Sree

Dec 31st 2008 10:17 pm. The year 2008 almost coming to an end. In less than 2 hours a whole new year starts. What does that mean?. Nothing except that my vacation is done with and the 2nd semester starts tomorrow :(. I may as well end this year with a new blog. What better topic for the blog other than my experiences in Mood-i. Mood-i is the yearly cultural event that is conducted by IIT Bombay. It happens towards the end of December of each year. This year it was from 20th-23th of December. Mood-i is the biggest ever cultural program that I have ever attended till date and the experiences were worth it's weight in gold. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the campus on 20th since I had a get together with my close friends at Kochi on 19th. I, along with my classmate Vinu, reached campus on 21st around afternoon. As soon as we entered the campus, the sea change that the campus had undergone hit us with full impact. At first I thought I may have ended up in heaven surrounded by ...

Have you ever had an experience where you knew, or rather, expected, that the next few seconds may well be your life's last? Well, I had one such experience years ago. It had such an impact on me that I am sure even if amnesia conquers me, it will never be able to get rid of this little piece of memory from my head. This one experience, more than anything that has happened to me till now, have made me realize the beauty of the entity called life. I think it was when I was around 9 or 10 years old. My father had bought me a new cycle some months back and from then on cycling substituted walking as my chief mode of transport. Irrespective of whether the distance was too small or too far, me and my cycle were inseparable. During that time I had a friend called Naveen. He used to stay in a lane near to my house. His house was such that it was almost like being on the top of a hill since the lane was a steep climb upwards and his house was at the end of this lane. Starting from his hous...

As usual, on vacations, I have nothing better to do other than sleep, watch movies and waste time. Today I was just lying down on the bed, remembering my school life. I had done my whole schooling from LKG to 12th, at the same school :- St Thomas Residential School in trivandrum. As I was going through my school life, I was seized with a big urge to write a small post in my blog dedicated to my school life memories. There are lots and lots of things which I would like to write about my school life, but then I guess I can't put down the entire things in one post. So here I am putting down in words some of my fondest memories of my school life. It was when I was in 4th standard. I was one hell of a restless mischievous naughty boy then. The lunch break was the time when most of the actions took place on those days. The lunch break was a horror time for my classmates while it was party time for me. The moment everyone washes their hands and sits down to have their lunch, their horro...

Now before u guys jump into any conclusions, lemme clarify...my wedding is still a long time away :D. This is about the wedding that I attended today. The background for attending this wedding is this. A few days back, Jijith sent me an invitation through mail and chat inviting me to his elder bro's marriage on dec 4th. So who is Jijith? He was my onsite coordinator when I was working in Infosys chennai. For those who don't know who an onsite coordinator is, he acts as an interface between the offshore guys and the client who is in the onsite (Usually an onsite is a synonym for USA for most of the projects in our account). Since Dec 4th happened to be the time when I would be at my hometown for vacations, I readily agreed because, though I had a very friendly and cordial relation with Jijith, I had never met him in person. All our contacts were through chats and/or phone. Though he had come to chennai office once, when he had come to India, I was at my hometown that day. So I w...

All right all right it is just the end of the semester and not an era, but c'mon what's life without some harmless exaggerations :). So, finally, after months of toil, hard work, and studies by my classmates and a little bit by me also, we have finally reached the end of our first semester and now it's vacation time!!! For me,it will take sometime for this feeling to sink in. Even the feeling that I am studying in an IIT itself has not yet sunk in, let alone this one. I really don't know how I feel about completing (somehow) the first semester. It seems just yesterday that we had all gathered in the Kresit hall and were introducing each one of us to each other. That day it was a hall full of strangers. Now, whenever I think about it, it was a hall filled with new found friends, some who have become very close in a short span of time. I must say time really flies fast. I feel great on completing one semester, and looking forward to spending a few days of rest at home and...

