Friends forever

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. Somehow he thought the phrase "six strings" suited it better.

But the tragedy of this story is not this, it transcends all this. As mentioned before, being a high IQer, he didn't just want the neighbors to know about his buying a new guitar...he wanted the whole world to know about it. And what's the best way to do that? Of course update one's Gmail status!!!. But in his excitement, he did one mistake...I would say a rather serious error in judgement considering his high IQ...he used Akshat's Wipro laptop!!! Now Wipro laptop is after all Wipro laptop...nothing can beat it...you type something, something else gets typed. Poor Saurabh, he wanted the entire world to know about his first love. But his first love, as the world came to know, was this. Well you can be sure he will never use a Wipro laptop ever in his life again.

The debate about who is better : humans or machines have been going on for a long time without no clear answer. Well finally that puzzle has been solved beyond any doubt. The proof for such a conclusion has been presented below :-

Akshat Saxena is a very brilliant chap. He was the gold medalist for topping the university exams during his Btech days. This speaks volumes of how bright this young chap is. Though the average intelligence of human race is much below the caliber of our friend, he is one of the parameters used in this proof just to show how such a brilliant chap fades in intelligence when compared to a machine. Akshat, like any other homosapien, loves tagging himself in his orkut profiles. For eg: this picture is an example of human intervention in picture tagging. Now let's see an example of how efficient a machine is if no human intervention happens. The result is this. The efficiency with which a machine accurately tagged Akshat puts to rest any doubt whatsoever as to who the ultimate winner is in this debate.

It is always a surprise when you come to know that one of your closest friends got married and he/she didn't even inform you about it. The surprise factor grows exponentially large if the groom himself is not aware that his marriage is over. Yups that's right, my marriage is over. You guys need to thank my loving roomies for it. They couldn't bear to see me remain single anymore, so they took matters into their own hands and got me a lovely wife. In case you are one of the poor souls who were not invited for my marriage and thus for not fortunate enough to witness my grand wedding, join the club, I too wasn't invited for the same. Uploading this marriage photo for all those who missed my marriage. Please bless us everyone.

It's been a while since I have had any contact with Ajitav, so one fine day I thought will ping him. As usual, he had a busy symbol with a "Working hard" status on his Gmail. Seconds after pinging him, I got his response. He too was happy to have seen me after a long time. I asked him how his work in Amazon was.

"It's rocking dude. I am enjoying every bit of it. My manager says I am a great talent and that a bright career awaits me", he replied.

"Wow dude, you must have made some impression. Is your work so critical", I asked him.

"Oh you have no idea how critical it is. In fact, my work is so critical that it affects the entire Amazon organization".

I started feeling jealous. Just at the start of his career, this guy is making such huge strides. "So what is your position in your company", I asked.

"Well it's a bit complicated one and hard to explain. I will do one thing. I will send you a picture that was taken during one of the busiest times in my office. A picture speaks a thousand words right?".

And thus he sent me this picture. It is then that I understood how true Ajitav's words were. His work really is critical for Amazon.

God proposes man disposes

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 accompany me".

Kudiakose suddenly jumped from his seat.

"Did you say you are going to meet a girl", Kudiakose asked with his eyebrows raised and eyeballs almost popping out of the socket. "Why didn't you tell me this before Krishi. Come let's go and meet her. And don't be nervous, I am the there for the you".

"But if you are busy with your projects, then I can understand. I will go alone"

"What!!!..no no no....how can I leave you alone in such a dangerous situation. After all what are friends for. Just gimme a second, let me dress up and come".

After an hour or so Kudiakose came out of the dressing room. Krishi couldn't believe what he saw. Kudiakose was completely transformed. He was wearing a suit, a tie, formal pants, formal shoes fitted to perfection with ray-ban goggles and his face fully white washed with powder - somewhat similar to this  random picture of a dashing young guy that I found in the internet.

"Err Kudiakose hope you are aware that I am the one who is going to see the girl"

"I know I know. That is why I have worn a simple dress".

"This is simple dress?"

"You want it to be more simple?I can do that if you want"

"No no  no this is more than enough simplicity. Let's go"

After 20 minutes or so they reached a garden like place.

"Ok we have reached our destination", Krishi informed Kudiakose. Kudiakose looked around. All he could see was grass,plants, trees and some dogs.

"Where is your project...err I mean your girl???", Kudiakose asked.

"Look over there". Kudiakose looked at the direction pointed to by Krishi. He could see a boy and a girl standing at a distance.

"Who is this guy", Kudiakose asked

"No idea", Krishi replied

Krishi waved to her. Both the girl and the guy waved back and walked towards them.

"Hi you must be Krishi. Myself Madhuri and this is my brother Mahesh", the girl said shaking Krishi's hands. Then seeing Kudiakose, she asked Krishi "Err and this is?"

Even before Krishi could open his mouth, Kudiakose answered, "Manukkus...Kudiakose Manukkus"

"Hi, nice meeting you Mr Manukkus".

"Please call me Kukdi. Friends call me Kukdi only", Kudiakose replied, looking down, his face blushing and drawing God knows what, on the ground, using his feet.

Krishi was feeling very nervous. He didn't know how or what to talk to Madhuri. Madhuri was smiling at Krishi. Krishi, in turn, was looking at Kudiakose for some help. Kudiakose, meanwhile, was busy looking at Madhuri.

"So how was your day", Madhuri asked, trying to start a conversation with Krishi.

"Oh his day was good, how was yours", Kudiakose replied even before Krishi had a chance to reply.

"Err it was good", Madhuri replied, wondering why Kudiakose was answering instead of Krishi. "So Krishi, what are you currently doing"

"Talking to you of course...ha ha ha...what a joke what a joke", Kudiakose started laughing at his own "joke"

Madhuri gave a what-is-this-nutcase-doing-here look to Krishi. Krishi started sweating. The poor guy did not know what to do. Krishi wished someone could put him in a rocket and send him to a far off planet.

Krishi suddenly had a brilliant idea. He turned to Kudiakose

"Kudiakose, I think Madhuri's brother is standing alone, bored, without any company".

"Yeah, I totally forgot about him. Poor guy".

Krishi smiled. He could see that his plan was working. Atlast Krishi will be able to get rid of Kudiakose and have some moments alone with Madhuri.

Kudiakose turned to Mahesh.

"Mahesh, I think Krishi wants to talk to you". Then turning back to Madhuri, Kudiakose continued "So Madhuri, did I tell you about the time when Krishi unknowingly ventured into a ladies toilet. No? O god the story is so funny you have to listen to this. Last year when........"

Krishi meanwhile was banging his head on a nearby tree.

And thus goes the story of how Krishi met Madhuri. I guess the climax of this story is predictable, like any Bollywood movie. Both of them got married and have been living happily ever since :- Krishi with Radha and Madhuri with Ganesh. Last heard, Kudiakose is still busy with his projects.

The day Brocade stood still

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 be developed in-house or bought from a 3rd party vendor"

The team did a great job. They had researched their topic well and presented a series of steps and processes outlining  how the company can take a firm decision as to whether it needs buy or develop a tool. At the end of their 20 minutes they received a big applause from the audience.

The next was the Question and Answer session. For the first few seconds there was silence. No questions. Then our heroine, Ojasvita stepped forward

"C'mon guys ask questions".

Still no response.

