Royal thrillers at SP Jain!

It seemed business as usual on a sedate Saturday afternoon for the NMIMS Chess Team (ak, Neel, Rahul and Akshat) After winning first two games with a certain level of comfort with Neel and Akshat, I went to attend lectures from 11.30-14.00, with finals slotted at 3 PM. I came to know later that it was a semi-final at 3.

Of course, Rahul joined our team for the semis. When we were paired against SP Jain, I knew it was going to be tough. Shyam's SP Jain team has always been a formidable opponent to us since first year. This year was going to be no different. However, the magnitude of competitiveness was on a whole new level this time around.

Disclaimer: This post contains chess notations and some technical terms. Please bear with me if you can't understand - they were all important for this post. All said and done, Chess is a royal game... for the classes!

MBA Life - One year done!

One year at NMIMS has gone like a dream. It might sound cliched but in a B-school life mostly goes in autopilot mode. You never ever stop to reflect and dwell upon things you do, or don't!

MBA is radically different from engineering or IT life. For highly individual personalities like me, the transformation has been a little difficult. If I could divide my life over the past six years before June 2014 into 3 buckets, it was all similar in one way or the other.
1) Chess - Prepare, play, eat, sleep, repeat
2) Engineering - Study, write exams, go for tournaments, repeat
3) TCS - Sign in, Do coding, Leave
It was all quite simple, yet immensely meaningful. I had loads of time to stand and stare, enjoy music without a slightest feeling of guilt, wake up sans the sound of cellphone alarm, in a nutshell - a lot of control over what I wanted to do.

Enter NM, and none of this were even remotely similar to my lifestyle. Nothing is individual here. May be I wasn't good enough, may be I was, I can't pretend to know the answer to this question. But I know this for sure - most of the Management students don't know what they are doing either; and first year is something that is too fast for most of us. It's just an environment of total noise and everyone just tries to dance to something that's not exactly musical.

That's not taking anything away from what this colossal institution has offered me, something that every lucky soul that lands up here gets for free - the experience of meeting various kinds of people, the crazy lifestyle and Mumbai. Whether we learn good management subjects are not, students do become philosophical at least once a day!

From my own experience I have seen a variety of people - some good souls who are quite honest about the fact that they have no clue and work towards finding something worth pursuing, some annoying creatures who do anything under the sun to put one extra line on their CV, the CGPA mongers who pretend to have a life outside numbers, some very intelligent people who make a mark in everything they do, a few good friends for life, hypocritical species who say anything to the gallery and shamelessly go back when time comes, the list is endless. The hardest challenge was maintaining one's individuality in this environment. And I am not making this all up - find out for yourselves!

The climax was the internship. The experience was amazing. Due to obvious reasons, I am not commenting on it, but it was definitely an above average experience, more than what I expected it would be. And I did meet people who were better in character than the average individual back in my college. All is not wrong with the corporate world.
"There's still 'good' in this world"

The end of internship is really the end of an era. A summer internship will never happen again. So will another full year of college life. The remaining nine months, I pray God, will be as exciting as the first 12! And I wish to be put up a better performance.

On that note, I wish all the juniors (as a responsible senior), the very best for their last gig at student life. Am pretty sure you will think about your IT life more than once during your stint here. Remember me then!

See you soon :)

Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal and do not represent the institutions mentioned here in any way.

Home, People!

After a long time, I made it a point to visit my hometown. Going home is one thing, going to hometown is something else. அது வேறு இது வேறு! You can go and settle down in some city or the other; build a house there, rent, beg, borrow, steal, stay... but hometown is something different! You feel you 'belong' there.

Chennai is big, cool and awesome; but it's not home!

The Royal Game: Fostering friendships, promoting joy!

Welcome back!

It was a surreal Sunday last week (November 9, 2014) at NMIMS for the chess folks. With no games scheduled the previous day, the players got some time off. Scheduling became an issue for Sunday. As is often the case, the ‘cruel’ B-school mails before we close our eyes at night meant that I had to stay awake till 2AM (essentially running into Sunday) to finalize the fixtures for Semi-finals and Finals. With help from ‘sporty’ seniors over Whatsapp, I somehow managed to do so!

‘It’s a B-school; we cannot do everything single-handed!’

The big four teams of the semis were NM Warriors, SP Jain, Sydenhams and KJ Somaiya. The first semi-final of the day was between hosts NM Warriors and SP Jain. The visitors arrived bang on time at 1 PM. This time they reached the correct building without much hassles! After logistical delays, the match started at 1:30 PM at room 507. Fittingly, it was the Council room for the day, and it takes its rightful place in history!

