The Speaking Bloke...

how long can u go on without nitrous

2010-12-03T11:30:00.000+05:30

As it turns out.... not very long
i found my new can.. go get your's too

A Drag race called love…

2010-07-11T01:57:00.000+05:30

I am not writing this out of years of experience or after thin slicing many relationships. This post is along the lines of drawing analogies between technology and the human mind. I have always seen love as a drag race without a finish line. You have a can full of nitrous which you can use at will, but you can use it only once. You have one shot, you give it all and that’s all there is to it… naah I sound too depressing now. Wait lemme not get personal and still try to convey the idea here. We are of course taking about the older versions of NFS where you had limited nitrous.

Yes… So getting back to the point. A child grows up and becomes an adult and slowly one tries to understands how behavioral transactions work. It’s a plain barter u know. Give and take, quid pro quo Clarees. More often than not the naïve junta has no clue of how much to give and how much to take. So as soon as they find a certain someone to share, they let go of the entire nitrous without holding back. Such transaction can vary from all night phone calls to ‘I will take a bullet to my heart for you, my love’ type dialogues. The forms may change but the idea remains the same. And as cliché as it may sound the sad part remains that each of these transactions is special, honest and unique just like every other one. So though the words and simple actions of stupidity may seem completely obscure to a stranger they are of utmost value to the two parties involved.

But as GnR as has stated that ‘Nothing lasts forever not even cold November rain’ not all dealings last. People drift apart, sometimes even wishing to never see each other again. But all that remains are the transactions, the numerous occasions of give and take of sweet nothings which in spite of their complete insanity makes complete sense to the two traders now drifted apart. And these transactions are what I have come to understand as the true nature of love. The people involved have changed and so have the circumstances. The log books are still there - there is no more trade and no lust for more transactions.
All of this would have been fine if it was the last chapter in the book, but it’s not. Life often brings us to new junctions where one could have used some more nitrous. But they already spent all that they had in one race. And all that remains is an empty can.

An awakening

2010-06-02T19:30:00.003+05:30

An Idle mind is a devils workshop they say and over the past 8 months I have had a experience on these lines. But my devil is not evil at all. He is more like a relaxed devil who once liked to plot evil but is now tired of taking the effort –it does take a lot of effort to plot evil. He is chilled out laid back, happy go lucky PSU devil, who likes to while away his time watching TV, sleeping, taking hopelessly long walks and endlessly chat. Over the past few months I haven’t blogged a word and most of the credit goes to this off duty devil. Not like he doesn’t have the time or the resources, just that he lacks the motivation.
All of this would have been fine is he was at his final destination already. But for good, he is not. He has a long way to go which required him to wake up from his 24 hr-aftern00n-slumber-seista-fest. Getting out of the lazy mood and putting on your work shoes is like waking up KUMBHKARAN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbhakarna).

On 2nd June 2010, I resigned BHEL and the devil has to wake up now. The war bells are ringing and the peace time in a cozy PSU company is over. The devil- who is just a lazy genius- is realizing that 10 months of drinking tea, bunking afternoon, discussing pay revisions and office politics has rendered his abilities his useless. Its only now after quitting the comforts of assured salary does he realize that world is not so cozy after all. Only the fittest and the smartest will survive and though he was Good one day, he sucks at everything now. He has forgotten how it feels to see his carrier (me) rejoice as a led let up or code compiled without errors. How it felt to give a ppt and then be appreciated, how it felt to write a controversial blog and have a sinister fun is reading peoples mixed onions.
So he has NOW woken up to embark on a new journey and he is now as fearless as he was in those days. But getting back in shape-mentally- is not that easy, so he has started with his simple thingm the one thing that gave him the most joy…. His blog.

Keep walking

2010-06-01T20:26:00.000+05:30

It was an usual evening after yet another uneventful day at BHEL and I decided to go for a walk down the road which runs outside the township here in Bangalore. I had my companion with me, she kept playing my fav tunes one after the other and before I knew it the road on which I had set upon was over and I was on another road heading for Yeswanthpur which is a good 8 km from my place.

I kept crossing roads for fun, juggling with the fast B'lore traffic and occassionally made a mental note of the bus numbers of that route coz there was not way I was going to walk back to the township from Yeshwanthpur. Around the corner I noticed a familiar structure. A bright white temple against the black night sky. It was the ISKON Temple of Bangalore. Though I have fond memories of visiting this place with a dear friend a year back, this particular visit added a new dimension to my understand of prayers/chanting and moreso the logkepper (goD).

I had walked for almost 2 hours and I was tired. I had one bottle of Nimbooz. So by the time I walked up the stairs of the temple (which are are a lot by the way for no reason and you have to go through each and every small temple before you reach the Don) I was thirsty, hungry, tired and I wanted to pee. On the way up the stairs there were signboards guiding your way and there were posters of "hare rama. hare krishna". They had tag lines like "chant my name and your mind will be free". Well, so I did chant. I am an athiest by reason and not by conviction, so it is only fair I give everything a chance. So I chanted and I sang. I sang in tune and I sang out of tune. I sang down the stairs even when people started staring at me. By some weird logic it was ok to sing lorDs name in the temple hall, but not down the stairs. But I was still all "harE ramA, harE krishnA", coz I had to give it a chance. And to my amazement in the state of HRHK buzzing in my head I started beliving that there was a guy somehwere, clad in JARI clothing listening to me and saying " see he is chanting my name, lets make him happy".

