Tuesday 23 December 2008

NEWS: Never Ending Worthless Stuff

When I was in kindergarten, my ambition was to become television newsreader. To be more specific, an English newsreader. So I fought for days with my mom and she changed my school. (This is what I say, though she says she was going to change my school anyway.) As I grew up, my ambitions changed, but I had always been fascinated by news and newsreaders. Not any more. I can't bear watching news now- after the advent of those 24-hour news channels. Anything and everything becomes news-even the twists and turns in the stories of some obscure serials in some channels no one watches. I feel terribly sorry for the yesteryear newsreaders - what will their grandchildren think of them when they tell those little kids that they were newsreaders?

I watch the idiot box now only for watching trailers and film songs. I would rather go and suicide than watch one of those dumb parades of designer sari wearing women talking like high priestesses of Indian culture. Those should be banned. It is really degrading. Malayalam serials are no better. I stopped watching even comedies when I was in sixth standard.

Gone are the good old days of Surabhi, Turning Point, Tehtikaat, Byomkesh Bakshi, Anjuman, Farmaan, Aashiyaana, Alif Laila, Lekin Woh Sach Tha, Tarang, Chandrakaantha, Pambaram, Pakida Pakida Pambaram, O. Henry Kathakal, the cartoons in the evenings and Sunday mornings....

Those were the best days of my life...........................................................................

A dog's world is this!

The controversy that the Kerala Chief Minister created after that tasteless statement involving dogs has finally died down, but people haven't lost their fascination with dogs in this state. Now there is a real issue - whether street dogs should be euthanized or not.

Just like any other issue, this one too has resulted in polarisation of Malayalis into two camps opposed to each other - one for it and one against it. The issue is no laughing matter, however. Street dogs are causing about a dozen accidents every week by jumping in front of running vehicles. A young lady and her child lost their lives due to one such accident last week and this has resulted in stronger calls to the City Corporations to do something about the dogs.

I am no great dog-lover. Those who are used to getting into cars as soon as they get out of their homes may not understand this, but I have to walk a good deal to the nearest bus stop to get a bus. And the path I walk is infested with dogs. These dogs do follow people sometimes. I usually carry a stone in my hand - for my safety. It is as if we were at war. I don't want to die of rabies. 'Rabies infected dog bites another person in the city' is another typical item in newspapers now.
I wouldn't like my photo to come under that particular headline.

I know that the Corporation is helpless - once it starts euthanizing the animals, animal-rights activists come to the fore, get court orders to stop them from doing their work.

What we need is a solution that is acceptable to both parties - something like animal shelters where stray animals are kept. They can be even given for adoption from such shelters to interested persons.

p.s. My college, once upon a time had more dogs than students. When I was studying in third semester, the Corporation vehicles came and started carrying off dogs somewhere. But even they couldn't catch them all. These dogs and we, the students share the same campus. These dogs are absolutely harmless; they don't bother us. My friends sometimes feed the little puppies.

When any student complains that he is living a dog's life, I remark, silently in my mind, "No buddy, they are definitely better off".

Saturday 20 December 2008

Destined to do it at the last moment.

From the day I was born, I have made a reputation of completing things only at the last minute. As an example, I was born at 11:55 p.m. on August 3rd. I wouldn't get out, so the doc had to give mom an injection. (Family folklore)

I have almost never submitted an exam application before the last date. This drives my parents crazy! Especially mom, who has a habit of doing things early.

But yesterday was the worst! I reached the examination hall at 9:35 while the exam had started at 9:30. I had forgotten to take my hall ticket.

To be quite honest, I couldn't study anything at all for information theory and coding. It relies heavily on linear algebra, we knew nothing about it and since I almost had an attendance shortage for the subject this semester, you can guess my condition. So, at 8:30, I left the house, feeling dejected. I was not sure whether I would pass the exam. I rate the subject to be the third worst I have ever studied, after engineering graphics and power electronics.

I boarded the college bus. (This is a good sign, I thought. Usually, I never get the college bus.) I even got a seat to sit! (hint: happens very rarely, because mine is the last stop.) When the bus almost reached the college, I had an urge to check whether I had taken my hall ticket.

I found that-I had not taken it! It was 8:50 already. Mom would have left the house at 8:35; so there was no point in calling her. I checked my bag. Whoops! I had forgotten to take the key of the house. So there was no point in returning back.

If you forget the hall ticket and still have to write the exam, you have to get a letter from your Staff Advisor and get it signed by your HoD. I found that both of them had not reached the college. So I called my Staff Advisor on the phone. Surprise! She did not take the call.

Now I had just one option left - call mom, ask her to return so that I could take my hall ticket. I called mom, and asked: 'Well, mom, can you do me a favour?'................

