As the years flew by

2009. It’s here. The year I graduate. And become an engineer. Got a job already. And now a degree. I can’t believe it. Where did these years fly by?
What have I done in the last 4 yrs? Not gained much knowledge, that’s for sure. I better pen it down before my highly volatile memory gets the better of me.

First Year: Ah! Proud to get admission into VJTI. Attending lectures (yea, we actually did that). Write out assignments (did that too). Took down notes in the lectures and actually used them during the exams. (This really takes the cake).
- Sitting outside MLR 6 under the tree waiting for the profs to turn up
- The graphics lectures. The long lines for getting the best drawing boards. The girls demanding a separate girls line.
- The sleepless nights before the graphics exam.
- The loooooong line for PAW to get the BME writeups signed.
- The entertaining shouting match in the maths lecture (Thanks to Anita).
- Physics practical vivas ending with the prof’s head horizontal on the desk.
- Time pass in the chemistry lab
- The first traditional day n rose day with the never ending photo session.
- Running around for the fests
- Freshers’ party
- The ragging in the canteen (again, thanks to Anita)
- Workshop: Getting all the work done from the guys and the instructors. 45 degrees going on and on with his jokes.
- Deolekar’s lectures with full attendance. The day he got bugged n said “so” n we laughed on his face. Poor guy, he still hasn’t figured it out. The punishment assignment with the whole class sitting in the library.
- Our first dose of submissions, vivas and GPAs.
- The first class trip to Khandala.
- Movie plans of 40+ people.

Second Year: No longer the kids in the college. Now in our own department.
- The initial pleasure of studying subjects of our interest.
- Driving Ahire out of class. Deolekar getting mad again. And the 100 sum punishment that followed.
- Varu’s Krrish-like hairstyle.
- Anita’s screamfest part 2 that scared the shit out of the babe.
- Gul’s ROFL laugh. It was legen…wait for it…dary.
- The gossip sessions in EDC lab.
- Mass copying tutorials of EN.
- The daily climb up the smelly staircase
- Our first tryst with “no prof” in 4th sem.
- The Goa trip.
- The day trip to the water park. The hour long wait for the ST bus, and the rather uncomfortable ride. It’s not everyday that we sit on pillows. *grin*

Third year: The year of fun and festivals.
- The joy of having a ground floor class room.
- Walking out of the CG mst. What a day! We did set a trend though, for the IT class emulated us.
- The brilliant microp prof.
- A time table with only 2 subjects in the 6th sem
- No prof for CG.
- A certain “chudhail” cracking jokes while shouting.
- The new year party in true wizards style

Final year: Gosh, it’s already here. God, why are you doing this to us?
- The placements.
- The long walk to Mount Everest (damn, I lost a good amount of weight there)
- The infinite visits to the exam dept.
- Walking from one class to another.
- The annoying new class tests. Certain annoying people asking us to draw lines on the papers. Other annoying people screeching like dinosaurs.
- The wumpus in class- the day he got high (and ****) and started reciting shaayaris. Don’t be shocked, Bade Bade collegon mein aisi chhoti chhoti baatein hoti rehti hai.
- Walking out of the DSP mst after 15 mins- not because it was out of syllabus, but because it was so ridiculously easy, we all started laughing.

*Sigh*. Only one more sem left. If only it is as eventful as the others.

Samsung Pebble

I was leafing through the December 2008 edition of JetWings during my flight when I came across something that caught my attention.

Here's presenting an mp3 player that is simple and stylish- the Samsung Pebble. It's small. It's cute. With a design to resemble a stone, it can be used as a piece of jewellery as well.

With a flash memory of 1 GB, it comes in 5 colours. Reasonably priced at 40$, it could give the Ipod Shuffle a tough time. Like the shuffle, it has no screen, which means that the user should be familiar with its functions. Another drawback is that it doesn't allow you to jump from one album to another while scrolling, so you may need to spend a really long time searching for your favourite song.

On the whole, it's a cheap, pretty device that could serve the purpose of a pendant.

World's largest TV

I always thought the Samsung 70” LCD TV was on the top of my wish list.

Until I came across the new Sharp 108” LCD TV. Released in Mumbai on Friday night, it’s the largest TV that has ever been manufactured.

Boasting a height and breadth of 52” and 94” respectively, it employs 8^th generation glass substrates. Sharp has proved that it can now manufacture LCD tvs in all sizes- from 14” to gigantic ones.

With a resolution of 1920x1080, it offers a plethora of inputs, such as HDMI, which makes it compatible with a wide range of products.

That’s the good news.

The bad news? It’s gonna burn a deep hole in your pockets, perhaps burn out your wallet. This awesome device comes at a retail price of 97 lakh rupees. And of course, you will need to buy a house with a wall big enough to mount the tv.

So if you are ever on the hot seat of KBC, and AB asks you what you would do with a crore of crore rupees, you know what to say. I know I will.

iPhone vs Stone

While the whole world goes “wo-how” over the new iphone 3G, here’s a picture to support those who speak against it.