I was soon out of the temple and after a little more walk I got a 401B to drop me back home. This was when it all dawned (at 9 pm). How it was just chemical imbalance which was causing me to believe in a non-existent unproven being. In that tired and dehydrated state of mind I would have bought any crap that was told to me. As I regained my breathe and felt the cool evening breeze against my face, I began to piece it together as to why all the places of worships are at such difficult to go places. Take for example Thirupathi or Badrinath or Kedarnath or the long Qs in the Shiridi temple. The basic underlying principle remains that by the time to reach the shrine you should be so fu*king tired out of your minds that you will believe anything they tell you. WHat you will see will be a mixture of dehydration, tugg of war amongs the crowds to stay a second longer to stay a little longer in front of the idol and your own confused sense of belief. It not fair to drug a man and then show him something make him belive that crap and then hold him accountable for it later on.

This is only the spiritual end of it. There is also a commercial end to it. Leaving the temple is not that easy either, you have to go through atleast 10 different halls selling a variety of items from books to pictures to keychains and even krishna endorsed plum cakes. So you are tired and have most likely lost most of your ability to use logic and reason and then they- these men of goD who designed this place- push you along a mall... Rest should be obvious.

Well, not much can be done about the char-dham as they are going to be on hill tops or in tunnels where you will have to sweat it out to get a glimple of the idol or plain ice in some cases. But if you ever go to ISKON I would suggest a motor ride than an 8 km walk so that you don't end up with krishna endorsed plum cake and HRHK key chain. :)

PS : If it is about darshan, try Tata Sky Daily Darshan.

need for approval

2010-05-28T19:37:00.000+05:30

"Man is a social being and is meant to live is groups"
- Psychology 101

In the past I have sometimes misunderstood this as an excuse to consider
opinion from others while making a decision which affects my life alone. A blame shared collectivley is much easier to live through than a blame shared alone.

a rush of blood

2009-09-19T07:56:00.000+05:30

Every step I take, thumping my feet on the ground only to take it off next moment, pressing the mud and the grass beneath my feet; sends a pulse up my body, a pulse of joy, a pulse of liberation, like unleashing a rocket waiting to speed away. The sight of kids playing football with their Ronaldinho and gawd knows who's tees, teen age guys sitting at pavilion and smoking away in their glory, grandpas taking an evening stroll along with their little ones, some athletes speeding away like they have to catch a bus and some heavy guys trying to catch their breath as they try to keep up...

Never been much of a sportsperson and this first taste of pushing my physical limits has given me a undying source of joy and confidence with nothing else can match up to.

At first it is sunny and the breathing gets tougher, the sun shines brightly before it finally gives up and unfolds a cool breeze. Slowly the fun builds up... The twilight in soon outlined by a boundary of trees on all sides of the Parade Ground here in BHEL Campus at Bhopal. The sight of the open sky is as rewarding as seeing the making of future football players and marathon runners of India. The thumping of my feet matched with the beats of the melodious music played creates a harmony which none can appreciate but the runner himself. As each step is taken, one more patch of grass covered and one more beat played, I move on to place which is my own, a place where I have clarity in my mind, where there is no pretense, no doubts, no preconceived notions, no regrets, just a bright light coming from the behind illuminating my path, giving me the courage to face what lies ahhead

fair play or chance ..?

2009-08-09T21:39:00.003+05:30

Ever since I was child I have heard elders say that this universe is just. They said that deeds are like boomerang, though not so flamboyantly, they do come back to you soon or later. Good deeds are rewarded and evil punished, well I don’t know what happens to the grey area. If you plot evil you will have to bear the brunt of it someday. They said it with all the conviction that there is, that the all mighty upstairs has a log book (maybe he uses SAP now) to keep track of our white, black and grey deeds. “Nothing goes unnoticed, my child. The Lord is watching you every second”, was what my second grade school teacher had told me. As a naive young boy I believed in everything they told me, partly because I thought so too and mostly because they believed so strongly in it.

For fair portion of my life I have believed in it and to a great extent I still do...

But lately another chain of thought has been culminating in my mind; what if this is all bull-s**t and there isn’t anyone who one really keeps scores. I have never really cared if my scores were kept by ‘Bharma’ or by a ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ (http://www.venganza.org/), but always believed that scores were like a provident fund, you can en-cash someday. But what if instead of a balancing algorithm it’s a random number generating function. We speak of a just and fair world and yet accept all the despicable acts of violence, calamities, rape and death everyday as if it were somehow a part of that balancing act. A six year old died in a car accident, her clock stopped ticking and we were sad :’(… chooo chweet. I do not believe that in the 2190 days she lived, she had enough time to gauge how the world works leave aside the possibility of her committing any act as atrocious as to receive a death penalty. And then we say, ‘ God works in mysterious ways ’. Well he sure does.
The point I am trying to put forward here is that maybe it is all a matter of chance, more like a dice rolled than balancing weights. When you flip a coin or roll a dice you just hope to get you desire and leave the rest to fate. The child dying example is only the tip of the ice berg, we find numerous examples everyday depicting how perfectly innocent people were sacrificed to this game of chance and nobody questioned the log keeper.
But if chance is all that prevails then why put up a facade of fairness and boomerang analogies. Probably because these analogies have a much higher purpose to serve. When an individual fears in the power of log book he thinks twice before committing a crime. I man driven by lust think a million times before he commits hideous acts which degrade the human nature. His sense of morality and fairness help him overcome his unrestrained animal instincts to violate another human being. He believes that he will have to face a similar situation someday and redemption will be upon him that day.
Now imagine a man who fears no one, he believes in chance. He can go cheat, swindle, kill and still walk free because he will get convicted based only on chance. There is no stopping such a man. And looking at the justice system, his beliefs may turn out to be true as well. But I am not talking about the police convicting him; I am talking about the universe making him back based on the log kept upstairs. If people stop believing in the log keeper, there will utter chaos in this world and morality will lose its meaning in due time. Our sense of right and wrong will soon be hazy and everything will merge into one big grey area for which no one accountable.
So, as much as I hate to believe and see people believe in the idea of a log keeper, I think it is for the best that our rational mind has chosen something as irrational as morality than the rational nature of chance…

Expectations... Observations and Disappointment

2009-06-13T20:55:00.003+05:30

Sounds like yet another preachy and depressing post from bloke, yeah will it is to some extent but this one too has some figment of reality, personal experience and a word of advice as always...