I hired an auto from the auto stand near the college. It was 9:03 already. We had two small traffic blocks on our way. To cut a long story short, I reached home at 9:17. (God alone knows how the driver did it, for he seemed so slow. But then, at such times, any driver would seem slow.) Mom had hired a taxi to get back. I took my hall ticket, said a quick 'thanks' to my mom, and ran back to the auto.

While returning, I was feeling grateful to the auto driver but he crushed my gratitude under his feet by getting into a petrol pump at 9:24. I had no time to waste. So I paid him his money and hired another auto. I was sure I would be late. But the new driver seemed to be practising exclusively for Formula 1. So I reached the college at 9:30. Meanwhile, one of my classmates called and told me that my exam room was in our department. So I ran to the department. When I reached there, two of my classmates told me that there had been a slight misunderstanding; we were to write the exam somewhere else. So we climbed to the second floor of the main building ( I do not know which dumb fellow had proposed this dumb idea of putting the seating arrangement in the second floor! Can't they put it in the ground floor, for God's sake?) We learnt that we were to go to the Mech Department. So ran again to the Mech block. The invigilator was a bit angry, but I didn't mind.

The question paper was specifically designed to intimidate the students, I suppose. I found it very tough, but then, I had not prepared properly.

I believe I will get through. I learnt one thing, however - never forget your Hall ticket. Or at least, don't forget your keys.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Very Large Scale Relief

I took my VLSI exam today. In one of the biggest upsets in the history of Kerala University, the question paper did not have a single question out of syllabus!

To help you appreciate the implications of this, let me present the following facts:
-We have about eight books fro studying VLSI. Raabey and Uyemura are the textbooks prescribed by the University. Other six are for reference.
-Usually, the questions are NEVER from the textbooks.
-We had four exams for VLSI till now under the current scheme. These exams had questions worth 15, 22, 37 and 42 marks respectively from the portions out of syllabus.
-We have a joke that University puts these question papers to help students pass the exam. (Free marks are awarded for out of syllabus questions.)
-In spite of all the effort that the University takes, pass percentage is abysmally low. Abysmally as in 'abysmally deep in Mariana Trench'

So our VLSI exam was dubbed: 'a wednesday: Kerala University version' after the Bollywood movie about terror attacks.

We generally expect our question papers to consist only of the question we do not have an answer to. So we get the usual refrain you get after exams is: "Vicharicha athrayum moshamaayilla" (It wasn't as bad as I expected). But VLSI has a reputation in the department of depressing even the worst pessimists.

So every one's reaction on seeing the paper," Oh my Goooood! I don't believe this! A paper with questions FROM the syllabus."

Bigger upset to follow: All questions were either taught in class or given as assignments. This, my friends in EC department at CET will tell you, is a logical and theoretical impossibility. It cannot happen in any subject and never, never in VLSI. Someone was doing a Terry Pratchet - creating an Impossibility Drive.

May the Uncertainty Principle of Kerala University live long!!!

People were singing, "Pappu paas ho gaya" in the exam hall. Everyone was all smiles.

Needless to say, we all wrote well. After the exams, Neetha hugged me. I just wished I had brought sweets to distribute.

I shouldn't be so happy. After all, I have Information Theory and Coding on Friday.

Saturday 13 December 2008

It is in the air

Come December and it is in the air. Not Christmas, but the dreaded University examination season. I can say that I have never celebrated a Christmas or a New Year without the fear of exams in the near future since I have joined the college. I have missed all my cousins' weddings in the past three years and most of their engagement ceremonies. This University has got something against me. Wven if there are no exams on a day I want to celebrate, it postpones the exams to that particular date so that I may give the celebrations a miss.

By the time I complete my fourth year, I would have written about 150-200 tests. I am tired of telling everyone that I have got exams every time they call me. Now thet take it for granted that I will be having exams. So no one bothers to invite me, I guess.

The problem with having so many exams is that you start to lose your motivation to study if the marks you score do not have a direct relationship with the effort you put in. And my University is quite notorious for that.

I have been having my lab internal exams for the past two days. I was scheduled to have it yesterday at 9 in the morning. I decided to wake up at four and study for it. The lab was foe Assembly Language Programming and I hadn't written an ALP on my own till date. When my alarm rang, I just switched it off and went to sleep again. I woke up at 7:15 a.m and started studying. By 9, when I reached the college, I had gone through the programs I had written in my record.

The exam started at 9:30 a.m. My question was to arrange an array of ten random numbers in ascending order using Bubble Sort. An easy program, compared to the ones I dreaded. I drew the flowchart, wrote the code and started coding. To the horror of my horrors, I found that the '+' sign in my keyboard wouldn't work. That meant that half my code was pure waste. I would need more registers if '+' didn't work. "Mere saath hi hamesha aisa kyun hotha hai?", I thought as I glanced around at the happy faces coding their microprocessors.