Quite a Sweat in the AC Room!

When someone tells you chess players are punctual, you can believe them. Yes, even in Mumbai!

Almost all the participating men came on time to room 707 in the new building, where the boards were neatly arranged for the royal game to start. Only one team – SP Jain boys, had trouble arriving; they went to 707 in Mithibai building and phoned the author and said “It says School of Business Management and I am in 707! Where are you?” Poor guys, had to explain to them. Their captain, Shyam, spoke in Tamil, I had some old memories :P (Made friends easily with him - yeah, I am a little proud of my mother tongue, so what!) To the action now…

True to the IIM tag, the IIM Indore Mumbai folks were hooked to the books, well, binders – right from around 2 PM. And our stars SP Jain famously arrived to start their head-to-head match at 4:30 PM. The result of this match truly depicts what will happen when one highly enthusiastic bunch of guys meet three people who live with their books – SP Jain blanked IIM-I three games to nil. With that, they were through to the Semi-Finals.

Some things never change!

I am in Mumbai now for MBA. That meant a lot of changes - no Marina beach, no Chennai Tamil, no Tamil, more Hindi (as if SRM wasn't enough!), more celebrations (Dussehra, Ganesh Chaturthi et al.) and some irregular mindless food and sleep habits.

Mumbai is fast guys, I can tell this for sure - it's full of people and there's no idea why they are running so fast with their lives.
'If everyone is running so fast, why there's a lot of traffic jams?
Or is it because they are so fast?' I do not know.

IT's so gOOd!

p.s. This post is for college freshers only!

Hello Everyone!
Of late, I haven't been so active here! I will give some reasons for it, that's what every one does when he/she (damn you, CAT Grammar!) fails to do something
Getting admission into a premier B-School in India is not so easy. It takes a lot out of you, especially the weekend holidays, Yes, been there. Done that, or not done that, in this case. A weekend in an IT company is a blessing in itself, after all that slogging during the week. But then, I had to go through volumes of English and Math sitting at home or TIME class, all for getting into a top B-school. It's all worth it I guess, after you do get into one!

And that means I will invariably have to leave my current job in this India's most admired company. True. I will miss this. People will say all sorts of things about IT industry, I have not heard them :) I can only share what I have gone through! I don't believe in rumours. You shall not read further if IT field is in no way related to your life, but you may read on just for fun :P

1. I didn't enjoy bench!
It's just a whole waste of time. Reporting every day to the Resource Management Group and not learning anything at all. That too, catching a bus in the hot sun... enough said.
If at all you land up here for more than 60 days, prepare for CAT / GRE / GMAT. The situation is tailor made for this.

Anyway, I was in bench for just 45 days. Then, project!

2. Get into Development!
Let's face it. Developers enjoy the most. Not because it gives lot of onsite opportunities or more challenging; but because you get to work in general shift. You will have life after office! You can travel one hour to home. Sleep well. Just the best life you can get as a fresher in the industry.
Having said that, getting into testing or maintenance or prod support is not the end of the world. Get a house nearby to office and work for 10 hours or night shifts or second shifts.
"Life is all about adjustments - divide and rule!"

Do coding!

3. Life's fantastic in IT
If some one tells you IT is boring, don't believe them. What isn't boring in life anyway?
Performance in the beginning matters. Then you can get things in control. 9 to 6 job in one week, 8 to 5 in the next, 10 or 11 to 8... mix it up. Don't do the same things. It's up to us to make it lively, don't blame the system like you-know-who!
Don't bunk Fridays - they are the best days in office. Some people make the best use of it to make life entertaining for us ;)
Get some nice team-mates.

4. Appraisal season - become a theist
You can dig the rivers and drain the ponds, but you cannot get a good appraisal rating or band or bucket or whatever metric your company follows. Employees hate it; employers hate it. But it exists. Don't facebook it, face fact. Just pray.

If satisfaction = true
     stay
Else
     leave
End If

Yes, I worked in Visual Basic .NET!

5. Training period - College life upgraded!
Of course you learn a lot. But this is the best period you can get. At least in a few CMM Level 5 companies. After training, you get a lot of responsibilities, but here you are treated just like a student so it's just fAWESOME!
You get to meet schoolmates and collegemates all in one place. Well, IT companies are well populated and India is over populated. Surely you will bump into people.

6. KT
Abbreviates to Knowledge Transfer. It blesseth him that gives and her that takes!
Be all ears. "Thozil kathukonga!"

Okay, tell me more!

7. Get allocation
If you are not allocated, fight for allocation. If nothing happening, leave the project. Don't sit and work for free.

