On a Lighter Note…

Note: Passing on a forward I got. Hope the politicians of today don't make this true…

An excerpt from a diary exactly 50 years from now -

1) May 2056: Today, I became president of the IIM Board of Directors. Under the present rotating presidency system, a member of each caste is made the president by turn. When it was the turn of the MBFCs (Moderately Backward Forward Caste) for president, they had to choose me because I'm the only MBFC on the campus. True, I'm only the campus dhobi, but then every caste must be given an equal opportunity. All those centuries of oppression by the OSBFCs (Only Slightly Backward Forward Castes) and the OFCs (Other Forward Castes) must be rectified. I hope to restore the high standards at IIM — I overheard some foreigners calling it the Indian Institute of Morons, the other day.

2) May 2056: They've announced the cricket team for the series against Australia. I was overjoyed when they chose an MBFC man as captain. But my hopes were dashed when I realized he was a Most Backward Forward Caste and not a Moderately Backward Forward Caste. The selection committee lamented that it was gross discrimination that no member from the Jarowa tribe (the Stone Age tribe in the Andamans) had ever found a place in the Indian cricket team. A squad has since been dispatched to the Andamans to capture a Jarowa tribal to play in the national team. I hope he will improve their performance— they had an innings defeat against the Maldives recently. I would have played myself except for the fact that I lost a leg some years ago when I was in hospital with a toothache and a doctor recruited through the Unscheduled Caste quota extracted my leg instead of my tooth.

3) May 2056: There are too many NFCs (Neo-Forward castes) in the IT business. Under the terms of the Business Reservation Act, their firms will now be taken over by the other castes. I hope they will be able to restore the Indian IT industry back to its former glory. For some unfathomable reason, it has gone down the drain after job reservations were implemented. I went for a movie featuring star actor Mungeri Ram. He may lack teeth, be four-feet-three and have hair growing out of his nose, but this year it's the turn of the EBC-RYs (Extremely Backward Caste-Rural Yokels) to be stars and Mungeri Ram is the best of the lot. I wonder why foreign movies have become so popular.

4) May 2056: A truly great day. We now have an OFBMBC (Other Forward But Moderately Backward Caste) general as the Head of the Armed Forces. I hope he'll be able to win back the territory we lost ever since reservations were implemented in the Army. Since then, the north has been taken by Pakistan, the North-east by China, the east by Bangladesh and the south by Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Only last winter, we lost the war against Bhutan and free India is now limited to the western coastal states. But I'm sure the OFBMBC general will turn the tide.

Ain’t this cute..

Yay….my new cell.. ..Didn't expect to move from k700i to this so soon…

 

A couple of days back, all I could do was curse the guy who stole my cell. But as we say “Everything happens for the good”. And man, the cell that replaced my K700i is awesome. A W550i. Compare it with my previous cell and it is not even close, obviously, cost being one of the factors. It has a rocking 1.3 Mega pixel camera, 256MB memory and as people at sony ericsson put it, it is the closest thing to a WALKMAN. The sound quality rocks. Also, the usual keypad of Sony Ericsson models that suck so bad have been replaced by a much better one. The battery, when compared with Nokia, still sucks. With the swivel action to boost, do I even have to say how awesome it looks…????

The Year Gone By

Before I start, let me wish everyone, “A very happy Tamil new year’s day” and also “Happy Vishu”. With a new year beginning today, I set about thinking, what actually happened in the past year. Quite a few things ( Ain’t I stating the obvious).

Let me start with something that has been sweet and sour at the same time. My tenure at VEC comes to an end, finally. It had been my goal for the past four years (the only one I actually succeeded in achieving) but when the hour finally came, I am confused. As my friend Dhuraison put it “When I came in, I realised that I’ve been duped. I prayed that those 4 years must fly without notice. But when my freedom was granted, I regretted.”