Change in life is an omnipresent. We move one from one stage of life to another, from school to college, then job and may be even a family later. Every time we leave a stage and enter another, we expect certain things. There is an air of positive anticipation, a ray of hope screaming out loud that things will get better now. Probably the things which were flawed in the previous era will be rectified now and there will be a new beginning to things. Well no one really said this to you , or did they ? It's all in the mind, our tiny little gray cells playing games with us, showing us things that comfort us, make us wanna move ahead and not cling on to the past if it all it was flawless enough to hold on too. I fully justify what the gray cells are doing here, the preconceived notions put in our brains to make us wanna go ahead in life, obviously it is the right things to be done, but as always, there is a catch to it...

What our tiny little gray chaps fail to conceive is that when they fill our heads with positive expectation about the future.. they also create a ticking time bomb, every ready to explode , God(just an expression, I am an Atheist) forbid the expectation are not met. Please do not judge me here. I am not a pessimistic asking you to expect the worse of the outcomes. As it is said " Hope for the best and be ready for the worst." All I am saying is that be prepared for the worst of the outcome so that if you ever have to face one, you don't end up being ruined.

For example, many of us are gonna soon join the professional world with huge pay packages, some of us are doing start-ups, and some going for higher studies in India as well as abroad. We all have some expectations, some probably think that a glamorous world awaits them. I hope it does for them. I am strongly believe that there is nothing a place or an institution has to offer to an individual. But it's the individuals caliber which takes em to the top. So have unreal expectations from some place is just unjustified and unfair. What applies to material and professional domain also applies to other aspects of life.

Some people might call this line of thought as mediocre. Thought process of someone not bold enough to think big, well I believe otherwise.

That concludes another lesson I learnt in life.

dark hour

2009-04-29T20:24:00.001+05:30

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain,
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain

A blessing in disguise

2009-03-08T00:19:00.004+05:30

It was India's cricket match going on. Just another regular evening in the common room hanging out with friends. But there was a certain degree of anxiety brewing in me about the HP results. Since my final HR round of the HP interview was perfect specimen of a typical interview blunder I was a bit apprehensive that the results might disappoint me and walla !!! they did.

I was sad then but when I look back it now I cannot thank HP enough for rejecting my application. Thanks to HP's rejection I was eligible to sit for other companies i.e. for BHEL in this case and I got in. All my friends who ask me for a party for cracking BHEL. I tell them, " I will give you two and not just one party,one for making it to BHEL and second for getting rejected from HP.

Universe works in mysterious ways.

A visit to the Global Pagoda

2009-02-27T14:13:00.002+05:30

Global Pagoda... when I heard it for the first time I thought it was PAKODA, well who wouldn't. I am so used to eating pakoda at home and the J that it did cloud my hearing. Well jokes apart. So what exactly is it ...?

It is a stupa, a really really huge stupa built as a symbol of peace and harmony. Though its origins lie in Buddhism the present day pagoda is not a religious symbol. It is a place where they conduct a week long meditation course called vipassana. The details of the pagoda and the course can be obtained from the site http://globalpagoda.org/

Sometimes it’s good to just listen…

2009-01-30T02:25:00.000+05:30

As one more company played cruel jokes on the eager lads from my college it lead to an uproar among my hostel. Me and some of my friends tried to liberate our minds and souls with our usual source of attaining peace, the usual IB was there to our rescue. As the night set in and hostel became quieter, the decibels rising from rav’s room grew more and more intense. Almost everything was discussed from jobs to recessions and from girl friends to family and even the fate of India was being decided in a 10 by 15 room filled in smoke and mist.
I sat there taking in as much as I can, listening to various view points. We had the constant commentary of bihari, the sudden uproars of rav, the exceedingly surprising yet witty remarks by eNVy, the random theories by dot as to how he will die at age of forty40. Amidst as this commotion and meeting of great mind I (budhha) was there sinking in all the info, presumably trying to analyze what was going on. Trying to figure out what people really were trying to say. How much of the sound was because of booze and how much was from the hearts.
I didn’t reach any conclusion. I don’t think I wanted to reach to one. But sometimes it feels right to just listen. You can always find a pedestal to stand on and speaks but you will never get a bunch a people who are speaking their guts out with complete honesty and yes with some prejudice of their own. My lack of participation was taken by rejection by some. But rest assured I had a good time listening.
I owe it to em !!!

PS mates speak

2009-01-06T19:16:00.004+05:30

Anjana Speaks

The word PSII filled me with hope, anxiety and frustration. Hope because it instilled a new responsibility making me feel all important. Anxiety in anticipating the kind of projects and work environment. And finally frustration, because it reminded me the painful truth that I was in my final year of utopia, and it is time for me to think about some remote term named future.

I eagerly bored my eyes into the allotment list to identify my PS mates. This is a customary ritual at college, since people have to spend the next six months with the ‘allotted ones’. To my distress I saw two names staring back at me which indicated that both were guys. So my whole plan of getting roomies was doomed. Little did I know then that the next six months would be one of the best times of my life.

