The dept trek

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 complete.

And then the D-day arrived. We were asked to report at KResit (name of a bldg inside the campus) at 5 am (Why does it always have to be sooo early :(...). Since I have this very good habbit of not waking up early, my friends were planning to break my room door down at 4:30 am (Highly placed soures confirmed to me that the order for a new door had already been placed the previous day). But somehow I did manage to get up at 4:30 am that day. The guys from Hostel-6 (H6) where I stay, are the guys who were most enthu about going for the trip, especially the guys in the wing where I am staying. At around 5:30 am (we guys are very punctual :D ) we somehow managed to reach Kresit. But then we saw we were really one of the first few to have come. The students from other departments were also arriving in small groups. This went on till 7 am. But even after 7 am, our class rep (CR) Aadi hadn't come. (Actually he had a very good reason not to come which he told me later). everyone in our class was shouting, "abee CR bhag gaya kyaaa". People who had registered for the trek had to pay Rs.100 and this money was collected by Aadi. Rumours were flying thick and fast as to why our CR hadn't come yet. "Abee dar gaya hoga trek ke naam sunke".."Nehi re paisa lekhar goa gaya hoga"...

At 7 we all had a great filling bkfast...2 idlis :'(......At around 7:30 we proceeded towards our destination. There were around 150+ people in total. It started raining soon after we started. But still it could not down our spirits. The journey to Duke's point was through Mumbai-Pune express Highway. The landscape was beautiful and people were busy taking photos. In between Ithe journey, I saw my roomie Sheiku, busy rubbing his phone on his pants. I thought the poor guy's mobile may have got wet. After an 1 hour or so the big boy was still doing the same thing.

Me : abee sheiku, kya hua re
Sheiku : mobile ke andar pani gaya yaar..kitna bhi wipe karu, pani jaa nehi raha hei
Me : oo lemme see..after seeing his mobile...oye bhudhu, pani mobile ke andar nehi, tu pani ka photo liya hei
Sheiku : Oooo....tho mei teek hi bola na...pani mobile ka andar hi hei na
Me : @#%$^&#@*@!











We reached the place around 9:30 am. We had another round of wonderful breakfast there...this time 2 dosas....but this time it was a wonderful sight..all the 150+ people standing on the roadside and having dosas.

We were given our lunch beforehand..in case we felt hungry during the trek...even now when I think of that lunch, my mouth starts watering...1 biscuit packet and 2 bananas....
Finally we started our climb




It was such a terrific weather, the likes of which reminds me of shimla and Kashmir (where I am yet to go by the way). All the guys/gals started climbing with gr8 spirits, but midway through the slopes started getting steeper and going was slow. There was a particular path where everyone was climbing in a line...maybe the first time where college folks maintained a line!!! On top of that I was also carrying a heavy bag on my back..imagine climbing almost 90 degrees with 10kg on your back...one guy falls, all the ones below that guy are dead ducks.

+
But despite these odds, or rather thrills, we managed to reach the top in one piece. But when we reach the top what do we see....our 50+ year young professor Ranade has already reached the top along with his wife and with his granddaughter who would not be more than 8 years old have managed to "beat" us to the top..hats off to you sir!!!

As soon as we reached there it started showering like anything...with no umbrellas and a don't-care attitude most of us enjoyed the glorious treat of nature in all it's glory...though it got too cold afterwards with the rains and the cold weather and occasional breeze, it was a lifetime experience, after spenting around half an hour at the top of the hill, we started our descend. The descent was surprisingly simpler than we had thought. And in matter of around around 20 minutes we were back on the ground in one piece :). We had a lot of photo session after reaching the ground, just to convince ourselves that we did reach back in one piece.





