Freshers' Day

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", Jayalakshmi, also to play the female characters.

Thus the "team" was formed. We just had one hour or so to practise as we had extra classes ( I will kill the guy who introduced this concept of extra classes) today, which was also a saturday (supposedly a holiday ). But after practising for some time, the others started losing interest
. They were not sure people will feel anything comical about this. After sometime, we decided to drop the idea. So for the freshers party, from Mtech1 , we had 2 songs by girls ( Shubangi aggarwal and Riturekha Sen (they were such sweet songs, though don't ask me what songs they were...I was hearing it for the first time ), Poems by anup Kulkarni (he wrote them :) and they were awesome) and then a mixture of new and old songs by our 3 dudes Ajitav, Prasanth Borole and Saurabh Sohoney ( they had a great mixture of old,new,romantic,fast numbers)).

So the program finally started. according to the schedule, 1st Btechs show their programs, followed by the Mtechs. The Btech guys had a variety of programs in their kitty...2 good skits, 2 dances, variety of songs, good poems, a comical adaptation of ramayana...So when compared to all these, I thought mtech guys paled a bit in comparision, though whatever we performed were awesome. But I thought we should contribute more. So when the program was going to end, I informed my CR that I want to do the skit myself. i don't know how I became so thick skinned at that moment, but something told me to go and just do it. And then my show began. I have given below what I presented, but the actual fun was in actually enacting it out than just reading it. Still I am producing below what I did.

The scene was one person each from our batch will enter a room to talk with a guy sitting inside the room. We will consider the guy to be the registrar. We will address him as Reg.

Aaditya Joshi : Walk in

Reg : Hey why are you crying, what happened, don't worry we are all here to help you na. i know you will be missing your parents and others, but still..it will be fine. don't worry.

Aadi : Abee who's crying.

Reg : ( Looking closely onto his face) acha shakal hi aisa hei kya

Chandan Iyer walks in

Chandan : Sir, I have a doubt to ask. How many courses are there for Mtech.

Reg : Don't worry my boy..u have lots of courses to choose from...around 30 (looking very proud as if he teaches all the courses )

Chandan : (Looks disappointed) Oyee sirf 30??? Btech ke liye around 60 hei,phir bhi Mtech ke liye 30????(After thinking for sometime...)Lagtha hei PhD courses bhi lena padega mere ko

Reg : ( a fly goes into his mouth which was wide opened with shock)

Next Neha Jain walks in

Neha : Hey hi, good day eh?

Reg : Yeah sure

Neha : I am from Indore..Where are you from

Reg : O great, I am from Nagpur

Neha : What..You are from nagpur..U r not from indore?How can anyone be not from indore...I am a die hard Indorian..and u r from Nagpur...What bigger crime can happen..tumhei tho goli se udana chahiye

Reg : Watches her walk off and then checks his entire body to make sure she hasn't cut of any of his body parts for the great crime of not being from Indore.Whew lucky escape.

Next Rishi Chander walks in

Rishi (talking to his friend as he walks in ) : Machine vision (name of a Computer science course) is the future. If you don't know machine vision, then you have no vision. I have seen machine vision labs in IIT delhi and IIT kharagpur and by induction theory I proved that IIT bombay should also have one. (then Rishi sees the Reg). He raises his hand..."Sir I have a doubt"

Reg : Yeah tell me...

Rishi : Where is the bathroom...

Next Devshree Sane walks in

Dev : Sir, is there any boat clubs in IITB

Reg : No

Dev : (Looking shocked and covering her mouth)..Oh...OOOOhhhhh....OOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhh

Reg : Is something wrong?

Dev : A senior told me that 50 years ago there was a boat club in here.

Reg : O sorry I don't know...U see, I was not born then.

Next Jayalakshmi walks in

Jaya : Sir, i want to tell a PJ (Poor Joke)

Reg : (shocked) wat???

Jaya : sir plz plz plzz i want to tell a PJ.

Reg : (Sensing no escape).. Ok fine go ahead

Jaya : if PJ is poor joke, what is P+iJ (mathematical notation for complex numbers)

Reg : (After thinking hard and scratching his head and plucking out some hair ) sorry I give up..what is it

Jaya : A complex PJ..muhahaha..hehehhe...hohohoho...(rolling on the ground and laughing)..suddenly she looks up and see our Reg loking blank..."Y r u not laughing"

Reg : err sorry throat pain...

Our last man Debojyothi walks in

He walks in playing cricket shots...

Reg : what is ur name...

Deb : Debojyothi....dada rocks...

Reg : Kiska dada

Deb : Aree saurav ganguly re...