"If you don't ask questions then it either means you understood everything or you understood nothing"

The UDPers from other team were wondering what she was upto. Each of the team was praying hard that the managers don't ask any questions to us but here was a Jhansi ki Rani who is asking the managers to shoot her questions. Well anyway her wish was granted. One manager stood up.

"Ok so here is my question. Now suppose after following  the process you just described, we decided to go for a 3rd party tool, what should we do if , after sometime, the 3rd party vendor refuses to provide support for the software they provide".

Total Silence.

After some seconds, Ojas spoke up.

"Yes very good question. Err Karamveer, why don't you come forward and answer this question", Ojas replied, stepping back and pointing to her teammate.

Karamveer felt as if someone just slapped him on both his cheeks.

"What!!!", he replied. Suddenly he realized he was standing in front of his managers.

"Yes yes good question. Hmm and the answer is...hmm....err...Sandeep I think you can answer this better".

Sandeep felt as if he was electrocuted. He started thinking fast.

"Right, I can answer, but I think this is Mritunjay's domain. Jay what do you feel".

"I feel like punching your nose" Jay wanted to answer, but he restrained himself.

Jay started coughing. "I would have loved to answer, but you see I am not feeling that well. Ojas I guess you can answer it yourself", Jay said and continued coughing.

Miraculously his coughing stopped once Ojas, feeling no way out, started answering the question herself.

Somehow Ojas, using all her UDP acquired skills, managed to convince the manager that in case the 3rd party vendor did such a heinous act, Brocade should just go and kick the vendor's ass. That would solve all the problems.

 The next team to present was team2. Their topic was
"Suggest innovations in Brocade process flow to improve efficiency"

These poor guys had to study the entire Brocade processes and then suggest improvements to the managers who has been following this process for well over a decade and knows these processes like the back of their hands!!! But still the team put up a credible performance.

Now came the frightening session - the question and answer part. Since there was no Jhansi ki ranis in their team, no one dared to ask "Do you have any questions". They just kept quiet. But this strategy didn't work. One of the managers stood up and asked

"Do you think having a process cycle in software development kills creativity".

Before anyone from their team could even open their mouths, Prateek quickly replied

"Yes definitely. We should just take away all these processes and throw them in the dustbin".

All The managers looked shocked. Someone who has not even been in the company for 1 month tells them to throw away all the process that they had painstakingly nurtured for years and years!!! The manager who had asked this question must never have expected this answer in his wildest dreams. He must have planned for a followup question once the he got a "No" for an answer, but now all he could do was stand there helplessly with his mouth wide open and eyes bulging out.

But the other managers were not ready to give up so easily. Each of them trained their guns on Prateek and started throwing at him big big fundaes as to why processes are so important. Prateek, poor guy, was getting bullet shots from all sides. He thought giving a simple answer would have put an end to the dreaded question answer session, but instead he now found himself in the middle of a war-zone. Atlast he could take no more. He lifted both his hands.

"I SURRENDERRRRR. Galti hui maaf karo. I accept henceforth that Brocade has the best process in the whole world".

Thus the Team 2 presentation also came to an end.

Next Team 3 came in and their presentation ended without any hitch. In fact I felt theirs was the best presentation among all 4 of us.

Next was my team - Team 4. Our topic was
"What initiatives can the government and the company take to reduce traffic congestion in bangalore".

Our presentation also started well. One by one each of us presented our part. Atlast it was Nazeem's chance. As planned the previous day, he had to present 2 things :- ways that can be implemented by the government and the companies to encourage public transport and also the summary of our presentation. But what followed was something we had never bargained for.

"We all know that our managers come by cars everyday. They never use public transport. We software engineers care about our environment and the pollution and so we use the public transport. But our managers come by cars and increase air pollution, noise pollution and increase bangalore traffic. Why should we suffer for what our managers are doing".

The managers were stunned. They looked as if someone just put a needle on their seats. Suddenly some of them got "phone calls" while some of them got up to go to the restroom.

"So to summarize the bangalore traffic is caused by our managers".

And in this way our mind blowing presentation also came to an end.

A great day for the UDPers, though I am not sure the same could be said for the managers. Last heard, they were trying to find out the guy who recruited these 31 great guys and gals.

Art of Negotiation

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. All of us were given 30 minutes to go through the sheet and prepare for the "negotiations".

I was in the group that represented TP. There was so much data in the sheet that by the time I could make out what the numbers meant I was already asked to go to the negotiating table.

The tough negotiator that I had to face on the other side of the table was none other than.............

DEBOJYOTI ulf DEBO ulf DADA!!! (Ok now everyone no need to laugh, he's a good guy).

Dada, with a menacing  look in his eyes, came and sat next to me. Those eyes had a fire that I had never seen before (I may have missed it because he used to sleep 24x7 in IIT). Dada never let his gaze off my eyes even for a second. I started sweating.

"How can I save my company from the tough negotiator that MH had sent", I thought. I had no answer.

I had to talk to myself to calm down.

"Ok dude, take a deep breath. Relaxxxxxxx. Just remember this is just our Debo boy. You can do it. You know your CEO has given you some flexibility. All you need to make sure is that this guy does not raise the prices, mentioned in the current contract, by too much an amount. A small amount is something we can live with. Also make sure that we need to limit the period of contract to 2 years though MH guys will want it for a minimum 3 years. You also need to ensure that the we must have a guarantee from MH that we will be delivered atleast 20 units each month, double of what is mentioned in the current contract. So just relax. Everything will be just fine".

I calmed down a bit. I wiped the sweat flowing down my face. I decided I will just go for it. I must have rehearsed my opening statement a 100 times. I wanted the opening to be perfect. But even before I had a chance to blurt out my well rehearsed statement, which was by the way "Good Morning", Dada exploded :-

"I can give you only 5% discount"


I was shocked for a couple of seconds

"You what?"


"I can give you only 5% discount", Dada repeated.

"You will?"

"Only 5%".

Wow....here I was trying to see how to make sure MH will not increase the price and this fool is offering me 5% discount!!!

But since this was a role play for negotiation skills, I thought I will play along.

"No I want 10% discount", I said, putting on a stern face.

"I won't go a step furthur from 5%", Debo stated, standing his ground.

"As if I care", I thought.  I started laughing in my mind.


"Ok fine so be it, as you wish. 5% it is", I replied, as if I am doing him some service.

Next in the agenda was number of units to purchase. I had to convince him that I need a guarantee that MH will provide me with 20 units per month, compared to the 10 mentioned in the current contract

"I want a guarantee that MH will give us 20 units each month", I informed Debo.

"Ok done", he replied.

"What? Done? So fast? So easily? No fight?".

"You sure?", I asked just to make sure I heard him right.

"Yeah", he replied


Man, I am good at this, I complimented myself. Debo is really a dumbo.

The last point was about the period of the contract. I was hoping to be third time lucky.

"I can commit only for a period of 2 years", I told Debo.

"No that can't be. It has to be for 3 years"

"No 2 years", I protested

"No 3"

"2"

"3"

"TWOOOOOOOO"

"THREE"

"Abee 2"

"3"

"Saale tera kya jaata hei. Maan jaana be. Class ke baath lime soda pila doonga", I pleaded.
[Idiot, what is there for you to lose. If u agree to 2 years, I will buy you a lime soda]

"Ok done. Agreed".

Hahaha, this guy really is a dumbo. He agreed to all my terms without me conceding anything. Man I am good.