8. Follow your company timings
Work for 9 hours only (or whatever hours your company pays you for). Not a little more, not a little less.
"Companies are good, rules are good,
it's the people that make them good or bad"
 We were fortunate to get a wonderful trainer in our training period. He said these words which I will remember for a long long time "Who gave you permission to sit after work hours?"
Indeed! Coming on time to work is important, leaving on time is even more important. Don't bend your work hours like Beckham, and tweet about your organization.

Have fun!

9. Use company transport if applicable to you
This is where you meet people who can, well, you know... Just go for it. Could be life-changing!

10. Live SEVEN days a week!
I say it again. One week has seven days, not two.

Sorry about the huge dose of textbook stuff. Yeah, I heard a lot of noise, so this was my time to make some! You say something about IT once more, I am here for you!

Until next time,
Happy Summer!

ak

Vada Pav!

Vada Pav – Poyayov! First hand report...

So much for the VadaPav! Okay, I agree, Mumbai is cool. The beaches are nice, B-schools better, people (you know what I mean) best! :) For some reason, for locals, VadaPav tops everything else! At least, that's how I feel.

I wanted to taste one of those. But I didn’t. End of story, at least for now.

I went in Mumbai by train. Like every Indian, after 10 hours in train, I started talking to the nearest passengers, can’t help it. It just happens. Two jains – who came to Chennai on a business visit; one malayali – settled now in Chennai, going for work purpose to Mumbai; two more guys – one surely Bengali and the other one is surely Mumbai. And yeah, all male. (Damn you, IRCTC) Why am I mentioning all this? Because corporate world’s favorite word is ‘takeaway’, even though the so-called takeaways are forgotten in no time! Here are my takeaways – it’s not a big deal if I continue to not know Hindi in Mumbai, they don’t talk in Hindi much anyway (that’s a great thing to hear); there’s no problem for Vegetarian food (most of them are Jains, and they don’t even eat potatoes you see! That means, I won’t have a big problem. They also said Jains make Mumbai – doesn’t matter, there’s a fair amount of Vegetarian population!); I got the Mumbai guy’s phone number (networking); my would-be university was by far the most popular among the Mumbai-common-man (that was quite heartening); that’s enough.

Next night, I was waiting to board my return bus to Chennai. This is when the ‘real’ Mumbai slaps you on the face!
Boarding point – Sion Circle.
Bus time – around 8.30 PM
Apparently, this is one of the busiest places for long distance buses. ‘So?’, I thought… every place that has a long distance bus boarding point is busy. But no, this is Mumbai.
“Mumbai has lot of multi-storey buildings; why Chennai doesn’t have?” “Because there is SPACE in Chennai” – this was my reply during the train journey. The depth of the answer was right in front of my eyes now. The buses were not moving. I was hungry. My bus did not reach. I texted my friend who boarded in Bisleri. “7.40 it started”, I got the reply.

I waited, texted him and waited.
I waited, texted him and waited.(switched on GPS)
I waited, texted him and waited. (Got hungry)
In between, I saw many vada-pavs on my side, a man with a guitar, a band playing loud music (this does NOT happen in Chennai, I wish it happens! :D), a foreign couple (okay, not sure, man and woman) waiting for a similar bus, one passenger spitting from a bus window (little far from me!) and more traffic. You need a lot of patience, tolerance and more patience to wait in such an atmosphere. The noise and traffic are just maddening. You cannot see a vacant spot in your eye range. Frightening. The Kathiparas, Vadapalanis and OMRs are NO match for this. This is by far the best (READ: worst) traffic, at least I have seen. That too, when I am ‘not’ travelling.

Finally the bus arrived. And my friend had VadaPav. Apparently, no recession or inflation has affected the prices of VadaPav. Forget the Big Mac Index, you really need a VadaPav index!
And I have not yet experienced much, the Mumbai local trains. What about the buses? Anything rectangle in shape with wheels is a bus here, I think – the one striking difference compared to the ‘classy’ buses in Chennai and Bangalore, and whenever I saw them, I found them crowded. I am a theist, God save me! :)

How will I manage two (or more) years here? Surely, there will be other things to compensate (with counterplay!) for these! Education, Fun, G_, H_, I___ and what not! Amchi Mumbai! :)

SASTRA - Surely a place to be!

(A post which should have come a few years ago; left it here.
Counselling season will being soon - thought you guys might use this for reference!
"Social Service! Enjoy! Apologies for chronological errors. Rewind two years and read!)