I already knew one of them since he had been my workshop lab mate. But I was totally clueless about the other. I was in for a surprise as Sid bloke was a combo of fun + sarcasm + fundooness + mischief. Then again there is always this reticent period when you try to guess the wavelength of the other person. And it was indeed a weird and wonderful familiarity to find out that bloke matched mine as well as RKP’s (the other guy) wavelength.

So there we were just the three of us left to the mercy of our mentors, HR and Prof .It was this familiar mood of getting accustomed to the alien world (work environment) that brought us three closer. Sid bloke was the blabber mouth among the three of us. He used to drone on and on hence there was never this dull moment throughout the PS.

And I have to make a special mention about Sid bloke’s sarcasm which always reminds me of Chandler (And he looks the part too- all chubby and adorable). After this comment Sid must be in seventh heaven so I kindly ask him to step down to earth. And then again he always has you rolling with laughter with his antics.

I would be totally failing in my duty if I forgot to mention his Philosophies of life. You just Name it and bloke will already have a philosophy ready in his mind regarding that. And one word of warning, he is totally contagious in this issue and soon you can find yourself trying to conjure up a philosophy for everything in life

I have had some great times at my PS. The most memorable experience was the one on my treat at Brigade Road. I still wish it could have lasted forever. So this is an ode to the places where we have had the greatest enjoyment, ‘ The Parking lot’, ‘Dominoes’, ‘Sweet Chariot’, ‘Millers Road’, ‘Infinity tea where we almost had tea’, ‘CCD’, ‘Indian Coffee house’ and the list goes on. And most of all I miss my PS mates. A special thanks to PS for giving me two wonderful friends.

Best friends are the siblings that God forgot to give us

Soon to be appended is RKP Speaks

Only time will tell

2008-12-22T22:34:00.002+05:30

A lot has been happening in my life recently, as funny as it may sound the market crash has affected by my acads, professional life, my love life and my overall peace of mind.
There was a well laid path before me one year back from now:
1. do this
2. then do that
3. then you will get this
4. you will be happy with it.

But suddenly everything seems hay-wire now. Point one itself is not certain, leave aside the other three. Have been wrecking my head a lot over all these issues since last few days and finally realized that there is very little I can do to change things. In fact there is very little anyone can do at this point of time. Time aaahhh... thats the key thing here. Only time can change things, as it will pass on slowly things should fall back in place. May be I will have a better plan, a new improved deluxe version. Like how the Christmas offers are always better the diwali offers.
But as depressing as it may sound, there is no certainty now and all i can do is wait it out and try and keep my sanity intact till then.

junk_bloke

just another trainer kit, this one checks your patience and faith in fate :D

A change of season...

2008-11-24T19:35:00.002+05:30

As my internship is coming to an end I couldn't help but notice so much is going to change around me in the next few days... to begin with I changed my playlist. These 120 odd songs have been companion throughout my stay in Bangalore, since there was no other source of media.It was mixed blend with all the genres from chut Hip-Hop to O Palanhaare. But like everything else even this has to go as they have been taken over by 1.5 GB of happy music from Charlie. The waking up every morning to wait for VVP will be taken over the sleeping till 12 in the insti rooms. Routine testing work will be replaced by routine vellapanti which is always most welcome. But change is hardly pleasant... The freedom I have enjoyed in Bangalore is unlike I have experienced either back home or in Goa. There was a sense of responsibility along with the privilege of freedom. Tasted for the first time in my life exactly how difficult to spend your own hard earned money. Learned how a loner can help another loner to not be alone anymore.

But change is important, like the playlist. It undoubtedly contained my most favorite songs, still it was getting on my nerves. Familiarity breeds contempt you know. Just as the songs were changed the whole setup around me has to be changed. For many one pleasant change might be that I will stop blogging coz there won't be net facilities back in Goa. There will be new people to meet (I hope the 2008 batch has some delicious candy), new friends to make. And new things to learn

Things I have learnt bcoz of PS2

2008-11-20T18:22:00.002+05:30

Here is the list of things I have learn during my 5 month long stay in Bangalore.

1. Do not hesitate to start a conversation with a complete stranger, it helps to know people. Dump the conversation if the person is a dooche-bag.

2. Try to get a ride to office, buses in Bangalore suck ass.

3. Do not mess with the cafeteria guys, he is your "annadaata" while u r at PS.

4. Keep in touch with the randomly made new friends, if they r employed and well to do, u might get a free lunch/dinner :P. \marwadi/

5. If you do not have work , read up for placements or just for the sake of knowledge. Wiki can be much more usfull than u imagine.

6.Make Linkidin Contacts.

7. Do not add colleagues on Gtalk, coz yur status messages will be mostly abt how bad yur ps station is.

8. Bit of free stationary is not going to hurt anyone.

9. The quality of eye candy in Bangalore is really really good, I hope u have a sweet tooth. I do :D

10. Visit Java City(Church Street), Indian Coffee House(MG road), and A2B(CMH rd), ISKON before you leave Bangalore.

11. The maid will not come everyday, even if u paid her well. So make sure you have extras.

12. Land-lords are bastards/bitches.....

13.Money saved is money earned.

14. Go to expensive cafes only if u r with a chick, otherwise u r just a retard.
I was i know .. i know..

15.Meet more and more people everyday.. make new friends and never regret.

16. After all thsi if u still have time, wotk on yur PS project

Another anology...

