The CG Final

Its been a while since I got back to my blog. I'd better write about the CG final before it fades out of my memory. (For those who don't know me, I've got a really weak memory retention capacity).

You're probably wondering what happened to the MST-that-never-was. Well, it never re-happened. We were told that the marks given for term work would be doubled instead.

In the meantime, we did get a teacher for CG. And I mean a real prof, not a simulated prof who never turned up in class. She didn’t take too many lectures though, but she did "clearly define" the portion from the textbook. And that's what we care about. :)

Now I'd like to mention at this point, that the portion marked was really really little compared to the actual syllabus. It was probably less than what we usually study for a

mid semester test.

So we were all pretty relaxed for this paper and were all chilled out on the final day. A lot of people(from other branches) did ask us whether we would be answering the exam this time or not.

As we got the question paper, we were relieved to see that most of the questions were of our level. Phew! But then, a lot of the questions were from our original syllabus (and not in the marked syllabus from our textbook). As you may have guessed, we all started talking to each other at once. We even had exam partners (from the first year), who were totally taken aback at seeing us. (I do hope we influenced them!!) The professor wasn't in college at that time, so the controller of exams came into our class. We explained the situation to him- that almost half the questions were out of syllabus. He told us to write whatever we knew, and to mark the unknown questions as "out of syllabus". If they were truly out of syllabus, we would be given credit for it. And that's exactly what I did. Fortunately, i knew all the "in-syllabus" questions pretty well. I attempted 140 marks (i.e. the whole paper), with about 70 marks "out-of-syllabus”.

A little while later, the CG prof came in. She was cool (a bit too cool) and told us to "relax, don't worry, everything will be fine". She came to the same conclusion as the Controller of Exams, so I was really happy.

And that's how the CG tribulation ended. We thought it would have been a little more exciting, but what the hell, it’s the first time in my life that I’ve attempted 140 marks in an exam.

Oh by the way, I scored a 10 in CG!!! I wonder if the exam department knows that my account in the lab where we were supposed to do the programs was totally empty!

A Graphic Revolution

20th Feb 2008. Probably the most memorable (and revolutionary) day of mine in VJTI till date.
It was the week of our mid semester tests of the 6th semester. The CG (computer graphics) exam was scheduled in the afternoon- 3.30 to 4.30 pm to be precise.
VJTI is well known for its lack of faculty. The situation has reached its zenith, for we officially did not have a professor for this subject. We had some lectures taken by the high brain society of our class (yes you are reading right!!) The syllabus had been marked for the exam through a mutual agreement between the "student-professors" and the HOD. We were told that a certain temporary professor would set the paper. (Do not even think about asking why this temporary professor could not teach us in the first place. Rumours say that he attended the lectures taken by the students. Ever hears of "swapping roles"?)
The supervisor that day was a junior professor of the dept, not more than 2 years older than us.
Time: 3.30 pm. Question papers handed out. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw the question paper. I couldn’t figure out a single question, let alone the answers! I looked around the class to observe the reactions of the other students. They looked as perplexed as me. I tried to think about what I could write in the exam, just so that my answer paper was not totally blank.
Time: 3.35 pm. Two of the toppers of my class walked in and said "Does anybody know the answers?” That broke the silence. People started murmuring about the absurdity of the questions. Murmurs soon turned into loud voices as we explained our situation to the supervisor. The classroom turned into a huge discussion room, and everyone started explaining to each other that the questions could not have been answered with our minimal knowledge of the subject. Other professors also came in to the classroom to add to the commotion. Whoever said that fish markets were noisy!
Time: 3.40 pm. The supervisor, obviously vexed, decided to bring some level of decorum into the "exam hall", which was now beginning to look like the Indian parliament. She gave us two options- either nobody write the exam, or everybody write. We decided that we should speak to the HOD as soon as possible. Along with our classmates in the neighbouring class, we marched down to the HOD's office. Obviously, the HOD could not speak to 50 students at once in her cabin (and she was probably intimidated at seeing us hording around her office) and told us to go back to class and she would join us shortly. So we marched right back to the class.
Time: 4.00 pm. By now, some of the students had already started discussing the solutions to the questions in the paper. The others started discussing about what we would tell the HOD when she came up. The verdict was that we demand a re-exam, drawn from the syllabus, nevertheless. As we waited further, some of the camera-savvy people started taking videos of people's reactions to an exam. "All questions out of syllabus" was written unanimously on the answer sheets and handed over to the supervisor. We realised that nobody was going to turn up to discuss the matter.
Time: 4.30 pm. As we left the exam hall, we realised that some of our classmates were bullied into writing the exam by some professors. Worse, some noticed that the absurd questions in the paper were actually printed in our textbook!

The picture shows our answer papers. As you may have guessed, the top right paper is mine. I didnt even bother to take the trouble of copying the questions.
If you think this was interesting, wait till I fill in about the final CG exam. Till then, sayonara!

Bollywood masala

Welcome to Bollywood- the largest film industry in the world, churning out more than 300 films a year. What's famous about these movies is the filmy "ishtyle". Most masala movies are known to leave us challenging our logic, and sometimes, education. Now this was a movie that have left me absolutely dumbstruck.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: ( I apolise to the director if I have spelt the movie name fallaciously. I should have probably checked with the numerologist before typing). The situation is somewhat like this. SRK has been kicked out of his house by the patriarch Amitabh Bachchan for marrying a girl (kajol) below their social status. So SRK, along with Kajol and her little sister pack off to London with just a few pennies in their pocket. Somehow in 10 years, they have a sprawling house in London thatwould put even houses from the Barjatya mush factory to shame. In the second half, Kajol's sister has as overnight transition, from a small town tomboy to a snobbish bimbette( now played by Kareena Kapoor). Now SRK's little brother (played by Hrithik in the 2nd half) goes home after 10 years to find out that bade bhaiya has been thrown out ages ago. You may wonder how he didnt find out all these years. Didnt he ever call home or visit in the vacations? In true Hindi film style, he promises his "maa" that he will bring back her "laadla beta". So he sets off, to London, to find his "big brother" (Does that ring a bell somewhere?). As soon as he lands in London, he gets admission to a certain college almost instantaneously. What's even better (or convenient), is that he bumps into Kareena on his first day of college. And of course, he recognises her and remembers their conversations of 10 years ago (and so does she), even though they had met just a few times. Hats off to him for his terrific memory! Hrithik informs Kareena about his master plan and his promise to mommy dearest. When Hrithik meets SRK, the latter has absolutely no clue that this is his little brother, the person who lived in the very house as him. I guess his memory wasnt as effective. Anyway, SRK allows Hrithik to be a guest in his house and the story coninues. The climax too, was rather predictable, with Amitabh suddenly landing in London (in his private aircraft, neverthless). All's well that ends well, Daddy dearest asks his son to forgive him and come back home. Phew!

More to come ahead....