my life is an open blog

Waiting

2009-11-09T10:47:00.002-03:30

Waiting

I never waited for anything before, as much as I do now for you.
Did not know but I was always waiting, for someone just like you.

Before you came, my heart was empty, my life was a trifle tragic.
After the day I fell in love with you, all days have been like magic.

Every word you wrote or said, with love and joy infused my mind.
Every time you smiled at me, for my feelings words I could not find.

Now that our souls have fused, I am yours and you are mine.
So tell me then for your presence, why should my heart still pine?

Only a fortnight remains my darling, until we finally get to meet.
Just can’t stop thinking about you sweety, you are so very sweet.

Your mellifluous voice lives in my ears, your pretty face in my eyes.
I long for them as time stands still, they soothe me when it flies.

We have lived apart for far too long, now the time to unite is near.
Life is going to get more beautiful and fun, just you wait my dear.

Confession

2009-08-28T11:05:00.003-02:30

I recently tried my hand at a romantic poem. This is the end product.
The poem is about how one feels before confessing to his love how he feels about her. All the doubts in his mind and ultimately the decision to confess. Hope you all enjoy reading this.

Confession

Want to tell you how I feel, but to myself i ask my dear.
How will you react? is that what you really want to hear?

So much i want to say, it is hard to have restraint.
But I wonder why should I, is your heart that faint?

What is there in my heart, even if you already know.
Let me say it still, of my feelings don’t stem the flow.

The candle that just got lit, in just a moment shouldn’t melt.
The flower which bloomed after aeons, must never swelt.

Whenever you are with me, you make my mind numb.
Make me say something stupid, please don’t think i am dumb.

Life it too short they say, and it might get over tomorrow,
If I don’t say what i want to, there will be no end to my sorrow.

I have no choice but to say it, you ignored my every clue.
My words may not be perfect, but I swear that they’re true.

I am no expert in romance, but I do know that we,
Are the closest thing to love as I imagine it to be.

Poetry by Baba Bulle Shah

2009-06-08T05:46:00.002-02:30

I have taken a liking to Sufi music. It is just beautiful. The lyrics are so meaningful and the tunes so catchy. This music is a result of pure love for god. And anything that is result of pure love is beautiful. The Sufi music I listened to was by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Begum Abida Parveen and a few songs composed by India's superstar A R Rehman. Kailash Kher and Rabbi Shergill also sing Sufi songs and are pretty good at it. I found that a lot of these songs were written by Baba Bulle Shah. He was probably the most prolific Sufi poet of the Indian subcontinent. I wish I knew Punjabi and Urdu better so that I could fully understand what he said. There are some websites that contain translations of his works. But they are by no means exhaustive. My favorite song is Tere Ishq Nachaya as sung by Begum Abida Parveen, thankfully this is available on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcj8Zq2etlY.

Two of my favorite couplets from this song are these.

This is the first one.

ishq te aatish nu hi barabar
o vat ishq da tavut khera
aatish saare takht kanera
ate ishq saare dil jera
aatish nu paani bujhave
te dasso ishq da daru kehda
aakhe ghulam farida, aakhe peer farida
othe kuchh nahin bachda
ne jithhe ishq ne la leya dera

I could not find a translation online so I just posted a comment on youtube under my username there, which is retardedgenius. Fortunately, I recieved a reply from user Darvaish47. And this is the accurate translation. Poetry at it's best.

Love and fire are both similar
but love is more hurtful
Fire burns wood and grass
but Love burns Heart and Liver
Water douses fire but
whats the remedy of love
Peer Ghulam Fareed Says
There remains nothing else,
where love decides to stay.

Here is another couplet from this song.

padh path ilm hazaar kitabaan, kade apne aap nu padhiya naieen
ja ja vardi mandar maseeti, kadi man apne vich fadiya naieen
aivain ladada shaitan nal bandeya, kadi nafs apne naal ladeya naieen
aakhen peer bulle shah aasman fadeya, jo man vich basda onhu phadeya nahin

I was able to translate this one pretty accurately myself. But I still got it proof read from Darvaish47. Here is the translation.

Reading of books thousands book, never read your own self.
Always running to mosques and temples, but never ventured in your own heart.
You fight always with the Devil O Man, but never fought with your own self.
Bulleh Shah says, man catches what goes in the sky, but never catches the ONE who is in the heart.

Vagaries

2009-03-12T03:04:00.004-02:30

Life happens to us unexpectedly, and a mystery it remains right till the end.
Abound in paradoxes and vicissitudes, where unpredictability is the only trend.

In a party to your friends did not say a word, alone in your room you soliloquized.
A hit comedy could elicit not one smile, that old joke every time has you humorized.

Your lover's perfume intoxicates deeply, a gallon of liquor keeps you arid sober.
A melancholy minute can last for a year, a blissful decade in a second gets over.

The ones you take for granted are those who love you, who you deify take you for a fool.
Can keep calm after a thousand insults, one word is enough to make you lose your cool.

A maestro's melodies are lost on you, a little child's laughter immensely does inspire.
Tell a hundred lies and don't even blink, speaking just one truth makes you perspire.

Insomniacal on the best mattress, on the soil in the park you snore and sleep.
Laugh at your own darkest woes, your best friend's troubles always make you weep.

Stare wide eyed at the high noon sun, can't look in your own eyes when you did wrong.
Kill a hundred foes and still feel weak, take a beating for your cause to feel strong.

Months of hard labor to become a genius, a moment of error and you are the worst retard.
Succeeding with just a mote of effort, you fail miserably when you work the most hard.

Everything is possible and anything can happen, clairvoyancy is just a waste of time.
Never ever give up what you love, with you as a victim there is no greater crime.

Adventure, Risk and Optimism

2008-11-08T03:37:00.010-03:30

I was in the office till 11.30 pm today. James Bond is probably the only person who can say this and still invoke thoughts about adventure in the listener's mind . Alas, I am not a secret agent, but just a software developer. I know you want to leave already after knowing this, but stick around I don't write that bad.
The word adventure conjures some typical images in our mind. Usually those of adventure sports like rock climbing,skiing,sky diving or car racing. But what exactly is the essence of adventure? It is risk. Anything that involves a risk is an adventure. Why do we like to do adventurous things? To quote the cliche, it makes us feel alive. What does that even mean? Being alive is something we do 24X7. That is biologically true, but we are not really alive all the time. Being alive means being aware of everything around you. Experiencing something, means same as observing each and every detail around you in everything you do. When placed in a high risk environment our brain is always alert and therefore totally aware of what is going on. In such an environment our survival instincts kick in and we feel motivated and absorbed in whatever we are doing. Concentration is at peak. This leads to some hormonal activity causing an adrenalin rush. At the end of the experience if things go as we wanted we feel proud about having survived the situation. So adventure increases our self esteem.
The essence of any adventure is uncertainty or risk. At the start of an adventure we feel overwhelmed by the circumstances. Then we just give this thing all we have, and once we come out on top we feel good about ourselves. Adventure might be the reason why children are so happy. For them everything is new, they are learning all the time. Therefore each small victory gives them immense joy.
Now that we understand adventure we can realize that it does not necessarily have to be outdoors. For a PhD student, his research is an adventure since he devotes all his energy and many years (usually 4 to 7) into it hoping that he will get results leading to a thesis leading to a degree. He puts many years of his life into something hoping for a positive outcome. Similarly an entrepreneur is an adventurer too. He devotes a lot of money and energy into a business that he believes in. He is not sure of success but he tries real hard. Success does not come easy and quick but when it comes you feel that it was worth it. For someone driving in a big city like Delhi for the first time is also an adventure since that is literally a fatal risk. After a while we all get used to it. Let me tell you from my own experience, I have done skydiving twice. And when I did it for the second time I was only doing it for the view and not for the thrill. It is not as dangerous as it looks. This is because you don't do it alone as a beginner, your instructor is strapped to your back and opens the parachute when the time comes. So when I completed my first skydive I did not feel a sense of accomplishment or relief. But once when I made a round trip on my scooter from my house in NOIDA to college in Bawana which are more than 40km apart, it was an adventure. There were moments during the journey where I thought I would die. This is because I was not accustomed to driving the scooter that much but still made that long journey. After that time I never drove such long distance on a scooter again! The point to take home here is that adventure is there in all situations of life and not just in things that are stereotypically labelled as adventurous. Life is an adventure, skydiving and roller coster rides are just entertainment.
One more critical thing about adventure is that it requires a positive attitude. People who take risks have a naturally optimistic view of things. During any phase of adventure deep down in our minds we do harbor a positive attitude despite the possibilities of failure we see around us. Positive attitude is a very important quality in life. It is the same as faith. The reason people believe in the concept of God as an all controlling entity is because that convinces them that everything will be all right in the end and gives them strength to get on with life. You should have a positive attitude in life not because you believe there is a god but because you need to believe in yourself to succeed. If you don't believe that you will succeed in what you are doing then you will not try hard enough and eventually fail. Things worth having in life do not come easy. Failure should be a learning experience, it has to be taken as an opportunity to become aware of the flaws you committed. It should also be a time to study why the person who succeeded was able to make it. The way you can maintain a positive attitude in the face of failure is by telling yourself the things you learnt from it and realizing that you have become a better person since you will not repeat those mistakes again and can work on the areas that need improvement. If you don't want to do something then just dont do it, rather than doing it half heartedly since you will gain nothing out of the experience. But if you really want to do something then give it all you have, you will have a rich experience irrespective of the outcome of your venture. Even the Bhagwat Gita says the same thing about detachment from the outcome. Life is long enough to absorb failures doing things that you love to do but too short to waste it on things that do not inspire you. The worst 4 letter word in the world does have 'u' as the second letter. And that word is 'Quit', never quit. This poem by an anonymous author explains just why that is true.