2008-11-13T15:36:00.004+05:30

CPU time or CPU usage is the amount of time a computer program uses in processing central processing unit (CPU) instructions, as opposed for example to waiting for input/output operations. The CPU time is often measured in clock ticks or in percentage of the capacity. It is used as a point of comparison for CPU usage of a program. Each program tries to get as much processing time possible to get it's work done and free itself from it's responsibilities. Then there are the evil programs which try to grab all the processing power and slow down your system. At any instant of time if one sits down and takes a careful look, he/she will realise that there are a bunch of unnecessary programs running in the back ground slowing down the system. If you carefully analyze most of these processes are not required for sustenance of the system and most of the work can be done without them as well.
Still they are run in the background, just hoping to be used someday, by some random thread or process. I have been doing a lot of CPU load testing down at my company in PS, and each thing you add to your OS slows you down, each extra unused module/ driver slows it down. A good system always decides what is best for itself and then prioritises as required.

Now people don't beat me up for my yet another weird analogy, I hope that you will be able to share my insight in to this little idea. Everything we do in life makes us think (well not dope and hash coz that is supposed to not let you think), it occupies a small part of our brain , it may be running in our mind all day long or in sudden bursts. Some of these thoughts which keep you occupied are just pure evil , coz they pull you down. Some of these can be

Guilt : Oh I should have give my best shot, why did I hold back. I shouldn't have said that, jack ass I am.

Hate: How could he say/do something like that, bloody %&^%*()^)&(_*_

Overburden : I need to get a six pack and do well in exams, get placed, get a girl, be a good person, help the poor, go to temple.

Worry : Will I get a good university? Will I get placed? Will my paper get published? Will she say YES ? Is mess gonna suck today as well?

Then there are the good thoughts like :

Eagerness : When you takes pains and plan something for a friend.

Satisfaction : Your 2000 line code finally is debugged after countless hours of labour and it gives a small cute little output as expected and your face is lit all day long. Mess worker let you have an extra sweet at lunch today.

The idea here is that there are some nasty things in life about which nothing can be done either because it's too late or it isn't within your scope to begin with. So what's the point worrying about them. If something is not in your hand that prolly praying will help but worrying about it will certainly not help and moreover it will occupy your mind all the time.
If there is guilt because of a mistake; then learn from it ; move on and forget it. Hate LOL, it's the funniest thing I have come across.
Coz the it ruins the person who hates and hated is happily enjoying his/her life.
Here you are hating another person, and spoiling you own mood and the other person is simply enjoying his/her life, prolly getting laid or having the time of their lives.
Don't pull yourself down by adding extra unnecessary responsibilities, sit-down, decide wat you want and then give a full shot at it, no holding back then.

Bottom line
_______________ hehehe

Don't worry, it will only make u mad and probably degrade your processing power,
instead prioritize and enjoy.

PS: No Trainer kit here. lemme know if u can fit a kit here as well

Brand name can only take you so far..

2008-11-09T10:13:00.002+05:30

Whole of last week I have been doing shopping, at least a lot of window shopping. I have been to malls as well as road side shops, seen Reebok to Rebook(spoof brands). As a consumer the only thing that concerned me was the quality of the product I am buying. Though at times one tends to get biased by the brand name, what matters in the end is the quality and functionality. If the product is good enough you don't mind shelling out a few extra bucks. There are times when we do get ripped of in the name of a brand. What also holds true is that a non branded product can also be pretty good and worth every penny.

It's my favorite past time to develop analogy between situation which are miles apart. In the past I have compared electronics experiment setups in the lab to problems we face in real life, I know it's geeky.. but I am a geek bloke \m/. This post is one more classic example of how a simple idea can picked up from one place and put in another more complicated plot to help us get a better picture and understanding of the whole scenario.

I am student of the second batch of BITS, Pilani, Goa Campus. And here I stand without no regrets whatsoever. When I joined BITS I knew it was a new college and was very well aware of it's consequences. There were no expectations other than that of quality engineering education. There has been a lot of buzz among final year students about placements. Despite our best efforts to contact companies and foster awareness about our new and vibrant campus among the recruiters there hasn't been much response. Students like myself and many of batch mates who have put there heart and soul in what they like have been met with disappointment because their dream companies have not come for placements. All those long hours spent in the lab or on the streets of Mumbai looking for small components, while your friends were sleeping in their rooms or playing some computer games seem to be a waste now. Ones tends to think that after all these efforts, we all will end up in a BUS like the rest of the lazy bums who had fun and didn't do much all these years. We start blaming the officials responsible for not taking the required initiative to promote the campus.
The whole scene seems depressing and hope seems to be lost.

Let me give you another perspective of the whole situation, an approach from the employers point of view. He is no different from us. He is also a shopper out in the market to buy (... yes I said BUY) fresh new engineers. From his years of experience he has a blind trust in the famous brands like IITs, BITSes, NITs etc. But deep down inside even he is looking for talent(quality). He is looking for people who can take up the job at hand, make profit for his company. I agree that if one has the backing of brand then it's easier to get noticed by big companies. But if you have a brand tag attached to your collar, it doesn't give you the liberty to take things for granted, coz a a poor quality branded product never sells.

All of us here at BITSg had assumed that we have a good brand tag pinned to our collars and now that we have realized that it's not the case, we should not be disappointed, instead we have to improves ourselves to match up to the standards the buyer is expecting. Many of us have seen here at PS2 that ones inside a company it hardly matters whether you are from BITS or a a local college. All that matters is your competence in finishing the job at hand. So if think you have it in you, hang in their lads, some recruiter who realizes your potential will pick you up sooner or later. Hard work never goes waste, it's just a matter of time. Hold one to your passion, it's tronics for me, it may be mech for someone else.