After this wonderful trekking we got into the bus and got going god-knows-where. At some point the bus stopped. Even after 5 minutes the bus didn't move. As I was wondering what was happening, I happened to see a small waterfall and the students in the front bus started getting down from the bus and moving towards the waterfall. I too got out from the bus. As I approached the waterfall some of them started jumping into the waterfall. Suddenly I too was seized with an urge to do something crazy and without thinking anything just jumped into the waterfall without changing the dress or even removing the shoes...and I must say it does feel good to do crazy things at times :)




After some 1 hour or so I had decided that the next day it's going to be me and fever for companionship. Since that meant skipping the tension of writing the quiz scheduled for the next day, the prospect of being down with fever was actually sounding good :). But unfortunately nothing of the sort happened and the next day I ended up screwing up the quiz as best as anyone could. :D

Exam Fever

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 :(......)
Date : 10th Sept 2008

Sir distributed the paper...I scanned through the paper...wow just around 5-6 questions.
Total marks : 75

Q 1)
What do you get when you mix blue and yellow paint....
haha wat a stupid question..u will get a blullow paint right..
oops that option was not present...fine mark something...

Q 2)..........bouncer....................

Q 3)...........clean bowled..........

Q 4)..........retired hurt............

By the time I returned the paper I guess sir must have thought I was a member of "Save trees Keep answersheet clean " society.

So thus went my first tyrst with exams in IIT. Hoping for better results next time (and that is just 2 months away :D)

CR elections

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 everyones' face when I entered the room. They were like "Oyee bathroom se seedha bhaagkar aaye ho kya ".

This time around a comparatively considerable number of people had turned up (whew finally). Some of the seniors had also turned up, in particular the CR of our seniors, to ensure the smooth election process. And finally the "show" started. The plan was as follows...Initially both the candidates present their manifestos and explain what they will do if they are elected the CR and then later on there was a question answer session where the candidates will be asked questions. Initially Neha presented her manifesto and then Aadi. Then came the question answer session.

It was decided that questions will be asked to Neha first. One senior told Aadi to stand outside the room. Poor guy looked confused. He was like "He's asking me to go out..no way dude, not in 100 years...Oyee I am the candidate, I want to contest, I won't give up even if u offer me 1 crore rupees (by the way I would have done so if I was offered that much)". The senior sensing that Aadi was about to cry told him "don't worry beta daddy will call you back when it is your turn to answer the questions, ab tum bahar ja re". Aadi boy looked very happy "Aah I am still in the race". Then the question-answer session started. I will reproduce below some part of the question-answer session. I have taken the liberty to exaggerate it a bit :D.

Me : As you must have seen till now, the class participation from our side has not yet been up to mark...so how do you propose to change this

Neha : Yeah, u r right, our class participation definitely is low,we must do something about this.

Silence for a minute

Me : O wow tat is great..but what is this something that u r planning to do.

Neha : I like motivating people. I will sent mails across to all informing them of so and so events. We should not be like this. We should be more active in all events. This is not right yaar. Even I have come here for studies. But that doesn't mean we should only study, we need to take part in all events.

Thus her question-answer session went on for sometime. After that it was Aadi's turn ( by now he had already made up his mind that the seniors have made some grand plan to keep him out of the race by making him standing outside. He was racking his brains for a counter-strategy when the seniors called him in. O gr8 now no need to waste my brain power)

Someone from our batch asked a question. " We do not get internet connection after 12 in the night. As a CR of our class, how would you try to resolve the issue"

Aadi : Well, personally, I think internet till 12 at night is good enough.

Everyone in the room gasped. Oyee atleast ye tho bol ki I will try my best to sort it out. Kaha ka CR hei re tu.

Me : Atleast during exam times we should be able to access internet right.

Aadi : I think people tend to see more films during exam times. So I guess during exam time internet should be cut by 12.

Everyone was like " People see movies during exam times???who gave him this idea???"

Then Prashima asked a question " There are some people like me who are introverts and a bit shy. So how do u plan to bring take us along"

Aadi : Hey, don't worry about that, i have a way with girls ;)..so rest assured

Aha bada aagaya Romeo...:P

Then rijurekha (I think) asked : Since girls stay in a seperate hostel, how do u think there will be good interactions with other members of the class

Aadi : a very good question
After 1 hour of thinking....
Aadi : A really good question..hmm the answer is....hmmm...
After another hour
Aadi : I must say u really asked a very good question..the answer is simple..hmmm......

abee ye century khatam hone se pehele answer bolega kya.......

After that Aadi did manage to answer the question though I don't remember exactly what he said.

And so on and on it went. After that elections were held. Aadi managed to win the elections. So he was made the technical CR (whatever that means) and Neha was made the social CR. All in all a total time pass session