It's exam season in IIT. Wherever you look, one can see the smoke from the overheated heads of the young minds. Some interesting changes happen during exam times. Night tea is available for free after 10 pm. Earlier the internet used to get disconnected after 12 am, now it is extended till 4 am so that students can "study" online. Selected stationary shops and photostat shops will be kept open till 1 am. Fewer people are seen on the roads. All in all everyone and everything contributing to building a big scary environment. But there was one guy who, even 2 days before the exams were to begin, was yet to show any signs of being "affected" by these changes. Yup, that's me. Yeah he did welcome the night tea change - he got tea free now....he welcomed the internet change - he could download more movies now. He didn't even bother about other changes. Why would he want to bother with photostats when he doesn't even know what to photocopy. One month befor...

All my posts till now were of non-serious genre. So this time I thought why not a serious one. Yeah ,me and serious, it sounds oxymoron to most of the people I know. But then hey, lemme atleast give it a try. Through this journey of life, I have encountered many wonderful people who have been my source of inspiration and at the same time my source of fun and happiness. I want to dedicate this post to all of them. Some of the people I have known at some point or the other, will tell that I am a jovial fun loving person to be with, while some may say I am a non-serious guy, loves teasing people...while others go a little more forward and tell that I am an immature guy who likes making fun of others. It's not always that the people have told me these things, though sometimes they do tell. But mostly it is the impression that I get when I am with them or may have heard from others. I am one person who cannot survive without friends. Friendship is one thing I treasure a lot. Different p...

We all have our own small incidents, which may not be big enough to write about or important enough to tell others, but yet may amuse you when it somehow crosses your mind. I too have my collection of these small incidents some of which are amusing, while some are foolish and stupid. I am writing about some of these here. On one beautiful ( This I am guessing :D) saturday morning, I got up around noon. Having nothing better to do, I thought why not take a bath (What a timepass). The previous night I had the usual struggles of my life, finishing off a damn assignment and so had slept late. Having got up soo "early", I was still not fully awake. I took my bucket and soap and went to the bathroom. I hung my shorts on a hanger, outside the bathroom, and went inside to take a bath. Soon I was enjoying the cool waters from the shower. After finishing my shower, I reached out to take my towel. Nothing came to my hand. I turned around. Oyee where is my towel. Then suddenly it stuck m...

The first reaction of a person getting through IIT is "Yahooo (maybe google will be better) I have reached the top of the world...."..well herein lies the problem ....when u reach the top of the world from one side of the world, the momentum takes you down through the other side. This,in short,tells you the life of an IITian (atleast as far as Mtech goes). Well my story is no different. I can't forget the day when the results were declared and to my pleasant surprise I got through ( I had already started preparing for next year's exam). Well that is how I reached the top of the world. Now comes the interesting part-the sliding down part. Once in IIT I made this grand plan of playing one sport each day, seeing 2 movies a day, go out sight seeing mumbai each weekend. 2 weeks later, I still didn't know the nearest bus stop to our IIT campus, already submitted one assignment, screwed up a quiz and knew each corner of the our department lab like the back of my hand. N...

The professors in our campus are really unbeatables. Most of them are soo good that they can give their counterparts in MIT a run for their money. Obviously they are the best in our country. Most of them are damn good in what they have specialized, their degrees speaks volumes of their abilities. Most of them are PHds from highly reputed institutions.But in this post, I want to express in a comical exaggerated way some interesting features of some of them. For obvious reasons, I won't name anyone :D. Most of the descriptions given below are based on what my friends have told me since I haven't taken up those courses taught by them. There is one professor who loves the blackboard very much. So much so that if a bomb explodes, he will run out of the class carrying the blackboard. I am sure if the blackboard was given a chance to write the exams, it would have topped the class for that course. Then there is another prof who speaks soo fluently in english, but hates seeing anyone s...