It is all in the mind

2008-11-04T12:16:00.000+05:30

There are a lot of goals we want to achieve in life. Lot of of kutti-kutti (small-small) things you wanna do as you move ahead. Each time when you think of a certain task, there are two voices in your head. One enumerates all the reason why the job at hand can be done, why you should take up this new challenge, and how this will help you in a certain way, may be academic of otherwise. But there is also another nasty bugger who keeps shouting why the job can't be done. Moreover it even tells you why the effort will be futile and why u r not capable enough to do it. I would like to elaborate more with a personal experience. I am sure most of my colleagues would be able to relate to this example, since it is something many of you must have come across your-selves.

Soon after my PS2 started I realised that I was gonna have a lot of free time here and that I should put it to some good use so that this 6 month long paid vacation does not go waste. Many of my friends were preparing for CAT 2008 so I decided that I will also give a shot at belling the CAT. I bought a couple of books, joined mock CAT and filled up the form. In all I spent 3.2k for this new sudden urge to give CAT. My mind had quickly sorted out the benefits of preparing for CAT, some of the most obvious ones were:

1. The Apti Qs will help for Campus Interview.
2. Since JEE I had not given a exam which really tests your analytical skills, most of the xams in college are straight forward and there is not much thinking involved, So it will nice way to get some mental exercise
3. Will be a good practise if at all I intent to do MBA in the future.
4. Something to keep my self busy since I had didn't have access to hardware for electronics projects and all.

I did in fact give first 3 mock tests which a percentile performance of 90, 70 and 50 respectively. I know its funny my performance went down the hill whereas people tend to generally improve with time.

Soon the bugger in mind started giving me reasons why the attempt for CAT was futile...
1.The test is on Sunday morning, Come on everyone deserves a good sleep on Sundays, after the weeks hard work.
2.IIMs do not prefer freshers.
3.I am not gonna get in so whats the point ?
4.I am lazy I am loving it that way. :D

So here I am two weeks for CAT and not a clue as to what is gonna happen on the D day. I have become complacent with the fact the this CAT exam is just a time pass for me and nothing more. What was CAT for me could be joining the GYM or learning a new skill for others.

When I had decided to give CAT I had many reasons why it will be useful, but as time passed on the I lost focus and started concentrating on why it was a waste of time and energy (money :) was already gone).

Always think the whole thing through before you make up your mind, do not make commitments you can't keep. Once when you are sure that what you r pursuing is correct then never-ever. Apart from that nasty bugger inside your head there will be others telling you why you will fail, just ignore them, believe in yourself and more importantly believe in the decisions you have taken and show your mettle by honoring them.

Here is my 3 k lost and a new lesson learned. Just another lab session with the trainer kit.

"sirf vicharon ki ladai hai yeh..."

2008-10-29T11:38:00.000+05:30

"sirf vicharon ki ladai hai yeh..."
-some panditji

People who know me also know that I am a person who avoids fighting be it verbal or physical. I will make my point once or at max twice and if the opposing party is not convinced then generally the argument is stopped there as I easily back off without much resistance. I have always been this way. I always believed that speak where your words mean something, I know that I if at all I try to make a point it will be correct and precise. So no point giving my worthy advice to a bunch of nut-jobs.

Contrary to whatever I sincerely believed recently I have been doing a lot of fighting. Many a times I was provoked into saying things which are never meant to be said to your near and dear ones. No matter what kinda relation you share with a person, it may be friendship or love or a family tie one things always holds true. It only take one slip of tongue to ruin it all.

"Words are like bullets.."
- some midget from South Park

We all have to admit that the chemical factory upstairs i.e. our BRAIN, does churn out a lot of ugly thoughts specially when your are in a fight with someone, but then usually the logical part of the brain takes over and prevents you from saying those ugly things. One keeps his cool, calms down and then realizes what damage could have been done if that self control had not acted at the right moment. Then again things don't always go as planned.
I have said things to my parents, my friends, my love and some dear ones which I am not proud of. Whenever possible I try and go back to them, apologize for it , sit down with them and talk it over. Try and explain what provoked me into saying such a thing. But then again there are times when its better to leave things the way they are, for the simple reason that I am afraid that when I sit down to talk I might screw up things further.

All I am trying to say is that words are very powerful and it takes skill and courage to deal with them. Be careful next time when your are in rage.
You might say something you wish you hadn't said.

Their disks don' fall, they crash around me.

2008-10-26T19:45:00.000+05:30

Recently I had given my laptop for a complete make over at the local Sony Vaio Service Center. As a prerequisite for the repair I had to back-up all the data on my external hard-drive, which is pretty old and which I knew might give up any day.

The back-up essentially contained all the info on my academic projects from second and third year at BITS, some of my favorite movies, e-books, music and most prized possessions of all my pics from first, second and third year. Semester 3-2 has been a particularly wonderful semester at BITS. There were a lot of memories attached to those special times which were dear to me and it hurt to see them all disappear as my hard-disk crashed all of a sudden. If only I had created a back-up before hand.
But then again looking at the bright side of things (I blatantly call my self an OPTIMIST you know), now that I do not have those pictures I will not end up browsing through those pics and feeling low about what I have lost. Memories are what we all hold on too during tough times and when these little droplets of joy are taken away, one tends to feel helpless and all alone.
Then again you can think of it as a chance to to move on, make new memories and grow stronger in life getting more and more trained. After all it was just another lab session with the trainer kit. :D

Trainer Kit (not the ones found in the lab)

2008-10-22T17:26:00.000+05:30

We often seem to judge other people and compare our situations with them.
" Look at that care free bugger, free lad he is. not a care in the world for him."
Such comments are genreally accompanied by lack of empathy as well as information.

If we have things our way so easy in life there would be nothing to look forward to, Since there will be no challenges, there will be no character building if everything we desire is served to us on a platter. This is not not about achiving certain goals in life or being successful (Society has laid certain standards u know).

