My Days at NITT - 2

"So, who else is there from school?", Raghu enquired.
"Guess who, SK."
"Damn! Not that guy!"

Before going to the barn for the hostel formalities, we had to go the Dean's office to sign up some papers and submit my grade 12 mark-lists. In the process, I happened to meet a clerk who was in-charge of the NRI admission profile, and I asked if he could check out the list for a few NRI names so that I could find out someone I knew. Unfortunately, I ended up finding out the profile of a guy I never wanted to know. No guesses, SK. I hardly spoke to this guy in school, but somehow I never liked him. I guess no one did.
Then I saw another profile of a guy from Kuwait and with a surname Pichchayappa...lol... 'pichcha' in my place meant begging, so 'Pichchayappa' means 'Father of a Beggar' or 'God of all Beggars'. If the guy's reading this, sorry, no offense. Just kidding.

So the beloved SK and the great Pichchayappa are there too.

Just as we were leaving the Dean's office after the formality, I heard the clerk's voice calling out to me from behind. I went back to him alone. He smiled at me, I smiled back, he asked if I needed anymore help, I said 'no thank you', and the next thing he asked me was for a CD player. What?! I myself didn't have one. Welcome to corrupt India...

I was waiting to meet my IHS (a rival school) 'homie', Sachin, our moms knew each other and talked over the phone once in a while. So, I was obviously eager to meet him here. Who knew that this stud would one day be the daredevil of NITT.

I had met two more guys on my way to the college campus. They were staying the same hotel, Bharat and Vinod from Cochin.

Soon we were in the hostel and my uncle and aunt left me for good. Never had I felt so lonely and depressed. Thus started the first phase of my days at NITT.

To be continued ...

My Days at NITT

"Balu, you've got admission in REC, Trichy. We received the confirmation through mail today. I knew you'd get it. Where else would all those years of hard work go...", were the words that came from my dad whose joy knew no bounds when I got the much desired admission. My mom, after all that sarcasm and curses, finally got a chance to hug and kiss me. I too was on 'cloud nine raised to infinity' for I was going to pursue engineering in Computer Science from an institute that was every parents' dream destination for their child.

Time to leave the place that grew me up, the Arabian soil. I missed everything around me at point of time besides my parents and my brother - my school, my friends, old teachers, the streets of Karama, the Pathan taxi drivers, the Mallu grocer, the Pepsi and the Snickers and the Pringles, the arcades, the good food my mom made at home, my pet cat, etc. I missed Dubai for the first time in my life then.

July 15th, 2002, I landed in Mumbai airport from where my uncle picked me up. My parents were scheduled to come to India at a later date. From then on, I never knew what the next four years of my life was in for.
I landed in Trichy on September 3rd morning with my uncle and aunt, my parents had left earlier as my dad couldnt stay longer so my uncle and aunt came with me at the time of joining college to help me with the formlities. The campus a well, 20kms from the city, was too big a place for us to walk and explore.

After all the exploration of the campus, we went to the bank, an ancient SBI branch within our camps and did stuff there to start a new account since every student needed to have an account there before joining. Hurray!! I have my own bank account. Later,we went to the barn where the hostel allotment formalities were being held. Now, my mind was all the time busy thinking of the number of familiar guys back from school that I would meet at this place.
People were staring at each other, some trying to get things done fast, some trying to meet new people. In the meantime, I was looking for a familiar face.

I turned back and in the distance found a tall, thin figure looking in my direction. Looked familiar but couldn't place him right at first. I went closer to find a skinny guy with a goatee in a t-shirt and jeans, and immediately knew who it was. He recognised me by this time too. We ran towards each other with big smiles on our faces.

"Hey, Raghu!"
"Man... So happy to see someone familiar! Thought you went to IIT. How come you ended up here?"
"What?? Who told you that? Anyway, I kind of expected you here even though you gave me shit like you were going to PSG..."

So, two classmates Raghuram and Balu meet up at REC, Trichy, when one supposedly went to PSG and other to IIT.


To be continued .....