We went back to the class. We had to report our negotiation terms to Eve, the instructor from US, who was coordinating the class. After we told her the terms of the negotiation, she turned to me and asked

"So do you think this deal was beneficial for your company TP"

"Definitely Eve. My CEO wanted me to ensure the price rise per unit was minimum, but through my hard negotiating tactics, I actually got a discount of 5%. Man I am good. I had to put my negotiating skills to a even harder test with respect to ensuring that TP could secure a guarantee of 20 units per month, but in the end, the better guy prevailed and the deal will guarantee TP 20 units per month. Man I rock. And last, but definitely not the least, I kicked his ass by limiting the period of contract to 2 years. Man I am the best".

Eve was impressed.

"Goooooooooooood. Well Doneeeee. Now Dibaaajoti, how was the deal for you. Was it beneficial for your company MH".

I was laughing in my mind. What will this dumbo say

"Well Eve, these are my points

 - My CEO had asked me to ensure that I do not give more than 15% discount. I ensured I gave only 5%.

 - My boss had instructed me to ensure atleast 15 guaranteed units per month, I am giving him 20. 

 - I ensured that there was nothing in the contract wherein MH could have to pay any fines in case of late deliveries.

 - Though my boss ideally would have liked the deal to be for a period of 3 years, he was ready for 2 years, provided the discount in the price was not more than 10%. Since we had agreed on the 5% discount, it automatically ensured that I could have the period of deal for 2 years.

Taking all this into account, I must say I couldn't have got a better deal"

From somewhere above a 1000 ton hammer fell on me.

Those were the best days of my life

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 the time in this world to sit back and just think about everything that happened to me in the last 2 years, I am overwhelmed at the many "firsts" that I did and experienced, after coming here :-

The foremost "first" is that it was the first time ever that I got the taste of hostel life. The experience was mind blowing - I made friends for life, total independence, lessons on how to survive bad food and last but not the least the hostel competitions. It was a truly alien world to me, but to which I became a part of very quickly.

I started blogging after coming to IITB - I have never told this to anyone before, but I actually got the inspiration to blog after reading my classmate, Devshree's first post in her blog. Though initially my idea of blog was of a digital database of all my experiences in IITB, as time progressed, I decided to change my blog goals a bit. I decided to write all the major experiences in an actual real world diary, but I was also pretty sure that I didn't want to miss out on those small small experiences that I had during my 2 years here and that is what I wanted my blog to reflect. I am sure many many years down the line I will read my own posts once again and hopefully recollect all those golden moments.

Continuing with the list of firsts, it was in IITB that I did my first ever solo performance. The occasion was the freshers' party, a few days into my IITB "career". Fortunately I didn't mess it up. But I more than made up for it by trying to be a hero once again, went solo again for the annual onam celebrations of mallus, but this time made a big fool of myself in front of the audience (another first). Needless to say that was and will be my last solo performance ever.

It was in IITB that I acted in a movie for the first time ever - a role of Circuit, with Adil donning the role of Munnabhai. Though the 5 minute film, was made as an entry for PG Cult fest 2009 and got a 2nd prize, everytime I see that film I laugh at how stupid I look in that film. Speaking of movies, it was also the first time I was part of the team that directed a movie, which made as an entry for PG Cult fest 2010, and it won a third place. As the part of movie spoof team for PG Cult 2010, for the first time ever, I acted in a live skit in front of a live audience. For first time in my life I won medals for some sports events - bronze for badminton and gold for football, both as part of PG Sports 2010. It was the first time ever that I had assumed a major role of responsibility, that of being department placement nominee, and I think I, along with Raka, have done an ok job. At the last count 83 out of 85 students had got placed. I really hope the ones who are yet to get placed gets placed soon.

But the most integral part of my campus life involves my friends, all different from one another, each special in their own ways, and yet all of them contributing in their own ways to make me what I am. I think I was able to learn atleast something, irrespective of however big or small it is, from each and every one of my friends :- Raka, Adil, Saurab taught me what it means to work-hard-party-harder, Shubs, Riju and Chotu showed me what is meant by dedication to one's work, a lesson on how to face problems without tension from Anna, true definition of the word geek from Borol and Kashyap, how to be an inspirational leader from Ajitav, a lesson on sharing from Sheiku, time management lessons from Ambu and Akshat, how-to-increase-your-friends-circle lesson from Maate, a lesson on never-giveup attitude from Sandeep Mukherjee (I still remember those stressful placement days when, after each rejection by a company, you looked forward to the next company with no less enthu as the previous company you faced. I salute your courage dude. Anyone else would have long givenup on the cause) ...the list can go on and on and on. Not all experiences had an happy ending, but nevertheless they are as memorable as others.

Now, when I look back at my 2 years in this wonderful campus, I can see that IITB has given me much more than I had ever hoped for. It will always be a defining period in my life. I wish all my friends, who are about to enter the corporate world, all the very best and hope that this flame of friendship will last forever. These truly were the best days of my life. (A special thanks to our junior batch for making this wonderful farewell video).

The booze effect

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 already torn underneath" or "Dude, unlike you, I have been dancing all this time and has no more stamina left" fell on deaf ears.

For one guy, the booze effect manifested in a different form. He comes to me with a smile on his face and says

"Thank you for such a wonderful party. You guys rock". Then he goes back to drinking

After 5 minutes, he comes back again and with the same smiling expression, says

"Thank you for such a wonderful party. You guys rock", after which he goes back and continues drinking

After 5 minutes, he again comes back. But this time, even before he could open his mouth I replied

" Yeah right, we rock"

His smile vanished and he blinked for 2 seconds, opened his mouth to say something but then thought otherwise and went back, never to return again.

Then there was this another guy, who was having a tough time having his dinner. He was looking very sadly at the chicken leg on his plate. I looked at him

"Hey why are you not eating the food. Does it taste bad"

He turned around and looked at me, looking totally lost.

"I was just wondering how there are 5 plates now when I remember taking only 1 plate"

"Err but there is only one plate on the table", I asked in a confused voice.

"Really!!!....You sure?"

"Of course I am sure"

"Hmm then I guess that explains"

"Explains what?"

"Explains why my hands goes through the plate every time I try to pick up this chicken leg. I gave up after trying for half an hour"

 As the party was nearing to an end and everyone was having a great time, there was suddenly a loud cry from somewhere in the dancing crowd.

"ANAND...WHERE IS ANAND...."

Everyone started looking around to see from where the voice was coming from. All of us got a shock when we saw the owner of the voice - It was our "Chinese-guy-with-Indian-visa" - Mahesh Kamtess with an empty whiskey bottle in his hand.

"ANAND...WHERE IS MY ANAND...."

I came close to Mahesh and whispered into his ear

"Usne tera bhi wallet churaya kya...saale ne do din pehele mera sau rupaya churaya tha"

"Chup kamine, Anand ke baare mei aisi neech baatein...%&#@!$*&^#E@"

What followed was 2 minutes of sweet sounding music for which I had to spent the next one hour cleaning my ears. Meanwhile Kamtess continued his search for Anand. He soon found him.

"ANAND....ANAND..."

Anand , who was enjoying his dinner, looked startled on hearing the voice and started looking around to see what was happening. Mahesh went and occupied the seat near Anand. And with a twinkle in his eyes, a smile on his face, he looked at Anand.

"Yes?", Anand asked in a  surprised tone.

"Do you know something dear. You are the best sportsman ever. Without you, we would not have won PG Sports this year...You single handedly got PG sports Volleyball gold for us...you are a stud...you are God...you are great...you are...you are...arre I am not getting words to describe you".