The name says it all! I went to SASTRA University this year for the Colosseum'11 and I got to say 'Sastra rocks!' Being a student of SRM, we are so used to stuff like Fast foods, EMOs, Java Greens, freedom among other more obvious stuff. But Sastra is completely different. Being a Tamilian myself, I have longed to see 'tamil people' and eat 'tamil food' for a really long time now. Chennai DOES NOT represent Tamil Nadu these days. I hope many friends will agree with this view! Coming to the main thing, what makes Sastra tick?

The SRM phenomenon

It was a routine scooter ride in the morning when I chanced upon my SRM jersey the other day. Chancing upon it, I suddenly felt so POWERFUL! Why? It's not always that you get those "feeling of strength". May be, the SRM colors or something, I am not sure. There's got to be something after all.

Putting things in perspective, yes, my SRM life was actually SPECIAL - thanks to my teammates. It was a charmed existence! After a tumultuous beginning - convincing professors with my OD forms and then getting approval letters from HODs... it was hard at the start. But then, what isn't hard in the beginning?

The first big assignment in my Chess life (from now on, "life" in this post always refers to SRM life) was the South West Inter Universities in Tumkur. Facing three PT sirs, (or Physical Education faculties, however you would call them - we liked them!) was not going to be an easy task. By nature's wish, I was fortunate enough to be the so-called Captain of the University team. If at all there was going to be an indication of what could be in store for the next three-and-a-half years or so, this tournament was going to be it! There was a good crowd - Deepan, Rohit, Prem, Aravind and Mohindhar. Watching 'desi girl' song on television in the early mornings before every single round was not at all in my books; however, this was precisely what happened... throughout the tournament.
Winning the event was not at all going to be a problem; yet, we did have some anxious moments. It was the aftermath of the tournament that I had to face the wrath of the 'sir's. It was then that I began to realize the intricacies of playing a college event.
"Why can't you score 32 on 36? It will be a record. You have to better the record set by Madras University!" No body yells at us for normal individual events, the regular classical events. Here, it's a different ball (okay no ball here) game altogether.
"There's always some special grudge or significance associated with every event that you will participate - be it the Inter Universities, the regular VIT Rivieras or the odd weekend inter-college event"
And then this happens if you are the one point of contact (yeah, the IT influence, basically the scape goat or the Captain) - You have to attend all the calls from PT sirs! There's no way your friends will attend those. There will more or less be the same advice over phone, this time, the only difference being, the words more close to your ears - "Arun ... You have to win 4-0!"

What???

 For us, friends for a long time - Prem, myself, Aravind, Mohindhar, Jammu, Vishnu and others, college tournaments could never be a serious thing. Even though we all wanted to win, the whole 'thing' of being serious (or appear to be serious) in these events appeared artificial. We did have some competition but it was always going to be a victory for SRM. I don't take away anything from other colleges for it, but I am certainly happy and proud about my team. Having said that, I made sure some basic team spirit was always followed. Let me narrate an interesting incident.

We were in St Joseph's for a team event for two days. On the Saturday night, we had  to stay in the hostel. There I met a team member friend of another college, a very strong team - I am not mentioning the name here, to avoid unnecessary disturbance (matter is more important). He asked me "Anna, do you know if _____ is playing tomorrow?" (yeah, that ____ is my friend, but how do I know? He's not in my team!)
I simply said "Call him and ask"
"I don't have his phone number", he said, nonchalantly.
"How long have you been in this team?"
"We have played four tournaments together"
That sums it all up. Good teams may not perform well in acrimonious circumstances like college tournaments. It's always important to have a "X-factor" in your team when you got to 'click'! You can't afford to have differences within the team!
There's also many other things that make SRM click. We watch the same movies, we see the same "persons", we travel together, we eat together, we bring the jerseys to the board every time, we are together in outings, more often than not! And then there is this 'SRM' spirit that is associated only with SRM - you got to be here to know!

Oh yeah!

There was always a discussion on board orders before the tournament - whatever tournament we were going to play. And then there was another discussion to finalize it just before or after the inauguration, if at all there was one! Usually jammu (when he was in the team, else it was just me doing this) and I connected with all the players to decide it, the night before the event. It never mattered if the tournament was big or small, it was always this way.
Every one of us gave unique replies and it would be the same every time.
Prem: "3 or 4. I don't know Arun, You put me in any board. See you tomorrow" (Usually I would be ready to play anywhere)
Vishnu: "Board 1 is fine with me."

jammu: "What's Prem saying?" (so here's the first deadlock)
Aravind: "Edho onnu machi. Reserve ah podu" (translation: anything dude, put me as reserve)
But then, all of this would come down to me and the PT sirs would be calling me in one end. It was hard, these times, but it was enjoyable. After all, who gets this 'problem of plenty' at the college level? :)

"When every one feels his/her importance in the team, the performance elevates to a different level!"
I had this as one of my core principles behind these entertaining discussions. There was never an instance of misunderstanding. It was all smooth sailing as far as the team was concerned!