Don't Quit

Author Unknown

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and its turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When they might have won, had they stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit

--------------------------------------------------------

Also remember that the night is darkest before dawn. Which means that the toughest battle happens when you are closest to victory. So if things are getting harder then you are on the right track!

I think I am getting too serious, so let us relax listening to this really nice song. It is available on youtube. It is by Bobby McFerrin.

Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy.
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy.
Don't worry, be happy now.

Don't worry, be happy. Don't worry, be happy.
Don't worry, be happy. Don't worry, be happy.

Ain't got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don't worry, be happy.
The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don't worry, be happy.

Look at me -- I'm happy. Don't worry, be happy.
Here I give you my phone number. When you worry, call me,
I make you happy. Don't worry, be happy.

Ain't got no cash, ain't got no style
Ain't got no gal to make you smile
Don't worry, be happy.
'Cause when you worry your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down
Don't worry, be happy.

Don't worry, don't worry, don't do it.
Be happy. Put a smile on your face.
Don't bring everybody down.
Don't worry. It will soon pass, whatever it is.
Don't worry, be happy.
I'm not worried, I'm happy...

Religulous

2008-10-21T01:26:00.005-02:30

I have often struggled to define my religious beliefs. I am a Hindu but Hinduism is not really a well defined religion. I have wondered if God does really exist. If he does then why is there suffering in the world. Why does God not destroy all evil? No religious person in this world will have a satisfactory answer to that irrespective of religious affiliation.
The truth is that religion is a man made institution. The major religions of this world were created by men who claimed to be special. And history is proof that they actually were. This does not mean religion is bad. Religion can help people lead a moral and happy life. Something that is being lost on our generation that believes only in one religion - Materialism. Semitic religions like Islam,Christianity and Judaism tell you about heaven and hell. Heaven being a utopia which you can attain by leading a moral mortal life. Hell being a terrible place reserved for those who have lived an immoral life. The veracity of the existence of heaven and hell cannot be verified since nobody is supposed to come back from these places. If anybody ever claimed to have been there and come back to earth, then his statement would negate the premise of the existence of these microcosms since they are supposed to be final destinations without any escape routes.
Indian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism however believe in reincarnation, where you are reborn again and again until you live a perfectly moral life and then you attain Nirvana, and I am not talking about Kurt Cobain's band. Nirvana is freedom from rebirth. Or in other words a ticket to a permanent seat in heaven. People of these faith believe that if you sin in your life then you will be reborn as an animal or under more unfortunate circumstances. But if you lead a moral life you will be born into a good family and have a happier life ahead. Therefore religion uses fear and greed to make people follow it's tenets. Of course there is no evidence of this philosophy too. Some people claim to remember their past lives but there is no solid evidence to support such claims.
Most people think of God as an all powerful being that is sitting in heaven and watching over them. That probably the only thing that the major religions of the world agree on. On all other issues they violently disagree. It is this very definition of God that becomes the foundation of atheism. The atheists argue that if there is such an all powerful god somewhere then why is there suffering in this world. Why can't God create a world in which everybody is happy? Why is there poverty,crime,corruption and terrorism in this world? Why does God not put an end to all this? People ask themselves all these questions and obviously there are no satisfactory answers to these questions, prompting more and more people to call themselves atheists or rationalists(a more elitist term).
People of any religion consider themselves to be superior to people belonging to another religion. Atheists consider themselves superior to people belonging to any religion. This is a basic human tendency to feel good about yourselves. People find satisfaction in comparing themselves to others they consider less accomplished that themselves. Happiness is basically feeling good about yourself. This feeling occurs when one feels that he has accomplished something. That accomplishment may be something meaningful like achieving a major professional goal like completing a project. Or may be a personal goal like wooing the partner of your dreams. Or sometimes it can be something as crass as the satisfaction that I am going to heaven. I am more moral than others and people not subscribing to my faith are inferior to me. Also, one of the most satisfying feelings is to help someone. Religious fanatics think that they are helping people by proselytizing them. And therefore obtain great satisfaction that makes them even more inclined towards being religious. Karl Marx hit the bull's eye when he said that religion is the opium of the masses. That is exactly what it is. Religion is an intoxicant like opium when followed without questioning. They both make you feel good. Plus religion comes free unlike opium. Therefore there are much more religion addicts in this world compared to drug addicts. Incidentally, all religions either prohibit or discourage intoxication by chemicals like alcohol or tobacco. While on this subject let us look at the followers of 2 major religions in India. Muslims are prohibited to drink alcohol but allowed to smoke all they want, Sikhs are prohibited from smoking but can drink without guilt. This is an example of what being religious has got us, it gives us a choice in which way to die, lung cancer of liver failure. Don't get me wrong, I love my Sikh and Muslim friends. All I am trying to say is that both these religions would have discouraged against intoxication of any kind, but man just interpreted them so that he could have some kind of intoxication while renouncing another kind for the sake of piety.
Religion is the personal relationship between man and God. Before going any further let us define what is God? Is he the master of the universe controlling everything that goes on in this world? No, most certainly not. Atheists always ask that if there is a God then why is the world not perfect. In a perfect world everyone would be happy. Everyone would be equal. This means that everyone would be as happy as everyone else. Therefore everyone would lead the same life. Everyone would react the same way as others. Thus, the ideal world for an atheist would be full of robotic, emotionless clones that maintain equanimity in all situations. This would be like if everybody was a robot. So if you are an atheist, is a world full of robot clones what you want? I think most atheists would disagree with that. Actually the Bhagwad Gita which is a sacred book for the Hindus does urge people to become equanimous and consistent in all situations. But then why does God not make us that way in the first place? If such a situation were to happen, we would all cease to be 'human' as we are right now. This just shows how human oriented the concept of religion is.
Religion is a man made institution. All religious texts are a reflection of the thinking of the men and women(if any) who wrote them. I honestly believe that the people who came up with these religions had good intentions to begin with, but somehow every religion got corrupted. Religion is a man's personal relation with God. We must first define what is God. God is the collection of your core beliefs about everything that you consider to be ideal. In other words, God is your conscience. This is a subset of the stereotypical definition of God as an all powerful being. This definition is accurate for the most part, except that God is just as powerful as you want to be. The power of god is just your own will power and hard work. If you follow your heart, your conscience, your values, then you will attain a blissful state which is heaven. But if you get influenced by greed and sensual pleasure then your life would be dedicated to having temporary bouts of sensual pleasure but would be miserable for the most part, and that is hell. Heaven and Hell are just subsets of your own life. So just lead a moral life and be happy.