I remembered our HoD's words: 'As an engineer, you are supposed to make things work - by hook or by crook. People outside will not listen to your technical difficulties. What they want is the final product.'

That 'hook or crook' sentence has been my greatest inspirational motto at the college. Till date, thankfully, I have had to use only hook. But this keyboard was tempting me to be a crook. I thought, "What if I just rearrange the numbers in ascending order and report the output?" I had about five minutes to rewrite the complete code and execute it.

However, fortunately, since my mom brought me up to be honest at my life in general and the exams in particular, I decided to do it the right way.

My thought process went like this: So I need more registers. That means I will have to use pointer registers as general registers. That means I can't do it with 8 bit numbers. I have to upgrade to 16 bit...." In three minutes I wrote down a brand new program, entered it as fast as I could and checked the output. It worked! I called ma'am and showed her the output. She asked me to check for another set of numbers. I did that and joyfully walked out of the lab.

Later I came to know that the machines had some problem with the '+' sign. It functioned wrongly when it saw the '+' sign. So all the students who had used [SI+2] observed the phenomenon of their code changing into something else when they ran the program. They couldn't figure out what was wrong. I was lucky that my '+' sign didn't work.


Moral of the story: Whatever happens, happens for good. And honesty is still the best policy when taking exams. (Courtesy: Mom's sayings)

Friday 28 November 2008

Inhuman terror

My mom doesn't usually cry. I usually don't see tears running down her cheeks even when we watch the worst tearjerker movies. ( I do and that is one reason why I hate them.) So when I saw my mom crying, I just peeped to see what was up.

It was the report about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. They were interviewing some of the relatives of some people who had died. They weren't crying; but the emotion expressed in their words was so powerful that my mom soon found tears rolling down her cheeks. I soon found that I was crying too. In fact even the memory causes such pain... I wonder how people bear it.

And I can't understand how people can become so cold hearted, so inhuman to kill innocent people who have done them no harm. What is the point they are trying to prove? Does killing people solve anything on this earth? Who puts such dumb ideas into the heads of men?

I was most thrilled by the scene which showed helicopters dropping NSG commandos on the buildings. I fail to find words to express my gratitude to the armed forces who come to rescue us in such difficult situations. I am proud to say that of all things I am proud of about my country, nothing ranks better than our defence forces. I salute them and wish them victory in everything they do.

I did not think I would get time to do this. There is a lot of work to be completed; but I would not have slept peacefully if I had not written this. These inhuman acts are to be condemned, to say the least. Many innocent people lost their lives in these dastardly attacks. May their souls rest in peace.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

A new beginning?

Obama has won the U.S. Presidential election. It is a great news. He has shown the world that anything is possible for a human being if he/she puts his/her heart into it. His win symbolises the success of humankind against all sorts of barriers. I just hope that he will not lose the goodwill he has now, across the world, as he takes charge as the most powerful man on earth in about two months from now.

Expectations are sky-high. I mean, he will have to be superhuman to fulfill them all. Unlike other heads of state, the whole world looks up to the U.S. President. And it feels great to have someone who has a real experience of being an 'outsider' to be the U.S. President. People believe that it can change the image of America as the other countries see it.

I admire McCain for the way in which he accepted his defeat. I respect the man. He is a fighter, but so is Obama. Still, one can't help but admire McCain when he stated that he admired Obama.

Well, we will be facing a tough time now. Obama is a bit of a protectionist. We still have to see how it is going to affect India, especially our software industry. Still, it is good for the world if U.S. economy stages a comeback under him. We don't have a more powerful growth engine right now. China is still growing, not big enough and India has just arrived on the scene.

Congratulation to the guy who made it in spite of all odds.

Wednesday 29 October 2008

What the......

If the guys who set the syllabus for the Kerala University are to be believed, taking a seminar about a topic totally Greek to you is essential for awarding you a degree. Every year, thousands of hapless student scour through IEEE papers for a topic, a paper they can relate to.

You know us. With a syllabus that is at least five years behind the current technological trends, how can you expect anyone to read and understand the latest in technology? And make a presentation on it. Microsoft PowerPoint won't even have half the special characters used in a paper. You can't do a presentation in Latex, as far as I know.

You have to complete this presentation in fifteen minutes. If you believe that it can be done, you will believe in anything. It is funny. My paper, which was a discussion on three quantum cryptographic protocols, had to be presented in ten minutes. The remaining five minutes were for the QA session. You must understand that I was speaking to my classmates, who are engineering students and so think of quantum mechanics as only a branch of Physics. It is just not 'engineering'.

I exceeded the time limit by two minutes. I don't consider it a sin. I only regret not having spent enough time on the B92 and the EPR protocols. Spent too much time on BB84. I should have avoided that. Anyway, my seminar would never have ended in fifteen minutes, even if I were to just read my notes.