Reg : Acha..tho tum west bengal se ho

Deb : Yeah..Dada rocks

Deb : So how many courses are there in Mtech..Dada rocks

Reg : ( Thinking...lagtha hei bechare ne aaj subah bathroom nehi gaya ) around 30

Deb : o good...but dada really rocks na...

During the entire skit, the audience were laughing and clapping was like anything and after the skit got over, there was a great round of applause. It was a great feeling to have done something good, and that too something which was not at all planned. At the time of leaving, many guys (known and unknown) came over to me and complimented me for the good showing. It felt too good...just out of the world

krishna janmashtami

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 last moment only one person (out of around 90) had given nomination. Towards the end one more nomination came. Thus we had 2 candidates contesting...Aaditya joshi and Neha jain. In this context I must really congratulate both of them for the enthu they are showing in an otherwise very do-not-care attitute of our batch.

The candidates were asked to come out with their manifestos of how they would go about doing their CR duties. Then there was going to be a soapbox session (where the cadidates explain their manifesto and the people from our batch can question the candidates) followed by elections. The problem was that the CR election and the janmashtami events were clashing in their timings and I had to choose between them. I choose the elections, with a heavy heart (as I really wanted to see it). But I thought the former was more of a responsibility than a pleasure.

But when I reach there for the elections, what do I see...just about 20% of our batch have turned up and the election required atleast 50%. It was such a pathetic response that I felt a sense of anger towards the general unresponsive attitude of our batch. We waited for some more time and then decided to postpone the election. I felt kind of irritated because I had to miss the hostel events due to this and now even this is not happening. Crap!!!

Me and my roomie, sheiku, slowly made our way back to the room. But when we reached the hostel, we were in for a surprise...the events have not yet started...yahoooooo!!!!!!!!!!
After 10 minutes or so the events did start. The first one was the matki fod. Here what happens is that there will be a pot tied at a height of around 5 meters from the ground. People will need to form a sort of pyramid. First around 8-9 people huddles together, with their hands on the shoulders on their left and right guy. Then 3-4 people climb of top of this "base" and then a 3rd person climbs on top of these 2 layers and try to break the matki. This was my first of a kind experience for me.

The event got underway. Me and my friends Vishal and Nirmal (from electrical dept) too joined in. Most of the guys, including me, took to the arena in just shorts. It was decided that 8 people will form the base, 4 on top of them and then a 3rd guy on top of us to break the matki. As all of were discussing of how to go about it, suddenly a bucket of water fell on us...."abee saale bhen**** teri maa ki..." shouts came out from the group...For me this water business was unexpected and I was totally drenched...

I was at the base (fat people are not allowed to climb others shoulders and break others hands :D). There were 8 of us. The water kept falling on us from the 2nd and 3rd floor....and the swearings kept coming out...The 2nd layer started forming. Everyone was shouting "Alareeeeee govindaaaaaaa"...The moment a guy got on to my shoulders I was like "O man this guy weighs a ton"...but the spirit of alare govinda kept all of us going....in between the guys on the top floor started pouring hot water...the swearing too got hotter....the water was soo hot that the cry of "alare govinda" was replaced by "aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh $#&#@#%$"...we could even see smoke rising from the ground once the water touched the floor...

But we still kept on going...The 2nd layer was formed. (the guy above me seemed to have a special ability to increase his weight every second)...The last guy started climbing...by this time the "pyramid" already started shaking :D...suddenly..."dim dim dim...." before I knew what happened my shoulder suddenly felt light...then only I saw it...the 2nd layer and 3rd layers were now on the "ground floor"...one on top of the other...one guys head was inside the pile on the ground and his 2 legs jutting out...everyone started laughing out soo much...the ground had turned so much muddy with water that we were all covered in mud...

This went on like this for some 4-5 times,climbing and falling, before we successfully broke the pot. Cries of joy exploded out and it was all round celebrations. People were kicking mud on each other..photos taken...as for me it was such a good time...never in the recent past could I remember myself to be covered in so much mud and still enjoying...This was followed by tug of war. All in all it was such a gr8 day..one of my most memorable.

Enthu

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 ( I could see only the roof in this room)...if we have enthu we can do this if we have enthu we can do that this enthu that enthu..enthu here enthu there....I started wondering whether,after he was born, his mother fed him 1 kg enthu instead of milk....

Anyway after the "enthu" meeting got over, I got some of that enthu and registered for the TT (table tennis) competition in the hostel. The schedule was put up and my match was the first one. I went to the TT room, took the TT racquet. The "umpire" said, so let's start the game. I said, "helloo, what are the rules"...He2 was a bit surprised and asked "haven't you played before"...I said, naa but I have lots of enthu u see....