Mouse Potato

2008-08-15T01:22:00.004-02:30

Do you know what the title of this post means? If you are thinking that it is the name of an exotic dish then I must say you are quite an adventurous foodie. Interestingly, I recently read an article about consumption of rat meat in India - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7557107.stm
I became a vegetarian more than a year back but even when I used to eat meat I never ate mouse.The Mouse Potato I am discussing is a phrase similar in meaning to Couch Potato. If you don't know the meaning of either of these terms then congratulations, I believe u r leading a really good life. Or it could also be that u r just ignorant.
Couch potato is a person who spends a lot of time in front of the TV. Someone who can channel surf or watch shows and movies on TV for many hours. Believe me you don't want to be like that. Now a Mouse Potato is similar but he sits in front of the computer for hours.This term was inevitably coined when computers and internet became so pervasive. There are plenty of addictive things on the computer like video games,chatting and internet surfing in general.
Although I can proudly say that I was never really a couch potato or lets say not a big one, but I will definitely consider myself a mouse potato.
I sit in front of my computer for hours. Checking my email, Orkut, Facebook etc. Also watching movies,shows and news. Even chatting at times. Hell, this is much worse than TV. I do have basic cable with 22 channels and hardly watch it. But the first thing I do after waking up in the morning and silencing my alarm is turning on my laptop. Then I switch if off when I leave for work. But in my office I sit in front of the computer for 8 hours again. Then when I come back home I turn my laptop on again and switch it off before sleeping. So the computer has become an extension of my being. I hate the fact that I spend so much of my spare time in front of the computer and solemnly intend to change that.
While the internet saves us a lot of time since we can pay almost all our bills online, get directions to get to places and also shop online, it also has the potential to hog all our time so be careful.
These are some of the thing I hope to do with my time away from a computer on a weekday.
1. Exercise
2. Meditation
3. Reading paper books
4. Talking on the phone
5.Blogging

Fun or Important?

2008-08-15T00:34:00.000-02:30

I had read a book called 'The Monk who sold his Ferrari' by Robin S Sharma in January 2006. It had a deep impact on me. I am really inspired by that book. It tells u how to live a fulfilling life. Let me share with u what I learnt from it. The first step is introspection. U need to really know urself well, so that u know what u really want in life. I directly quote from the book 'The purpose of life is a life of purpose'. We need to realize what we really want to do in life. We need to identify our priorities and aspirations and then go all out to achieve them. We need to do everything with passion and enthusiasm. This is not really a short term strategy but a habit that we must inculcate. I know that we need to do a lot of things in life that we do not enjoy. So the question is how to keep oneself constantly motivated?
I have not pondered over this question so intently for the past 2.5 years. There was always something more important or interesting going on in life. But for the past month my life has been very dull. I really need a way to better spend my free time. Today I suddenly remembered that I used to have a blog and have been on it for the past 100 minutes. Its great to feel excited about something again.
There are 2 kinds of things that we do in life, first the things that we love to do like listening to our favorite music and second the things that we consider important like studying for exams. Another word we use for the latter activities is 'responsibilities'. Even though it might appear so, these 2 categories are by no means mutually exclusive. You can probably think of a few things that would be the intersection of fun and important. One such example is playing your favorite sport or exercising. This is important as it is good for your body and health is one of the most important things in life. And of course it is also fun since you enjoy it. There are some of us who hate to exercise. It is probably because of a human tendency to classify everything that is beneficial as something that feels bad. The truth is that exercising releases chemicals in your body that make you feel good/happy. Just exercise for half an hour every day and you will start feeling happier I can guarantee. It is just a question of getting rid of your preconceived notions. Coming back to the main point, at first glance it does seem that fun stuff and important stuff are 2 diametrically opposite categories since there are only a handful of things that we consider both fun and important. The key to happiness is to unify the 2 categories so that you feel deeply motivated towards everything you do.
There are 2 main forces behind any kind of motivation. Love, the positive motivation and fear, the negative motivation. I must say both of these are extremely effective. Love is the motivation when you want to make something happen and fear is the motivation when you want to prevent something from happening. Now love is your motivation for the things that you enjoy doing like your love for nature,music,entertainment etc. Fear is the motivation behind most of the things that we consider important like fear of failing an exam, fear of losing your job. Fear is an extremely potent motivator, people driven by it can achieve a lot in life in terms of money and fame. But happiness cannot be linked with fear, it can only be linked with love. It is important to have a positive attitude in life. You need to play to win and not play to 'not fail'. When you are motivated by love and play to win you tend to give it all you have. That is an excellent thing. When you play to prevent a defeat you tend to put only as much effort that you estimate is enough to prevent a failure. This is the reason that positive attitude is more successful. You may say that sometimes fear can elicit a mammoth effort too. This is true, but only in the case when you think you have a very small chance of winning. That means your confidence is really low, and if it goes any lower then you will abandon all hope and not even try to win. In that case you will not put in sufficient effort and have an even higher chance of losing. Therefore it is a really bad idea to rely on fear as a motivator.
The good news is that every negative motivation can be transformed into a positive motivation. Love can replace fear from all your motivations. All you need to do is ask why. Let's go through this with an example. Imagine it is a Monday morning and you reach your office. Your motivation is not the highest at this point. Your boss comes to you and tells you to make a report for him/her by the end of the day. You look at the papers and you know that this will be a lot of writing,thinking,calculating and researching. Your lunch break just got shorter by 50%. You curse your boss and think why the hell do I need to do this???? And the answer you tell yourself is 'because this is important. If I don't do this I will get fired'. That is a very powerful motivator. So with a heavy heart you work really hard and get the report ready. You think 'my job sucks', there is too much work to do and what not. You might have done a great job on that report and your boss might have complimented you but that makes no difference to the fact that you feel you spent all your time at work in misery. Now let us backtrack a little to illustrate the power of positive thinking. To answer why this task is important you had told yourself that your job depends on this task and doing it well will prevent you from getting fired. Instead of all this you could have asked yourself 'Why do I need this job?', 'Because it pays well','If I save enough money I can go on a vacation to California or buy a better car or move to a better house'. So then the motivation for doing the task would be your love for these things and not a fear of losing your job. It is important to think of something that you really want to motivate you effectively. So this way your love for a better life motivates you rather than your fear of poverty. So you successfully transformed your negative attitude into a positive attitude. Similarly the better way to motivate yourself to exercise is not telling yourself that you will get fat and and ugly if you don't exercise but that you will become thin and attractive if you do.
I guess I have made my point clear about transforming -ve to +ve. Please dont change your attitude the other way from +ve to -ve because that is also as easy.
Positive attitude will make you achieve more and keeps you happier so make a conscious effort to maintain it.
One more thing to remember is that if you find yourself doing something that is neither fun nor important then please don't waste your time doing it because time is your most precious resource. We sometimes think something is fun or important because we see somebody else do it. You have just one life and that too is short, so live it your own way and not the way someone else would want to live it.
Now do this little activity
1. Make a list of all the major activities that you do on a daily basis.
2. Classify these activities into Fun and Important categories.
3. If an activity is not sufficiently fun or important to YOU then do yourself a favor and stop doing it. Devote that time to something more fun or important.
4. Now look at the activities you consider important. Think why they are important. Are they important for the well being of your loved ones? If so then the motivation behind such activities is your love for those people. If an activity is important for money then think of what you can do with that money and make that your motivation. Is the activity important for your health? If so then imagine all the things you will be able to do when you are healthier. Your love for those fun activities is your motivation behind this important activity.