I have some good news and some bad news. Good news: the cow is pregnant and the bad, It died before giving birth. Something similar comes next. People who remember me will also remember the 3315 that I carried wherever I went. (ofcourse, just to add weight) Having done almost 2 years with it, I was so irritated with the very look of it that I wanted to throw it as far as I could. It was at this eleventh hour, that I asked my dad for a new cell. He, contrary to what I expected, said “Fine, tell me which model you want?”. And this is how I ended up with a Sony Erricson K700i. Even before I knew what all functions it had, some f**ked up loser decided “I need it more than you do”. Maybe, its written in the stars, I am back to my 3315.

The last year also saw us hosting the symposium “DEUS EX MACHINA ‘05” which I got to be part of, in a big way. Actually, my seventh semester attendance sheet is filled with two letters: OD. Although a lot of fun, we also had to cope up with some amount of stress. It all started with “No sponsorships from beverage companies, cell phone related firms, and food based companies accepted. Nothing Commercial” So, we had no money and more importantly no time in hand. Against all odds, it finally happened. All said and done, it was fun and to say the least, not a flop. Special thanks to Lokesh and Sanju Luis (we are sorry, bro). Without these two people, I and Kurian would have been facing the music.

Also, with the advent of broadband, two things happened. One, ORKUT came into existence, in a big way. As with all things worthwhile, it also started pretty slow. I was one of the proud early birds who registered. It did take quite some time for my college guys to get in. But, now that they are in, the “Log Off “ button has become insignificant for most of them. Don’t blame them. With so many options and absolutely no limit on how many people one can meet, its addictive. We, actually, have a number of “I wanna quit orkut” communities filled with HUGE lot of people who never log off. And the second thing: Blogging. It has been in existence for quite some time now. But, broadband has pushed its limit no end. Its like an identity nowadays. Every person having an email id has a blog id to go with it. Well, I have no complaints. Thanks to them, my final days at engineering have been less mundane.

Am I part of the majority or the minority???

Reservations for MINORITY??? What kinda crappy government comes up with such a thing? What amazes me is the percentage of reservation. Almost fifty percent. . It ain’t rocket science, not to understand that, the minority of the country reserving the majority of the seats is completely illogical. I knew Laloo Prasad Yadav has taken politics to new lows with his governance, which sometimes makes Sidhu look intelligent, but I didn’t expect an educated female, imported from Italy, with modern outlook (or so I thought) to take such a detrimental step.

And you know what amazes me even more. At one end, we have the members of the Parliament (LOSERS in short) jabbering about abolishing caste system and on the other, we have Caste based reservation. Am I over reacting or have our leaders decided never to make sense again?

There are so many things they can actually do, if what they are looking for, is to improve the standard of living of these, so called minority. They can actually take measures to provide primary education to all. A way to do that would be to try and get the government schools back from complete ineffectiveness. I know, its easier said than done, but still, it is logical, to say the least.

What will a person who gets a seat into an IIM just because he “Reserved” his seat in advance do? He’s a complete misfit, or to say, a square peg in a round hole. Still he won’t feel out of place. You know why, because there’s 50% reservation, half the class will be out of place. The harsh reality: Not only do the better deserved candidates not get seats but also the overall quality of the premier institutes of technology/management will be pulled right down, courtesy of the RESERVED. Maybe, its about time that I asked for reservation, for being mallu. (state wise minority) With BJP completely out of power in Kerala, maybe, once they come to power at the centre, my demands would be accepted.

Remember, you can wake up a person who’s sleeping but it is impossible to wake up someone who’s acting like he’s asleep. Our government functions in a similar fashion. So, to all mallus around the country, wait for a couple of years, we’ll make our claim to be royally RESERVED.

Everything’s for the Good.

It is always a sweet and sour experience when one leaves college and looks ahead to unknown horizons. Now coming to, probably, the last two days of engineering, I feel really down. (was triggered by one of my friend’s blog) It made me think, how much I’ll miss all the friends I made during my four years here. How we used to curse the college at every possible instance we could. How the college screwed us in every possible way it could.

