4 Years 42 Things

1. APOGEE rocks.
2. Number of people who do not know bathroom manners are >= 1/12. #blackthunder.
3. How cheap are you on a scale of 0 to D (D referring to a certain person who takes extra interest in your belongings at the end of a semester)?
4. More the number of vocal chords, the better a cricket match.
5. There is a pelican drawn inside glider’s club hangar.
6. Top of the clock tower is the coolest place on campus. Figuratively. Literally.
7. Kramer is the best sitcom character.
8. Switchfoot \m/s
9. Maida is used for making structure by Informalz and for making Bhatura by mess bhaiyas.
10. Back IC in the night is the best place to celebrate birthdays.
11. There exists a club which is responsible for making medals for fests.
12. Khetri is haunted.
13. CSK has the highest win percent.
14. Illads are narcissists.
15. There is a magazine in library which tells you about the latest television hindi sops.
16. Taste of Maggi is dependent on the place where it is served.
17. You are bound to receive the same gift again by then end of four years. #PigeonHolePrinciple
18. There is a secret underground kitchen in cnot . All paneer dishes in cnot are made there.
19. Never let truth come in the middle of a good story.
20. “Dude!” sounds more genuine if pronounced with a heavier base.
21. CGPA matters.
22. C6:A7::Joginder Sharma:Dale Steyn
23. Slap bets is the coolest form of betting.
24. If you are good at something, don’t do it for free.
25. MAMO is rigged since B dude is not allowed to participate.
26.  All conversations end with “Lite ra!”.
27. The guy who fixes electric poles knows more about three phase current than I #ES1.
28. Everyone in last four years has played a prank or has been played with.
29. Cricbuzz updates faster than Cricinfo.
30. At any point of time, the number of BITSians inside Forum Mall, Bangalore >=2.
31. Ego is directly proportional to CGPA. CGPA is directly proportional to Ego. #chickeneggchicken.
32. My biggest enemy on campus – Segmentation Fault.
33. Bitsian Tshirts - Wardrobe Malfunction.
34. Malai Masala at UCO redi is the best snack on campus.
35. EEE CDCs are over hyped.
36. Don't give advice to your students - they may listen! #shanb.
37. Every semester passes faster than the previous one.
38. Every batch seems worse than the previous one.
39. Pappuji wears false teeth.
40. Museum is the Disneyland of Pilani.
41. There exists a mafia which tears off nets from windows at the end of 2^nd semester.
42. is the right answer. Maybe you are asking the wrong question.

Cricket World Cup 2011

Cricket is a unique sport. Cricket is:

·         A game which can be played for five days as well as for a few minutes.

·         A game which can be played with a book (book cricket), leg(leg cricket) or even with a writing pad(used to play with a writing pad after an examination in school days).

·         A game which can be played on a beach, on a roof top, on a narrow ‘gali’ or on a computer.

·         A game whose rule book can be more amount of information than all what is learnt in RepWri.

·         A game which can lead to stone pelting in player’s houses.

·         A game which can make more than a billion people press the pause buttons on their lives. 

Cricket is perhaps the most complex game possible. Try explaining LBW to someone who has no idea about cricket and you will soon realize that an average Indian must be really smart to call an impact ‘plumb’ in a matter of seconds.

Cricket World Cup is big and it being in India makes it ginormous. This world cup started with India as the favorites, for the first time. India always had a good side(atleast since the start of 21^st century). They always had players who could grab victory from the pits of defeat single handedly. However they never seemed to work in cohesion. There was an unknown missing piece. A lacuna. MSD and Kirsten found that missing piece in the past few years and presented before the country, a team, which could replace the legacy of the Australian team of the post 1999 cricketing history.

Thanks to the generous administration at BITS Pilani, we were privileged to watch the match in the auditorium with two thousand fellow students. I have not seen many cricket matches in the stadium. However, I can still say with some amount of confidence, that the atmosphere in the audi can be termed as The next best thing to Wankhede. With face painted people carrying flags, bottles, hooters etc, it was bound to be an exciting show. Mrinal Manuj with his sticks and drums (“DhaTa DhaTad Tad.. Oye ... DhaTad Dhatad Tad ... Oye ”) made it even more special.