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Just heard that Obama's lead has diminished. I hope it is not a sign of things to come.

Pakistan is on the brink of defaulting its loans due to the problem of an abysmally small foreign exchange reserve. I was reminded of something. I guess it was last year when an article was published in a newspaper that the RBI is having huge foreign exchange reserves and that we should employ it in setting up a Sovereign Wealth Fund to invest them abroad, especially in the U.S and European markets, as China was doing. At that time I thought it was a good idea. Others were making oodles of money; why shouldn't we.? The guys at the RBI had no imagination, I thought.

Now I shudder when I think of that. (A rare candid moment for me.)Right now, what I want to find out is whether the people at the helm in RBI are that startlingly brilliant or whether they were just lazy fellows who wanted to avoid the paperwork. If the former condition is true, thankfully, we are having some really wise fellows at top and we can snore peacefully at night. If the latter is true, we have luck, a great deal of it, on our side. I mean, you are having a country running like a well-oiled machine in spite of the government. You may consider this an insult to the machines, but I can live with that.

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Another thing I cannot understand is why share prices go down even if an organization is reporting a 40% rise in its profits, beating all market expectations? I really need an answer for this one. It doesn't sound right!

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An advice to all the kids who are scheduled to come to the planet Earth. If you can help it, don't ever choose parents belonging to the same organization. If you do that, your parents will never have time to talk to you on any other matter. Greater danger if they are workaholics. I am telling this from my years of experience.

Sunday 26 October 2008

We are living in strange times

It was a rather interesting piece of news: politicians all over the world are reading Das Kapital. Oddly enough, it doesn't sound bizarre right now. If they were seen doing it the same time last year, they would have been 'finished' by now.

The U.S elections will be held on the fourth of November. It is almost certain that Mr. Barack Obama is going to be the next President. However, our PTI is not so sure - it recently gave out an article stating that U.S. Police fears that riots would break out if Obama loses. Well, let us wait and watch.

If the American public elects McCain to the White House, we will have a pretty nice 'deluge'. I was exasperated when John Kerry was defeated by Bush. I could not understand the logic behind it, to put it rather mildly.

Our Sensex is nosediving as if there were no ground below. It seems that we will have negative indices very soon.

I found out that my SB account balance and the sensex are deteriorating at the same rate. I am looking for a bailout. Hope dad and mom would not 'Lehmann' me. It would have been nice if Paulson and dad exchanged their economic policies and outlook.

Sigh! That is not to be!

The only way out of this terrible situation is to invest in infrastructure development, says Paul Krugman. The opinion is shared by our Prime Minister, Dr.Singh as well. When two wise men say the same thing, which happens rather rarely nowadays (Hey, it is difficult to find out one wise man, let alone two and their having the same opinion on the same issue is like winning the jackpot.), we should listen to them.

It feels great to have an economist-Prime Minister in this Great New Depression. At least, the government will have an idea of what is going on in the economy. Imagine what would have happened if someone like Bush was governing our country.

God save America!

Tuesday 21 October 2008

What to do now

A question most of the humankind is facing right now. We are having an exponential growth in the number of problems. The economy is slowing down, a government that doesn't seem to be sure about itself, let alone others and loss of public confidence in anything that matters.

Gloomy picture. Still, the situation has improved a lot. The British government ought to be praised for dinning some sense into every one's head. I am a Gordon Brown fan, whatever the British voters might say.

Government of India, it seems, is not sure about whether it has a serious problem in its hands or not. The truth is, I don't have any idea how badly this crisis is going to affect us. Foreign demand will surely go down but we have more money with the population-sixth pay commission, debt waiver and all that. Having a billion people in your country is right now a sort of relief.

Chandrayaan will go to moon soon. My best wishes to the ISRO. Hats off to our scientists and engineers who have made this possible. Ours is a space programme which makes a lot of sense - I mean, we are doing it more for public good than for any other reason. I feel good about it.

India gets her first saint. St. Alphonsa was declared to be the first saint from India by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome a few days ago. Its a great honour for us here in Kerala.

Coming to the problems I am facing right now. My sessions exams start tomorrow. I am not really prepared for it. There's still plenty of time, however.

I am taking a seminar on quantum cryptography next week. I don't know whether I will understand what I am going to take. Plus, I have to make the abstract, the presentation and the report in an incredibly short duration of time.

The project is going haywire. god alone knows how we will convince the ma'am to allow us to work under our current guide. I am banking on God to do this for me. I have no other option left and if she refuses, I am going to be in Mariana trench-depth trouble.

Our dear University has postponed the exams yet again. I really do not know whether I should feel relieved or scared. While it is true that the earlier timetable made no sense, we will be losing precious time with the new one.

