Sree

Disclaimer : This post has some naughtiness to it. In case you are one of those who doesn't like such posts, I advise you not to go any furthur. Saurabh bhai, the most enthu guy in our group, as this pic shows, was on the top of the world. Why not? After all he got his long desired guitar, with his own money. But as some wise man has said (and obviously that wise man is me) sometimes people with high IQ fail to express their emotions in reasonable quanity. What else can explain his running from one end of the road to another, shouting "I got my first real six strings...I got my first real six strings" with the neighbors watching with their mouth wide open and wondering what the hell was happening. Shah Rukh Khan must not have been so happy after getting a six packs as compared to our Saurabh bhai's happiness in getting a six strings . Even the word, "Guitar" , which our ancestors had invented to describe this beautiful instrument, went for a toss. S...

Disclaimer : A totally fictional story with fictional characters.  "Kudiakose, can you please come with me" "No Krishi, I am busy...you see I am working on a critical project right now, so don't disturb me" Krishi peeped into Kudiakose's laptop. Kudiakose's entire screen was filled with chat windows from Neena, Meena, Deena and Maina. "Err which of these projects are critical" , Krishi asked. "Still deciding" , Kudiakose replied, continuing with his multi-project management. "Plz Kudiakose, I really need your help. It's a matter of life and death for me" "What is it" , Kudiakose asked, getting irritated. Kudiakose doesn't like being disturbed when he's busy with his projects. "You see Kudiakose, one of my relatives have brought a proposal to my parents. Now my parents have asked me to go and meet this girl. I am feeling very nervous and I don't want to go alone. Can you please a...

Disclaimer : As usual a good amount of masala and exaggeration added 3 weeks after our UDP (University Development Program) commenced, the final day had arrived when we were all going to "graduate" with flying colors. But before that glory were to be bestowed upon us, we had to prove our worth before an audience consisting of our managers and other fellow UDPers. As mentioned in my last post, the 31 UDPers were divided into 4 groups. On the final day, each team had to make a presentation and present it before the audience. Each member of each team would have to speak for about 2-3 minutes and the total time allotted for each team was 20 minutes. We were given instructions by our program coordinator, Eve, to use all the skills we had acquired during our UDP days to make a world class presentation. Oh yeah it was indeed world class, nothing less. Finally the moment came. Team 1 members came up. Their topic was "How will Brocade decide whether an application needs to...

It's been 2 weeks now since I joined Brocade in bangalore. We were informed beforehand that for the first 3 weeks we would be undergoing training in soft skills. Each day, a new topic is chosen and deliberated upon. Since it was happening in a 5 star hotel, along with free lunch, we had no reasons to complaint. Today, as usual, a new day, a new topic. The topic of the day today was "Negotiating Skills" . As part of this, all of us had to take part in a role play where the 32 of us were divided into 2 groups. One group will be the employees of the company TechPartner (TP) whereas the other group will represent the company MegaHard (MH) . Each group was given a sheet which contained details of only their own company, but it contained no details whatsoever about the company the other group represents. Each member of TP was mapped to a member of MH and both of them had to negotiate a successful deal favorable to both the companies so as to to replace the current contract...

This blog is dedicated to all my friends of CSE MTech 2008-10/11 batch. I miss you guys so much. The golden era has come to an end. 2010 June 2nd, 3:20 pm - the final journey homewards from IITB. Many of my friends had already left and the campus was wearing a deserted look. It was one of those moments which I had dreaded long ago, but I had kept convincing myself that this moment would never come, so much so that it was a little too much to handle when the moment did arrive. I was fortunate enough that almost all my friends who were still left in the campus had come to see me off. It is a moment that will be ingrained in my memory forever. IITB - a place that truly made me, helped me realize myself, helped me make the person I am now. I have never known how much this place meant to me, but now when I sit at home typing this post, I realize that I have left a part of me there forever, a part which will always want me to come back to that campus again and again. Now that I have all ...

Disclaimer : MDH Masala added in good quantities. The best thing about a booze party is not the booze itself, but how people starts behaving once they have gulped in the necessary quantity. Even the most introvert guy opens up his heart and shares his "pains" and "struggles" of his life (even though he would be struggling to stand on his 2 legs). The other day our batch had organized a goodbye treat to our juniors. We wanted to make it a rocking and a memorable party and wanted everyone to join in the DJ. But most of the juniors were shy and I had to pull most of them out forcibly to make sure they too joined in the DJ party - an action for which I paid for dearly once the booze party started at 9:30 pm. Once the booze started taking effect, the hunter became the hunted. The very guys whose pants I was pulling, now started pulling my pants to join them for DJ. My cries of  "I am your senior, show some respect" or "Don't pull my pants, it alr...

