One session @ the SRM Lab!

Hi all!

On 21st February I had one of my most funniest, thrilling, boring, fascinating lab sessions ever. And I am sure most of the people like me (mostly OD people) will have similar feelings inside any lab. Read on to find out more... :)

We had cycle tests in the morning which meant that we would have our lab sessions for just two classes. One class is for 50 minutes, so total 100 (ya, I am good in Maths when it comes to time calculation!). Thank God, we had cycle test, otherwise I would have had to put up this action for eternity!

It was the highly annoying Artificial Intelligence lab, something that I hated not because of the subject but for the faculty. I have poor record in her (the lady faculty's) subjects in her previous subjects (she came for the 4th and 5th semesters also, this is our 6th!) and moreover, her subjects were always the toughest - that does not help my cause either. So, she likes having fun with me by asking me questions that I have never heard of! Usually, all students have their respective 'seats' and my number is 31. I repeat - THIRTY ONE!

All batches usually have only 30 and I am the 31st (included in 1st batch by fate). So I was unfortunately seated (ya only in this lab, I did not attend the previous ones. Today I sat in number 14, but she had regained common sense, so I was sent to system number 34!) right next to her (The Faculty)... There's no chance to escape and I am all screwed now. I have to type some program and do some acting. I knew FOR SURE she was watching me! I saw the time (she came late. Instead of 10.40, she came around 11.00)... the watch showed 11.05 AM! ****! I have to write off 1 more hour... 12.15 is the finishing time!

I thought to myself ... 'God! I have so much time left... I must not fuck up my 'reputation'... Come on ak... Do something...' I opened the already saved C program file from the Z drive.

"How nice it is to complete a program and display the output!" Wow! But I did not have the nerve to show the output and get the verified signature from her. She would definitely ask me questions unless otherwise I would be saved from some divine intervention of the third kind. I looked at my watch... 11.06! How quickly a file opens! Damn!

Teacher started to sit on her comfortable rotating chair and opened a biiiig book which would easily substitute a pillow. She buried her face inside it. I looked at my watch... 11.08 AM

"Can't notice a professor for more than 2 minutes of course!"

I pressed the space bar! The cursor moved one line space but that was all. How long? How long can I keep on going like this. Yeah, I forgot to say. There were 3 computers to my right. But nothing was used. Why me??? I was not sure if I was uncharacteristically over-tensed or something, but I found it interesting whatever I was imagining and doing! I looked at my friend... 11.15 AM

I looked at my friend Arif (one of the fortunate guys to be seated on the other side of my table, with the monitor facing him and he was facing me and the teacher! Needless to say, the teacher can look at my monitor like an old tamil man looking at the middle pages of a tamil magazine... and evaluate my brains!). He "something something" to Aravindhan and both looked at me and smiled in mocking fashion. True, any one would laugh at me at that time. I was sitting like an idiot who never looked like 'belonging' to the lab! I looked at everyone. There was no face that was unhappy. I looked at the sky and bent down again... 11.20 AM. God... they say time waits for no man. But this time around, I was waiting for time!

"Patience brings great rewards!" True!

After a minute, the 'scary person' left the lab (I knew it was for a short walk, still, some success!)... Unconsciously, I shouted, 'Yeyyy!'. Thank God, not many heard it. I felt like I just came out of prison! I looked at the watch which now seemed to work. 11.25 AM! I wanted to grab this chance...

"Sir, can you please sign OUTPUT VERIFIED?" He hesitated for a moment but then, fortune favours the brave. He signed and I heaved a huge sigh of relief! Yo man! Done for the day!

Five more minutes passed as I looked romantically at my watch. 11.30 AM. She came back for a stern round to monitor... other students. They are also like everyone of course... I mean, they didn't give much of a damn to the lab sessions!

She came back to her seat when the time was 11.40 AM. I don't really understand what happiness they gain by supervising what the students are doing. If we are not doing something, it does not mean that we are not 100% disinterested, it simply means that there was something else more interesting to do!