There were times of enormous struggle on the academics side, even in the second year - low internals in the beginning, permissions, re-exams, record notebooks... the list is not exhaustive! I always believed time would tell
"Give time some time and everything will be fine!"
Come the third year, and there were fruits for our labour. The internal marks were not that difficult because my teachers were by now 'used' to our routines - something that was imminent. Life was easier in the third year - I just had to 'inform' them about my tournaments, and they would tell me a date for the re-tests (yeah, Indians coined this word). The internal marks were more generous because of this and I had increased my GPA from a paltry 6.1 in the first semester to around 7.8 in the fifth. Yeah, placements were nearing and I had to cross 7.5 with my Cumulative grades at the end of semester six, to attend the direct interview. Through some 'application', I managed to do just that!

Thanks to these companies! We are all corporates now! :) In the end, we did not miss out on academics either!
Yeah, Aravind was a 9 pointer - he lives in Bengaluru! Prem and I were 8 pointers, we live in Chennai.
Luckily, I had time to give some thing back some thing to SRM, this time as a guest...

We play different roles!

Finally I would like to thank a few good people, personally - Mohindhar, Aravind, Prem, Jammu, Vishnu, Deep, Deepan, Senthil sir, Rajasekar, Louis and the other PT sirs, all my teachers, for making our lives so easy in SRM!
It was a roller-coaster ride. I had done a few mistakes and a few good things. On paper, however, good things come! I am quite happy about that!

Live life!

ak

Persistence! :) - Never give up! :D

Valentine's Day wishes to all readers! :)
Well well... I am stopping with the greeting. (Leave me from that topic! :D )
GATE exam happened on February 12th (Offline exams) this year and it seems there's a record 7.8 lakh people took GATE this year! Quite a phenomenal number that! Much of the number is due to the consideration of GATE score for recruitment in public sector companies. Not all people want to do the so-called (and of course, dreaded) 'higher studies'! :)
B.Tech itself was cumbersome! No need to say anything about M.Tech! 2 more years of the same branch??? No way!
I also wrote GATE. No kidding, Yes, I really wrote.
I went to the Exam Centre armed with 2 Black pens, 2 Blue pens, a pencil, a calculator and an eraser. For ID proof, my college Id. Of course, my mobile phone too! THAT WAS ALL! I was really amazed to see so much people preparing even at 8.30 AM (the exam starts at 9AM)! Some of them had come with parents. They had food and water bottles for their 'children' - I wondered if they were going for a wrestling match! :D
Embarrassing, anyway, I walked straight up and found out my exam hall. One good thing about being a chess player is that, we find a chess player wherever we go. (Atleast one person! No escape!) Here too, I found my friend Haribalu eagerly checking the notice board!
Coming to the main part, I went to my exam hall at around 8.45 AM. As a surprise, the invigilator was also known to me - she was a chess player's mother!
"Wherever we go, I don't know if Hutch and Vodafone follow; definitely Chess follows!"
As bad luck (or good luck) would have it, I was seated in the very first bench! Oh my god, the very thought of she looking at my answering made me laugh inside! I knew very well... I could answer only the last ten questions. (We prepared in VIT two days back with a GATE mock question paper. Nothing much to say, the mock paper humbled me! :D)
One bad thing about GATE exam compared to SRM Semester exams is that, we cannot leave the hall until the exam gets over. This meant that I had to sit in the same place for 3 hours...
1st 30 minutes - I solved the aptitude and English questions - fairly easy.
I looked at my watch - 9.30 AM :( 150 minutes remained... Fate - cell phones are not allowed. My thoughts went to VIT where the South Zone Inter Universities was still going on. This is the worst thing that happened in the exam hall, I will tell you why - I dozed off at 9.40! Due to 4 years of sleeping experience in SRM, I knew perfectly how to sleep in a classroom but this was different. Unconsciously, I shaded another bubble with 'black ink ball point pen' (this was the only color allowed in GATE)! To my horror, I found that I had already answered that question!

"தூக்கம் கலைந்தது!" (I woke up!)

"The forehead-sweating feeling when you wake up suddenly after a sleep-in-sitting-position is very annoying! You get scared if something has gone wrong - you look around to see if someone caught you sleeping; look what others are doing and later... realize that everything is fine!"

