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"