Now I did something even more interesting... I thought 'If there were a mirror in my front, I could monitor what the teacher was doing... How nice would that be!?' My friend Aravindhan wore spectacles. I did not forget to notice that! I looked 'into' it and saw a not-so-glorious spectacle. Well, I just got it confirmed that the teacher was back to her reading business. I looked gleefully at my watch... 11.45 AM

Now came the worst few minutes of the lab session. She started for her second walk. And after going the traditional 'round', she stopped near me! Why me? Did I attract you in any way? After all, I was seated like the 'silly old man'! Probably she wanted to have some fun looking at a Computer retard meddling with C programs! 'Everyone has sense of humour after all!' I looked in a way that she would not notice, at my watch. It showed... 11.48 AM. Well, she took a short round!

She had told a little earlier "Stoodentts! Try a 3 by 3 matrix something..." So I drew a 3X3 square (that was all my creativity could come up with...) on the third last page of my notebook (classmate notebooks, so the last 2 pages were printed!) and wrote (0,0), (0,1) and so on till (2,2). I saw her by the corner of my eye. She was having a bored expression on her face. 'Yes Arun! Come on... Keep going! Nothing is impossible!' Now I did the master stroke - I pretended to think by scratching my head in a disgusting fashion so that she could hear the noise. Phew! My mission was successful. She ... walked away! Took another round and went back to her seat. These thrilling moments were enough to write off ten golden minutes as I was going closer to the finish line. I looked at my watch triumphantly. It showed 11.58 AM. I looked back and forth. The time was 12 noon!

I could not help smiling. I looked at a few more friends all around the lab. A few smiles! :) I was sweating on my forehead in the air-conditioned lab! Now I did the master stroke that I could not believe it was me doing it all! I opened a new file! I started typing as slowly as possible...

#include<stdio.h>

#include<conio.h>

And that was all. I did not know what to type next. I opened the previous window and then opened the output window. In short, I was getting more ideas when I would actually have run out of ideas on any other day. Today, I was in full flow! Ak, the genius! I looked at my TITAN friend again - 12.08 PM

"When AM became PM, I knew I was on course!"

The last few minutes were like a stroll in the park... I opened the file again and again. Turned few pages of my observation note vociferously (Deep down, I was laughing my ass off!) with no reason. I scribbled something again on the third last page. I simply wrote my register number, the file name, the password and something else which I don't remember now (I don't want to look at it and type here - I copy only during exams!) and then scratched my head again. My watch that had been working patiently came up automatically and announced 12.12 PM. I looked up. The sir said 'Switch off your computers...'. That was all I paid attention. My ears did not work anymore. I switched off and left!

Too much entertainment for a worthless lab session. That's me for you - LIVING EVERY MOMENT!

Until next time... Have fun! :)

Keep smiling!

Arunkarthik

Share Auto rides in Chennai!

"தமிழன் என்று சொல்லடா

தலை நிமிர்ந்து நில்லடா!"

This famous saying goes well for all of us who have travelled in share autos in this lovely city of Chennai!
Whether it is the Tata Magic vehicle or the golden-oldie yellow share autos (see images below), one thing is for sure - entertainment guaranteed! (Yeah, the tag line fits here more than it does for SONY television!)
Introduced only some years ago, the share autos have quite a bit of influence in the lives of Chennai people nowadays. From short distance emergency rides to long distance routes not covered by buses, share autos serve it all. We can stop them wherever we want and this only adds to our advantage. I am going to share here my own observations about this topical mode of transport covering the lighter sides of it!

 The first thing that strikes you about this 'hyper-modern' transport is that there is NO seating limit! It all depends on the moods and talents of the driver - he can accommodate any number of persons he wants!
 Being a frequent user of this means myself, I have experienced sitting in all the places. But I am a last bench guy in college - so I prefer to be seated at the last here also. One advantage in sitting at the last is that, u can have a look at all the other travellers. Sometimes, when I travel in Tata Magic, I prefer the front seat near the driver when I want to relax. (Usually I will be the only person seated there, so... privacy!)
There is one more funny quotient associated with the Tata Magic van - in some vans, you can find plastic stools at the rear end behind the main seating area. If you find such a van, GO AND TAKE THE LAST STOOL! It's fully worth it. You can see and smile at all the drivers and funny things that happen behind you. I have tried this many times myself and had had a nice laugh at all the other drivers who almost always look pissed off!
'Looking at them makes me feel I am much happier than 60% of Chennai's on-the-road population!'
Sometimes, people acknowledge my smile and they become happy too!