 The match started with a toss drama. On retrospection, I am glad that India lost the toss after that, ‘coz this gave the opposition no excuse whatsoever. The first innings was a typical one day innings with runs coming at its own ebb and flow. Zaheer Khan &Co. did a really good job in initial over. A bowling figure of 5-3-6-1 in a cricket final is every bowler’s dream. Till the batting powerplay of SriLanka, my hopes were riding very high on an Indian victory. They batted really well in the last few overs and the game was poised to be memorable, be it a victory for India or a defeat.

The start of the second innings was tragic. It was as if I took a shot of the bitterest drink possible. Sehwag(btw write Sehwag in MS Word and right click to see the spelling suggestions)  got out on the second ball of the match, without scoring a run. If this was not bitter enough, Sachin followed in the 6^th  over and I tasted bile. My instinctive reaction was to stand up and leave. Some people left and my only motivation to stay was that I wanted to occupy the seats these guys left. Next few overs were torture. Have you ever imagined how a person, who is sentenced to death, would feel minutes before his execution? I was staring at an imminent collapse. However, history was to be written in a different manner. Before going to the match, Narula(Dada) told me that he has a hunch that Gambhir would play well today; that this might be Gambhir’s day. And so it was. Gambhir played one of the best one day innings I have seen. I have seen Sachin hit many centuries. I have seen the NatWest final. But to stand in front of a bowling attack having Malinga and Murali in it, requires courage. This is a bowling attack which can be likened to a shark. They usually smell blood and take the 10 wickets in a jiffy. Gambhir stood his ground and along with Kohli he managed some fire fighting. Kohli departed and to the surprise of everyone Dhoni came in to the ground. Blah Blah Blah(I’m sure you would hear this  tale uncountable number of times in the days to come)…4 to win from 11 balls.

Image Courtesy: Siva Subrahmanyam

When Dhoni hit the last six over long on, I got numb. I realized that this was going to be the best world cup final that I would EVER be witnessing. My imagination fails me in giving a picture of a world cup final which can possibly be better than this one. What followed the victory was a constant joyous screaming in the audi which continued for hours at stretch in the streets of our campus, to be paused only by ocassional crackers. One of my friends Rahul pointed out that people wouldn’t have been as happy when they got job offers in campus placement. I nodded my head in affirmative as I didn’t remove my tshirt when I got my job. As it has been pointed out by many through facebook status messages that 2007 batch saw the T20 victory and CWC ’11 victory, I can just feel lucky. I remember that day in 2007 very vividly and I will remember 2^nd April till my memory lasts. 

Lessons from BITS Pilani – First Impression

Hype is perilous. I almost made up my mind to hate BITS Pilani for the first impression it offered. When a starry-eyed teenager successfully clears a competitive exam and reserves a berth in one of the premier institute of the country, he does not expect a dull, almost ghostly, set of morbid concrete structures to stare back at him when he enters the campus.

However fate had it that the first day on BITS Pilani campus was destined to be the worst day of my BITSian life till date. On a sultry morning, early August, I got on to a Rajasthan Roadways bus from Jaipur, having no idea about the time it was going to take for me to reach Pilani (If I were asked how much time it would take, I would have probably said 3 hours). The journey was an ordeal. By the time we reached Pilani, I resembled a marathon runner (the ones who fail to win, not the happy ones). And this was when the authorities felt it was apt to take a photograph for the ID card which would last with me for the next four years (even beyond).

The misery had just begun. The room which we booked at CEERI guest house never got booked and my parents and brother had to stay in the hostels for the next few days. Also, there was no electricity and it was impossible to sleep, less because of heat, more because of the murder of the hype. Hype is perilous.

The first impression had been created, and it was surely not a very positive one. The serious "interactions" with the seniors didn’t help either.

 But things took a turn by the time the first music night arrived. During the music night I felt for the first time that college life had begun. After meeting different seniors and getting a hang of how things worked, there was no looking back. I was awestruck by the sheer magnitude of things undertaken by students. I realized that it is people (The ones who live and the ones who lived) who make BITS Pilani. I understood that it is an imperfect living organism and not an inanimate masterpiece of a sculpture. I fell in love with this place in spite of all its flaws.

I learnt my first lesson. Never let the first impression be the last impression. Be it with people, places or organizations, patience in judgment is a virtue.