5th semester

2006-01-12T23:00:00.003-03:30

Before I start about the fifth semester I will talk a little about the summer vacations preceding it. I had a very good vacation as I visited Jammu,Srinagar and Leh. After returning I started reading Norman Lewis to augment my vocabulary. I needed to do this as a good vocabulary was a prerequisite to score high in the GRE.
But as I kept on perusing that book I started to enjoy it.
At this time Neelabh and Abhishek Gupta had started studying for GRE. So I was also impelled to follow suit. My worst day in this semester was the one on which the 4th semester result was declared. I had done really badly. I felt as if I was hit by a train. And by this time I had also realised how bad this was for my admission to an American university. I became almost paranoid and put a lot of pressure on myself to study really hard.Thats why this semester was pretty boring and uneventful. I was either studying for GRE or for college. I had to also visit the websites of various US universities, which was very time consuming but also kind of fun.

I seriously cant think of anything else apart from the fact that I was genuinely studious then. I actually enjoyed the exercise of enhancing my vocabulary. I became really good. Infact when my cousin, who grew up in Canada came to visit us he was really impressed by my exhaustive vocabulary. I was surprised at this because he had grown up speaking english. But later when I came to USA myself I saw that even though people were native english speakers their vocab was not really impressive.
I really liked the subject Algorithms. We also had a subject called LIC(Linear Integrated Circuits) taught by a young guy who was always well dressed. He would dictate notes in the class and say that the notes were very important and that material was not too be found anywhere else. But it was a crazy coincidence that the book written by DRC(our HOD)was a verbatim copy of his notes. Who says coincidences cant happen? And as for the usefulness of his notes, they were as useful as an umbrella to a fish.
We also had a subject called IOME which was taught by a mild mannered guy who didnt mind if we came to class in the last half hour to get attendence. He would welcome us cordially and quote 'Der aye par durust aye'.
CSO was taught by the karta dharta of the computer engineering department Mr. Rajiv Kumar who we affectionately called Golu. Behind his back of course
And lastly we had Computer Graphics, but the irony is that the material we had to study was not graphical at all. I mean it was all text. Nevertheless it was an interesting subject and was taught by a female ex student. This meant that the classes were held saturday mornings. But surprisingly most of the class did show up.

The subjects were interesting in this semester that is the reason that I did somewhat well in this semester according to my standards. I cannot recall anything extraordinary for this semester. There were the usual classes and hostel life. Life was laid back and relaxed. I started writing this post in Jan 2006 and this paragraph is being written in Aug 2008 so I am a little short on memories from this period of my life.Therefore I shall conclude this piece right now.

4th semester

2006-01-12T04:59:00.000-03:30

Just now finished writing about the 3rd, so might as well write about no.4 when I have the time
OK so like all even semesters this was lighter than the previous. Also all the technical fests and Engifest took place during it. So there were plenty of quizzes to participate in.
This semester marked the beginning of a very special bond. The bond I and my classmates can never forget. The inextricable bond between Golu and all of us. I can give a good analogy with cancer. The danger in the first stage is hard to detect. But over time as it gains strength it has ur body in it's death grip. Similarly he started out by 'teaching' us data structures. At that time we thought of him as an innocuous entity and gave him this affectionate name of Golu.But with the passing of every semester more and more of our credits came under his control. Someone has rightly said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. As his influence increased so did his high handedness. He had assumed dictator like powers over us. In such a system those who were in his good books flourished but those who were not, were damned forever. Suvir successfully got into his good books by offering him laddoos. When I read about Bakshi in 'A night at the call center' I immediately thought of dear Golu. We finally got rid of him in the 8th semester. I guess he is a nice person as long as he is not your teacher. Coming back to DS, the final exam that year was probably the toughest one till that date. I was totally unprepared and got one of the lowest marks. Of course golu couldn’t solve a single question in the paper even if his life depended on it.One of my classmates who had written a disastrous paper 'volunteered' to help golu check the paper. No marks for guessing that he got one of the highest marks.
This semester saw me enter the bad books of Raghava the bilious. It was sheer bad luck. He was teaching electronics in the class. He was in a very bad mood as usual. As usual the class was not intersested in his pedagogy.That greatly riled him, he asked Shashi to show him what all he had written. Shashi came upto him chewing gum and handed him a page he had scribbled on. He expected that everyone should at least bring a register to take down his notes. Not posessing a register meant that u r not interested in his subject and more humiliatingly u did not find his notes helpful. As expected Shashi got a severe tongue lashing and was banished out of the room. But the worse was yet to come, at least for me. After continuing for a short while he pointed at me and said get up.I did that.Then he asked me to explain what he had written on the board. I am sure at least half the class didnt have a clue to what it was. But the sadist had to chose me. He said 'I am shouting like a dog but u are not paying attention'! I don’t remember his subsequent words to me, but I do remember that they made his rebuke to Shashi seem like a love song. I had another encounter with him during my final practical viva of Principles of Communication Engineering. By the way this lab was opened just once during the entire semester, that too on the last day so that we could familiarize ourselves with the equipment and do the experiments. Can u believe it we had an argument over the propriety of using Xerox instead of original book. In the end he said to me "You should be thankful I am a so tolerant, anyone else would have failed u if u talked like this to them". As a result of this i got just 65 as my peers got 85.
Talking about PCE, who can forget our teacher Mr. Sampath Kumar. He had just retired from some tech company.He dictated notes at a supersonic speed and unlike Raghava didnt bother if any1 was actually taking notes or even listening. To him the course was a trivial obligation to be completed as soon as possible so that he could get down to the more important task of enlightening the whole world about his greatness. In this respect he was the complete antithesis of Raghava whose aim was to convince us students of our utter incompetence.But the common point between the two of them was that they both failed spectacularly in their respective missions.
Mr Sampat Kumar claimed to be the most qualified person in India. He said that he had built an antenna at his house through which he could catch the transmission of LA olympics, much before the advent of satellite TV in India. The director of Doordarshan used to come to his place to take measurements. He also claimed to possess poetic talent and even recited one line of his poem in the class. Alas I dont remember what he had said. He was also a bodybuilder in his college days.He was putatedly an opening bat for his college team, also a fast bowler and above all the wicket keeper too. I have never heard of such a player all my life.He would have mde a formidable 12th man, dont u think? And I think that is exactly what he remained all his life. He also claimed to know big celebrities who always went to meet him before meeting the prime minister of our country.How I wish I had recorded these lectures of his. I got really low marks in the mid sem.But did all right in the finals.
Academically this was probably my worst semester. It was disastrous! Upar wala jub bhi deta hai to chhapar phad ke deta hai, lekin jub leta hai to gaand phaad deta hai.
But there is one thing about this semester which I have fond memories of.
Like I mentioned there was our Engifest. This was probably my best Engifest. Every night during the Jam session I used to search for my crush in the crowd and think about approaching her, I could make eye contact but could not muster the courage to speak to her. After 2 days of this pathetic ritual my amour overcame my apprehensions. I finally asked her if she would dance with me. In spite of the extremely loud music and the even louder beating of my heart I heard her say yes. I was overjoyed, I really was. After dancing we went to the canteen to have tea. We chatted for a while and I got to know a little more about her. Even her voice sounded really sweet that time. I know I sound lovesick but I think I really was at that time. I feel really stupid whenever I think about the whole thing but I guess one has to learn to laugh at oneself. Anyway after the fest I spoke to her a few times when I got the chance. Ultimately I did ask her out and she sad no. So it was all over. Actually there were plenty of hints earlier that she will say no. The most memorable one being when I asked her to give me her cell no. She said that she doesn’t remember it and the phone itself is inside her backpack. I just smiled sheepishly in response to that,how else could I react to this absurdity? But I am still glad that I at least tried my luck at love. While doing anything in life one mustn’t quit before trying. But right now I gotta quit writing any more stuff in this blog. Bye!