Of course, a coin has two sides. There will be some bad days when you have to be contended sitting in the middle of the auto...

'This is not funny anymore when you are 'out' in the middle!'

If you are in the middle, you are screwed! There is no comeback for you. You will be really upset finding yourself among all the old-aged pensive looking Indians! I always try to look happy but man, they all have a 'professor' look on their faces (No, I am not usually lucky to sit among pleasant looking youth boys and girls inspite of travelling many times) and they scare the shit out of me! I always think during these times... 'How on earth did I land up here???'

If you want to learn bad words in Chennai tamil, a share auto ride is definitely a top option!

(For boys only) : Share auto rides are quite popular now for entertainment purposes! It's mostly full-house!
(For girls only) : You will get a seat anyway, and stopping share autos are quite easy for you!

When the roads are full of ups and downs and you are seated in a not-so-friendly seat, better watch your *** :) !

All in all, you are not a Chennaiite if you are not enjoying your bumpy share auto rides!

Have fun! Happy travelling!
Arunkarthik :)

Riviera 2011 - Highlights

Here are some of the highlights of my memorable tour to VIT Vellore!

1. We managed to see a wonderful adventurous juicy scene in the middle of the main arena under the scorching sun at 3:45 PM on day 3 ;) (Prem and I were the only ones who saw!)
2. The guy in the Bihari dhaba could not convince us to order 7 plates of Hyderabadi biryani (we were 7 people)
3. I had to say 'please!' to the server to stop the order of Kadai paneer and order a Paneer Masala. He was a complete jerk. This was the first time I had to plead a WAITER!
4. The guys (Aravind, Abhay and Anandh) who left on day 2 evening missed the 'scene'! அப்படி என்ன அவசரமோ இவர்களுக்கு! சென்னை வந்து என்னடா சாதிச்சீங்க?
5. From day 2 only, new participants came from other places to provide entertainment for us! ;)
6. The over-hyped smoothies outlet (blue board) inside the campus could not do anything better than a lemonade. All the items had the same price - 50 bucks - and tasted similar - in different colors!
7. There was more crowd at the Reception desk on day 1 till around 1 PM than any other area @ VIT! ;) due to the artificial greenery!
8. VIT students also had to pay entry fees for the Pro shows!
9. SSN tennis team can play more! ;)
10. VIT campus is better than SRM campus according to me! (looks)
11. I will go next year if I get the chance!

Valentine's Day Special!

Hi all!
On the eve of Valentine's day (காதலர் தினம்), one of my classmates, my friend Apoorva Nathan, came up with this ingenious game which we will be playing in our class over two days (working days) till Feb 14! The game sounds really nice and I will post about it here. Try it out if possible!

Our class has a strength of 60. (Around 15 did not agree to participate). Number doesn't matter for this game as long as there is 'strength' or 'human resource'! All names will be written and a lot is prepared. Each person takes a bit with a name written on it (It has a name written on it - I will call the name as 'friend', just for reference). There's a judge for this game - she arranged her friend from another section for this job. Every person tells the judge what name he got. After this is done, we are ready to play!
No one knows who got his name. Obviously it is understood that no one has to tell the other guy or girl whose name he or she got. If you do not play 'in the spirit of the game' the game is just wasted or in other words, loses much of its fun!
Coming back, each person has to give a 'dare' to the friend. Of course, he does not communicate directly - it is sent through some other person. After a few exchanges, the friend gets his share of dare and he has to do it at the prescribed time. He can give any number of dares, more the number, more the fun! If the friend does not do the dare, he or she has to gift something to the person on Feb 14 who gave him the dare!
On Feb 14, the DAY, the names of all will be revealed - who gave the dare to whom! That's the judgment day and that is all about the game! THIS GAME IS FOR FUN ONLY!

Sample:
Let's suppose A picks name E (characters A,B,C,D,E)
A sends a sms to B "My friend told me to sms this to E... the dare... asap!"
B sends it to E (Of course, B may know A sends it to E, that's part and parcel of the game - who cares? Dare is important!)