Lessons from BITS Pilani

Gold is purified by putting it in a high temperature furnace. Neither am I gold  (more like shiny copper), nor did I get purified, but while studying in BITS Pilani I did feel the heat. From the very first day on campus, when the campus was devoid of electricity, to the first day of placements, I felt the heat, literally and figuratively.

I often try to remember the state of mind in which I was when I came into this college. I never imagined anything close to what I actually went through. Maybe I never imagined.

I wish to write an account of what I learnt from my few years in BITS Pilani. Lessons from BITS Pilani, a tribute to my alma mater. 

Connection Timed Out

Today the corridors of joblessness experienced the biggest tragedy of the semester. They were disconnected from LAN for more than 12 hours. It was marked by a period of extreme confusion and zombie-like behavior. The inmates of the Disneyland of Pilani went through the classic stages of grief:

1. Denial – “Hey it would not be gone for long. It will come back. It will come back”
2. Anger – “ Fish Fish Fish!!!”
3. Bargaining – “Atleast DC should have been working. I am not asking for anything more.”
4. Depression – “ My life is so sad, hey please pass on the newspaper”
5. Acceptance – “Damn it!! Lets play cricket!"

Expecting the spread of the jasmine revolution( it was started by jobless (I mean unemployed) people of the countries, here at pilani we just have joining dates which are a good number of months away), the authorities took evasive action and revived the central nervous system of our bhawans by afternoon. Peace. 

Cricket on Campus

Day before yesterday I witnessed yet another nail biter in the common room. It was an addition to the numerous amazing cricket moments which I have witnessed in my last few years on campus. Here is a brief account of three such cricketing moments  which I cherish the most.

YUVRAJ SINGH DEMOLISHING BROAD FOR 6 SIXES:

It was my first year and I was in Krishna Bhawan. The first T20 world cup was going on and Inda was playing against England. The innings was reaching its completion and I decided to peek inside common room to see the score. I reached in the middle of this over where Yuvi had hit Broad for sixes in the first two balls of the over. There was a unique buzz in the common room. It was as if ever y one knew what were to happen. With Ravi Shastri screaming through his mouth piece and Flintoff trying all field arrangements, Yuvraj kept on hitting. By the time he had hit 4 sixes, everyone was standing on their chairs. The shouts from common room had forced the ever curious BITSian to leave his AOE/CS match, his lacha, his ghoting and his what-not to witness something unique. 

And before Yuvraj hit the last shot out of the park, the common room was full and people screaming at the top of their voices. It is an amazing experience to scream at the maximum possible volume and still be unable to  hear one’s own voice.

T20 WORLD CUP FINAL 2007:

The T20 world cup in 2007 was crazy. For the first time we witnessed a super over. We thrashed the mighty aussies in the semis. And we braced ourselves for a faceoff with our arch rivals; Pakistan.

 I was doing Engineering Graphics in that semester. I had to miss the Australia match for the EG test the next day. The match was aired in the audi and it felt really cruel on IC’s part to have scheduled the test in the middle of the world cup. India won a sensational match. The final was on a weekday and was starting at around 6 in the evening. People started pouring inside audi and started ‘reserving’ seats for their wing/club/dept. There were people with empty water bottles, blue jersey, face paint (tricolor) etc. The atmosphere was, as commentator’s often put it, electric. India went in first with the bat. I don’t remember what happened in the innings. All I remember is that the match was evenly poised after the Indian innings.

The innings break came and none of us were ready to budge from our seats. It was the biggest mass mess bunk which I remember (although it was told later that the messes would remain open even after the match, but did we really care for food after the match?)

The match resumed and the balance tilted slightly towards India by the middle of the Pakistani innings. However, the danger was still lurking large. Misbah-ul-Haq was on crease. To give a little background, Misbah is the tragedy king of Pakistani cricket(at least during 2007). He would take Pakistan out of impossible situations and give them hope. And then he would kill that hope in the most merciless and trivial fashion possible.

He comes and shatters the Indian bowling attack by hitting Harbhajan for 3 sixes in an over and tilting the game in their favor. Before the end of last over, Pakistan requires 13 runs to win the cup. Joginder Sharma is given the ball. Joginder Sharma, the slow slow-medium pace bowler that Indian cricket team had discovered during that world cup, starts the historic over with a wide. On the second bowl of the over, Misbah hits a six. The equation reads 6 from 4 balls. Then comes the anti climax. Misbah tries the Dilscoop and finds Sreesanth waiting for a catch. We win.