Then turning to face the "audience" who were enjoying this scene he shouted

"Koi tho dictionary laake de be"

Then turning back to Anand

"Don't worry eh, Dictionary is on it's way. I will find out the right words for you in just a second. Dictionary aane de".

Anand did not know whether to cry or smile.

Just then Kamtess caught Ajitav gulping down the 100th scoop of icecream

"Saale @%&#^$!#$ khaana unlimited hei ka matlab ye thodi hei ki poora icecream tu khud khale"

"Sorry Shaktimaan", Ajitav replied back and then continued his eating.

Suddenly Kamtess remembered that Ajitav was our PG sports Rep from our class

"Oyee Ajitav, iss baar best sportsman ka award Anand ko milna chahiye..."

Then turning to Anand, with a smile on his face

"Don't worry eh, I have arranged for the best sportsman award for you", patting Anand on his shoulders.

Ajitav, who was half way through gulping down his 101st scoop, blinked

"Award?What award....there is no such award"

"If there is no such award, then make one you idiot", Kamtess shouted back

Turning back to Anand

"Don't worry eh, Foolish fellow, he doesn't know anything. Abhi bhi bacha hei"

Anand was all smiles. I guess he must have felt happy that atleast someone was aware of his sports contributions and sacrifices he made for our batch. By around 12 midnight the rocking party came to an end. The hero of the party - Mahesh Kamtess - had to be airlifted to his room, along with many other Martyrs, who sacrificed their consciousness that day, for the cause of making our goodbye party a success.

Gadha Vs Darshad

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's idlis manages to keep Gadha's belly round and plump.

After gulping down his idlis, Gadha slowly walked towards his lab. On the way he suddenly remembered that he didn't sign the muster. Muster signing is an integral part of every Mtech student's life. Officially the students are expected to sign it daily inorder to ensure that their monthly stipends reach their bank accounts safely and surely. But most of the CS Mtech students are the hard working types, who instead of wasting their precious time in stupid labs, prefer doing quality research on varied topics like "how to increase movie downloading speed" and "how to sleep all day without getting tired" in their rooms.

Thus the daily muster signing goes for a toss. Once in a week or two, the students, stressed out from their research work, finally find time to move their asses to the labs, putting a week or two's signature in the muster at one go. But sometimes it can happen that the higher authorities in CS office, led by the efficient and sincere, madam Dictor, conducts lightning muster raids without any warnings. She then analyses the muster for finding out the names of these "hard working" students and then crosses out the unsigned part of the muster after which she writes those terrible words by the side of the unfortunate students' names.

"Meet me".

The "marked" students will then have to meet and convince Dictor madam as to why the muster was left unsigned for so long. The innovativeness of CS students are best brought out under these pressure situations. If it is "a-crow-shitted-on-me-when-I-was-on-the-way-to-sign" for Sankaj lover-boy Polanki, then it is "I-was-in-coma-for a-week" for Mudiyakose Kakus. Dictor madam had a very hard task finding out which of these excuses were actually genuine. For example she knew Mudiakose was telling the truth, as it was only common for students working under Prof Impossible-to-satisfy Disha to go into coma every now and then, but she knew Polanki was lying as he was a born liar. It is always a tough task for her. Poor ma'm.

So back to the story.
As our hero Gadha was signing his muster, he happened to see Darshad giveup-case Karnarkar's row in the muster.

"Saala do hafte se sign nehi kiya hei", said Gadha to himself.

Suddenly a bright idea came to his mind. Making sure that no one was seeing him, he slowly crossed out Karnarkar's row in the muster and wrote in the side

"Meet me"

Then he took out his phone and dialled Karnarkar's number

"Oyee lounde, kya kar raha hei"

"Kuch nehi yaar, as usual room mei time pass"

"Aree sun, tune do hafte se muster mei sign nehi kiya hei na"

"Ha yaar, kal karta hu"

"Dictor madam has crossed out your row in the muster and has written Meet me by your name"

"What!!! O my god, what should I do now"

"Nothing much you can do other than meeting Dictor madam. Else your stipend is gone".

"Ok yaar, I will get ready and reach the office in half an hour", Karnarkar replied in his usual give-up tone.

"Great".

Gadha disconnected the phone and with a wicked smile on his face, he proceeded to his lab.

Meanwhile in madam Dictor's office.

"Jai why is this student coming to meet me in half an hour", Dictor madam asked without taking her eyes from the mail she just received from the HOD's (Head Of the Dept) office.

Jai got up and came over to Dictor madam's desk and looked at the mail madam was reading.

"Oh this one. This student was caught trying to put proxy attendance by signing for his friend in the attendance column in course CS233".

"Hmm ok let him come. I know how to deal with such devils".

After half an hour or so our friend Darshad giveup-case Karnarkar came running into the office and frantically opened the muster and went through all the rows till he reached his name. What he saw there made his heart skip a beat.

"Meet me"

Slowly, with a heavy heart, without knowing what excuse to make up, he made his way to Dictor madam's desk.

"Ma'm"

Dictor madam looked at him

"Yes?"

"Sorry", Darshad said, with his head looking down, not daring to look at ma'm face.

"Sorry??? For what?"

"Ma'm...err...signature...I..."

"Oh ok so it is you. How dare you do such a thing. Are you not ashamed of yourself?".

Darshad looked a little confused. "Am I supposed to feel ashamed for not signing the muster???", he thought in his mind.

"Err yes ma'm, I am really ashamed. I promise you I will sign regularly in future".

"What!!!You will sign again in future?"

"Yes ma'm, that is a promise that I will keep till my last breath. Even if someday I am not well and can't come, I will make sure I will get it signed by someone else".

Dictor madam was in a state of shock. This student, who was caught signing proxy attendance, dares to stand before her and declare that he will continue giving proxies till his last breath!!!!On top of that he will make sure that if he can't do it, he will make someone else do it!!!!.

"You...you.....", Ma'm was grinding her teeth, seething with anger

"Why are you angry ma'm. If you want I will tell everyone in my class to do this regularly".

"You will make your friends also do the same!!!!...@#$%@#$%#@$ ...". 

 Ma'm couldn't take this any longer

"I will have you suspended from the institute"

Now it was Darshad's turn to get shocked.

"What!!!Ma'm I told you in future I will sign regularly", Darshad almost cried in a desperate voice.

"That is exactly why I am going to suspend you".

"You are going to suspend me ?", Darshad now couldn't control himself. He started crying...then thinking of a better idea he puts a hand over the right part of the chest and started making different expressions of pain in his face to show that he was about to get a fatal heart attack without realising that the human heart was actually on the left.

"What else should I do to a student who is hell bent on giving proxies....and also doesn't know where his heart is"

"Signing proxies?No ma'm I never signed any proxies", Darshad replied in a confused tone, making sure he moved his hand to the left.

Now Dictor ma'm was confused.

"Err...but are you not the student who was caught signing proxy attendence in course CS233?", she asked

Suddenly the "pain" in Darshad's chest "miraculously" disappeared.

"No ma'm that would not be me. I came here because you crossed out my row in the muster and had put 'Meet-me' near my name", Darshad said in a relieved tone.

"No I didn't cross out anything in the muster not did I ask anyone to meet me", Dictor madam replied.

"What? But it was written...muster....but Gadha told me.....Gadha also saw..."