Highlights:
1) It's all about entertainment! This game has a solid base!
2) Dares must not deal with professors; they must not be indecent or unethical (Yeah, there's a limit to all :) )
3) Play in the spirit of the game! Do not reveal everything to everyone!
4) Take it sportingly and perform the dares. Don't be a hyper-nerd and say a boring 'NO' to the dare saying a lame reason!
5) "When you get a chance, be a player rather than a spectator!"

I am not so sure if this will be successful or not. We are going to play it tomorrow only. Keeping fingers crossed! I don't know whether Apoorva 'discovered' this game. According to her, she found it (a similar game) somewhere else and she had modified it to suit our class. Whatever it is, she has done a great job and hats-off to her, she has brought together the whole class for a deed! This is the first time I am seeing such a spirit of 'unity' in CSE 'A', which mostly hangs out in groups!
 A great game to try, especially for school-goers and college students!
Have fun... as always... and continue to do so!
First time I am trying a சுட-சுட report! :) Hope u liked it!
Happy Valentine's Day in advance!

Arunkarthik :)
 

Riviera 2011 - Part 2

Hi all!
For Part 1, refer my previous post! :)
Day 2 of Riviera happened to be the final day of our chess event. Those morons kept the 3rd round at 8:45 AM which was more or less our tooth-brushing time (Ya I coin some words!). I mean, who the hell gets ready at this hour? I was staying with the most active teammates one can ever get. I had to keep 3 alarms to wake up... myself! I think that tells the whole story. With unprecedented difficulty, we made it to the round on time. We defeated AMET University this round 4-0. The fourth round happened at around 10:30 AM. Our opponents were PSNA, Dindigul, a formidable opponent for any college at this stage. We played great chess (especially Shanmuganathan) to blank them 4-0. SSN College had lost to PSNA the previous day. So we had a 2.5 points lead going into the final round, which was scheduled at 2 PM on the 2nd day itself - there we are... nearing our completion!
We had time to witness a great stage show organised by Airtel. They had tongue-twisters, singing and dancing shows amongst others. It was great to see audience participation in everything. Except Tamil Nadu girls, all the other human beings took part in the singing and dancing (மன்னிக்கவும் தமிழ்ப் பெண்களே, நான் நடந்ததைத் தான் சொல்கிறேன்). We had an ordinary lunch at some mobile canteen outlet and went to the auditorium to watch tamil events.
Tamil events though did not disappoint us! When we were there, 2 events were staged. 1) A famous dialogue was played. The teams had to guess the movie in which it came. No points for that though - they had to sing at least a few lines of FOUR songs in that movie. Interesting enough! Some teams performed poorly for movies like Boss (a) Baskaran, Naadodigal et al. 2) Photos of singer(s) / music director / female singer(s) (any 2 or 3) were displayed and a song in that combination has to be guessed. This was even more fun than the previous one.
Our watches showed the time. Damn! 2:05 PM! 'What the hell' we thought. We are going to play SSN anyway and the results were decided by us! We left at 2:10 and finished off everything at 2:30
SRM first, SSN second!
Shanmuganathan, Aravind and Anandhraj left on the very same evening leaving 2 of us in the SRM team and 4 in SSN. SSN guys were our only companions and I felt the crowd was smaller now. It did not matter much however. There was plenty of happenings around to keep us going!
We watched the one sided Women's Badminton final where SRM defeated VIT easily 2-0. The match was funny even though SRM girls did not perform to their best (they said so)!
We fought with the organisers to get the prize and leave on the same day. After all the hassles, they agreed to give the next day at 11AM. Fair enough! One more day at VIT!!!
The very thought of staying one more night at VIT gave me a lot of energy! We went for an exotic dinner that night (SRM and SSN) and played the evergreen card game of 'literature'. Prem and I were the only ones who knew the game. We taught the game to the others and managed to play just 2 full games for 3 hours. Both the games were drawn 4-4!
We slept well... for a long long time! On day 3, there was no time prescribed for us to be awake. We could get up whenever we wanted (before 11 of course!). After we woke up, we just vacated our rooms, got our ID cards, got the Caution deposit back and packed to leave. We got out trophy, medals and cash award of 10,000 (yeah, a great prize money for a college event). The trophy was broken in VIT itself - we did not break it, a passer-by (participant from some other college, unintentionally) kicked the hell out of it! :)
On days 2 and 3, we tried out new stuff. We played silly games organised in the other corner of VIT. Mostly gambling games. Pay 10 rupees and get 20 if we do the dare. Anandhraj became an expert in arranging a chess board in 30 seconds! Abhay and I failed (with one black pawn remaining)! Anandh also tried holding a wet brick with 2 fingers (thumb and middle) for 90 seconds, but dropped it after 35 seconds! Games like these reaped a huge sum of money for the organisers I think!
We got the AC bus number 502 to Chennai at 5 PM - smooth travel to the rough city of Chennai! :)