The audi was screaming at the top of its voice. People started running out of the audi on to the roads. I also ran out. At distance we could hear firecrackers burning. I loved being on campus that day more than ever.

SACHIN’S 200:

It was in my 3-2. That particular day we were having our Database Systems lab. By the time we entered the lab, Sachin had scored his century. I and Prashanth discuss the possibility of Sachin making a double century. For the initial few minutes we fulfilled the formalities of downloading the labsheets and opening SQL server. However, cricbuzz.com and cricinfo.com were where our hearts lay. Sachin kept on making fun of the South African attack. In the lab, there was a visible restlessness. Everyone had their favorite cricket websites open in their browsers(multiple websites for some). It was as if people's cricketing intuition told them that this was no ordinary Sachin innings. By the end of 46^th over Sachin was on 196. By now the lab lost all its respect. People were clapping for every single run that Sachin took. Some people even left the lab (on the pretext of going to the washroom) and went back to their bhawan common room. The less brave sat back and endured the most annoying cameo by an Indian batsman. Dhoni was treating the bowlers as if they were from an under-14 school squad and for the first time ever he was booed for doing that, coz on the other end, the little master was a little away from the historic double century. 

The final over came, Sachin took a single and became the first person ever to make a double century in One Day Internationals. People were clapping and silently screaming in the DBS lab. I was ecstatic.

Watching cricket in campus has been one of the best stress busters. The unique rivalry seen in the common rooms during IPL is worth mentioning. Will miss all this. 

Image Courtesy: www.cricinfo.com and www.planetcricket.net

The Human Network Software Engineer

If I were to draw a graph on my life with time as the x axis and success as y axis, I would end up drawing a sinusoidal curve. The best part of it is that I have always hit the peak when it mattered. With regard to my BITSian life, the two major peaks include my entry into BITS (a hefty BITSAT score) and my exit (getting placed in Cisco Systems).

Getting placed in Cisco is something which I dreamt of the whole of last semester. During Practise School, I used to live in BTM layout and my PS station was in Marathahalli. Every day while travelling on my company bus to office, I would cross the cisco campus. One random day, while sitting in the bus, I prayed a small prayer, asking God to help me get a job in that company. And before I could realize, this start became a habit and I found myself uttering this one line prayer every day. It’s funny and amazing how things work out. Praise God!!!

The popular view on campus and the monetary benefits has forced me really hard into using my dream job option and sit for another company. However, I am a religious man and I think if God answered my prayer, it must be His will that I join cisco. Let His will be done. 

Dr. Manmohan Singh - A Role Model

ACT I

SCENE I

(Chamber of Admissions Dean, BITS Pilani. )

Enter Prof. X, Prof. Y, Prof. Z, STUDENT

Prof. Y: Tell us someone whom you consider a role model.

(Awkward silence)

STUDENT: (Nervous) Pardon?

Prof. X: Who is your role model?

STUDENT: Lalu Prasad Yadav.

(Thunder strikes in the distance. Curtains dance under the influence of wind gushing in through the windows. )

Prof. Z: What?

Prof. Y: What?

Prof. X: What?

(Student scratches his head. Bites his finger. Swallows the bile juice back. Hopes to get swallowed by the earth.)

It was one of those few moments when I could hear myself speak; when suddenly my mouth was no longer under my control. The interview was for selection of top 20 candidates for applying in the prestigious Aditya Birla Scholarship (the interview was conducted due to the ambiguity of status of ranking of board toppers in the application process). Here in front of me were some of the most reputed professors of the institute and I had to justify in the next few seconds as to why I considered Lalu as my role model. I took a deep breath and conjured an answer. I told them about seeing a documentary on Lalu which showed how he rose from being the son of a farmer to becoming the railway minister of India. This reply did keep them from probing me further; however I had stumped myself for sure. No offence Lalu, but you are not good enough to be my role model. That day marked the beginning of my silent leisurely quest on finding a role model.