The instructions in GATE paper read something like this ... "Use only black ink ball point pen since it cannot be erased. Hence the candidate must shade the bubbles carefully"

Yeah... Right! They cannot be erased I thought. Then my thoughts went back to something I read when I was young... er... a school-goer!

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins...

Not through strength, but through persistence!"

What an Idea! :)

I took out the eraser and started erasing. Initially it did not make any difference. I looked at my watch. "Hell with it, I said to myself. I will keep erasing - I have so much time all the same"! I continued erasing. After ten minutes, some part of the bubble disappeared. And with it, some portion of the top layer of the extra thick ORS sheet. (The usual shading sheet, nothing alien). I continued with the most productive work I did in the exam. After 25 minutes, the whole bubble was erased. I was very very happy at what I had done. Now the question had only one answer. (The IIT people got it wrong - it can be erased! Yaar kitta!!! Tamizhan da!)

Thoroughly elated at my endeavour, I finally gained some motivation to read the technical questions. And how well I did, I managed to answer a few questions and make some intelligent guesses for the others. I also mustered enough tolerance to stop myself from shading answers for all questions - there is negative marking in GATE! I had answered 49 questions out of 65!

And then I answered two more. I crossed 50 and kept my answer count at 51!

There was still some 30 minutes left and I had to sit idle. There was nothing else left for me to do. The other questions were unanswerable to my standards. My knowledge in CS & IT is very limited. As one significant person enlightened me recently, I just "Did what made me happy and left the rest to God!"

p.s. These stunts are performed by professionals. Don't try this in any competitive exam! Prepare in advance!

Phir melinge!

ak :)

Semester 8 Aftermath

Hi all!
Wishing you a Happy New Year 2012!
This is my first post this year, I guess, so, there's no harm in wishing late! Better late than never, they say! :)
And to all those who are not from SRM and other elderly people, I have finished my last semester exams. You can call me 'Engineer' now...! Just project work remains. But for that, I am almost done. Well, ALMOST!


These are really tricky times, REALLY bizarre periods! Life goes so smooth till you suddenly end up with these bloated times which are in such stark contrast with the times you were experiencing for the past three-and-a-half years or so.
Placements - done!
Exams - done!
Project - will be done!
Higher studies - not yet decided! This is not the time to decide. Let results come!
Farewell - done!
What else is left in our college life?
I am not reviling the finishing of semester 8 exams. People just get confused what to do!
I asked my friend... "What are you going to do this month?" He said, "I can play games! Mother can't stop me from anything now! No one can question me!" "Fair enough" I thought. Can't blame him. Lamentations of a beautiful mind!

I can't do that, I am not him. I inquired another one. "There's no way I am studying more! B.Tech was just possible; can't do more!" Yeah Yeah... Of course! It was tough! Can't damn him either. Well done mate!


Life's not that tough for SRMites who got placed in Accenture. They have some odd four-lettered program (HSIP / HSFP I am not sure, who cares?) starting soon. "The American mindset cannot change! They never paid a penny for conducting classes in SRM!"


I asked a girl this time. She said "I don't know. I am placed. But not sure if I will join..." Well well, they can SIT at home. That's an additional option they have. They don't get the bread after all! They have all the time in the world. The queer difference is that, this is an OPTION for them. For boys, this isn't! (I know I know...)


Some people have already applied and achieved MS seats. Fortunate people, they can take rest for some four months without the slightest feeling of guilt! They deserve it after all!


Some wrote CAT, only to see CAT pounce on them like the shrill TIGER! They are still there! Bad rememberings for some!


Whatever it is, some people cannot study Computer Science any more (This may include me... sometime)! Still, we become anaemic you see! It's hard to put time to good use at all times!
Most of the time, we sit in front of the computer with austere faces thinking what to do. Mostly facebook, gmail, FIFA, that's all! We easily become loungers in the afternoons! Text someone, no replies. So... sleep! Wake up in the evenings, tea or coffee or Milo. Come back to computer again. Sleep. Dinner. Sleep. Oh yeah 24 hours... See you tomorrow!


One odd morning, a friend calls and wants a get-together. Why not? That's the only exception to the routine we may get! And after that, the tape recorder plays again!


Don't think; feel, says Bruce Lee. True, just enjoy the moment! Don't think too much. Sing a song, watch a movie, play hard. After all, we pushed a mountain for four years in a row. I repeat, IN A ROW!


Long live engineers!
"One small extension after our names;
 A giant leap for our lives!!!"


ak :)

Valai Veechu! :)

Hola! :)

Being in final year is big fun in itself! You come across a few things that are fairly new to you, except the fact that you know they 'exist' in 4th year! Yes - the placements!

