while not professional scientists, are deeply interested in the methods and findings of science.
- Cosmos, Carl Sagan

S5-S6, Still one of my favourite quotes:
It's so easy to run to others. It's hard to stand on one's on record. You can't fake virtue in your own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - love, kindness... But there isn't substitute for competence. That precisely is the deadliness of second handers.
- The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand

S6-S7, Very meaningful at that time:
My past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance, the present was vague and strange, and for the future I could form no conjecture.
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. ( The irony is that I never completed that book)

S7-S8:
I yearn to define my life
Placing faith in chance to meet me in halfway
Back row to the left, a little to the side,
Slightly out of place
Look beyond the light, where you least expect
There's someone special.
- From the song Someone Special, Poets of the Fall