Let me state the obvious, first. The college sucks and I am all but sad to be out of there. For people reading this, please don’t be dazzled by the advertising that VEC does. Its just a shit hole where people never understand that personality development doesn’t just stand for high marks but a lot more than that. If it wasn’t for my friends, I would have been just another fucked up loser with a lot of marks to boot. (Please, no cheesy jokes at the end saying “You still are”)

Just like every change, even this is going to be hard. I remember how I felt four years back, when everything around me was changing. I got screwed, as I ended up joining here in velammal (am one of the last few mechanical payment seats), one of my BEST friends left to US for his engineering degree and it felt like it was never gonna be the same again. But then, once the storm subsided and the desert was back to its calm, I was able to see the opportunities the storm had brought along.

But, I am damn sure, I’ll miss the time we had in class. How things never changed, even though, HODs changed every semester. How we made the angry Mahalingam turn into an extraordinarily calm Mahalingam. How we sat through all those Ganesan’s classes. Valuable tips on “How to take class without knowing a thing” from Sharadha. All the labs. (excluding workshop and mu P) And not to forget “Umaala Chintan” by Ram Mohan and the ever so quick shanmugapriyan (still can't believe he's a TT player).

So, what do we do now? When we fall, we get up, look around to see if someone noticed, and walk away as if nothing happened. Wish this was as simple as that.

Confessions of an Angry Man

ps: Just some more College bashing.

Rules, rules and more rules. What exactly do rules stand for? Well, Lets look at it from our perspective. (which means, we shout at the officials and end up being the good guys) Does it stand for screwing good old students who want to make their college life something they won’t forget? I, for one, have had my fair share of rules (when I say fair share, I had enough rules at “school” to last an eternity) barking at me the minute I do something. (Right or wrong is purely secondary)

Everything to a certain extent is essential, even rules. When it crosses a certain line, it is a big problem. But, in my case, the line has been left so far behind that it is a faint dot in the distance. Coming from a school where, we had like 30 people in our entire batch (that includes Biology, Commerce and Computer science) and with literally no rules stabbing us at the wrong place, to land up at a college that is so pathetic, was horrible. Seriously, what did I gain from all this?

Nothing good, just few harsh lessons. One, the pastures just don’t LOOK greener on the other side, sometimes they actually are greener. Two, there will always be a few f**ked up losers, who enjoyed life to the deck (the loser, I am talking about, just about scraped through Civil engineering) when they did engineering but when they are in charge of a college themselves, they want Discipline and Decorum. Three, just don’t go by the ranks before choosing an institute, Enquire around, because there are various other parameters which matter that you don’t find in the brochure. Four, only in the time of adversity do people unite and fight for the common cause. (The unity we had in the class was amazing) And finally five, if you are a fresher, take it one day at a time, or you might end up having a heart attack.

And in the end, what did I sacrifice my college life for? To end up in a software company which I would have done, comfortably, without all this trouble? (Telling myself, Everything happens for a reason.) I am jotting all this down because if someone (with his head over the stars and his feet in jelly, looking forward to "sweet" college life), even by mistake, stumbles upon this webpage, he/she would think twice before making the same mistake.

Show up, “You’ll be the (wo)man for the job”

The topic on which I am gonna jabber about, in this post, is Placements. People who haven’t yet attended it, might call it “The deciding factor in my Career”. People who have attended it would say “Somebody had to get selected, I did”. I got placed into a software firm myself.

During my final year at school, I wanted to get into mechanical engineering and do something with cars as a career. How that motivated kid (Me, who I am referring to, here) after four years, ends up in a Software Company. Couple of reasons behind it. What is the ONLY advantage working in a software engineering firm???? Well, GIRLS. As some superior human being put it, “The taste of success is known best by the people who never succeed”. Well, after four years of engineering, even the mundane kinda mechie (student of mechanical engineering) becomes a flirt, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to talk to the first female, who by mistake, turns and looks at him. It’s very similar to the feeling that a traveler who, after traversing through a desert for days, sees an Oasis in the distance (What the “oasis” thinks, I am not gonna discuss.)