Hats off to 'Da Vinci Code'

I had just finished reading the last page of a new best-seller that I had fortunately caught hold of when I was lying down on my bed staring at the ceiling fan trying to recollect each situation and twist in the book and asking hypothetical questions to myself each time. It was not just an analysis of the book but an admittance of some astonishing facts which I had believed were either false or almost never existed. Some people say that truth is stranger than fiction, and this book provides the best example for this statement.

“The Da Vinci Code” surely deserves to be called a masterpiece of modern times and hats off to Dan Brown, the author, for this chilling nerve-breaker. What I liked the most about the novel is the tint of spirituality involved in the subject.

The plot kicks off with a Harvard grad symbologist Robert Langdon and a cryptologist Sophie Neveu being coincidentally involved in a murder mystery that leads them to finding out the existence of a millennium-old secret society, that even included eminent persons like Botticelli, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci, that had a sole aim of guarding and hiding an age-old secret from the rest of mankind - the ultimate secret that could shake the very foundation of Man’s beliefs.
Robert and Sophie have to race against time to crack the codes left by the victim to decipher the clues left by da Vinci in his paintings which in turn reveal the ultimate secret.

The book rides very well through the various phases of their quest for the truth with a lot of twists that leave the reader wonderstruck. The book scores over the others for its stream of stunning facts and evidences on the Opus Dei, an existing Christian organization that still follows the medieval ruthless ways of punishment and the dangerous process of ‘corporal mortification’, the universal significance of the number PHI in nature, and the hidden clues in the historical paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The book takes the reader for a thrilling ride and drops him/her into a world of thought-provoking fantasy in the end where one struggles to identify the fact and the fiction. A fast chilling novel and a very good pick for enthusiastic readers.

A day when things went wrong

I wonder if the reader has ever thought of the number of odd situations, rather embarassing ones, he/she might have come across in life. The other day I happened to do so, when nostalgia just creeped in, and realised that I had lost count. Well, no one's perfect and mistakes do happen. Fun lies when you learn to look back and rethink your follies in life. Believe me, if you were to put them all in words, you would have created the best joke book by the end of the process.

One such incident dates back to school times when I was an innocent-yet-curious fifth grader.
One fine afternoon, I settled down for class with great hopes for the day. I always sat in the middle bench of the middle row right in the center of the classroom, next to my good Sardarji friend, Ravneet Singh.
Everyday, Ravneet had something new and interesting to show me. But I didn't know what he had in store for me that day.

"Hey Balu, I learnt something new from my elder brother's friend.."

"What is it?"

"He taught me how to make a bra out of a handkerchief. Can you believe it?"

"What?!"

This was the most absurd thing that I had heard of then. But curiosity kills a cat and it killed me too. So, I learnt how to make a bra using a handkerchief.
"Like this, then fold it this way, and there you go....", the learning process was fast and successful. I was flushing with excitement that I couldn't wait to demonstrate what I had learnt to my other friends.

The first period was over and we got a time gap till our next subject teacher came in. This was my chance to be the hero for the day!!
I made a bra out of my handkerchief, stood up and held it up high for the whole class to see.

"Hey guys, just check this out! I bet you've wouldnt have seen anything like this before! A bra made out of handkerchief!"

This was what I had finished shouting out to the class before I could feel some kind of pain worse than an ant bite in my ears. It was as though something was trying to pierce through my ear lobes, or rather was it someone.

I turned to find out my Hindi teacher standing before me, her hands on my ears and with a face which she had never shown me before. I could feel the pain grow stronger and stronger, a sudden increase in the number of heat-beats, and above all, some kind of hormone secreted in the form of fear.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Balu. What are you trying to do? I think I'll have to call up your father and tell him what's going on!"

For the rest of the period, all I could see was the bright white wall outside the classroom and all I could hear was the murmers from within the class. Fear and shame drowned me into something deeper than I could ever imagine.
How would my parents react to this? What will she(the teacher) do to me? Am I going to get severely punished?
Numerous other questions filled my mind.