3rd semester

2006-01-11T19:15:00.000-03:30

Its about time i got down to writing about my 3rd semester at DCE. My 3 week long winter break is almost over and i havent had the time for blogging apart from my blog about Chetan Bhagat's new novel. I have had a really good time here at my aunt's place in London( Canada not UK). I learnt skiing, a really thrilling sport. I saw the Niagara Falls, one of the most beautiful natural wonders of this world. I have also read two great books, one of them being mentioned in my previous blog. The other book is 'The monk who sold his ferrari', which I feel everybody must read. In less than 200 pages it will tell u how to lead a happier and more productive life.And last but not the least I have enjoyed the company of my aunt,uncle,cousins etc.
So now coming to the 3rd sem, In this semester I had decided to become more studious. We were told by our seniors that this semester was very tough. I told mysef that I will study regularly to be one step ahead of what is taught in the class. But before executing this plan I thought that such overzelousness is unnecessary. So I thought that I will just keep up with the class.I think I did try this for a week or so. But then again I felt that its not worth it because I am going to forget what I study anyway. The best plan was to study a few weeks before the mid sems. I dont remember exactly how many weeks prior to the exams I started but I reckon it would be around 2. I read and tried to understand everything. But when the time came to perform in the exams I forgot many things and made mistakes in the numericals as well. I was too forgetful to be good at rote learning and too lazy to practice numericals. I also have a knack of making 'careless' or 'silly' mistakes. This is a trait I have had throughout my school life as well. In class XI physics we were told the classification of various types of errors, I think I can illustrate all of them with examples from my life.But I dont remember all of them now so we cant get into them right now. So anyway as it hapenned I still continued to try to be more studious, I was inspired by my 2 fellow hostellers Harman and Sudhanshu. Harman is now with Motorola and Sudhanshu with Texas Instruments. Although my 3rd sem result wasnt fantastic but it was much better than my 2nd sem result, % age wise the increase was +1 or so but %ile wise it was better. So I thought I was on my way to becoming a good student.
The classes were boring as usual. The most interesting subject was probably circuits and systems. The teacher was the cadaverous Mr A K Roy.He was really old, but his love for his subject is commendable. Whatever he covered in the class was useful but he didnt cover everything. I used DRC's book for this subject. The book is actually pretty good. This made me look forward to being taught by DRC as he was our HOD. But later I realized how wrong I was about him. He is probably the most unpredictable person I have met. No jyotish or clairvoyant can predict his behaviour.
O P Verma taught us electronics. He justified the principal that quality is better than quantity. Although he took only a handful classes he made me understand whatever he taught. Ramnath took the practical of this subject and would always exort us to be serious about studies. According to him the key to doing well in the lab was 'khainchna'. 'Aap sabse pahle khainch leejiye', 'Agar aap khainch lenge to aap sub kuchch kar sakte hain' and 'Khainchna bahut zaroori hai' were some of his frequent sayings.This left me wondering what does he want us to pull or stretch? It took me a while to realize that what he meant by this word was to draw the circuit diagram.
Another significant thing about this semester was that we were no longer the fuchchas. We were seniors now.We were immune to ragging. This was a cause of great joy. Me and my friends did indulge in a little bit of ragging. We also got some of our ED sheets made by fuchchas. This made me realize how over-rated ragging and the phobia of seniors is.
With the influx of many fuchchas there also came in some new girls in the colllege. There is a gr8 shortage of girls in DCE. The shortage of cute ones is even more acute. If u r a girl from DCE reading this blog then u r an exception to this rule. During ragging many times the male freshers are mode to avow all girls of DCE as thier sisters, even though this vow is as hollow as the vows taken by our politicians and policemen on holding office. One pretty girl did catch my eye too. But I couldnt figure out a way to approach her so I just left it at that. But I never missed a chance to catch a sight of her whenever she was within the scope of my vision.
During this semester me and Shashi made our annual pilgrimage to LSR. We were able to sell this idea to 2 other freshers who accompanied us. When we came back to DCE I realized that I had just wasted an entire day of my precious life. I was so pissed off that I took a vow to never go back there again. This is probably one of the vows I have taken the longest to break. I could keep this for over 2 years.
That is all, I can recall.

One night at the call center

2006-01-04T20:09:00.000-03:30

The above is the title of Chetan Bhagat's new book.He is the guy who wrote '5 point someone'.I and all of my friends loved that book. I guess every engineering student can empathize with the story and it's characters. If u go to his website chetanbhagat.com then u will see that he cites 5 books that inspired him to write 5 point someone. The list is Catcher in the rye,english august,catch 22, moth smoke and the god of small things. I have read the first 3 and all of them are excellent.
Now coming to his new novel. I finished it today. The first half is bit slow but the ending was mindblowing. I really loved it. I am just stating my personal opinion so dont blame me if u read it and dont like it. It is about 6 call center employees and one night that changes thier lives,because they get a phone call from god.

The characters are
1. Shyam - a guy who has lost his self confidence because of a bad boss.He also lost his girlfriend,Priyanka who is his colleague.

2.Vroom(Varun) - the youngest of them all. used to be a journalist but then joined the call center for money.

3.Priyanka- lives with a dominating mother,who she also loves dearly. she had to end her relationship with Shyam as her mother disapproaved of him.

4.Esha-an aspiring model who ran away from her parents house in chandigarh and came to delhi.has to work in call center to make ends meet.

5.Radhika- married for love.but now has problems with mother in law.

6.Military Uncle- A retired army officer who lives alone now because of his differences with his son and daughter in law.

7.Bakshi- the boss of the above people.an evil and stupid guy.loves using management jargon.

This novel has a very good message at the end too. I dont want to reveal too much so thats it for now.

Drinking

2005-12-30T22:08:00.000-03:30

Many people think drinking alcohol is a vice. But why is it bad? It is very important to know the reason behind this. I remember in my high school biology textbook, we were told about the harmful effects of alcohol on our health. But later on, in newspapers I read that drinking 1 peg a day is actually a salubrious habit.
So healthwise getting drunk is extremely bad for you but drinking in moderation may be all right depending on how your body takes it. Going by the general rule that everything that tastes good like pizza,pepsi etc. is bad for your health. And everything that tastes bad like karela and anwla is good for health, I can say that since alcoholic beverages taste bad they have to be good for health in some way.Excess of alcohol is bad just like excess of anything else like meat,butter or salt.So drinking alcohol is just a health issue and not a moral one.
But getting drunk is an immoral act. The reason being that after getting drunk u may misbehave with others. Also u may break stuff or dirty stuff by puking on it, causing inconvenience to others. Of course driving after drinking is a big no as u may end up killing someone. Therefore getting drunk must be avoided. Everyone should know thier limit and drink within that.
Why do people drink anyway? It is because alcohol relaxes the mind and lowers ur inhibitions. Of course it would be best if we didnt need alcohol to relieve tension and break ice with people. But since ordinary mortals are not that fortunate, it is OK to drink a little bit socially to have a good time.
Have a gr8 new years eve and an awesome 2006!

Fall 2005 ends on a 'high' note.

2005-12-25T14:40:00.000-03:30

This terse tittle succinctly captures the essence of my experience on the evening of 22nd deacember 2005.On this day from 5pm to 7pm we had the last final exam of this semester. I think I did well.So I was happy that the exam went well. I also had to go to a party next door. 5 guys live in the house next to mine and out of this 4 are students so thier exams had also recently ended. I had the vile thought to get drunk that day, something I really regret now. While coming back from college, me,Sahil and Nishank(one of the hosts) bought apple vodka and beer from a liquor store. When we reached the house, the party hadnt really started. There were some people sitting around and talking. There were 2guys busy downloading songs. Vikram had prepared a very good meal for everyone, but sadly I did not get a chance to get beyond the salad. So after meeting the people in the room I got my laptop from next door and started playing some good music( i have a very nice collection). Shortly we began drinking, starting with beer. When I drink any alcohol on an empty stomach I start getting affected from the first drink itself. So I was feeling good after my first beer. Then I had another one. I also had a little bit of salad with dressing along with it. Till this point I was in my senses ad enjoying the party as more and more people started arriving.Then somebody ( might also be me but I dont remember) opened the vodka bottle. The apple vodka tasted good, we had it with canada dry. And now I made the mistake of drinking more pegs than I could handle in quick succession. After that I was really high. People were dancing and I started dancing too. Then I collided with a wall and sat down.The next thing I remember was that I was lying on Nishank's bed and then he woke me up and took me home(next door) along with Hardeep his roommate. The party was over by that time. Then I slept normally and woke up at 8am. This was the first time I was drunk to the extent of forgetting what happenned last night. At the begening of the party, Neelabh had called me and told me to write a blog after I get drunk. I couldnt do it because I got unconcious. In the morning I went next door and apologised for any inconvenience I might have caused, those guys were very nice and cool about it. After this incident I have realised that although drinking alcohol is not a bad thing by itself, but getting drunk is. Infact I thought so much about this that I need to devote an entire blog to this topic, so watch out for my next blog. Cheers!

whAt A coincidence!