There are lots of events that are held in our hostel. One of them was the volleyball competition. There were about 5-6 teams that were competing in this. All the team members were UG guys (UnderGraduates). So there was no team to represent the PG guys ( PostGraduates ). So the organiser approached one of my friends and he agreed to cobble up a team. After we discussed it among ourselves, 6 of us from Mtech 1st year computer science batch managed to form a team. Anand was made our captain. Now he was the only guy in the team who knew how to play this game. (We actually had to ask him all the rules minutes before our first game got underway ). So thus we formed a PG team and our match schedule was put up. Our first match was against the team representing the fifthies (5th year UG). The match was to be held at the volleyball ground inside our hostel. Special arrangements like putting up floodlights were done for this competition. And soon the day when our first match was to be held,arrive...

For those who don't know, Onam is a state festival of Kerala. It is what Christmas is for the people in the West and Diwali is to the North Indians. In IITB, we have a mallu ( people from Kerala are generally referred to as mallus ) association called MCA (Malayalee Cultural Association). Though Onam this year was around 2nd week of September, due to the ongoing examinations and other logistical problems, it was shifted to 1st week of October in IITB. As a part of this some of us, including me, were asked to do some programs. So to decide on something, we gathered at Anish's room. Anish, incidentally is my school teacher Vinay Bhai teacher's son :). Since we had not had much time to think upon any new idea , due to our hectic studies schedule, we decided to do a comedy dance which Anish and his friends had already done in college. The theme was a funny dance sequence involving all the leading malayalam film stars. He showed us that video. Man it was such a hilarious video, ...

Whew atlast I am finally able to put a blog . This month has been the most hectic in my whole life and indication are there that it is just a trailer. The movie is yet to be released. Anyway somehow I am cramping in this blog. Every year, on a beautiful day in september (usually) there is a dept trek organised by the CSEA (Computer Science and Engineering Association) guys. This year too was no different. This year it was fixed on Sept 21st and that was 2 weeks before. The place was called Duke's nose point in Lonavla, near Pune. As usual the week was jam-packed with all the crap assignments and quizzes (in fact the next day there was to be a quiz). But since I had already sorted out my priorities (and u can see assignments and quizzes at the bottom of the list) it was not much difficult for me to make a choice whether to go or not. But for some others, who are striving day and night to keep up the good name of IIT bombay as the technological leader, they had their assignments to c...

Atlast exams over!!!!!!!!!!! Yahooooooo...... My first experience with IIT bombay exams came to an end today and I realised why IITs are IITs and others are not...Unlike in UG where I had to increase my electricity bill by sitting throughout the night on the eve of the exam day, here almost all exams are open book, ie, you can keep open your lecture notes or text book in the exams....but apart from increasing your shoulder muscles by carrying the heavy text books to the exam hall, it isn't much helpful...most of the questions are application types where one ends up cursing the creator for giving only one brain (which by the way is also underutilised) . Though I felt this experience only for 1 out of the 3 exams I wrote (Other 2 were relatively ok types), my friends who have taken up other courses would vouch for what I just said. Anyway here is my experience in that one paper. Paper : Digital Image Processing Time : 2:30 pm (Can anyone tell me a better time to conduct an exam :(.....

As mentioned in my previous post, we had our CR (class representative) elections last friday. The 2 (yeah just 2 out of 90+) contenders for the post were Neha and Aadi. CR basically acts as a connection between the department and the students, so it was an important post. The candidates had already mailed their manifestos and the election was supposed to be held at around 9:30 pm. On the same day, at around 6:30 pm we had a program called college masti (or something like that). It was the program that was to kick start Mood Indigo, the cultural fest in IIT Bombay. The program was held in OAT (Open Air Theatre). We had a rocking time with many RJs anchoring the evening. It was non-stop masti, fun and dance for 2 hours. It was the first time in almost an year that I was experiencing such an evening and I made sure I made the full use of it. After the show, I was completely drenched in sweat and I looked like a maniac (pic: Me and Vishal after the show :D). So imagine the looks on eve...