At that shameful and disastrous point of time, I suddenly felt a hand touch my shoulder. I turned around to find my supervisor standing before me with an enquiring face.

"Why are you punished son?"

I wonder if things could get worse than this for any soul on planet Earth. I struggled to muster up all my courage to get words out of my mouth and explain to her as to what I had done to deserve punishment.

"Ma'am.... ma'am..... I....", just then did I hear the big bell ringing and students rushing out of their classes for recess.

"Alright then, be a good boy and don't create anymore trouble. Go and enjoy your recess", saying so, the supervisor walked off.
Boy, that sure was a hell of a relief! God does help at times of distress.

My Hindi teacher came out of the class and found a sad and ashamed me standing in front of her, head down. "Don't repeat it again beta", she said and walked away. I looked at her with a shocked face for giving me this very-much-needed plesant surprise. Whatever happened to all that anger.
I guess that was the happiest moment of my life and best stress-reliever I had ever got.

The rest of the recess time was set for guys to stare and mock at me.

"So, heard you showed Mrs. Chaturvedi how to make a bra using a handkerchief..."

"What on Earth did you tell the supervisor, man?!"

"If your dad comes to know, they'll stop sending you to school. What're you going to do then, start a bra factory or something?", and so on went the day.

After that day, I never sat next to Ravneet Singh.

THE GODFATHER: A Class Apart

A book that influenced my interests to a great extent happens to be the best-seller and best written by Mario Puzo, THE GODFATHER. If the book is considered to be one of the best that have ever been written probably after Shakespeare's novels, then the movie trilogy is just a class apart. Here is the point where I am left with absolutely no words to express my admiration for some brilliant stuff. So, you can now very well imagine how admiration can kill words in a true fan.

Winner of several awards including the Oscar for the best movie in the year 1972, The Godfather(I) not only proved its distinction but also created a great talent out of the movie, who's none other than Alpaccino. Who else would have had the gift of starting one's career by winning an Oscar for supporting role in the debut. Of course, it would be a crime to not mention the legendary late Marlon Brando, who won the Oscar for the best actor in The Godfather(I), who made each one of us who have seen the movie feel that Don Vito Corleone was actually standing before us.

Then came the best sequel to a movie ever made in history, The Godfather(II), where Alpaccino proved his gift again. Now, let me confidently confirm the statement that Michael Corleone wouldn't have been safer in any other actor' s hands. It would be wrong for me to say that he was acting, he was in fact living out the character there. People who have been lucky enough during this lifetime to be enlightened by this masterpiece will definitely know what I'm talking about.

Now, let me take the pleasure of writing a bit about the what the novel is all about. This is for those who do not fall into the enlightened category.
The Godfather is the story of two generations of blood-shed, revenge and hunger for power among the American Mafioso soceity, or the underworld. The entire story concentrates on the Corleones, the most powerful family in The Mafia circle, headed by Vito Corleone who was respectfully called the Godfather. The story takes us through the rise of Vito Corleone in the underworld, and later the ascension of his son Micheal Corleone as the next family head, and various other charcters who greatly influence the couse of life of these two great Mafia dons.

The moviemakers saw the thirst in the ppl to see more of it and gave us yet another drink, The Godfather (III). This time ppl who thought they wouldn't be wonderstruck by Alpaccino's performance for they've seen it all in two prequels, couldn't help staring in admiration when the reels went rolling. Everyone who came out of the cinemas had nothing in mind for a few days but every scene of what they saw.

This trilogy just mesmerises a guy and holds him in some kind of a magnetic field where you just can't help wasting time appreciating every aspect of it. However, after saying so much, I suddenly feel guilty for not having mentioned earlier the director Francis de Coppolla. A million thanks to him for giving us this treat. Of course, one man who cannot be left out is the root of all talents none other than Mario Puzo himself. I really feel sorry for those who still haven't had or haven't bothered to take the opportunity to read, see and appreciate this grand work of art. Throughout this little piece of my mind, you'll have noticed that I have actually not been able to think of any good adjective that would be able to describe 'The Godfather'.

Dude, what next? Management shall it be...