2005-12-16T22:54:00.000-03:30

I hAd this thought todAy. About the preponderAnce of letter A in my life. To begin with, my full nAme is MAnAn ChAndrA. The only vowel in it is A.Both my pArent's nAmes stArt with the letter A. My blood group is A+ve.My fAvorite book is CAtch 22, favorite Author is Ayn RAnd and favorite music is bhAngrA. The only vowel in All these is A. I hope this trend continues like mAthemAticAl induction And All my grAdes here in AmericA Are A, inshAllAh!

Its my birthday!

2005-12-07T02:57:00.000-03:30

Happy birthday to me. Today on 7th december I turned 22 years old at 12.30am. My roommates had known about this because of Orkut and were asking me for a party yesterday. So I knew that they would do something for me today. At 12.10 or something I heard a knock on my room door and they all came in to wish me. And then we went into the dining room where an ice-cream cake was waiting for me with Happy Birthday Manan written on it with cream. Turn by turn I fed everyone a spoonful and after this round everyone got a spoon and started eating.Then we took some pictures.
I dont know how many calories i had today, but I am guessing its a lot. I think I have gained around 3 kg after coming to USA. I am a gourmand and an epicurean, I believe in the motto 'Eat Drink and be happy'. I was always a chubby kid. In fact,one of my teachers in 3rd or 4th standard used to greet me by squeezing my chubby cheeks.In my 12th standard my wieght was once 73kg. After school I started to watch my weight. I avoided overeating and ate wisely. I also did jogging and swimming. On top of this I started living in the hostel in college where the food was bad. So I did manage to bring my weight down to 63kg in 2years or so. But then I became lazier and was 65 when I left India in August.When I last weighed myself a more than a month ago I was 67kg. The main reason for my gaining weight is that I have eaten wantonly and never excercised after coming here. I have been going to the sports centre twice a week but not for working out, but for my job. Now as the semester is coming to a close and the academic pressure is mounting , excercise is becoming even more elusive. I will make a new year resolution about excersizing and hopefully will keep it. I will also avoid high calorie food till the end of this semester. After this I am going to my relatives house where I know I will be offered fabulous treats which I wouldnt be able to resist. To make matters worse, right outside my classroom there is a vending machine full of cookies,chocolates,snacks etc. In fact today I had 2 cupcakes from it.I somehow have to become more discplined.
In my job I have to go to many offices in the recreational building to work on the computers. In one of these offices I found the Bridget Jones' Diary and started reading. I read some of it every time i go into that office. In fact I am halfway through now. After writing this blog I feel that to an extent I have started empathizing with Bridget. There are 2 main issues with which she is obsessed. One is losing weight and keeping it under control. This has recently become an issue with me. The other thing she is very concerned about like many 33 year old single women is finding a boyfried/husband. At the time being I am concentrating on studies and not on girls, but I just hope that I am not single by the time I am 33, exactly 11 years from now.

Philosophy, luck and god

2005-12-05T03:10:00.000-03:30

Today I have spend enough time on work so I think I can finally get down to blogging. By the way it snowed here today. Me and a few friends went out to play in it.It truly was a beautiful sight this pure white snow. It reminds u what purity is in this world rife with pollution of all kinds.
Lets have a look at this shloka written in the Bhagwad Gita -
'Karmanyevadhikaraste mafaleshu kadachana,
Ma karmaphal-heturbhurta te sango astvakarmani'.
This in sanskrit language and means that you have a right only over ur actions and not in thier fruits. So dont be attached to the outome of your actions, but dont practice inaction either.
I find this to be an extremely empowering philosophy. To some people this may appear revulsive, what is the motivation for working if u dont want any results? But this is not the correct interpretation of this philosophy. When it says that u have a right only over ur actions it also implies that it is your responsibility while performing any action to give it your everything. Of course at that time we are driven by an aim. Now this aim should not be the achievement of a goal but to do this job to the very best of your ability. By saying that you should not be attached with the goal it just means that even if the final outcome of your work is not as per ur expectations dont get depressed,just continue performing ur actions with full vigour.
There are many situations in life when the result of ur actions is highly contingent on luck, and this is where u should let go and not blame urself or anyone else for a failure. The 3rd president of USA, Thomas Jefferson once remarked “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Luck is also one of the qualties Napolean looked for in his generals.
Luck, this simple four letter word which rhymes with an even fouler 4 lettered word, is possibly the only rational explanation for god. I am not a religious person, I dont believe in performing rituals and going to temples. I believe god manifests himself or herself through luck. What the believer calls 'a miracle of god' an athiest calls 'dumb luck'.So i guess both are the same thing.
But this doesn't mean that god gives good luck to the good and bad luck to the bad. The contrary happens often times. Given below is an interesting article I found on the internet about Albert Einstien's famous quote 'God doesn't play Dice'.
In quantum mechanics, many events look like they happen by absolutely random chance. Exactly when a radiactive decay occurs, exactly where a particular blip of light gets absorbed, etc seem not to be determined by anything in the way the universe is ahead of time. Einstein strongly suspected that these events all did have specific causes, but that the causes were somehow hidden away in some hard-to-find form. That's what he meant when he said "God doesn't play dice with the universe." Since that time, mostly over the last thirty years, people have followed up some of Einstein's ideas for experiments intended to show that the consequences of standard quantum mechanics are absurd. The experiments have not only confirmed quantum mechanics, but have convincingly shown that if the universe has "hidden variables" to dictate the outcomes of quantum processes, those variables are simultaneously hidden all over the place, not in any particular location. So it looks like Einstein's hunch was probably wrong. ----end of article
So this means that God does actually play dice, so he( or she) is someone gambling with the universe, gambling with ur life and mine. Be excited or be horrified, choice is urs. To end this blog here is another quote by Albert Einstien :-
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The
other is as though everything is a miracle.
Hold on, I cant end now as this reminds me of a joke
Once a professor was taking a class and wanted to teach the students what a miracle is. So he gave an example, "A man jumps of a 20 storey buildings but recieves no injury , what would u call this?" Someone said "luck". "OK, but suppose he jumps of the building again but sustains no injuries once again". At this point the class topper said " Statistics have shown that in the past, 1 in 500 people have survived such incidents, so it is statistically possible". The professor was getting impatient "Damn your statistics! What if the guy falls down 1000 times and survives on all counts. Now probability of his getting hurt is almost 1 according to your statistics. So now how would u explain this?". "Practice!", shouted the whole class in unison.

laugh

2005-11-29T16:00:00.000-03:30

In my earlier blog I had promised to publish about my subsequnt semsters in DCE. But when I got down to writing about the 2nd sem, I realized it was not as interesting as the first, I didint feel to enthusiastic to write about it. But I will do it sometime later.Now i am sitting here in my room and feeling bored, its not that i have nothing to do, i do have a homework due day after tommorrow. Yesterday I went to bed at 6am and then woke up at 12noon. I had to go for job and finally returned home at 11.30pm or so. After that I had to complete another homework so i finally slept at 4.30am. I am actually enjoying staying up this late, its so peaceful. Although 'ullu' is a derogatory word in hindi which means idiot, but its english translation owl is a symbol of knowledge in the west. And as we all know owl is a nocturnal animal, therefore the night as to be the best time to study or think. This reminds me that in DCE I was known for giving similar fudas for justifying stuff. Which often resulted in making me a laughing stock. But I still enjoyed it. Life is incomplete without humor and laughter. Whoever said 'Laughter is the best medicine ' sure knew what he or she was talking about. Staying on the topic of laughter, yesterday I listened to a few songs by Bodhitree , a band of XLRI students. Their music and especially lyrics are particulary good. I suggest u search them on the internet. Two of thier songs have provocative titles as 'G**d mein danda' and 'sabka katega'. The other number I heard was 'XL ki kudiyan' which is quite catchy. I also watched 'No Entry' on monday on my laptop, that was funny too. So its been a nice last couple of days/nights.