The sweetest piece of news this week. I am sure nothing will beat it: SACHIN MAKES A NEW WORLD RECORD AND INDIA THRASHES AUSTRALIA BY A RECORD MARGIN. What more can we ask for? Good to see a silver lining somewhere!

Saturday 11 October 2008

Days getting blacker

Well, yesterday saw one of the steepest falls in the BSE Sensex. 800 points down in a single day! Market indices everywhere are nosediving. Seems we will soon have negative indices. Price of gold, on the other hand, is skyrocketing. Are we going to have Great Depression Part II now?

How long will it be before the financial institutions regain public trust is a big question. Even the question 'Will they be able to do that?' seems harmless now. Greed is not good anymore.

The decision of the Reserve Bank to reduce the CRR by 150 basis points to increase liquidity is a welcome move. But liquidity cannot replace trust. At least, not for now.Going by the present trend, we will need a lot more money to stay where we are. That means that RBI will have to reduce the CRR as well as the other rates. However, that cannot solve the problem. We are facing high inflation as well. Increase in liquidity can have negative implications as well.

Financial institutions everywhere are failing. We have escaped so far because we are relatively isolated.

The financial crisis seems to be precipitating diplomatic crises as well. The spat between Iceland and Britain which went to the extent of invoking anti-terrorist laws to freeze the assets of a financial institution, is unfortunate but thought-provoking. We seem to be sitting on a time bomb without being aware of it.

Friday 10 October 2008

Tough times ahead

So a neat, idiotic, exasperating global economic crisis, bomb explosions everywhere and attacks on minorities - what more can you ask for? It seems that this world is going mad, really mad and we have no good psychiatrists living around!

Sensex dips below 12000 - not unexpected, but shocking still. With demand down and speculators' days over, crude price is on a downward spiral. It seems that soon we will have water costing more than oil. (The government has hiked water supply bills by 90% - 140%) Inflation has 'dropped' to below 12%. Can't understand whether the times are really bad - it is confusing! Has madness caught me as well?

Tata Nano shifted to Gujrat. I do not know what to say. I never understood why they chose Singur in the first place. What will Buddha do now? Will Nano still cost only one lakh? It would be a miracle if that happens.

U.S signs nuke deal with India. I cannot understand why anyone is opposing it. Does anyone really think we are dumb enough to trust U.S. for eternity? We have got Russia, the European countries and a host of other sellers as well. This world is a village 'mandi' and we can get anything if we can pay for it.

The U.S Presidential election got really interesting with Sarah Palin. I really do hope that McCain doesn't win. I want to have at least a minuscule amount of sanity in this insane world. I am not a great fan of Obama, but I think Joe Biden has some sense and it will rub off on Obama as well. However, I believe that either of the Presidential candidates is going to be better than Bush. I do not know how he got re-elected. John Kerry was a lot better.

I really wish that Al Gore had become the President after Clinton. This world would have been a far better place to live in.

Now, back home. I really got into an argument with my parents after a couple of years. I do not get into arguments easily, and I have heard lots of comments like, "Anu, you should really go for the IFS. You will make a great diplomat." My greatest hobby is playing Devil's Advocate at home with (hold your breath) my mother that leaves my father and my sister shaking their heads in disbelief. (So I believe) . Getting into a verbal duel or a 'truel' is an annual ritual. But even that has become infrequent because everyone has become busy and we have our own businesses to mind. So when we got a two days' holiday, I 'ruined' it neatly. Actually, we all know that everyone loves it - the next day after we have a duel, we have a blast - we travel somewhere, go out to eat and enjoy ourselves - all in the name of 'consoling me'.

Arguments are good, sometimes.

P.S. I have started going for morning walks again, thanks to mom. She comes with me to ensure that I go the whole mile. (Pun intended). Seems she won't let me R.I.P.

Tuesday 9 September 2008

Federer wins!

I have been a die-hard Federer fan ever since Pete Sampras retired. So much that my sister almost hated him - I hero-worshipped him. So the last few months were heaartwrenching - to see him lose again and again against Nadal. I admit that Nadal is an excellent player, and that it is the best player who usually wins the game (and the tournament), but even imagining someone else being No.1 was so much difficult for me, that I couldn't bear it when it really happened. Only two other sportspersons have I admired to this extent - one, obviously is Pete Sampras and the other Michael Schumacher. I hated it when they lost and hate it now when Federer loses.

So it was really a great news when I came to know that Federer won against Murray to claim the U.S. Open. Now, he just has to get one more to get a World record in his name! Wonder how quickly the records are getting broken. This world is really going too fast.

That takes me to the experiment at CERN. I guess we will keep our fingers crossed. Who knows what might happen tomorrow? There are three distinct possibilities:

1. They will find the Higgs boson. Stephen Hawking will lose his hundred dollars. Wish I could place a bet with someone too. (But since my piggy bank is empty, this wish will not be fulfilled)

2. They don't find the Higgs boson : I will pity the students of Physics. They will have a new set of theories to mug up. For senior scientists and researchers, a new gold mine of Nobel prizes!