Over the past few years nobody seemed to fill that spot. I had nightmares of being asked the same question again in some interview. However, over the past few days, I found my answer in the form of Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Till a little time back I used to consider him Sonia’s side-kick. A puppet Prime Minister. I had heard about his stint in the finance ministry in the early 90s however it never caught my attention much. However my recent penchant for knowledge, soul searching and random wikiing during my practice school semester made me stumble across the Wikipedia entry on economic crisis which India faced in the early 90s and the start of liberalization.

Let me tell you the story of India. A story of rags to possible riches.

Just before Manmohan Singh took charge of country’s wallet, Republic of India was on the brink of bankruptcy. The fiscal deficit was as high as 12.7% of the GDP. Our foreign reserves were barely enough to pay for 3 weeks’ worth of imports. A timely intervention of IMF (in lieu of gold) saved our neck. In return for 67 tons(!!!!) of gold, we received a loan of $2.2 billion. The then government, led by Chandrashekhar, which took the loans and sold everything we had, lost its power in the center within few months. The elections took place in the month of May and June 1991 which was marred by the death of Rajiv Gandhi after the first round of polling. The congress won the elections and Narsimha Rao was brought back in the party from a near retirement. He became the Prime Minister of India amidst the death of Rajiv Gandhi and a crippled economy.

This was the point where Narsimha Rao took a brave decision of keeping the seat of finance minister out of the hand of any political big shot. He requested IG Patel, ex-governer of RBI and the then director of London School of Economics and Political Science to take over the finance ministry. But he declined. He chose Dr. Manmohan Singh as his next option. When he offered this post to Dr. Singh, he was surprised and confused at the same time. His colleagues tried convincing him that the prime minister is looking for a future scapegoat. In an interview he once said:

“I'd held all the top civil service jobs, but here was an opportunity to play a political role, and there was an odd chance that we would make a success of it, in which case I would have a footnote in India's history. If I fail, that's of no great consequence. And who fails if India wins?”

He took over as the finance minister of India on 21 June 1991. He had a task of a surgeon who had to treat a patient’s abdomen which had been messed up by a novice intern. However he took it up as a challenge and an excuse for change.

He initiated a shift in the economy from a Nehruvian Socialism to a Pro Capitalist philosophy. License Raj was given a pink slip. The government decided to gradually move out from businesses where it was unnecessarily existent. It paved way for a red tape free Foreign Direct Investment in many sectors. The impact of this was such that the FDI increased from US$132 million in 1991–92 to $5.3 billion in 1995–96. We made our markets open for the global game. Urbanization was put on a fast track. The unprecedented growth of tier 2 cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune etc was a side effect of this treatment.

He has been accused of not repeating the magic in his tenure as PM. This might be partially true. However the way in which he fought for the Nuclear Bill has proved once again that no matter how mild he might sound, here is one man, who likes to play rough.

The thing which makes him adorable is his humility. He neither has the haughty air of a premier of a country nor does he have a know-it-all attitude of a scholar. He is one person who excelled in what he did. Be it education, teaching or the government, he was a source of inspiration to all. Recently he was among the most powerful people of 2010 list of Forbes. He was also listed as “The Leader other leaders love” in their list of 10 respected world leaders by Newsweek.

I don’t consider myself his ardent fan. I might not agree to his political opinion. However, I admire him for his willingness to move out of his comfort zone and venturing into an unsafe zone (the political jungle). I am also fond of his serene smile.

So next time when someone asks me who my role model is, I would reply – Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of my country who took the energy problem of my country by its horn, a finance minister who took my country out of global shame, an economist who left the comfort of best universities of the world to come back to India to serve the Indian academia and then the government machinery, a student who studied under a lamp, lost his mother early in his life, bore the pains of relocation due to partition, walked kilometers for water and still had the audacity to pursue education at the centers of excellence and a man who is humble enough to still own a Maruti 800.

I Wonder

Being nostalgic makes one cheesy. So be it. Approaching a semester away from campus and then the realization of having one final semester on campus has made me ponder upon what it meant for my life to be a bitsian. Why a period of 4 years of life in a certain place has made an indelible change in my life like never before and perhaps never after.