Suddenly the entire picture became clear to Darshad. It was Gadha's plan all along. Gadha was taking his revenge on Darshad for stealing an idli from his plate yesterday. Darshad could not control his anger. A shout resonated across the entire CS dept

"GADHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Placement stories

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 big fat buffalo. Come to my room if you want to get your marks verified", I pinged back, starting to get irritated.

"Hellooo I hope you have not mistaken me for someone else. I am Harshada"

"I don't care if you are Harshada or...", I suddenly stopped and stared at the screen for a second.

What!!!Harshada??? Harshad with an 'a' at the end???So I was talking to a girl all along???

I checked the chat window to check the gmail id from which I got the ping. It was indeed Harshada and not Harshad. Realising my mistake, I apologised to her and explained to her that it was a case of mistaken identity. From that day onwards I made sure that I will never reply to a chat until I am doubly sure as to whom I am chatting to.

*****************************************************************

The following incident had happened to Sheiku during our placement season, though I came to hear about it only recently.

The placement season was in full swing in our campus. Each of us trying our level best to crack the tests/interviews and get into one of the many companies that visited our campus during the placement season. Sheiku too was no different.

For one such company Sheiku had cleared the test and now his interview was going on.

30 minutes had passed...yet Sheiku's interview was still going on.

45 minutes...no sign of Sheiku...

50...55...finally after one hour or so Sheiku was granted his freedom.

Sheiku was all smiling when he came out of the interview room. We got the hint that he must have done great in his interview.

"Oyee how did the interview go yaar"

"Aree first class. I guess this was my best interview till now. I guess they must be typing my offer letter now", Sheiku replied happily.

"Cool dude you are so confident that you have cracked this job. Gr8 going buddy", and everyone started congratulating Sheiku.

"Oh it was nothing. The technical questions were easy. As for the HR questions, I was just unstoppable. In fact the HR was just staring at me with her mouth wide open after I answered her last question. Guess she was speechless on seeing my performance in the interview", Sheiku chuckled.

"That's wonderful. What was her last question".

"Oh it was simple. She just asked how I came to know about her company".

"And what did you tell her"

"Just what she wanted to hear. I told her all these lies about attending their pre-placement talks in August, how professional their PPT looked, how I was impressed with their work profile and how I came to the conclusion from their PPT that theirs was the best company in this world".

"Err did you actually attend their talks"

"You kidding me. I must have been sleeping in my room when this happened".

"Hmm I think I know why the HR was speechless", Krishna told Sheiku.

"Of course I know. I was rocking", Sheiku replied.

"There might be another reason for it", Krishna reasoned.

"What is that", asked Sheiku.

"The company never came for pre placement talks".

Needless to say Sheiku started preparing for the next company.

Panku ban gaya corporate-man

"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 recruitments in December 2010. You can appply to our company in December 2010"

"Wow Macha is good", I thought.

Flashback : one hour back

 "Oye Macha, tell Panku that his offer letter will come tomorrow. The HR has send a mail saying so", I pinged Macha.

"Hmm Panku is finally getting is offer letter is he? Now let's see, do I see some fun here?"

"What is the fun in his getting an offer letter", I asked

"Hmmm...do one thing- usko ye math bolna ki uska offer letter aaya hei...usko bol de ki uska regret letter aaya hei", Macha's evil mind started working furiously.

"Aree he will commit suicide if he hears something like that", I protested.

"Na re, nothing like that".

"Magar aise kyu karna hei bhai".

"Yaar, whenever I ask him what will happen if the company sends him a regret letter, instead of an offer letter, he says if something like that ever happens he will put an atom bomb on my head....Atomic Energy Commission ka CEO uska mama samach reka hei".

Thus Macha coerced me into this evil plan with his "forceful" arguments on why Panku needs to be taught a lesson - never put atom bombs on Macha's head.

Thus the ingenious plan was born. Accordingly, Macha was entrusted with making the most convincing regret letter ever made and I, being the DPN (Dept Placement Nominee) had to convince Panku that the letter was indeed send by the company.

Back to the present

"Yaar after reading the letter one thing is clear", I told Panku.

"What is it? ", Panku asked hopefully.

"You are screwed", I answered "truthfully"

"Boohooo mummmyyyy. Ab mei kya karu yaar", Panku started crying even louder.

Poor Panku, he was at his wits end.

He didn't know what to do. He started debating whether he should buy a rope or a bottle of rat poison, both of which will burn a hole in his pocket, or whether the free of cost jumping-from-the-window would be the better option.

Finally, when Panku said he has made his decision and that he was going to H12 shop to buy some ropes, I spilled the beans. I revealed to Panku our deadly plan codenamed "The Macha-project"

After hearing all this, Panku was back to full josh.

"Abe kamine macha, agar mera letter nehi aaya hota tho tere sir pe bomb fod deta mei"

What to say. Some people never learn their lessons. But Panku is now a very happy man.

KPL Day 7 - The Fall of the Warriors

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 blasting and by end of first over Ultimate Warriors had a good start.

But in the 2nd over Tarun got out. He returned back to the pavilion.

Maate felt let down that such an important member of her team got out so early in the innings.

"Yaar Tarun tune fine leg ki aur  maarne ki koshish kyu ki. Straight bat se khelna tha na"

"Sorry Neha", said a dejected Tarun.

Sree looked at Maate with his mouth wide open.

"You know so much cricket? Fine leg?Straight bat?"

"Oyee u r talking to the captain of Indore Women's Cricket team. Mind it."

Meanwhile Kiran and Uday continued batting.

Maate was in full form.

"C'mon Kiran maaro chakka"

Maate was giving cricket tips to whoever cared to listen.

"Kiran ka bat lift utna nahi hei jitna chahiye. Isliye woh teek se nahi khel paa rehe hei. Aur unke bowling na..blah..blah..blah......"

Meanwhile 4 overs up. Now it was Matte's turn

"C'mon Maate, you can do it", cheered the Ultimate Warriors.

"Ya I know I can do it", Maate acknowledged.

20 pushups, 25 situps and 30 strecthes later, Maate was all set to face Ambu, the lady terror from the Strikers' team.

1st ball...Ambu balls...Maate misses....

"Pitch mei bahot patthar hai", Maate reasons, looking at the pitch.
"Oyee tu...", Maate shouts, looking at the nearby fielder." idhar aa...ye sab pathar hata"

The poor guy meekly followed her order. After all, who can dare disobey Maate.

2nd ball....Ambu balls...Maate misses...

"Hmm bahot tez hawa aa rahi hai".

3rd ball....Ambu balls...Maate misses

"Mere ankh mei dhool gaya"

4th ball...Ambu balls...Maate misses...

"Oyee ball mei bounce nahi hai"

5th ball...Ambu balls...Maate misses...

"Bat ki width bahut kam hai yaar"

"Aap agar aagya de to kitchen se bada sa tawa leke aau aapko batting karne ke liye?", Sree asked.

"Oyee chup, concentrate karne de mujhe".

6th ball...Ambu balls...Maate misses...

"Yaar inswinger tha. Kuch nahi kar payi".

Thus Maate completed her wonderful round of batting.

With some wonderful hitting at the end by Sagar, the Ultimate warriors put up a score of  65 at the end of their 7 overs.

The Strikers started their innings with Vijay and Harnath. Sagar started with a great over conceding just around 4 runs.

Maate was inspiring our team members with her cheering everyone from the pavilion (as for 1st 4 overs, girls from both teams had to sit outside).