Sometimes we face situations which wish we didn't have to face. We tend to ask questions like " why me? wtf did i do ...?"
But the important point to realise is that all of us will be laden with difficulties sooner or later in life, some of there problems will be beyond our problem solving capacity. It's then that your true character will be put to test. In such a situation one can panic and curse OR one can hold ones cool, stay put and continue doing what one feels is right.

That's why I said trainer kit, small issues in life prepare you for the bigger ones which are inevitible. So instead of runnung away, one has to dive into it and continue doing the right thing.

New places and new people

2008-10-19T18:58:00.000+05:30

As a part of training program at BITS I have been in Bangalore for the last 3-4 months. Leave aside the pains one has to take to settle down in a new city, there a lot of things I have learnt from this Internship. Unlike many of my fellow BITSians I am not going to brag about some sexy-cool project I am doing here, because honestly I am doing none.

It's more about meeting new people and making friends in a new city. When one thinks of Bangalore, the first thing that come to your mind is the Electronic City, the big offices and the IT jobs, the branded shops and the traffic Jams. Well to me Bangalore is more about some people I have befriended here during my course of stay. Some old friends were re-discovered on a different plane and some new ones too.

I am the kidna person who doesn't hesitate to start a conversations at a coffee table with strangers. I have been doing this and have meet countless people, some of them who I still keep in touch with. Sometimes it was an HP professional or an INFY fresher and some person working for a reputed BPO. They all have had a tone which says " welcome to bangalore, feel at home".

All these folks have shared there view on the city and also given plenty of valvuable suggestions on how to survive the fast pace of city.

All I have to say to people is :WELCOME TO BANGALORE AND FEEL AT HOME !!!

Route No.461

2008-06-27T09:02:00.000+05:30

As i mentioned in my previous post, i having doing a lot of traveling this summer using the a/c bus of Route No.461. A couple of incidents happened while traveling between IITb and my pace in Borivli. Both are in no way related to each other but are certainly very funny.

Incident 1:
4 pm Jogeshwari- Versova Link road . Outside IITB main gate.
I got in a pretty vacant bus and saw a lad sitting in the left corner seat of the last row. I thought there is always peace in the last row so I decided to sit in the right corner of the same row. As i moved towards the rear end of the bus , little had i expected what i was about to see. What i saw raised a million doubts in my mind about how teenagers should behave in public. May i remind you once again that the bus was pretty vacant , hardly 4-5 people were there. So as i moved towards the end of the bus a girl rose from the seat next to his.... with her head bent towards his lap!!! i know, i know she might just be resting her head on his lap and taking a nap, may be she was not well. But these are the confessions of a pervert mind and i am sure all u guys know what i was thinking that time. they both stared at me , but by that time i was too close to the last row to turn around and find another seat , so in sat in the right corner of left row, thus raising a awkward situation for all 3 of us. all throughout the journey they kept cuddling and stuff by the time i called up my gf and updated her about this lolmax incident and we both were rofling.

Incident 2:
12:30 pm Western Express Highway, Thakur Village, Kandivali.

Yet another boring journey from borivli to powai had began and just when i was thinking that nothing interesting could ever happen on this route, the bus suddenly stopped, i peeped out to see what bus stop it was, but it was not a stop neither signal. Two people got in the bus, they were in their early twenties and on them was wearing an helmet. I Thought what a douche bag , wearing a helmet in the bus. what ... did he park his bike at the bus stop and then took the bus ? the bus moved on and i assumed they sat peacefully in the bus. But fun was about to begin. Suddenly i heard some guy getting thrashed in the rear end of the bus. the two guys(helmet wale)) where beating up this other guy , abusing him. After a bit more beating up and abusing we understood that the guy in the bus had spat on the 2 bikers. So the were kinda taking revenge... then they took him off the bus and v carried on with our lives happily ever after.

Joy Ride

2008-06-11T23:37:00.000+05:30

I was there at the bus stop waiting for my air conditioned bus, route number 461. I have been taking this bus for the past one week ever since monsoon hit the shores of Mumbai. Though bike is my favorite mode of transport, it’s too much of a risk in the rains specially with all the potholes and slippery roads. A very intelligent rickshaw driver once said, “Sahib these poor bikers are cursed for lives. During the summers they have to face the unbearable heat of the sun and as far as the monsoons go … voh to aap dekh hi rahe hain ”. So getting back to route number 461, I had yet another boring day at Power Anser Labs in IIT Mumbai where I have been working as part time MATLAB coder. It was 6 pm now, as I saw each bus approaching I eagerly sliced through the crowded bus stop onto the road to check which bus it was, only to my disappointment it wasn’t 461. Many busses went by and I had lost hope and reaching back home in time. Just then I saw a bus which seemed like an ac bus, as I eagerly leaned forward, to my relief it was 461, I got in to attention mode as I had to get into this one at cost . As it slowly came to a halt I was yet again let down by the packed bus. The driver didn’t even stop the bus. It just went by not even bothering to ask if we would like get in. I was pretty hungry by then so I headed towards a local restaurant to get a cup of tea and some pav-bhaji. I usually tip well, but the arrogance and incompetence of the staff there made me change my mind(I didn’t even leave the two 50 paise coins he got back with the mouth freshener). I was back on the bus stop by 7pm. I finally gave up on the 461 and got in a XXX (don’t know what number It was). This one dropped me close to my place and I had to take a rickshaw from there. I got a seat whew..!, it was the last vacant seat, I heaved a sigh of relief, just as it was sinking in that I will not have to go home standing, I heard a sweet voice ” excuse me, this is the ladies seat”. So I let her have the seat. Same thing happened again, I sat onto another vacant seat and bang in less than 2 minutes came the “excuse me”. So there I was on my way back home in an extremely crowded bus which was moving at a speed on 20 km/hr, in a weird acrobatic posture; the most striking part was that my groin was pushed against the rod attached to the side of the seats. Hooked on to my mp3 player I was maintaining the posture because there was no space to move even a bit. After about half an hour or so, the bus broke down or at least I thought it did, because it had slowed down too much. So I decided to get off the bus and get a rick back home. This is when the joy ride began …