The game started....and ended...in space of 2 minutes....the result was an upset victory...upset for me and victory for my opponent...I don't want to tell the scores here...but I still have my enthu left...anyone want some???

My classmates

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 minded determination to get into CISCO (a company specialising in networks)...just imagine what will happen after 2 yrs if,by chance, CISCO ,decides to take a break from recruiting...hmm someone is really gonna get pissed off...

3) Sumair (my roomie)
He is one roomie anyone will pray to get...a guy with a good sense of humour and thus total time pass when we are in the room...though theoretically the laptop is his, practically it's mine..since I don't let the poor guy use it...Since he's a muslim, he's legally allowed to have 7 wifes
(You r dead buddy!!!) and he is planning to take full advantage of it by trying to fill up all 7 slots...Sumair (aka sheiku) is currently doing his 1st year project...how to fill up the first slot...he has already decided on his "target". The code name for this target is "subbu"...all the best dude...

4) Rishi
Now this is one guy who i will never forget.....the sanjay dutt of our class (He has a musafir type moustache), this guy is never short of doubts...so much so that there are reports that one particular prof (can't reveal his name) has lost half his hair plucking it out each time he opens his mouth...he can stun people with his ability to solve anything under the sun with induction theory (which even einstein can't do...whew) and his billion dollar doubt in every course is "why there is no machine vision course in iit bombay" (machine what???)..but the best thing about him is even though people tease him about his doubts, he takes them in his stride and laughs along with others..it's a rare gift dude..keep it up...

5) vinu,anand,raj paul, kuriakose,jayalakshmi
These are the mallu group of our batch. If not for these guys I would have missed my home much more.

6) chandan iyer
Now this is one guy who, if it were possible, would have taken up all the courses that were offered (around 10-20)...but (un)fortunately due to timely advices he has taken up only 4..poor guy he's heart broken ......he always there to help others and u can be sure i am going to make the maximum use of this...i am evil..

Unfortunately, other than jayalakshmi, i don't have any contact with the girls group...hopefully in the days to come this will be recitfied...

Independence Day

"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???)
The function started and the above events started unfolding in the the exact sequence...half way through the speech, I started from where I stopped...back to sleep...who said only horses can stand and sleep...

I was having a wonderful time in my dreamy world (surronded by lots of angels btw :D ) when I was rudely brought down to this cruel world by claps all around me. The manager had finished his speech and our national anthem started playing on the background after which the function got over. No use going back to sleep now. Fine, then let me go and have breakfast. They must have made something special today. I entered the mess with all expectations...I looked at the menu .."O man not poha again!!!"What a start to the day....

Most of the people had gone home for the "mini vacation". As my travelling time is around 32 hrs by train, that option was ruled out for me (Y not plane?? dude I am a student now..remember?...and students are supposed to travel by train...who said??...I said). So thus started my first boring day after I joined IITB.

Somehow the day dragged on. Laptop usage was out of question since my roomie had to complete an assignment. So no films, no internet, no friends on a day which is meant to celebrate one's independence. Well by evening, I had enough. I decided to go and play badminton. The court was about 1 km away (yeah the campus is big guys!!!). When I reached the place what do I see...the place is locked up!!! Can my day get anymore worse!!!

But I was not ready to give up. I said "Fine, if no badminton then atleast tennis". I returned back to my room (another 1 km), took my tennis racquet and went to the tennis court (another 1 km). I could see people playing. Whew my day was not that bad after all. The courts were full and I waited for my chance. After half an hour (Or was it???I really think my watch was running slow that day) I atlast got my chance to play (finally!!!). I took out my racquet, and was about to walk to the court when......it started drizzling...then raining heavily...I stood there foolishly and looking at the sky and jumbling whatever came to my mouth. I came back to my room in the rain (another 1 km)

What an independence day!!!

meow meow

One strange thing that one can find in my hostel is the number of dogs and cats that have made our canteen their homes. I wouldn't fault someone, who arrives new at our hostel, if he thinks he lost his way and arrived in a zoo. I guess PETA guys must have got the contract to run our hostel.

On my first day (or rather night since I reached my hostel at night) in hostel, after getting my dinner, I was looking for a good sofa to sit and have my dinner in front of the TV( in the TV room). I found a good chair with a good looking black sofa. I was about to sit when I saw the "sofa" opening it's eyes and purring...man it scared the shit out of me...i looked around and saw the room had less of hotel mates and more of dogs and cats. Somehow I managed to find a sofa that doesn't purr or bark and made myself comfortable.

As soon as I started eating I could see the "black sofa" and another "white sofa" looking at me soo innocently...I looked back at them with a look saying "No way dudes this is mine, I paid for this"...I started having my dinner. After sometime I could still see that these guys were still looking at me....I was like "Doesn't anyone give these guys any food"....Their looks were soo innocent that I thought they will cry anytime...Finally I gave in. Ok dudes just one loaf of bread..
I threw a peice of bread at them...