Then started the downslide. Each over, we were gifting them with wides and no balls. Wides after wides were being bowled by almost all bowlers.

Maate was getting frustrated.

"Oyee kamino, itni subah subah utke aayi hun ye sab dekhne ke liye? Thik se bowling kar re. Inswing kar, Out swing kar, kuch bhi kar, bas unko out kar".


But no use. Along with the opponents' great batting and our wide bowling capabilities, the Strikers were inching slowly but steadily towards their target.

By end of 5 overs, they required 8 to win from 2 overs. Tarun bowling the 6th over...
wide,wide,wide,wide......there...game over...most wonderful way to end a game...

The Strikers win with 2 overs to spare. Ultimate Warriors creates history....for the most number of extras - 30. Now that's what is called an unbeatable record.

KPL Day 5 - Execution of a perfect plan

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 sight of a 100+ runs even though only 2 overs were done.

Next came in Tarun. We had high expectations from him. But he screwed up our plan!!! He gave only 10 runs!!! Sagar was desperate. The team plan was going haywire. He needed someone trustworthy to make sure the team plan is executed perfectly. He knew he could depend on only one person for this. He turned to me.

"Jaa mere sher, dikha tera jalwa"

And thus started my over of the tournament.

1st ball....6...

2nd ball...4...

Sagar  started dancing with joy.

3rd ball....6 jaane waala tha...but unluckily caught at the boundary...

Sagar stopped dancing.

4th ball...dot ball.

Sagar stared at me. He had a "don't-let-me-down" look on his face. I gave him a "mei-hoo-na" look back.

5th ball...1...Smoke started coming from Sagar's ears...his face turned red.

6th ball...again caught and batsman out...Sagar went mad and started pulling out his own hair.

I let Sagar down. Only 11 runs and on top of that 2 wickets also.

Next over Kiran came in for bowling. The seasoned bowler bowled the right line and length and got thrashed all over. Smile returned back to Sagar's face.

He gave the last over to Guru.

First 4 balls dot balls. Sagar came in running and had a chat with him .
Sure enough it had the desired effect.
Next 2 balls - 6,4.

Thus the Scorpions scored 80 - which was 20 short of our expectations, but nevertheless we were fine with it.

It was easier than expected to stick to our plan when it came to batting...

Tarun opened, within 2 balls he was back.
Next was Sagar.
He went, he saw, they conquered, he came back...really fast.

Uday and Kiran tried their best, but somehow was not getting out too quickly.

When it was the girl's over, Maate too chipped in with her contribution. In KPL, the rule is for every wide ball the batting team gets +2 runs and everytime the bats-girl gets out, 2 runs are deducated from the batting team.

The bowler at the other end was Prajakta aka Motu, who apparently claims that she was the college cricket captain in her Btech days (government sources inform me that there was never a girls' cricket team in the history of that college, but let's leave that aside for the time being).

Thus whenever Motu bowled a wide delivery, Maate compensated by getting out the next ball.

Motu bowls wide Maate gets out,
Motu wide Maate out....wide,out...wide,out

Thus Maate successfully and skilfully batted through to make it a maiden over.

Maate returned to the pavilion to a standing ovation by our team members. The plan was working great.

Needless to say, by the time we ended the innings, we not only lost by 30 runs, but ensured that all of us got out. Whew it is really hard to make one's team plan work, but in the end we did it.

KPL Day-3: The rise of the warrior(s)

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* - Board for Controlling students from playing Cricket in Kresit

By the end of Sagar's second over, the opponents were going at around 10 per over.

Next was the girl's over. In came our in-form bowler Maate. She made a silent prayer to Aloo Devi, the goddess of Aloo parathas, to give her the strength to knock down the opponent's stumps. As usual, the Ultimate Warriors kept cheering for Maate

"Maate tuche apni Aloo Paratha ki kasam, aaj tuche apni Aloo Paratha ki karz chukana hi padega. Udaa de humare dushmanom ko"

And guess what. Maate's Aloo Parathas did not let her down. She bowled a maiden over!!!! And the icing on the cake - no dead balls at all!!!!!!!
This can mean only one thing - Maate must have emptied the entire set of Aloo Parathas meant for the whole of H11. So what if H11 inmates have to go hungry today - what an over madamji.

At the end of 7 overs the Dark Knights made 60.

Our innings started. And guess who opened the batting along with Tarun...the greatest batsman ever to have walked the floors of C wing 2nd floor H12...the one and only...yups that will be me.

As usual nothing new to add in the script - bowler bowling, me swinging, keeper getting catch practise, Rahul Dravid threatening Sagar, me back in pavilion "retired hurt".

2 overs left. 32 to win.

Mukand, playing his first match, looked a little tense. But he kept his cool and managed to bowl a decent over. 11 runs came of it.

6 balls 22 to win.

No one had any hopes of winning from here. Guru had already started playing rock-paper-scissors with Sheiku.

Rishi bowling...Kiran batting.

Rishi, after a successful first over with just 5 runs coming off it, was looking confident.

In comes Rishi with his first ball. Kiran swings his bat and runs a single. The ball goes straight to Debo. Debo fielded the ball and then looked at Sagar at the keeper's end. Both of them communicated with their eyes

Debo : "Jab tuk Suraj chaand rehega, Debo fielding ka raja rehega"

Sagar : "Acha aisa hei. Oyee Kiran bhaag".

Debo : "Oyee saale bhaag math. Mei mazaa kar raha tha be..Oyee cheating math kar".

But it was too late. The 2nd run was already taken

Rishi : "Oyee saale #$!@#$@ Debo tera #$@#$@$ maar doonga mei"

5 balls...20 to win.

Rishi runs in...bowls a fast one....only to be dispatched to the boundary for 4.

4 balls 16 to win.

Rishi now balls a straighter one. Kiran lashes his bat at it. It goes high high high and hurray......it crosses the boundary ropes for a six!!!!!!!!!!!

All hopes came rushing back to us. Guru even refused to continue playing rock-paper-scissors with Sheiku. He didn't want to miss out any action.

3 balls 10 to win.

Tension mounting. Sweat all over Rishi's face. He looks straight at Kiran's face. It seems Rishi is contemplating a change in line and length of the ball.

Rishi comes running in. Kiran grips the bat tighter. Rishi bowls...

WIDE!!!!!!!!!

2 more runs (wide accounts for 2 runs in KPL).

3 balls 8 to win.

Rishi has no idea where to bowl now. Kiran seems to be hitting the ball as if it was a football.

Rishi balls the 4th ball of his over.
Kiran swings his bat...but misses. Oh Damn.

2 balls 8 to win.

Rishi grips the ball tight..comes running in again...and bowls an over pitched ball...perfect ball to be dispatched to the boundary and Kiran did no mistake....and guess what...it was also a no ball!!!!!!!!!Free hit!!!!!!!!!!!

2 balls, 3 to win, free hit.

Needless to say Kiran utilised the free hit to the hilt and closed out the match with a boundary.....Ultimate Warriors wins!!!!!!!! What a knock by Kiran. It will certainly be remembered for a long time to come.

The Ultimate Warriors celebrated the victory in true Warrior style. No one had expected us to win even till the last over....it was truly a memorable match...and the Hero...Kiran...A gem of an innings.

After the celebrations, me, Vinu, Rishi and Srikrishna were walking back. Rishi was dejected.

"Yaar Krishna, tell me yaar, what did I do wrong. Do you think I bowled many over-pitched balls"

"Yes yes you bowled many over-pitched balls".