Another reason is that its the easiest job, an engineer can land into. Its no work at all. All you need is some luck and it goes without saying, without luck all the talent in the world wouldn’t suffice. You begin by writing a stupid aptitude test. Its the best example of working in teams, people put up partnerships to solve the paper and copying is more of a must than a choice to get through.

Then comes the second part which usually is a technical interview (Certain companies waste some more time conducting Group discussions). Getting through these two rounds has nothing to do with WHAT you talk. All that matters is your “shweet smile” (Never lose it, it’ll cost you your job) and the fact that even if you don’t know a thing, always remember, you know more than the person who’s asking you. So blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind no matter what he asks. I remember how I went about mine. He asked “what would you do when a junior is taken into your project team?”. I went about giving him a lecture on motivation and support (Not joking, he was impressed).

Then comes the final stage of selection. It’s the HR interview. To put it differently “You are getting into an organization full of girls, I just wanna see how you handle this ONE”. Well, to my advantage, she (She looked GREAT) was a mallu herself and I, in between my monologue on “ME, a brief history” blurted out that I am from Cochin. She started talking to me in Malayalam. It was fun… deep in thought…..couple of minutes passes by

So, to guys who are about to sit for placements just a couple of months down the line, remember, its no where near as difficult as you think. More than solving papers, what you need to do is pray for some luck to favour you. You’ll be just fine. And after you get selected, try all the exams you have, CAT, GRE, GATE and go about telling people “I was this close to getting into an IIM” when you finally land up at the electronic city in Bangalore, just to show that you are a step ahead of the crowd. A huge crowd, believe me.

 

Wanna say “Go India”.

The Football World Cup, the second biggest sporting event in the world, second only to the Olympics (Really wanna know who watches it, all people do is, check the medal tally at the end ), is about to get rolling in Germany. So, I decided, why not pledge my loyalty to the team I support. Well, English Premier League being the only league covered properly in India, it is only natural that I support England. They do have a really competitive side. Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Stephen Gerrard, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell, to name a few. To say the least, this is the strongest team that England has had, in recent past. The inventers of the game have only won the WC once in 1966, that too on their own turf, and have failed to cross the semifinals since.

But while they look strong, another team looks mighty. Brazil, it goes without saying are the favorites to win this, does one need reasons?????

• With appearances in the last three finals and five world titles to their name, they are the most successful team in the competition’s history.
• And except for the ghosts of 2001, when they struggled to qualify for the 2002 WC which they eventually ended up winning, they have always gone into a tournament slated as the favorites.
• Brazil are the only team on planet football to have qualified for every single FIFA World Cup.
• To qualify for this WC, they scored more goals than any of their rivals, had the second meanest defense, remained unbeaten at home, and also boasted the group’s top scorer (Ronaldo).

Add all this together, and we have a clear winner. But in the game of football, it is never so easy to predict a winner, think FRANCE 1998. Thinking of the great names, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Rooney, Zidane, Henry blazing up the arena and not to forget the ever so motivated African counterparts, World Cup 2006, Germany is gonna be quite an Experience. Go England.

Worth of an Engineer

Well, almost coming to the end of 4 years of engineering and with almost 24 hours a day to waste, I sat up thinking, how much are we worth, after we do this “Technical” degree. Well, if the money invested is any indication, then your worth is quite a lot, unless you are studying in a government engineering college. If you are, your worth is comparatively lesser. Indeed, that way of computation should not be termed as worth, a better term would be waste determination.

So, what other parameters do we use? Ok, let us assume that the knowledge in the department we specialized in, determines our worth. Then, frankly, I can tell you, about 90% of the mechanical engineers in the state can name the parts of an automobile, but none of them will be of any use, if something goes wrong with any of the parts. They can probably state well, point wise, if you need, the various reasons why it doesn’t work. Tell them presentation carries marks, they’ll even draw caricatures of things that probably have not even been invented. If that was a theory paper, he/she might just end up scoring really high. (Of course, under AU even if you are cent percent right you can never say you’ll pass, for sure.)