SSN, SRM (and SSN tennis team ;) ) boarded the bus for a wonderful game of literature (we played 2) till we reached the outskirts of Chennai - a perfect finish to Riviera trip... a memorable one at that!
VIT rocks!

Arunkarthik :)

Riviera 2011 - Part 1

Riviera 2011 (http://www.vitriviera.com/home.php)- the annual Cultural event of VIT took place this year from Jan 30 to Feb 2 this year 2011. I had wonderful experiences in this sprawling campus. Read on for more!
Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT Vellore) ... for some people, the name says it all! I had always wondered why there was such a hype about this campus. Finally I got a chance to go to this so-called VIT. I say so-called because I knew nothing about this campus till... I reached the entrance!
Wow! - that's the word. The entrance is not ordinary at all, it looks wonderful. Having seen the SRM University entrance for almost 3 years now, VIT entrance certainly surprised me a lot.
'This is how a college entrance should look like', I thought...
With my team, I went in. Within minutes, I understood that not all public can enter. Everyone was presented with an ID card. Being a College festival, this basic security measure was necessary too! Got to say the registration process followed by the accomodation booking was rather clumsily organised by them. But for the beautiful girls at the help desks, this would have been a horrible experience for us. Anyway, they provided us enough entertainment to while away the time :) !
'All the walk was like a campus tour on day 1'
We were accommodated at L block, the last block of the campus. After our building, there's just fence and open countryside. This meant that we would have to walk for 25 minutes to reach there. But man, this is VIT - we were always entertained (so many events to see) till we got to the bridge. So the long walk did not matter much. :)
They gave us a big hall for lodging (DOM they called it there) and we did not stay with fellow SRMites. The friendly cricket team had already left by the time we reached there (They lost in the Semi-finals and eventually finished third) and the table tennis team had reached the previous evening. So they were accommodated in the H block which was much nearer to the main campus.
'Damn! We should have reached the previous evening!'
I have to mention this - the restrooms were top class! I have never seen such cleanliness in any college or university I have ever visited!
Coming to food, the customary mobile canteens for Riviera11 did not please me at all. Some were branded ones like Java Green (yeah, the same SRM thing), Pizza Corner, etc. Except for the Pizza Corner, others did not live up to expectations. I did not try Pizza Corner so I am not commenting on it. All the others gave food that tasted considerably worse than the already existing Canteens in VIT! We found this only in the last day that we stayed (Feb 1). Pity!
Day 1 we found out that we indeed had 2 rounds for our chess event. As usual, the arbiter did not know a thing about rules. We had to explain more or less everything. The 1st round finally began at around 2PM, not without the usual comedies that we do (we fought for the seeding) in these events. After finishing the 2  rounds (we scored 7/8 easily), we wanted to attend the Proshows. Since the tickets were outrageously priced, and also the fact that it was not so easy to get there from where we were at that time, we could not attend the proshows. From the photo gallery in the event site, it looks like the proshows went well.
We had a great dinner and came back for a tight sleep - we were so tired waiting and standing for the registrations. We woke up so late on day 2. More about it in Part 2!
By the end of day 1, we quite liked the campus... It is so nice and green. It is well planned, the hostels blocks are situated in proper positions, canteens placed appropriately to cater our needs. The main campus looks great - perfectly placed to study. I don't know how the academics happen, I am just saying about the atmosphere @ VIT!
'All in all, I was happy I could attend Riviera '11!'

If you have missed Riviera this year, you have missed a lot!
VIT rocks!
ak