2nd Semester

2005-11-27T22:11:00.000-03:30

Those of us who were transferred from NSIT to DCE were very happy as we were expecting much lighter academic schedule here. Which we did get here. So there was plenty of time to play pool, which became our main pastime. The room where we played was owned by an uncle ji who had an inimitable style of saying 'Kya Kehne!' Usually me Shashi,Suvir,Sameer used to go to play. All of us had one thing in common that we were not as academically inclined as the rest of the class. The only reason we ever attended classes was for the sake of attendance. Mark Twain once said "I never let my schooling interfere with my education". I think he would be proud of us. But later on we did become more serious about studies. I did so when it dawned on me that acads was a major criteria for going to study in US, Suvir became serious after his experience with A K Roy, Sameer in the company of Neelabh. But I guess nothing could make Shashi more studious.
I am sorry I cant write anything about the faculty as I never paid attention to what they said in the lectures. I was at my most laid back during this semester.
But among other things, this was the first time I experienced first hand the inefficiency of government offices. We all who came from NSIT had to get new I cards made for which we stood in long queues for an even longer time. There was a minimum 1 week waiting period for all jobs like getting a bus pass form attested or obtaining ur original certificates. There were other procedures like getting the library card and applying for hostel which took a major toll on me.
There was no room in the type 4 hostel, so for the first time in the history of DCE freshers were given rooms in the same hostel as seniors. This was no big deal for us as we had lived in same hostel as seniors in NSIT. But then we started hearing stories of dangerous seniors with wierd names like Masterji, Jeff, Bhangu,Ashu, Pheru,Pillakhua etc. Fortunately these guys didn't bother me and my friends. They probably had taken out all thier frustrations on our predecessors in the 1st semester. But other seniors often paid our rooms a visit to give us assignments to do for them. This was a major pain. Whenever a rumor spread that seniors are coming we would lock our front doors from outside and then enter from the backdoor. This sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.
Fortunately Sudhanshu was alloted a room away from most of the first year rooms and most seniors didn't know about it. So his room became our secret hideout. Sudhanshu is a very hardworking,proactive and practical guy. I thought his name was too long and he should have a nickname and then came up with one that has stuck to him since then - Chuddu! In his room we ued to play cards many times. Anyway this guy was selected by Texas Instruments recenty and has moved to bangalore.Congrats Chuddu!
One of his neighboors was Harman who was my classmate and lab mate and went on to become one of my closest friends. He was initially as ghissu as Chuddu but in my company became less so and I guess I got inspired to be more studious by him. The result was that In the last 6 semesters of college we have almost identical marks in every semester. He was so naive to begin with, one evening we were about to watch porn on someones computer and this was the first time the 18 years old Harman was going to watch porn. So Harman entered, with his tray of food as he was coming from the mess. I told him jokingly to not stay here and eat because since he will be watching porn for the first time he will throw up. And wow he really believed me and fled fast from the room.
This was the first time Neelabh aka Ghissu and Phatua was staying in a hostel. His roommate was Amit Qusba, who was giving JEE the 3rd time. Qusba is one of the few people on earth who are more ghissu than Neelabh. He did get into IIT Guwahati that year. Neelabh's stay in the hostel was cut short when one day he was given the job to copy 60 pages or so of someone's training diary. That was too much of a waste of Neelabh's study time and he left the hostel shortly after. Inspite of being a topper throughout his schooling, he was most insecure about performing well in college. I guess its because he set a very high standard for himself. If u ever wanted to see how devastated a man can look, all u had to do was tell Neelabh that the result is out. On seeing his face at that time u would think that he has just heard his own death sentence being passed. At this point Neelabh would leave anything he was doing and make a dash for the notice board, and only after confirming that he has got distinction yet again, would his normal expression return. This guy is definitely the most modest person I know. While for others, getting over 75% would bring an irripressable 1000 watt ear to ear grin on the face, it would fail to elicit a faint smile from the blaise Neelabh. On asking him about this I learnt that he carried a dangerous curse which would destroy him if he ever became satisfied with his achievements. This ghost was eventually exorcised in the 8th semester when Neelabh got admission calls from CMU,Stanford,TAMU etc. I think it was the result of Neelabh getting the blessings of Golu on touching his feet. Golu was not just rolly polly but also holy!
One of the good things about the DCE hostel was the food, it tasted really good esp ecially after eating the NSIT mess food for a few months which was yuck! I really liked the food on tuesday and wednesday. My love for the wednesday chicken and halwa is legendary now.
The most fun part of second semester was the Engifest. We had all night jam sessions in those days. A guy who is 6 feet tall and weighs 80 kilos can look quite intimidating. But when a guy like this dances like there is no tommorrow its a different site altogether. Seeing Amritanshu dance was like watching a hurricane, anyone near him desparately wanted to get out of the way. This worked against him on more than one occasion. This was the time when DCE was at its most undisciplined. In all subsequent years the durationof jam sessions reduced drastically. This period was probably the worse phase in the history of DCE, as it got knocked out of the top 10 Engineering colleges list.
During our final exams on the eve of the Applied Mechanics final exam, there was a power cut in the hostel. Such a thing always arouse mixed feelings of dispair and reilef. Dispair at time being wasted, which could have been used for studying. But relief as this offers a compulsary break without the guilt of a voluntary break. Anyway during this break we somehow got hold of a Mast Ram. This is the hindi counterpart of 'Letters to the Penthouse'. Although it makes u laugh more than lust. The magazine was read out loud by Shashi to the amusement of all listeners.
That year in the final exams AM paper many guys were given supplees and 2 of my classmates who hadn't even written the final exams because they had cleared JEE were given above average marks. I still havent figured out on what basis were we graded.
So these were the highlights of sem2. Till sem 3, its goodbye from me.

Nostalgia : Prelude and Chapter 1.

2005-11-27T02:48:00.001-03:30

Today I read the blogs of 4 of my friends from DCE - Neelabh,Parag,Ohri and Sameer. Apart from Ohri's I was reading all others for the first time. I especially liked Sameer's blog , his witty description of the life and people in DCE. That really brought back some fond memories.
College was all about having fun. A day never went by without a hearty laugh, sometimes at others and sometimes at my own expense.
So now I present a semester wise description of 'My College Days - an epoch of 8 semesters'.