Obviously, this ain’t a problem faced only in mechanical engineering, other departments are equally bad. The situation is so bad that although there are so many jobs to be had in the software industry, unemployment prevails (talking about engineers here). It’s a situation where, there’s demand and there’s supply to match the demand but something doesn’t add up. It is, what they call, quality of education. The situation is real worse. Instead of we preparing for the needs of the industry, we end up expecting the industry to train us for the job.

Well, who’s to blame? As a student myself, the answer to the question is simple. It ain’t us. Its those guys, who makes us pay in thousands (often in lakhs) promising bright careers in the field we choose. Those people who framed the present format of valuation for technical degrees. And to them let me state the obvious “Waiting for more ominous signs to scrap this present format???”

Beached High and Dry.

ps: My Final post on CAT.

CAT around the corner. Didn’t actually hit me till the day before the exam, ie 19^th November, 2005. It was actually early for me. Usually, the seriousness of the day that follows hits me late in the night. (every semester this happens) The reason: TV channels. It was obvious that everybody wanted a piece of CAT. Different names: Bell the cat, ring the cat, etc but the same thing. All they did is catch hold of a couple of guys who wrote CAT probably a decade ago, when it was not even half as difficult as it is now, to give aspirants some gyaan. And it was quite obvious that they had completely forgotten what it was. But it did succeed in freaking me out.

Now with my nerves all charged up, I had no idea what to prepare for. Confused, I sat up the whole night watching Sidhu talking rubbish on NDTV. I must agree, he does talk sense once in a while. But when the package looks so stupid who cares to see what is inside. My center was the Meenakshi College for women. I was the only one, in my circle of friends, who wrote there. As I didn’t want to be late, I was one of the early birds who got there. All around me were people who “looked” confident. A whole hour was wasted watching people joining in groups talking about how good or bad their preparation was. Whatever they said one thing was sure, no one was speaking the truth. Either they exaggerated or they were too modest.

About fifteen minutes later, I was at my seat, looking around at the competition, I had, in the hall. There were people from all ages, from 20 to 40 or more. All of them had one thing in common: Anxious faces. The paper was given. The face expression grew from bad to worse. I, on the other hand, seeing there was both one mark and two mark question thought I could capitalize and score high. What I had missed was the fact that there were only 90 questions. The announcement came very loud and clear ”You may open your booklets. You have two hours before the completion of the exam.”

My strategy was simple. Get through my verbal in about half an hour, (not because I was exceptionally good at that, but because I wanted to minimize the time wastage), move on to DI (try my luck) and then finish off with quants (the only section I was comfortable with). So, I started solving verbal and it took me a couple of minutes to find out that the verbal section was as difficult as one could get in CAT. Didn’t know a thing. It didn’t matter. Used up half an hour on it. Then went on to DI. I felt it was very easy. The last part was quants. It must have been the pressure. I kept looking at the same questions for an hour and didn’t solve much. The two hour bell rang with utmost precision and even before I knew, I was walking down the narrow stairs.

With my nerves all wrecked, I couldn’t go home straight, so wandered around for another half an hour. Reached home, tried to analyze what I had done, to find out that the quants paper which I thought was very difficult was indeed insanely simple. DIFFERENT answer keys were published by the various institutes (T.I.M.E, IMS, Career plan, PT India,..) and at about 8 PM that night, I knew what a mess I had made. It was a matter of one day that spoilt a year of preparation. (Quoting someone else here, I wasted a lot lesser time) The results came. Indeed, the percentile I got was a lot better than I thought I would get, after the exam. One important lesson learnt was that you can be as prepared as you want, but if you don’t have the luck on that day, you’ll just end up waiting for another year or will have to search for easier avenues.