You hear about them a lot, but there will surely be no one to tell you how it works, till you manage to the fourth (and hopefully final) year! I am here to tell you what happened so far (till 20/12/11) in SRM University!

Point Number One!

BUILD UP - We got  plenty of it! தாங்க முடியாது (unbearable) !PD Classes we heard "This is life! Get placed in the first company. Else it will be tough. The companies coming after TCS will know you are still unplaced... a ... b ... c ..."

Point Number Two!

THEY ' LL SCARE YOU TILL YOU SHIT YOUR PANTS - Yes, there's no escape in this! We will never know till you reach the December of the final year that there will at least be 25 companies coming to the campus, just for non-placed students!

Point Number Three!

GOT USED TO WEARING FORMALS (For boys only; Girls - you lucky _____!) - Even though we will look like Maths Teachers of yesteryears, that's what they want in interviews! Especially the Black shoes - I managed to fall down twice walking with them! Be careful கை புள்ள (machi)!!!

You cannot show up like this!

Point Number Four!

FOOD - We lost quite a few kilograms! In TCS placements, no faculty had told us we would be sitting till night! Why??? ஏன் இந்த கொலைவெறி மக்களே (why this kolaveri people)? You know very well we would be starving out there! Why couldn't you tell us before???

Point Number Five!

PLACED - It got over 'just like that'! Some times we have felt... "That's it?"

Point Number Six!

THEN COME THE CORE - After getting placed in IT companies, we have to sit for the core ones! People like Microsoft, Global Scholar, etc. come and we have to sit for all those!

So far, it was all normal to SRM! Let me share what will happen from now on... (Thanks to our batch!)

* Microsoft came in the last week of October. They said results would come not later than December '10. Results not yet published!

"இனி சென்னை பக்கமே வர மாட்டோம்! (We will never show up anywhere even near to Chennai!)" - Microsoft அதிரடி பேட்டி! (Guess our answer sheets did the trick! We never asked for subjective aptitude! Your headache that! Now, publish our results!

* Some companies did not select even one student!

"இதற்கும் எங்களுக்கும் எந்த சம்மந்தமும் இல்லை!" -  மாணவர்கள் சரமாரி!

("We have nothing to do with this!" - Students )

* "அடுத்த வருடம் TCS வருவதே சந்தேகம்! Juniorகள் நிலைமை கவலைக்கிடம்!"
(TCS coming next year is highly doubtful! Juniors very much worried)

(Reports have it that TCS took more people in Sastra University compared to SRM. See - confirmation!

MBA placements in SRM affected due to this!)

* "நாங்க தான் டா gethu! இனிமே எந்த company வருது பாப்போம்!" (We are the DONs! Let's see which Company shows up from now on!) - 2012 batch students terror interview!

* "நாங்க எழுதின எழுத்து அப்படி!" (It's our WRITINGS!) - last bench guys of CSE department

* Some company gave feedback "These people don't even know to write 'for' loop!" :D

"நான் கேட்டேனா?" (Did we ask?)

* Oracle வருது ன்னு சொன்னங்க! பயபுள்ள தப்பிச்சுட்டானுங்க! ( We heard Oracle was coming. Lucky fellows, escaped!)

* யார் holidays அ யார் கெடுக்கறது??? (Who are they to spoil our holidays???) Mind it!

* "எங்க மானத்த காப்பாத்துங்க!" (Please save our faces!) - பல்கலைக்கழக ஆசிரியர்கள் வேண்டுகோள்! (Professors request students)

* "இது எதிர் கட்சி சதி!"... குமுறுகிறார்... (.)

p.s. (Disclaimer) This is just a funny report of the reality. SRM is actually good with many companies coming in! You will surely get a nice job, and if lucky, there's enough room to take your girlfriend to the same company! Plan accordingly! You can get dual placements - one in IT, one in core). SRM has it all! A wonderful campus placement record. Nothing to worry at all! :) SRM rocks - I stay with that!

மீண்டும் சந்திப்போம்! (See you again! Au revoir!)

ak

IITK - the trip that wasn't!

The name 'IIT' gives a 'feeling' to many people in India. Let me be clear - நான் அங்கே படிக்கப் போகவில்லை! விளையாடத் தான் போனேன்!

Yeah! 'Udghosh11' is the annual sports fest of IITK (Kanpur) and we somehow got the invitation for it this year. (I honestly think they made a mistake of inviting us! :D ) As usual, the booking of tickets created a havoc before leaving. Aravind (MUSIGMA man) booked tickets separately; Thanks to him, we could go peacefully. This time, Ramnath (IM) was a new member in our team. So the team now looked like 1. ak 2. Prem 3. Ramnath 4. Aravind... "Fair enough" I thought. This should be enough to win!