At some point of time in the recent past, I started thinking like how any other 3rd engineering student would do so. What next? We know that we will get placed in some company, hopefully early, next year and yet we would be left to ponder over the question. Do we take up the job or do something further. More than half the guys say that they need to do something more in order to make it big. Things have come to a situation where a B.E. graduate has begun to be conisdered 'average'. So, let's not be just average citizens by sticking up to a job soon. At least, I wouldn't.

Now I had to decide what I should, or rather, I could do next. MS abroad is a sought after option but it somehow doesn't appeal to me. Not because I'm tired of engineering. I'd rather do something new that I like more and that would fetch me more in terms of money, thus admitting that I'm a little money-minded. One might argue that money is not all in life, but mind you, things that money cannot buy are few. Getting back to the main issue, this thought led me to an option. Regular reading of the newpapers has given me some idea about the management sector and the uneven slide in the software market. Present trend also reveals many engineering graduates turning into management and the statistics of job opportunities show tremendous scope for such techie-turned-managers, the reason believed to be that these guys with engineering plus management skills seem to have an edge over the others who spent their lives learning just more and more tech. World today demands more managers than engineers and the former are thus paid more than anyone else. So, if you are an engineer and a manager, then you're on your way to making something worthwhile out of life. When I say manager, I mean guys with a management degree since this seems to make a difference nowadays from the guys who became good managers out of years of experience like in the yesteryears.

Since I too believe this to be true, I decided to go for management after this course. The obvious question that arises at this juncture is where . How good should the degree be in order to get a life that everyone dreams about. When I looked into the list for various options, it came to me that many aspired for the prestigious IIM's and many others worked for some years and then abroad for MBA. Since I don't find it a very good idea to work soon, unless and until the situation demands you to do so, and because IIM's are great and cheaper than education abroad, I decided to give CAT a serious try. Common Admissions Test(CAT), the doorstep to the IIM's, is supposedly the toughest and most competitive examination in Asia. And since I'm definitely not among the brighest in Asia, it requires a Sincere and Long Ordeal to Gain. However, if things don't happen to go the way they should, I'd work for a couple of years to fill in the foreign universities' work experience criterion column of the application forms along with the GMAT score.

Movie Review: OCEAN'S ELEVEN

So, me a major movie fan, am waiting to get hold of Ocean's Twelve, hoping to get a similar treat as I did from its prequel Ocean's Eleven which is one of my favourites and one that impresssed me to an extent that I can't help writing about it. It should be seen by those who tune up their televeision sets just to hear the news or for a small break. The others would have seen it by now.
This movie got ot me late, at least a year after its release. This is one the movies that grew the Brad Pitt fan in me.

The plot starts off with Daniel Ocean(George Clooney) being released after a four years jail term for theft. Back into the open world, it doesnt take him long to get back into business along with his pld friend and partner, Rusty Ryan(Brad Pitt). But this time he plans to make it big!!
He's in for three of the most profittable casinos in Las Vegas owned by the smart and ruthless Terry Benedict(Andy Garcia). Things don't seem to be that easy and it takes the smartest and most efficient crew to do the job. And Ocean's eleven it is. The rest of the movie rides you through and leaves you gasping at the climax.
No hi-fi graphics or action. It classically carries you in and out of the movie. Hats off to George Clooney, and Brad Pitt was spectacular. Matt Damon's worth mentioning too. Andy Garcia carries on the sly tyrant style from Godfather III (as Vincent Corleone), but this time a more mature one. Julia Roberts could have done a better job for it was not her kind of role.

In the sequel, as the name suggests, Ocean's back in action with a twelve member crew. Meanwhile, Benedict is pissed off and sets out for revenge.

Star Cast:

Daniel Ocean - George Clooney
Rusty Ryan - Brad Pitt
Tess Ocean - Julia Roberts
Terry Benedict - Andy Garcia

Hi to the blogger community

Hi,

Im new here and this is my first blog. Hopefully, I should be able to get you ppl tuned in to some real stuff. neways, more stuff coming in soon and this is just a starter.

Signing off...