I can’t help agreeing with this picture- even my simple Nokia phone provides all these features (except the touch screen), and it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.
So as I always say, it’s smarter to buy the ipod touch and use a regular mobile phone.

movie review- A Wednesday

Undoubtedly one of the best movies made in the history of the film industry. It isn't the typical run-of-the-mill movie about terrorism, and how bomb blasts affect the life of people, and how they pick up the pieces and move on with their lives. It is completely a work of fiction.
It is the story of a day in Mumbai, narrated in retrospect by the Police Commissioner (Anupam Kher). The story of certain events that unfold between 2 and 6 p.m. on a Wednesday.
It begins on a normal day in Mumbai. A common man(Naseeruddin Shah) goes to the Mumbai police headquarters to lodge a complaint about a lost wallet. A little while later, the police commissioner receives a call on his mobile from an untraceable number, with a threat of a bomb being in the headquarters. Immediately, all officers are put to task, the bomb squad is called, and the bomb is located in the washroom of the headquarters. The bomb is defused and the police are on high alert. The mysterious caller calls back and claims that he has planted 5 more bombs in various locations in the city. His demands: 4 militants that are in police custody on charges of terrorism should be released that day before 5 pm. Further conditions state that those four should be accompanies to an open ground only by 2 junior police officers.
The commissioner isn't willing to give in so easily. He can't simply release terrorists, but he can't put 2 million lives at stake either. He gets his entire battalion of police to nab the caller, and even hires a college-dropout hacker to trace the caller. The terrorist is technologically well-versed, he uses different SIM cards to make calls and knows how to hide his identity. In the midst of this, the terrorist calls up a reporter (Deepal Shaw) and tells her about the bombs in the city. Like any typical gossip-hungry reporter, she immediately reaches the site and starts reporting about the happenings on TV. The police and the hacker can get no information about the caller and decide to release the terrorists. The four of them and two junior officers (Jimmy Shergill, Aamir Bashir) are put in a police van and taken to a desserted open ground. What happens then, will keep you gripped to your seat till the very end.
The movie has no sub plots, no songs and no attempt-to-be-funny scenes. It is absolutely crisp and focused on the story. The climax has been shot extremely well. The scenes at the police headquarters and at the deserted ground are juxtaposed brilliantly. Naseer's speech about terrorists vs commoners will leave a lasting impression on your mind.
Jimmy and Aamir are calm and poised as police officers. Anupam Kher shows great depth in his role as the commissioner. Deepal Shaw is surprisingly bearable (and well-dressed). But the cake is taken away by Naseeruddin.
I would recommend it to every person concerned about terrorism. There's just one problem- you may want to become a terrorist!

Getting back to life...

What a crazy week! 4 class tests- out of 30 marks, then reduced to 2.5 (yeah, I KNOW). I didn't care too much for them, I mean...who cares about 2.5 marks in the final year once you're placed? The tests were pretty entertaining...one of the supervisors from the M Tech class screeched like Ross making dinosaur sounds(for the non-FRIENDS addicts, don't bother). Another professor made us draw margins on both sides of the answer sheet...whaddehell has gotten into these people!!
Once they were all finally over I decided it was time to relax. The whole month of August had been pretty hectic, beginning with GRE, then placements, then these pain-in-the-ass tests.
I have virtually stopped going to theaters to watch movies, since I watch them on the computer, and due to my miserly nature. But this was a point of celebration, so I decided to catch a movie.
I caught the morning show(so at half rate) of Mumbai Meri Jaan. The movie is based on the train bomb blasts that happened two years ago. As most Bolly flicks these days, it has 5 different stories interconnected. A reporter whose life tragedy is made into a melodrama by her own colleagues (Soha), a police officer about to retire who thinks about what he has really achieved in his career (Paresh Rawal), a young executive who ponders over his principles (Madhavan), a struggling madrasi trying to get foot in Mumbai(Irfan Khan), and an anti-Muslim defeated businessman(Kay Kay Menon). All performances are brilliant with each character delineated with depth. I would recommend this movie to all those who consider Mumbai as their home town, and especially those who travel by local trains.
That evening, the entire wizards gang had gathered at Classic to celebrate a birthday. We came up with am impromptu plan to watch the first day first show of Rock On. In true wizards style, within minutes, money was collected, the attendance sheet was passed, and about 20 people signed up for the movie. *Sigh*, I am going to miss all this next year. The final toll went up to about 30.
After a meeting with a prof that lasted unto 10 mins before the movie (I wont go into the details), we just about made it to the movie.
Rock On does live up to its expectations. Farhan is truely an all-rounder. He has already proved his directorial capabilities by making a masterpiece like Dil Chahta Hai, but we get a glimpse of his singing and acting talent as well. Prachi Desai is demur and rather stoic at some parts. I wonder who her hair stylist was- it looked like she has run a road roller over her hair and stuck it together with fevicol. The lack of hair dresser talent is compensated by that of the interior decorator. Farhan and Prachi's house was WO-HOW. I was totally enthralled by the decor and furniture of the apartment, with the balcony and water wall. Arjun Rampal and Luke Kenny have given memorable performances, but the cake is taken by Purab Kohli, with his charm and sense of humour. He had always been my favourite VJ on channel V, and his charisma was the highlight of his performance. The music, of course, is mostly hardcore rock. Though most of the band songs are similar, Tum ho toh and Socha Hai remain amongst my favourites. The non-band songs Ye tumhari baatein and Phir Dekhiye are refreshingly soft. [:D] The story is somewhat old and gets predictable at some places. But overall, great movie and brilliant music. There's just one problem, you can’t dance in the theatre during the songs.
I can't believe I watched 2 movies in a week in the theatre!! I have to get back to my first love...computer/ipod shows [:)]

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!