To my surprise,

When the landline went out of order!

Hi all,
It's been long I know. But then, what the hell is wrong with 'final' year in college? It's just too daunting! No time at all! Everyone comes to final year of engineering easily. But my department has 6 theory subjects, 2 labs and project work... all in 7th semester! Why? I don't know. I don't want to know. But 6 is a huge number... I meant the subjects!
I remember this famous dialog from a Seinfeld episode... 'Friday has a feeling. Sunday has a feeling...'
'Final year has a feeling too!' But that feeling is gone. We have simply lost the enthusiasm to study. Laziness gets in... It never goes. You always have a sun-setting feeling inside. Every day looks like a weekend which makes life all the more difficult. But there's one thing you can be happy about - You're the super senior! You can rag juniors - basically everybody because you are the super senior!!!

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

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 :)
 

Semester Results @ SRM

'Writing the Semester exams is one thing
Seeing the results is something else!'
The holidays in-between these 2 happenings are always fun! The 'judgment' day is always more interesting if u look at it from an outsider's point of view!
Being a pure topper from school, that too from Velammal, coming to SRM and adapting to the College style of writing exams was a herculean task. Got to say I have picked it up well now. I learnt to copy, I learnt to show the answers, I learnt to get the answer sheets... Man! I even learnt to escape after getting caught!
All this struggle... during all the exams except the End Semesters... to INCREASE internals!
At last we write the Semesters.
On the result days in the good old days, we see the subject first, then the marks. Here though, in India's number 1 university, everything is in reverse - we see the grade column first. 'All PASS'. Thank God! Did I really do it? We check it again. All PASS. We check the register number sheepishly. Yeah, mine. We check it again like idiots. Fine! It's mine! I have all the rights to jump out of joy now!
The 'I did it' feeling is simply awesome! There's no substitute for this!
And when we want to check for our friends, the site takes too long to respond! This time I had to check the results in Facebook result checker application which was also, BUSY! SRM rocks. I wonder why people are so anxious to know their results as soon as it is released! This is not a movie guys, to see it on the first release! Nothing is going to happen if we sleep the night and check it tomorrow. But again, advising is so easy! I slept at 1 AM that night and still managed to win the game on the next morning!
"Who said Chess is not a mind game?"
The 7.86 score was all that was needed to make me give the 'force' to win the last 2 games of Chennai Open 2011! :)

Hope u all had all 'PASS'!
Until next time... Keep smiling! :)

Semester Examinations! :) fifth time in a row!

Ah... The name suggests itself!
Every day brings us nearer to semesters. Thinking about the semester exam after a long period of OD (must be familiar with this term now in my blog!) is the worst feeling (vayitrukkum thondaikkum uruvamillaa oru urundayum uruludhadii) I can tell u! And it's not just the final exam. It's the freebies that come along (ilavasa inaipugal) that annoy me the most - the 'missed' surprise tests (who doesn't want to miss them anyway!!!); the almost always missed cycle tests - ya, this time , being my fifth semester in a row (in a row???), I wanted to be more 'responsible' (the same way Harbhajan was fooling around today 22.11.2011 with the bat without swinging at everything) this time around. So I wrote retests for everything and I can tell u - it was like pushing a big boulder rock! Jeez...
And ya then came the biggest comedy that happens every time (yeah, it will continue... bcz it is India's numero uno) - the RECORD works! In my opinion, writing records is a record in itself! This time, it was all the more awkward (a feeling of guilt crept in me from nowhere) - we took printouts and filled the index! And guess what... when I went to take printouts to the shops in Potheri, the man asked us "Which dept?" ... "Computer Science third year"... He said 'Keep the pen drive; we have the copies!" I thought "Well done!"
That says it all!!! Doesn't it?
Models... I failed in Compiler Design (for obvious reasons ; if u don't know I will tell them anyway - I can't pass, for one!) and Mathematics (read my previous blog for reference; anyway for history, I always pass only in the semesters in Mathematics) for the last time I guess... We don't have Maths after this! (Thanks to Aravind Subramanian for reminding me this good news)!
Semesters ... I was somewhat prepared this time... So I am not going to write abt that!
Coming to the point, completion of 1 semesters takes away some part of ur college life! But anyway, some how somewhere, the feeling of completing the exams and looking at the books like pieces of waste paper tends to overweight all the feelings of deja vu!
Yeah, I love the holidays! Happy holidays to all! :)