So finally that day was arriving....the freshers' day...which each fresher looks forward to. I don't have any memory of my UG ( I guess I bunked the class that day :D). But then I remember my UG days only for the friends I got, nothing else. But in IIT, I had come with the determination that these 2 (hopefully!!!!!!) years I am going to make it my best. So I decided chalo y not do a skit that connects with all the students ( The thing is I used to wet my pants when I see a stage during my school days. So really had no idea how this is going to be :D). This way an idea came to my mind to do a comical skit based on the some of my friends in my class. So I called up Aadi and told him whether he is fine and can do a part. He said fine. So got 1 guy. Have to get one more. People may think what's the problem of getting a guy from a batch of 90+. Dude....this is mtech 08 batch. Finally Vishal also agreed for doing a part. I also somehow managed to get an "actress", Jayal...

The last one week was a very hectic one...due to the intermittent class timings the procedure was the same throughout...get up in the morning...have breakfast...1st class...come back and have lunch...go for the next class...come for snacks...then the next class or 2 and then tat's it...end of day...go to sleep. We have been given so much assignments that, leave studies,completing the assignments is itself a big ask. In between all these assignment chakkar, yesterday was janmashtami. It is a big time celebrations here. In our hostel also there was matki fod (break the pot) and tug-of-war events planned for the night. There was also an event occurring in our computer science department...that was the CR (Class Representative) elections. CRs basically act as an interface between the students and the department and so it was a very important one from the dept point of view. People were asked to nominate themselves to stand as candidates. But the response was pathetic. Even till the las...

After the first week or so in IITB we had a meeting of all the hostel inmates. This meeting was mainly for the freshers so that they can get to know how the hostel functions, what all events occur and so on. The first guy came forward to speak. Let's call him Mr A. We are the audience (Audi) A : Everyone please look to your right Audi : All heads turned right...we saw the TV...Oh yeah fashion TV was going on...err he wants us to see that?? A : No no not so right...a little more to the left Audi : All heads again turned left...back to facing Mr A A : ##$@$%#Q@ not so left ... fine i will my self say it...can u see 2 trophies on the table to the right Audi : He did all this circus to show us 2 trophies??? A : These were won by our hostel for the last intra-hostel cultural activity. It was won by students who had enthu (short form for enthusiasm) .We are not looking for talent, we want enthu people...enthu is what drives us to reach the goal...if we have enthu then sky is the limit ( ...

It's been oner month now since I have been in IITB. By now I have met some interesting people. I just wanna say some few words about some of them. This post is just for fun..so if the characters in this post happen to read this, plz don't kick my ass... 1) Aaditya In person, this guy looks so different from his orkut profile ..the first time i saw him in person i thought he was about to cry and was thinking of going and consoling him. But I realised later that this was how he looked always ...he is a very bhola bhala type..and a very friendly chap....and guess wat..this guy is in top 10 in his university...he has yet to give us a treat. 2) Vishal. This ex-lecturer of some university in gujarat is a gr8 guy to be with...but nowdays he has got into this bad habit of studying beforehand,the topics that the professor is going to teach for that day...hmm guess i need to do some real advicing...he has loaded his first semester with all the network courses he can take with a single mi...

"Knock Knock".... I looked at my watch...7:30 am...who the hell wakes up and then knocks at the door at this time and that too on a holiday... I opened the door.."Flag hoisting ke liye aa jao" (Come for the flag hoisting) As I look to my right and left of my room, I can see all my neighbours are punished the same way...That was then I realised why it was a holiday.... It was august 15th that day...our independence day. Suddenly a thought came crashing on to me...Oh no..the speech!!! The previous day we had received a mail about the independence program that will be held in our hostel that day. The itinerary for the next day was very much inviting and I was soo "excited". It follows in the below sequence.. The hall manager comes The hall manager hurls the flag The hall manager speaks The hall manager leaves Wonder where others come into picture in this program. I dragged myself, half asleep, to the flag hoisting function (did I brush my teeth that day???) ...