3.( My sis seriously prays this happens; she does not want to complete the assignments her teachers have given her for the vacation) Strangelets appear and gobble up the globe. Sis wouldn't have to complete her homework.

Well, I guess we will have to wait for the results of the experiment.

Monday 8 September 2008

Interesting news

So NSG has finally dropped all its sanctions against India.This is a great news indeed. We are not an illegitimate nuclear power anymore. Combined with India's good performance at the Beijing Olympics, it seems the days ahead are going to be good.

The biggest joke right now is that 'inflation has come down to 12.34%. ' Now that is not much of a 'down'. The government and the RBI have serious work to do. Best wishes to the new governor!

We had our Onam celebration last week. It is the last Onam celebration we would ever have together. We had a good time. (The only problem was that I had to wear a sari again!)

Monday 1 September 2008

Burning the bridges

Guess I have played enough. Now just my aim... and I am going to burn all my bridges down. Exactly 75 days left. I don't want to be a loser this time. Once is enough. The pain was heartwrenching. I swear I am not going to put up with failure any more. I am going to make it!

Thursday 28 August 2008

Two weeks without internet!

I never knew that I had become so addicted to the Internet! Spending a week without it was a torture...I almost went into depression.

The nightmare started two weeks ago. I was not able to access my mail account. When I checked I found that the connection was suddenly off, and I could not reconnect how much ever I tried. The error seemed to be there forever: Phone line is busy. What the heck! This is supposed to be a broadband connection. Checked up all the ports, went through whatever could be done at the control panel... Nothing helped. Finally got all fired up and asked mom to call the BSNL office. ( Guess we are at war with them! There were some problems earlier as well. ) And finally, today I get it back! It's an exhilarating feeling - to get it back when you thought you would never get it any time soon. Thank God!

Killing time was not a big deal. We had our lab exams this week. So it was a blessing in disguise. But then, I missed the whole Olympics story.. I couldn't access the net when it mattered the most - one gold and two bronze medals for India, for the first time in the history! How I longed to read about it.! I am not going to forgive the BSNL anytime soon.

Thursday 31 July 2008

Wondering.............

Well, it is another 'university exams' season. The only time you understand perfectly when they say that the envelope of the Gaussian distribution is Rician distributed, the only time you read two or three of the driest textbooks ever written, in one go (it takes longer to read a magazine), you find that your memory has more capacity than a 1GB flash drive, you write one or two pages on as simple a thing as a piece of wire (ahem, when used as an antenna, of course), a twelve page derivation seems to be one of the simplest things on earth, you draw the wickedest of the block diagrams at a moment's notice ................

I was just wondering the other day: if everyone 's brain worked the same way as they do on the day before exams at all time, what would happen?
Why is it that I have no problem in understanding a subject on the day before the exam, though I would have found it totally undecipherable just a week ago?

And now the final question:
Why does this university put questions, which are, as a rule, out of syllabus?

Thursday 10 July 2008

The mother of all deals

So, the Left has withdrawn its support for the UPA government, but SP has come to its rescue. We may have a confidence vote on 21st of this month.Will the government survive the floor test? Let's wait and watch. This is the time when facts are becoming more fantastic than fiction. It is a thriller, with many of the SP MPs voicing their opinions against the deal. We can hope to have enough drama till the last minute. Keep your fingers crossed, everyone!

Now, this is fantastic. We have a double digit inflation, an about-to-fall-if-he-doesn't-help-me government bent on pursuing the n-deal to its conclusion, an opposition party which would have been proud of the deal if it had been in power, a mentally unstable stock market and a university which has no sense of time. How to get out?

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Getting ready for the battle ahead

Finally, the University has published the timetable of our examinations. A jam-packed schedule with barely any breathing space in it. Again, in a way, that's good. It will be over in a very short time and time, right now, is in great demand.

For most of the exams, we have only a one day gap in between. It is going to be terrible unless we are well-prepared. We haven't much time now, given that exams start on 21st.

Getting placed in Deloitte was really a confidence booster. Now I can concentrate on the things I want. Otherwise, placement would have been a point of worry.

But then, it still is. The department still has a lot more people to get placed. I hope that August turns out to be a really good month for all of us.

Friday 4 July 2008

Placement blues

Our placement started two weeks ago. From the department, only two have been placed till date. It is a sad spectacle. Everyone is so depressed that I sometimes feel like starting my own company and giving them jobs. But buddy, I don't have money to start one. So everyone goes on writing test after test.