But as you know, the world never works the way we think. After I gave them a loaf of bread they started smelling the bread and then returned back to giving their innocent looks. I was like "WTF eat it"...no change in their looks...I finally gave up...I finished my dinner and got up to go. as soon as I got up, both the cats jumped on to the sofa.
"#$@$#@ They were after my sofa!!!!" I learnt my lesson that day. Irrespective of the looks that anyone gives me, I will not give my bread to anyone.

Last but not the least it's still raining in mumbai :(

Mumbai Rain sucks

I never knew rains could irritate me soo much as it is doing now...It's been almost a month since I reached here and all what I have seen of mumbai are it's rains.All the grand plans for touring the grand city has been thrown into the dustbin.Well I guess I just have to wait it out for the rains to be over with.And by that time the exams will also be here...aaahhh rain sucks!!!!!

It's election fever out here in the hostel. The 2nd years Btech guys,fondly called the sophies,are the candidates.For each and everything in the hostel they seems to have a secretary(called sec in short). There is the sports sec,cult sec (for cultural programs), tech sec,social sec blah blah...lucky they don't have a toilet sec...

Campaining is on full swing...these guys can give our netas a run for their money with the way they smile for getting the votes...somehow they everytime manage to knock at my room after midnight..I wud be like $%^*&@&($@#%%...but when i open the door, i wud be "hey dude,gr8 to see u...err wat's ur name btw"...for me all these guys look the same since I am seeing them for the first time...they start explaining their "manifesto" (yeah they do have one) and how they plan to make this hostel the next silicon valley....in the end everyone ends with a common phrase..'So I hope you would vote for me.."I wud give back a smile which they take it to be "Main hu na" whereas it is actually "GET OUTTTTT"....but one thing is there...these sophies are really enthusiastic about hostel activities and elections...and unlike in my UG college here there r no political parties...and tat is very heartening to see...I am eagerly waiting for these rains to be done with and experience, first hand, the many hostel events that are going to take place.

Hi from IIT Bombay

So here goes my first blog.

It's been almost 3 weeks in IIT Bombay and thought maybe this is a good time for me to start a blog.Hence this post. I joined IITB for the MTech programme in Computer science. Before this I was working in Infosys for almost 3 years.

I cannot express enough how refreshingly different it is to be back in college, and that too in one of the best colleges in the country, after 3 yrs in the corporate and I am enjoying every bit of it.

I reached IITB on july 15th 2008.My first thoughts when I first stepped inside IITB campus was "WOOOOOW"...The campus is soo refreshingly in sync with nature that it provides a dark contrast with the world outside the campus.In fact during my whole journey from the railway station to the campus on the day I arrived in mumbai, I was covering my nose due to the dust and pollution. But once inside campus I was just transported into another world altogether


I reached the hostel allocated to me at around 8:30 pm. After completing the formalities the hostel warden gave me the key to my room. As I was walking towards my room,I started dreaming of all kind of luxurious the room will contain (this was my first shot at hostel life :D). I reached my room, stood in front of the closed door for a second,smiled,put in the key,turned the key and gave it a gentle push revealing.........a 5 metre * 5 metre square box.....whoaa now wait a second, I thought I was supposed to get a room to stay, not a tiffin box...all my dreams about the "suite" came crashing down like a pile of cards. Thus started my stint in IITB.

The next 2 days were the (boring) orientation programmes...Well I don't know whether it was exactly boring..since I was sleeping the whole time...But the best part came towards the fag end of the 2nd day...it was time for interaction with the seniors where we introduced ourselves and needed to do some performance like singing,dancing,mimicry or whatever came to your mind (well some ppl did exactly what came to their mind and don't ask me what it was since the oxford dictionary has yet to come up with a word for describing them).Here for first time I saw almost all of my 100+ classmates (whew)

After 3 days I got a roomie...and even though the room was meant for a single guy (or rather a half guy) first years are forced to share rooms since the number of hostels were inadequate.

From the next week onwards the classes started. We are supposed to take 4 courses for the first semester out of around 10 (or more??ah no idea) Inorder to help ourselves with the course selection, we could sit for all the courses for 2 weeks and then decide. Thus for 2 weeks from 8:30 am - 6:30 pm,I was in classes attending lectures :(..

Now finally after 2 weeks,I have somehow managed to choose my courses. The worst part of attending the classes is the 1.5 hr duration during the after classes. Try as I may, I can't stay with my eyes open after 1 hr of lercture. But I guess i have to manage it. Let's see.