I wonder whether anything else can be more festive in life than oasis, apogee or bosm. I wonder whether any other musical performance will be more ‘apna’ than our music night. I wonder whether lazing around anywhere else in the world be more exhilarating than in sky lawns. I wonder whether I would ever eat anything as ritually as maggi. I wonder whether I would be giving ‘doubs’ to anyone on a cycle ever again. I wonder whether I would ever grab an ice cream a day in summer. I wonder whether I would ever watch sitcoms all day and all night and all day again. I wonder whether I would ever be jobless enough to listen to “Welcome to hotel keralaphonia” over and over again till it is no longer funny. I wonder whether I would ever put a night out because of a power cut. I wonder whether I would ever run in a heavy downpour with my laptop on my back. I wonder whether I would ever sing with my friends, like retards in the middle of a street. I wonder whether I would ever be able to scare someone by telling him that I am gay. I wonder whether I would ever attend some friend’s course because the instructor was apparently funny. I wonder whether I would ever draw graffiti over my cupboard. I wonder whether I would be stinking with the smell of rotten maida, turpentine and insomnia. I wonder whether black thunder would ever haunt my morning routine. I wonder whether I would ever sleep in the middle of the road. I wonder whether I would ever dance (rather jump) like how I did when KK sang and euphoria crooned. I wonder whether I would ever be able to do anything more pointless than fighting over whether ‘A7’ has more search results than ‘C6’ on google. I wonder whether I would ever pour water over the floor to make the room cool. Oh there is so much to wonder at.

And why all this would never happen again is because we are growing old and we had our chance to live our life to the fullest. What made it an awesome experience were the people around here. A bunch of smart people with thwarted egos (failure in IIT-JEE) are an ideal kind of folks for a lifetime of memories preserved in some GBs of photographs. I can’t stop wondering though.

Election junk

This post is inspired from one of the coolest bitsian blog post which i read last year which was instrumental in pushing me into this time killing tirade of blogging, a cynical post on last year’s election by atin bhattacharya http://atinbhattacharya.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-so-serious-son.html.

This post is a combined effort (sounds like we are launching a satellite) of Prashanth aka pomp aka skyindian aka abhinav aka ramesh aka etc... and me.

The following are the points that we agree deliver if by some stroke of luck, anarchy or because of some cosmic catastrophe one of us is made prez.

1. Candle bulk booking – in the wake of this power crisis, let’s all burn candles, the ghoting season is coming soon(having A7 and A3 people in the same mess can’t make me think of anything else other than acads). Bulk bookings of candles and hand held fans will be carried out by SU. We are in contact with major candle makers who have agreed to supply candles of all sizes, colours, aroma, low on carbon emissions etc.

2. Super thrust nuclear powered flushes – we promise to have this new technology installed in all hostel bogs. Dirty bogs has given me nightmares after waking up in the morning. “Black Thunder” is also in fray so can’t take a risk.

3. Ghot Bunkers – these bunkers will be created for all the gaming addict CDC students who want to ghot but cant live without the deafening voices of bullets and fellow humans.

These bunkers will have all the audio (from canon’s bursting... to “Go!!!Go!!! Go!!!”) to keep the addicts sane while they try to study. In case of overwhelming urge to kill other souls, there will be baskets full of LGMF provided in the bunker.

4. Chewing gum defaulters – this point has been a matter of havoc for my co-author who has spent sleepless nights figuring out ways to punish the defaulters. An excerpt from his dormant domer blog

“Chewing Gum on Chairs...Yuck!!!

If you have been a victim of this form of terrorism....Welcome to the club. We shall strongly comdemn these actions. These are acts of cowardice and the perpetrators shall be...er...ok..ok.

If you have done this blasphemy, be warned...the Mafia never forgets....one day your laptop keypad will be smeared with chewed gum ( only Center Fresh allowed ).”

5. Camels – it was great disappointment for most of the people who came from different parts of the country to study in the state of rajasthan and to find themselves bereft of camel rides. So camels will be available as a mode of transport in the campus. It will be available for sale in nutan market soon. Once everyone on the campus has a camel each, the next years freshers can buy the camels from psenti semites. They will be called camel pops.

6. Illumination- As the swine flu and rakhi sawant’s swayamvar has caused the nation huge emotional and mental loss respectively, we would like to conduct musical chair, tambola, rock-paper-scissors etc along with the few elite enlightened souls on campus who had set gym-g on fire last year.

Last but not the least (the original cliché) “this is a dictatorship, defaulters will be shot dead”