However, I am not. I wrote two tests till date - one for CC and the other for a good S/W company. Honestly, I didn't want to work in either. I want to work in a financial consulting company. That is my dream. One is coming tomorrow and I am nearly desperate to get into it.

The distinguishing factor about the company is that it hires you on the basis of your intelligence and not your 'mugging up' capacity. I love companies like that. It is also one of the Big Four. Now that's more than enough for a clue. Hope they will take me.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Food for thought

I have almost given up watching the television. What is the point? Listening to stupid comments by politicians and more stupid replies to them isn't exactly my cup of tea. Still, the comment of Mr. Georgr Bush almost got me to watch news again. Blaming India for the rise in the price of food, oil and what not. It was a pleasure, listening to his comments and the reaction to it.
Sadly, our Prime Minister refrained from taking up the issue. I have always thought of Mr. Singh as a sensible man, and his behaviour confirms it. Mr. Bush's comments were not worth commenting upon.

The only thing I watch regularly now is a serial, Kadamattathu Kathanar. Ghosts and evil spirits are far more interesting thanhuman beings; the stories about them seem far more realistic now than the soaps being aired on other channels.
Earlier, I used to watch at least the news. News then was really NEWS and not a gimmick as it is now. Thanks to 24-hour news channels, news has become trivia and trivia has become news.

God save the TV!

Monday 5 May 2008

Home is where heart is

After a long three years, I finally visited my house at Payyanur. I was brought up there and had spent a majority of my lifetime in that small, cute house, surrounded by mango trees from all sides. I was very excited when I found that I would be able to spend a whole day there. So I eagerly waited for the day when we would 'return'. I wanted to savour the experience.

Excitement gave way to wariness once we reached there. The floor was covered with dirt and a coat of dust, at least two centimetres thick. We had to clean the whole house. Since the previous tenants had not paid the electricity bill, the KSEB had cut our connection. There was no water in the tank, and so we had to draw out water from the well to clean this mess. That we had only one bucket in the whole house, did not simplify things much.

By the time dad paid the bill, fine etc. and we had fans rotating above our heads again, the cleaning was completed, thanks to amma. (She is a workaholic. Even if she has no need to do anything, she will create some work for her to do. What rest is to me, work is to her and vice versa.) After that dad went to tame the jungle that had grown around the house in three months of human absence. We were horribly tired.

I felt that the house was not feeling like the old home anymore. Maybe it was because I was tired and I had to do a lot of cleaning. But, many things had changed. Almost all our old neighbours had left the place. Some houses nearby were deserted and many had new tenants in them. I knew almost none.

There were also no ripe mangoes on the trees. No ripe chikus on the chiku tree either. Only the jackfruit tree had ripe fruits but we couldn't take them - we weren't staying long enough to finish one. Finally amma cut down one which was just startin to ripen and packed it. She could almost never bear the thought ofbuying jackfruits or mangoes or coconuts or chikus or papayas or tapioca or spinach or pepper from the market when she knew that all these were growing in plenty in her old backyard but she couldn't use any.

The wall around our house had also changed - it had grown too, making it look almost like a mini-fort in my eyes. I don't like walls.

Even my favourite hangouts - the terrace and the place near the well had changed. A small cycle was dumped on the terrace, and a new tree had grown near the well. There were fish in the well- I don't like them there. I drew water in the perpetual fear of taking out one of the fishes. I don't like the idea. I love fishing, but drawing out a fish would not be fair - this was my thought.

We decided to take an afternoon nap.We didn't have cots to sleep; just some mats and sheets we had taken with us. I missed my soft bed.

While trying to sleep, I felt a deep pain in my heart - I felt like a stranger in my own house. Five years away from here, and I had changed drastically. I used to think that I would not change and till I had reached my old house, I thought I hadn't. Rootlessness.

I thought of Trivandrum - what I would have been doing if I had not come here, whether we would have got our outputs in lab, how I would have spent these days.

Still, as I lay down on the terrace, watching the blue sky and the trees and the birds sitting on the old mango trees,chirping and singing merrily, the same old beautiful melodies before the sunset, I felt that nothing had changed - I was back home.

Madness in mind

"I am compelled to think", or something like that was Dr. Watson's statement in one of the Holmes novels (or a short story, I don't remember which). I am repeating the same statement now. I sincerely hope no one tell me, "I have to", like Holmes said to Watson. (Though I have no doubt that any one who has read the story will be able to refrain from not saying so)

I guess I am going nuts. My main subject of thinking is this : a person who is born blind, regains his sight after many years. When he sees the world, it obviously would not be anything like what he would have thought about it. The concepts of "colour", "hue" etc become reality. It would be a shock for him. Similarly, is it possible that we, the normal human beings are 'blind' in some sort of way? Is it possible that we have lost some power of 'sight' which would enable us to watch other dimensions of space as well? If yes, how would the experience be?