I got a awesome rickshaw driver, the first thing I asked him “auto kahan ki hai bhaiyya”, he said “shere-e-punjab”. I know that it’s just another locality in Andheri west but still, Sher-e-punjab sounds very inspiring and powerful. I have this habit of chit-chatting with rickshaw-drivers, taxi drivers, mess workers etc. basically the people who keep our daily lives moving, but nobody ever takes time to either appreciate their efforts or speak politely to them. It was while I was sitting in the rickshaw that I realized how much fun it is to see the world around you when it rains. As the cars sped away from our rick it was fun to see how tiny droplets of water were thrown off the road by their wheels, how the bikes sliced through the pools of water as if cutting a cake. Whenever a truck or bus went by, water was splashed onto the rick, it seemed like the rain was desperately trying to get to us in spite of all our efforts to stay dry. My conversation with the driver continued, he enlightened me on how 2 stroke ricks are better than the 4 stroke ones, how the RTO harasses them to get money.

Slowly moving through the traffic I finally reached home. It was not an eventful evening but it was an evening I enjoyed. The painful bus ride, the tiny droplets of water, the 2 smokers at the bus-stop(forgot to mention that ) , the awesome rickshaw driver and a lot of things I have forgotten coz I am dead tired.

P.S.: I hope you could guess who’s the intelligent rickshaw driver.

2007-07-09T21:58:00.000+05:30

this the control room of the power substation at century rayon
cool na !
its were voltagesas high as 22000 volts are dealt with.
for more ask me
u mostly wont

2007-07-09T06:22:00.000+05:30

American flag :$25
Gasoline : $ 2
Cigarette Lighter :$ 2.50

Catching yourself on fire

because you are a terrorist ======> Priceless

There are somethings that money cant buy
For everthing else there is MASTER CARD

2007-07-07T06:50:00.000+05:30

x box 1979

2007-07-01T19:30:00.000+05:30

this post is about the little micro-controller project v did , last sem

it was a usual evening in bits, not much happening , me on the net checking my inbox,
then tapan(IITB) called saying that the iitb techfest site is up. so i thought might as well check it out . so there i was scrolling through the various events , there were radio, cro , cars, planes, rockets, ships...its was like iitb was trying to triump over all three modes of transport .
the event called CRO 2.0 particularly caught my attention, i came out of room and told the idea to neeraj p.but he said it was tough since it involved uP and all ( v were in 2.1 then). i tried to argue for a while but then i gave up.
after a while parsani and sharan were chatting in our corridor , so i also joined in, since its the favorite past time in bits ( gappa-marna).i told them how CRO 2.0 involved making a game on the CRO using micro-controller/processor. by now i was convinced that the thing was 2 big for me to do .
but these guys, their faces lit up at the idea of the event. so v decided that v will go for it uncertain of how far v will be able to make it . (july 2006). when v started v only valued the xperience v would gain ffrm it rather the certificate.

next thing was to get resources ;
a game
a uP
a guide (info)

i nick named all 3 of us => alpha for agrawal, bravo for parsani and charlie for chetlur
(sharan)

the game

this part took a whole lot of research and loads of surfing and head banging against my desktop,
out of 2-3 games v narrowed it down to one final game(the game has something to do with boxes).The games was continuously modified throughout the course of the project to meet the need of the display and the complexity .

as far the micro-controller is concerned , rohit desa helped us a lot. since v had no idea on using uP's , he helped us patiently in getting started with PIC16F876A.v started with simple things like blinking leds and stuff

then the guide . v opened the bits-goa site and looked for the teacher with uP xperience ,
only one named poped up was of AA. so v asked her for her guidance and she was more than willing to help.

so v got started...
v took desa's programmer and went to the lab , for the first 2 weeks v were not able to program our chip, since time for running out v bought our own programmer frm( www.sunrom.com)
@Rs.3000/-. i know it sounds xpensive, but its totally worth it .

as the end of 2.1( 2nd yr, sem 1) approched v were stuck , v were not able to get even simples boxes on the CRO . i was panicking a bit , but alpha and charlie kept their cool and kept working on the code and i tried to shuffle the hardware(btw i was the hardware guy and Bravo and Charlie did all the coding)

on the last day of compree of 2.1 v got a box on the screen , v jumped with joy , or to put in alpha's words -" it was better than sex".

once the boxes were up , things were easy , frm 1 box v moved on to 15 boxes and frm there to blinking text and menus and stuff.

i could elaborate more . but the adventure kept building .

confusing simple things can screw u up

2007-06-27T01:31:00.000+05:30

denial and hope r 2 words which all of us know
very recent events in my life has made me realize the difference between the two.
the thing is, i used think that they r two different words and mean different things and they do too,
...
..
.
but i confused one for the other.

no point is discussing mistakes . just that things aren't meant to be sometimes.

wat i am trying to say that until recently i was hoping to get the cold engine running again (hope).

wat i didnt want to acknowledge is that that the engine is missing (denial).

but thanks to some blunt messages , the denial is now acceptance and peace is restored along the maharashtra-goa border .

2 most of the ppl who type sidbloke.blogspot.com in the url tab wont understand a word, well it it ain't for them, its for the ppl who will probably never type this url.