"You think I should have bowled more yorkers"

"Yes yes I think you should have bowled more yorkers"

"I should have bowled a better line and length"

"Yes yes I think you should have bowled a better line and length"


"Saale mere hi copy kyu kar rehe ho. Kuch aur bolo be"

"Bharat Mata ki Jai"

"Yeh kya tha"

"Tune hi tho bola kuch aur bolne ke liye"


"@$%#%^!@#!@$"

Meanwhile in the other match "The Strikers" won an upset victory over the tournament favourites "Scorpions".

Tomorrow is a resting day for us. And rest for me also. No blog tomorrow. Whew.

KPL Day 2 - Ultimate Warriors become Penultimate Warriors

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 innings".

First over. Shailendra bowling to Tarun....and it's a six!!!!!!!!!

But in the very same over Kiran nicks one to the keeper. One down.

Sagar was supposed to be the next batsman, but he was yet to reach the ground. Kiran had to decide who will take Sagar's place now. He looked at the 4 of us sitting in our "dressing room" - Guru, me, Vishal, Uday. He pointed his finger in our direction in slow motion...and from somewhere behind, came the announcement

And the winner is....Sree Shankar.


"Ooohhh I won...I won...", I cried out.

The crown of the "Next batsman" has come on me. I can't believe it. I hugged my friends and thanked them for their support. As I walked down to the crease to a standing ovation, I was rehearsing my acceptance speech in my mind -

"Thank you everyone for this wonderful moment. I would like to thank my parents, who supported me by buying me a toy bat at the age of 5, which I broke the very next day. I would also like to thank my coach Mr Machine Mandotkar who kicked me out of his coaching academy for breaking his office window with my deadly bowling and last but not the least I want to thank my friend Kiran TVS for getting out so fast and giving me a chance to hold the bat for the first time in my life".

The game resumed. I was just unstoppable. I whacked my bat in all possible directions. The only problem was that I was whacking empty air. The stupid ball didn't know that it was supposed to make contact with my bat and not with the stupid keeper's hand. The balls kept coming and I kept whacking and keeper continued his catching practise. I guess Rahul Dravid, sensing that his record for the lowest strike rate was on the verge of being broken by my stupendous innings and must have threatened Sagar (he finally managed to reach the ground) with dire consequences if he didn't do anything about it. So the poor guy, coming under intense pressure, recalled me back to the pavilion.

Tarun meanwhile was playing Godgiri game. But the rule was that after the batsman crosses 30, he had to retire. Thus all our star batsmen, including me, were back in the pavilion. Once our innings ended, we had scored just 49 runs in 7 overs.

Sagar, as usual, was our opening bowler. He, along with Uday, bowled a tight line and length and by end of 4th over, they required 26 to win from 18 balls. Next came girls' over. It was time for Maate to show to the world, the power of Aloo parathas of H11. The first 2 balls were deadly - they were declared dead. But Maate then upped the ante and managed to bowl 4 balls which were bang on target. But unfortunately the next 2 balls went for boundaries.

16 to win from 12 balls.

Tarun was the next bowler. He managed to ball 3-4 good balls, but then 1-2 bad balls can turn the situation in this game. 2 boundaries in 2 balls.

7 from 6 balls.

Kiran came in to bowl. He tried his best, but it was a tough task. Powai Panthers won the match. But nothing has been lost as yet. We still have 2 matches left. Tomorrow we face Dark Knights. The Dark Knights lost today's match against Scorpions. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

KPL Day 1 - Ultimate Warriors crushes The Strikers

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 how to safe guard my strategic points when facing fast bowlers.

Finally the D-day arrived (23rd March,2010 AD).
Venue : KV grounds, IIT powai
Teams : Ultimate Warriors (yups that's my team) Vs The Strikers
Time : 7:00 am (#%&*@$!#* - waking up in the morning sucks)

Some team won the toss and they chose something. All I know is that we were given the ball and asked to bowl. According to the rules, the girl members from both the teams have to sit out for the first 4 overs. Sagar started the proceedings for our team. He stuck to our game plan which, I guess, must have been to bowl well. Maybe it was because Tarun didn't attend our team meeting when we made the extra ordinary game plan that we will bowl well. Or maybe the opposing team had sent in their spies and overheard our game plan of bowling well and made their own extraordinary counter game plan - to bat well. Whatever was the reason our team owner and bowler Tarun got thrashed all over the place the next over.

But somehow we managed to put brakes on the opposition till over number 4. I was quite extra ordinary in the field, making sure that not even a single ball crossed me to reach the boundary. That was not because not even a single ball came in my direction, it was just because I am extra ordinary.

Next was the girl's over. In came our heroine, Neha Jain a.k.a Maathe. The villainess, the girl from "The Strikers", Ambika a.k.a Ambu took guard at the wickets.  Maathe had been preparing rigorously for this match for last 2 days. She made sure she had put in that extra effort to gulp down 2 more aloo parathas in addition to her exisitng quota of 5 aloo parathas inorder to get that extra energy.

Maathe gets ready to throw her first ball. Ultimate warriors had only one question in mind

"Will Maathe's ball ever reach the wickets?"

The Strikers had only one question in their minds

"Will Ambu ever be able to lift the bat"

Maathe throws. Ambu lifts the bat.

First bounce...second bounce....third bounce....

After 5 minutes

100th bounce...101st bounce....

No one had the patience to wait till the ball reached the wicket and so it was picked up midway. The ball was declared a dead ball.

Maathe had a I-knew-just-2-extra-aloo-parathas-were-not-enough look on her face. But Ultimate warriors showed true team spirit and encouraged Maathe to go on (as they had no other option - a girl's over was compulsory). Maathe finally managed to complete her 20-ball over in which 14 balls were declared dead.

Finally we finished our quota of 7 overs. The Strikers had made 53 runs. Thus our target was 54. Our opening batsmen - Kiran and Tarun. Both of them struck terror in the opponents hearts with their batting skills. The Strikers struck back by striking off Tarun stumps. Sagar, the next batsman, continued from where Tarun stopped. During the 5th over, Maathe too contributed and proved her mettle by hitting a boundary and by the beginning of the 7th over , the game was over. Ultimate warriors crushes The Strikers by 5 wickets!!!

After the celebrations of the morale boosting victory was over I returned to my room. I found Kukri in front of his computer.

"So how was the match"

"Naa it was easy. Nothing that me or my team couldn't handle"

"Cool, so how many wickets did you take"

"I didn't have to. My boys had it under control".

"Right, so in other words they didn't give you any over to bowl. Fine how many runs did you make".

"I am a middle order batsman. So you see I was supposed to come 7 down, but that situation didn't arise".


"How many players are there in the team".


"8"

"So you are the last man to bat. Great. Atleast tell me you fielded well".

"Of course I would have fielded well if the ball had come to me".

"So in short you didn't bat, you didn't bowl, you didn't field. What exactly did you do. Tell me atleast you touched the ball"

"Of course I did"

"When"


"During the drinks interval"

Update : In the 2nd match of the day  Dark Knights Vs Powai Panthers, Dark Knights won by 40 runs. Tomorrow we face Powai Panthers.

My Abyasika experiences

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 counterpart in private schools.

The most difficult part in teaching these kids is that what sounds obvious to us are not at all obvious to these small kids. Let's take an example

If I ask one of them to evaluate


  2 +
  3
-----

then they will give me the answer as 5.