Disclaimer : A completely fictional story. If you feel that the characters in this post resembles anyone alive or dead then it is your problem. As usual the sun rose at 6:00 am in IITB that day. Mikhilesh dayamaxx Gadha , as always, refused to get up, inspite of the poor alarm howling into his ear:- "Get up you big fat moron, else you will miss your breakfast again" No use. The alarm kept howling while the kumbakaran continued sleeping. But finally Gadha did manage to drag his huge body down to the mess, only to see the mess workers cleaning up the tables. Poor Gadha missed his breakfast yet again. " Grrrrrrrrr ", his stomach protested. Gadha patted his belly softly and sweetly. "Don't worry, Badlu's hei na" . Badlu's is the canteen in IITB CSE department. Gadha has a symbiotic relationship with Badlu's. One can't exist without the other. Gadha's daily quota of 20 idlis keeps Badlu's business running while Badlu...

Disclaimer : As usual good amount of masala added . It was around the month of October. It was the time when students had to upload their resumes to the placement site. But before they can do that, they had to get their resumes verified by the placement nominees (me and Rakesh). One such day during this period ,Harshad pinged me. "Hi, I need to get my marks verified. Are you free anytime". Whoa this guy is acting very formal and friendly, I thought. Looks like someone hit him on his head real hard. "Yeah sure no problem, come with your marklists to my room at 8 pm" , I pinged back. "Your room?In Hostel 12" , he pinged back. "You know of any other room allotted to me in some other hostel?" "Hello how can I come to your room" "I suggest walking...but if you can fly, then that would be better" "Hello Sree, wake up" "$!#&#%@$# You wake up" "Do you know who I am" "A...

"Panku, a letter has come for you from your company. I have given it to Macha. Collect it from him" , I pinged Panku. "Sahiii. Aaya re aaya, mera offer letter aaya" , Panku cried in excitement. After about 10 minutes , Panku pinged me. "Yaar this is not an offer letter....it's a regret letter" , Panku cried. "What!!! How can that happen. C'mon there must be some mistake" , I tried to console Panku. But Panku was inconsolable. "They couldn't have written it in more clear words. Boohoo.....", Panku started crying "What have they written in the letter" , I asked. Panku pinged me the contents of the letter "We are sorry to inform you that we cannot appoint you for the post of Member of Technical Staff which we had offered you at the time of recruitment. The decision has come following the huge economic setback seen by the company during the current financial year. We will open our recruitment...

Disclaimer : Unusually high dose of masala and imagination added. KRRRINGGGGGG... The alarm echoed all over the four corners of H11 hostel. "Kaun gadha phone kar raha hai itni subah".  Neha picked up the phone. "Neha, this is Tarun here. Come to KV grounds at 7 am." "Acha it was you. Don't worry Tarun, I will be there at 7 sharp" True to her word she reached the ground at sharp 7 am. As usual, everyone except the lazybones Sree, had reached the grounds. "C'mon my boys, aaj ye match hamko jeetna hi hai. Woh Sree ka bachha abhi tak aaya nahi kya.Osko do thapad doonga. Aane do osko." After 10 minutes or so, Sree somehow managed to reach the ground after which the match started. Day-7 : Semi finals between Ultimate Warriors and " The Strikers " Toss was won by "The Strikers" and they chose to bowl first. For Ultimate Warriors, Tarun the owner came out for batting along with Uday. Tarun started bl...

Day 5 - as usual had to cut short my sleep and get by at 6:30 am to "report" at the ground for our "practise" match against Scorpions. It was a practise match because we have already qualified for the semis. We had taken a decision the previous day that we will stick to the following strategy - " Play our worst game, make the other teams think that we can easily be pushed over and thus make them over confident during the semi final match ". Though others will find it very hard to stick to the game plan, it will be a cake walk for me since it comes naturally to me. But finally we did manage to execute the script to perfection. Here's how. After winning the toss, we elected to ball. Sagar, though he struggled to stick to our team plan, he did manage to put up a credible performance and managed to give away 15 odd runs, though the team expected him to give atleast 20 runs away. Uday came in next and did his part well. The opponents were well in sigh...