Every time I understand a useful concept, I find that I can view everything associated with it in a new angle. It is a joy to see how two totally different ways of approaching the same problem can yield the same result. Is it lack of enough intelligence that causes me to think that the ways are different or are they actually different? Usually, I find that the former case is true - I am sure it is a very very common phenomenon.

And it is a great joy to finally discover that the two ways are essentially the same, as I have said before.

Am I going nuts?

Saturday 19 April 2008

A day in sari

Sari, the traditional dress of Indian women is a rather long piece of cloth and nothing more. It is the brain of some ancient Indian fashion designer which found out that a rather simple cloth of piece can be worn in such a confounded way to maximise the restriction to movement. Women of various states then found out various ways to get around this problem. The result is the varied ways of wearing sari that we find now. It can be said that it is the dress which has undergone the maximum number of 'experiments'.
Well, now to the topic. Mother helped me wear the sari. That was the least complicated part of all. I found I could not move half as fast as I usually do, after I had worn the sari. I salute all the women who run in their saris to board the buses. Really ladies, you are something!
I took five minutes to get down the stairs. The plaits were always blocking my way! Then came the road. It has a rising slope and I was exhausted by the time I reached the main road. Crossing the road took another ten minutes. I couldn't run and so I had to wait till the road was cleared of vehicles.
Then there was the way back - forget about it. I found out one thing about me - You will have to try real hard to make me wear a sari again!

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Bored!

I am having that feeling - you really need to do something to keep your head but can't find anything sensible to do! You would love to paint the whole town red but can't find the paintbrush - that's my condition right now.

I am waiting for getting involved in some kind of activity which will interest me. Unfortunately, I can't find any.
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It is interesting to find that my moods and sensex follow the same cycle- when I feel happy, the sensex goes up and vice versa. Seems like I can make a lot of money if this phenomenon lasts for long :-)
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We have our Electronite today. It is going to be an extravaganza of cultural events. I am, however rather weak on dance and music. ( which means that I can't dance or sing, but would love to watch others perform!) So I am 'jobless' now.
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I really want to do something interesting

Sunday 23 March 2008

Well, I am here again

I am about the laziest fellow I have ever met. Sometimes, you see. Wanted to blog but put it off, telling myself, "There is nothing worthwhile to write about." When I really wanted to blog about something, I found my words becoming too acerbic. I don't like to hurt people. I seldom get angry, but when I do, Hell hath no fury like me. I am the volcano which erupts once every year. I believe that it's fine. You have to let the steam out at least once a year.

The problem is, I feel bad about it usually. But this time, I am not. In fact, I am happy that I got angry. Somebody has to get angry at these fellows for the way in which they treat us. What are we? Puppets? You would think as much if you were in my place. And, by God, the Chief Guest was absolutely the biggest Idiot I have ever seen in my entire life. To serve in hell would have been a better option than to listen to his speech. O Lord! I have come to this! Half an hour of pure, 24 carat gibberish. Even the squealing of babies make more sense.

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Stock markets going down is an unpleasant change after daily reports of " Sensex reaches yet another high" The biggest issue in my house right now is "Whether U.S will go into recession?" I really hope that it only slows down a bit, and not recede. With the global economy so heavily dependent on it, the U.S economy in recession would be a 'nightmare come true'.
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What is wrong with the banks?

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Friday 22 February 2008

At Random

Don't really have anything to write about. I am pining here for a full-fledged working day at college.I am fed up with holidays, free hours and the stuff. Give me some food for thought. Idleness is killing me inch by inch.
It is not that I don't have any work to do - a project this semester, three assignments to be completed soon. It is just that I am feeling totally uninterested. Half of the assignments have been completed but there is no satisfaction in doing this work. I wish something would come my way and make my life a bit more interesting - a good puzzle, maybe!
I am bored of Clinton- Obama news. Political news should be banned. I am bored to death with political news.
IPL is becoming sickening. Man, how much more should they play and we watch? This is sheer insanity! They should promote some other game if we are to retain our sanity!
Why on earth should Northern Rock be not nationalised.? My sympathies are with Mr. Darling, like any Indian.
Ah! The world is getting funnier with Kosovo. I can make neither the head nor the tail out of it!
Fidel Castro stepped down. As if it mattered! His brother was in charge for a long time now.
I am tired with hartals, bandhs and all forms of 'non-violent' movements which restrict the freedom of individuals to do what they want. No one seems to understand!

Monday 28 January 2008

College starts again!

My classes have started again, barely five days after the exams have concluded!
I am left dumbfounded at the manner in which the college is changing. It is for good, I know but it is exhausting! I wish the University gets its act together at least this time. Exams are now running two months behind the schedule. I do not know how the sixth and seventh semesters will be. This is going to be a really, really tough year ahead for everyone.

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