But if I write the same thing as

2+3=

then they are unable to give me an answer.

They are unable to understand that both the above formats are one and the same.

Similarly if I write

2*5=

they will give the correct answer but when I rewrite it as

5*2=

they are not able to provide the answer.

Almost the same scenario is repeated when teaching English. Everyday these children are given a set of questions to do as homework by their school teachers. These children are asked to find the answers to the questions and then write both the question and answer 5 times. What these children do is, they just open their guides, search for the question and then copy the answer. Then they write both the questions and the answers 5 times. Homework done!!!

But what is the result? The students know both the questions and the answers by heart, but if I ask them what is the meaning of these questions and the answers, they have no clue.

For example the question and answer may be as follows

Q) How many wheels are there in a bicycle

A) There are two wheels in a bicycle.

If I ask the children the question, I get the answer within 2 seconds. But if I ask them what the question actually means, they have no idea. Thus these children are encouraged to resort to the same old technique of plain rote learning which is the curse of our Indian education system. What is more shocking is that the students do not show an inclination to understand the meaning behind what they are learning. It is not because they are not interested, but because their primary priority is to complete their "homework" otherwise they will receive punishments from their teachers the next day.

But what is amazing is the that even when provided with such sub standard quality education in their schools, there are one or two kids among them, whose ability to grasp and understand things is just mind boggling. Given the right education and help, I have no doubt in my mind that these kids can conquer the world. But the question is will these talents go wasted or can we do something to provide these kids with the right help.

Before I end, I would like to share an essay that a student in Abyasika has written, when asked to write an essay about her favourite teacher. Her name is Deepti.

PS : You can skip the last line of the essay. That line was added by Rishi, who too comes with me to Abyasika :)

Course sweet course

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"

An outsider will never understand what this means. For that, one needs
the sense, the sensibility and the sensitivity of an IITBian.

(Now some people may say that the above lines are similar to some dialogues in a mallu movie. Just ignore them).

Sorry, got a little emotional there. So where were we? Oh yeah, why is this course so attractive. Well it is attractive because unlike  other courses where you do all the assignments, quizzes, mid sems,end sems, project and still manage to get the worst possible grade, the same can be done in this course without much effort. The glamour quotient of this course can be gauged from the fact that in comparison to other courses where the average count of students who have credited the course is around 20-30, this course is credited by around 100+ students. So you see, I am not the only lazy guy in here.

This is the only course in whole of IITB where students come atleast half an hour before the class. This is not for the love of the subject, but for great demand for the last benches. There is a quiz in every class and the total weightage for the class quizzes is so high that even if we give the end sem exams a miss (btw no mid sems for this course), we can scrap through with a pass grade (passing is the only criterion for the final year students like me).

Now most of us belong to the elite category of students who have no idea what is being taught in class. There are just a few among us who are outside this category. The whole burden of making sure all the elite students pass this course, rests on these few students. It is such a huge responsibility that these guys have to take the hard way - study and come prepared to the class. As for the elite students, each of us has a definite style of finding out the right answer.

Let's take the examples of the bengali brothers Dodo* and Munna*. For Dodo to pass the course, the only thing he needs to do is make sure he comes early to class, and reserve 2 seats - one for himself and one for Munna  and make sure that no one but Munna occupies that seat. Dodo is very protective of the seat meant for Munna, like a lioness protecting her cubs. Anyone coming near to that seat will have to face Dodo's wrath. After all Dodo's dream of passing out from IIT depends on how comfortable Munna is while writing the quiz.

*(names changed considering the terrorist threats faced by them)

Some people put their machine learning knowledge to good use. They first look at the guy sitting to their right, then to their left, then front and then back. After the "data" is compiled from all sides, machine learning techniques are applied on these data to come up with the answer which, they think, will be the most probabilistic answer. So effective is their approach that Prof Soumen and Prof Sunita would have had tears in their eyes knowing how much their students had learned from them.

Others, who are not equipped with such highly sophisticated weapons like data mining, will simply look at the guy on the right and then on the left and then take the arithmetic  mean. Thus if the guy on the left has written an 'A' and the one on the right has written a 'C', then the answer, according to him, will be 'B'. 

The only limitation of this course is what to do for the rest 1 hour 25 minutes, once the 5 minute quiz is over. Well, considering the brilliant innovative stuff that IITians are made of, we overcome this limitation by doing what we know best - sleep.

Thus this is one of those rare courses in IIT where we can end up getting good grades as well as good sleep by making sure we follow what bible has adviced us to do -  "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"

A paradise called Goa

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 etc. We finally chose one out of them, who then led us to a house nearby. Inside the house there were 5 beds. We looked at him.

"But there are 8 of us"

"C'mon 5 beds are more than sufficient. U guys are all thin right", he said taking a quick look at all of us before resting his eyes on Macha.

"Ok not all of you, but atleast most of you"

Macha's ego was hurt. Not only because the truth was revealed, but also because, I, the other fatty in the group, escaped "unhurt".

 

 

We soon freshened up and went Goa exploring. Towards afternoon we reached Dona Paula and had our lunch here. I was very excited about having Goan food, so I ordered fish curry rice. I was expecting the menu to be fish + some good curry + rice. But when the food arrived it was actually fish curry (without any stupid fish in it) + plain rice + some black half burned object which the waiter claimed was fish fry. The food items ordered by others were no better. Looks like Goan people prepare food using only sugar and coconut oil. The "spicy" fish masala was actually tasting sweet.

From Dona Paula we went to MiraMar beach and had a great time there. After spending around one hour playing in the waves, we left for Mapusa, where the Goan Carnival was going on.

By the time we came out of the carnival it was past 9 pm. It was then that we came to know that in Goa there was no public bus service after 9 pm. Thus we had to catch a taxi to return back to our house.

The next day CP joined us. He couldn't join us on the first day because of  his "academic commitments".
The tour operator had arranged for a bus for us that day for sight seeing. The trip included a boating session

 
a visit to a temple (sorry forgot it's name)

 

 

a visit to Vagator beach

 

 

then to Anjuna beach

 

 

and finally to Calangute beach. This was one of the best and most frequented beaches in Goa. We all had our first para sailing experience here. There were many more exciting water sports that we wanted to take, but since we had a cruise to catch, we had to leave soon. The cruise was a laidback experience when compared to the water sports in Calangute beach, but good nevertheless.

 

On the 3rd and final day we arranged for a taxi to explore South Goa. South Goa is filled with old churches which are architectural marvels.

CP was the most enthusiastic of us to explore all the churches. He even started conversing in Hindi with the driver. Now, as far as CP is concerned, all hindi sentences should end with "jaata hei". He bought a Goa guide book, showed the driver some random picture and then instructed him  

"idhar jaata hei". 

Driver : "Acha aapko *** jaana hei kya" (don't ask me the name of the place. Ask CP or ajitav for that).

CP : "Udhar nehi jaata hei. Idhaar jaata hei"

Then he turns to Ajitav

"Abhi hum idhaar jaata hei. Lunch kaha jaata hei"

In the afternoon, we visited a place called Big Foot, a famous place in Goa. It was such a calm, cool and serene environment that greeted us. It is definitely a must visit place for anyone planning a visit in Goa.

 

Our final destination in Goa was Colva beach, the biggest beach in Goa. This is also one of the busiest beaches in Goa. Here too we had fultoo masti and fun.

 

 

This was one of the best trips I have ever had. Hoping for more such trips in the years to come.