First Semester at NSIT
Hurray!I was in college, on course to be an engineer.Although I didnt know what an engineer exacty does, I was too euphoric to bother about something as trivial as my future career. Everyone feels happy to be in college. I think research has proven that the thing that gives the most happiness to people is seeing thier hard work bearing fruit. And every1 knows how much hard work goes into preparing for the entrance exams. In fact I was so fed up of slogging for 2 years at school and FIITJEE that I had decided to just have fun in first year and let studies take the back seat. A policy that I later extended to my 2nd year too.
The initial phase was of course all about ragging,which was very mild- mainly introduction, following a dress code and the occasional song or dance. This was the ragging done during the day in college. One evening many of us were ragged in hostel too, and it was really fun and enjoyable. Among the highlights of that night was Shashi becoming the Phantom and running around the place. Shashi was my first close friend in college. He is a 'mast' guy with a good sense of humor, who doesn't give a damn for studies and is also a big 'tharki'. Apart from this ragging we were given some ED sheets to make from time to time by seniors. This is a tradition we also carried forward by giving our juniors such work when we came in 2nd yr. Shashi who was given a lot of these sheets by our seniors, exacted full revenge from his juniors who probably made all his sheets.
NSIT had a very rigorous schedule, there were classes every day from 9am to 5pm. A word about the faculty now. The only guy who knew his subject was probably a distant cousin of Hitler, the draconian Pradeep Khanna. Under whom we toiled in the workshop every monday for 3 hours. There was DK Singh who taught the boring MPA. He always made it a point to tell us if he thought something was 'impotent'. Ranjana Jha who taught us physics used to declare before each lecture 'jisko bahar jaana hai wo abhi chala jaye'. And of course like typical rebellious youth we always defied her by sitting through the lecture every time. Our maths teacher was Mr Jena, who claimed to be a former teacher at some IIT. Before seeing him I thought that people only sit cross legged, but this guy even stood in a cross legged position. Thomas Finney was the love of his life. Before u start getting any ideas let me clarify that what I mean is that he always goaded us to read a maths book by TF. Lastly, who can forget those chemistry professors from IIT. One of them actually found it incredible that people just wanted attendance and not his gyaan. The other was a snob who finally gave up on us imbeciles after finding out that we didn't bring calculators to college.
An aspect of college which almost every guy looks forward to is meeting beautiful girls. The unattainability of this aim came as a rude shock to me in NSIT. This was when a new phrase was added to my vocabulary - 'non males'.
Now Shashi and I had a common interest in quizzing, we took part in our first quiz together at the NSIT annual cultural fest and reached the finals. Our 3rd teammate was Sahil Sansi who claimed to have cleared IIT but came to NSIT, whats more? he expected us to believe him!
Anyway one day I saw a bus from NSIT going for a fest at LSR. I wasted no time in finding Shashi so that we could go to on the pretext of participating in a quiz. For those who dont know LSR is an all girls college in Delhi.It is said that if there is a heaven on earth it is in Kashmir. I say that if there is a heaven in Delhi it is in LSR. 'Jannat' is exactly the word I used to describe it on my maiden(pun intended) visit there. Anyway coming back to that day we just sat in the LSR cafeteria gawking at the plethora of beauties walking around. By the time we returned to NSIT that day we had decided to go to LSR every year.Believe me we did go there in 2nd year all the way from DCE and back the same day.
A regular feature of my years at NSIT was watching movies every friday. Priya was the nearest cinema hall and many of us went there frequently. Coincidentally one of the first movies I saw with my college friends was the cult friendship movie 'Dil Chahta Hai'. Although my most memorable movie experience was when me, Shashi and Amritanshu went to see the AngelinaJolie starrer 'Original Sin' touted for it's steamy scenes. But as we learnt the hard way , the indian censor board is too strict about sex. We had decided to leave in the intermission, but just before that a glimpse of Jolies left or right (I dont remember which) nipple restored our libidos and we decided to watch the remaining movie too. Only too realize that our gullibility had got the better of us. When we were walking outside the hall later on we saw Ruby Bhatia doing a live show. But thats all there is to it. I didnt talk about Amritanshu till now. He is an ultrastudious pervert, with a penchant for porn and a tendency to get too anxious. But he is very good at heart. He works really hard, and when the time comes he party's even harder.
Another significant development that took place was that seats were increased in DCE and NSIT resulting in upgradation of most of the ICE guys to ECE or COE. This also meant that we were moving to DCE after the 1st sem. We were all ecstatic! I want to take this opportunity to thank my distant cousin Mr.R.K.Gupta who fought this case for increasing the seats.
Our final exams got postponed due to this. So I gave my JEE screening test in december without any preparation and got through. I had decided to give JEE again and hadnt started studying till now. Actually I never did get down to studying for it, infact on the day of the main exam I decided to spend the hot may evening in the Noida Golf Course swimming pool, rather than in a cramped classroom. Anyway I cant think of anything worth writing about my first sem now. The only other significant thing were the final exams which came after a long preparatory leave and galvanized everyone into a frenzy of studying and cramming. If ask me these exams are good for nothing. The students have to cram for them, the teachers have to set them and then again check them. The only person who is happy during the exams is the chai and omellete wala baba outside the hostel, who does brisk business making tea to help students accomplish 'night-outs'.
"Exams are just a scam by the caffiene products industries, to increase thier business". One day I will prove this theory and get the nobel prize for economics.

The best reason to go to America? To study!

2005-11-20T22:07:00.000-03:30

I always wanted to go to USA. This thought probably crept into my mind for the first time when my aunt who lives in Canada got chocolates and clothes for me from there. For a child whose age hasnt reached double digits, these were the symbols of paradise. As I grew older I became aware of a number of amenities which are better in America than in India like cleanliness, no pollution,no power cuts etc. As I became even more mature I started thinking about social evils like corruption,crime,politics,overpopulation which were plagueing India. Like any other selfish and pragmatic person I decided the best thing to shield myself from all this is to go abroad. All my relatives who are in America came here to study so I decided to do the same thing. I decided that I will go to USA to study after graduation.I already knew that life here as a student will be tough and not just pure enjoyment and partying.
So now I am doing MS in computer science from New York University. After coming here I have realized what it means to be a student and what is real education. In my undergaduate college studying meant a very boring thing to be postponed till a few weeks before the final exam. The reason it was so boring was that it was all rote learning. Also none of the faculty inspired in you a love for the subject. They just told u to take notes and read books.
Here the professors keep the lecture notes available online so that the time in class is spent in understanding the concepts and not feverishly jotting down every syllable uttered by the instructor. Also the instructors here are very polite to the students and make a genuine effort to make u understand thier subject. Sitting for a lecture is a pleasure here but it was an ordeal in my old college. This is the reason that there is no rule regarding attendance here. If you miss a lecture it is your loss. Here evaluation is based on regular homeworks , this keeps u motivated to study throughout the semester. Also these homeworks involve thinking on your own to solve a problem, not just finding a text in a book and transcribing it. After coming here I am seriously considering doing a PhD, a thought which seemed prepostrous back then. A chief reason for my becoming suddenly so studious is because I have little else to do. My social life is very flimsy,
my laptop is my best friend here. It has become indispensable as use it for everything -reading online lecture notes,programming, surfing,online news,mailing and listening to music or watching films. In India my entertainment was TV, cinema and reading novels, I had way too much free time on my hands. Here I dont have a TV and believe me I dont miss it. Also I dont feel like watching movies too often. Also I dont have close friends like I had in India, so I dont go out much. Also living on a student budget doesnt let u afford theatre,restaurants etc.
But I am loving my life here, studies are a stimulating,challengeing and an exercise for the brain. They keep u intellectually alive. Education is the best thing I like about America.

wasted day

2005-06-01T12:52:00.000-02:30

my luck sucked today! i travelled 90km for 2 signatures. I wanted more but couldnt get them. Why the hell cant these guys be more dutiful by at least coming to thier offices??
I also wasted too much money on food. Now i have to undertake this journey again tomorrow.
At times like this u just cant help feeling depressed.
tonight i am gonna watch the movie 'Jo bole so nihal' on a CD. i hope it helps me unwind.
This is life... yesterday i had just returned from an awesome trip to Dharamsala which is a hill station in Himanchal Pradesh in India( i am writing this as if people from all over the world are gonna view my blog ! ). I hope all 8 of my friends had as great a time as I did.
Now the euphoria of the trip is over and the exasperation of getting a job done in DCE has set in.
But tomorrow i am gonna finish the job by hook or by crook!

"the path is uphill the task is steep
but i have promises to keep
and miles to go before i sleep( 90/1.5=60 miles)
now i wish i had a jeep"

inspired by Robert Frost

not a blog virgin anymore

2005-06-01T10:48:00.000-02:30

yeah this is my first post..... earlier i had no time for this blogging nonsense but since now my undergraduate education is over, i have plenty of free time on my hands to bore others by telling them to read what i write. As the saying goes 'an empty mind is a devilz workshop'.
i am fond of reading books and have nurtured an ambition to be an author for quite some time.But since i dont think i am upto it i will be content being a blogger.
special thanks to my friend saurabh ohri for leading the way by bing the first blogger in our friend circle, he is the only blogger i personally know.
well now a little bit about me......well my name is Manan, in Hindi language it means 'thinking'. I guess this name suits me as i like thinking, i am thankful to my parents for naming me that.
Education-i have studied in 4 schools and 1 college till now and about to go for masters in another college.To know more about me check out my profile.
I hope i enjoy writing this blog and u all reading it, till boredom do us part!