Aha what a match....what a godgiri match!!!It was one of the most mind boggling matches ever played in the history of 7-over international matches. Read on to find out how history was made today. Our today's match was against Dark Knights, one of the favourites to win KPL. They won the toss and elected to bat. We made a bowling change and asked Tarun to open the bowling. And it worked!!!He bowled a good line and length and gave away only 9 runs. Sagar was the next bowler. He was not at his best today and after he was done with his over the score read 2 overs 19 runs. Uday came in next and wrested the initiative back with a tight over. Sagar came in to bowl his second over. Sagar sensed danger. "Kya fart hei!!!Koi runs hi nehi bana raha hei ye Fart Knights waale. Agar chase karne ke liye runs hi nehi hei tho BCCK* ko mere batting skills ke baare mei kaise patha chalega" BCCK * - B oard for C ontrolling students from playing C ricket in K resit By the end of Saga...

After a great first day yesterday, Ultimate Warriors found their match today - Powai Panthers,who were licking their wounds after getting mauled yesterday by Dark Knights, came right back into the tournament with this win. As for the Ultimate Warriors, we had a point to prove - that winning is not everything, we also know how to lose a match. When you are on a winning streak, it gets so boring after a while. So a good change for us I guess. The match started at around 7:30 am. Both the teams were in high spirits. Maate was looking unusually energetic today. Wonder whether it had anything to do with the sudden and mysterious disappearance of about a dozen Aloo parathas in H11 yesterday night. We won the toss and elected to bat. As we were getting ready for the ultimate destruction of our opponents bowling, Tarun suddenly realised one thing - Sagar has not yet reached the ground. "Idiot he must still be sleeping. Someone call him up. Meanwhile me and Kiran will open the inning...

It's KPL season folks. For the uninitiated, Kresit Premier League (KPL), the baap of IPL, is organised and played by the CSE Mtech students. It was started by our seniors last year and we are continuing the tradition this year with much more vigour. This year the prize money for the winning team is KPL $3500. There are 5 teams with one girl in each team. Special rules were made to make sure girls contributed equally to the win(or loss) of the team. Auctions were conducted and a cost was fixed for each player. The starting price of each player was Rs.10. The costliest player in the auction was Kiran TVS with Rs.265 -  narrowly overtaking my cost of Rs.40. More details of KPL can be found here . All the teams have been practising vigorously for the past few days. Keeping in mind the big expectations that my team had in me due to the heavy cost they had to pay to buy me out, I wanted to give my best too. So I spent 2 days googling on how to hold a cricket bat properly and also on ho...

In IITB we have a very noble initiative called Abyasika , whose purpose is to improve the educational standards of the nearby slum children. Though the initiative has been going on for years, I came to know about this only during my 2nd year in IITB. Now it's been around 8 months since I started going for this, though I sincerely wish I could have joined this from my 1st year. Everyday a batch of volunteers go to the slums near IITB, and help the children with their homework, clarify the doubts that they might have which, I guess, either they are afraid to ask the teachers or may not have understood when it was taught in their class. It is not at all easy to make a small kid understand what something means, especially kids in the age group of 11-13. These children go to the nearby govt aided public schools where the quality of the teachers are one of the lowest. The  level of education of a kid in these schools is much below the equivalent education level of his or her counterp...

Out of the many courses that a CS student in IITB can choose, the one that stands out is CS*** (let's keep this a suspense). This is a course that is tailor made for those students who wants to spent their academic semester on anything but academics. Obviously I too have credited this course. Now the natural question that anyone will ask is why is this course so attractive for lazy bones like me? Well, for that, one first needs to understand IITB :- "It is not the IITB that one learns from books and parents" "It is the IITB of boys who have to fight with 1000 other guys to win over 50 odd girls" "It is the IITB of students who have taken a pledge to start their assignment work only when one day is left for it's submission" "It is the IITB of Boroles and Kashyaps whose technical conversation makes you wish you were dead" "It is the IITB of students who burn the midnight oil only to get screwed up in the exam the next day...

Last week some of us went for an amazing trip to Goa. The group comprised of myself, Ajitav, Sunil, Macha, Pankaj, Karthik, Kamle and CP. For all of us, it was our first time to Goa. We started our journey on 15th Feb night. We had booked AC Volvo sleeper tickets. It was my first time on a sleeper bus. Overall the journey was comfortable except for the AC. Each sleeper had it's own small AC that could be switched ON or OFF. But the AC on my sleeper had it's switch ripped off by some former passenger and the owners didn't find it very useful to fit a new switch. Thus the damn thing was blasting cold air directly on to my face. By morning I felt like an Antartican polar bear minus it's fur. No sooner did the bus stop at the Panjim bus stand, the next day morning, than we were hounded by tour operators offering their services which included everything from arranging a guest house for all of us to stay, arranging for rented bikes if needed, arranging sight seeing trips et...