new address!

Hi, i have changed my blogging address. You can now follow my posts on the following address...

http://www.placidthunder.wordpress.com

Thank you.

Ohk, i don’t have anything to write really, nothing new seems to be happening anywhere for me to express myself through the black keys that are straining my fingers. I just realized that i had a blog and i have a duty towards it, which is to continuously keep feeding it my rants. Anyway since i have begun this, i better put something to it.

So this Sunday marked the end of a very long week for me, highlighted by go karts, assignments, reports, online tests and a lots of searching (google obviously). Though it started really well with the 20 laps of high speed go kart racing (which even though i paid for the 20 laps for 7 people, felt thrilling!)..it went pretty much downhill from there. It was like the karts provided the adrenaline to make it to the end of the week in sane condition, as the next couple of days went into googling everything about recession for our TRW report (don’t bother with what TRW is) followed by some serious data editing and manipulations which took up most of the time. though i did learn some new things about recession, but frankly it didn’t really fascinate me.

After some serious two days which involved lots of last minute running and convincing, we made it through the report and to the next level in the week, which was named “ES assignment” (again don’t bother what that is). It was an online assignment which we were given 2 hours to solve and it was really one of the more memorable moments in the week to see people shouting across hostels to see whose question matched with whom. That level was completed at 11:10, 10 minutes later than the time given to us, but really we (that is to say 9 people in 1 room who were doing the assignment simultaneously) had no time to really bother as the final level loomed in the distance, the CP online test (we engineers do pride ourselves in making abbreviations for everything, which only we understand), which was scheduled for sunday.

As some might be knowing, the final level for anything is the toughest and this case wasn’t different as we spent 1 hour pondering over the the greek presented to us and labelled ‘question paper’. The only silver lining in this level was perhaps that the last line stands for the majority of campus, and of course the fact that i felt most relaxed in the week after we were finally asked to switch off our monitors and hide our work behind the black screen reflecting my free face. And thus ended my week long game, testing cunning ,survival skills, hand eye coordination (??) and ya a bit of gray cell concentration in my brain too.

Also I’d like to add that based on some valuable suggestions , i have tried to reduce the length of my posts, though i don’t seem to have done a good job. So anyway i better wind up, its not really a great confidence booster to talk about your disastrous endeavours.

Hope you had a better week!

first of a kind!

Ohk..so i was thinking what to post on my blog after a long absence (attributed to test, fest and anything else that comes to your mind, which rhymes and can be considered a valid reason), and after 'not really an intense’ brain storming session, i decided to post the poem that i wrote for the Creative Writing contest in my fest. This poem i wrote for the elims of the contest and it did make through to the final 6, so i am assuming i will not feel stupid after posting it. But before the poem here are the rules to which we were supposed to abide to..

Rules: basically we were given 3 lines. We had to choose one line out of them to be the 1st line of our poem, one to be the last line and the 3rd was to be the theme of the poem. We were given 2 hours to do so, and i came up with this…

(its easy to guess 2 of the 3 lines that we were given because obviously they would be the 1st and last line of my poem…but see if you can guess the third line..!!)

So here goes..

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair

I lived on those lines, I lived against the rare,

As i forgot for what i am here

Who is it that can tell me who i am?

Am i the one with the sting of the serpent,

Mocking those who accepted me as their servant,

Why is it then, that my heart has repent

Who is it that can tell me who i am?

Am i the one they consider pure?

Who are deceived by my false sense of cure,

Why then am i not sure?

Who is it that can tell me who i am?

Am i the one who was always with them?

Giving a reality to what they dreamt

Why is it then that i cannot be content?

Who is it that can tell me who i am?

Am i the one who gave them the solution?

To the problems formed in the smoke of my brain’s pollution,

Why is it,the that my soul is in the way of a drive of demolition

Who is it that can tell me who i am?

Am i the one who they think i am,

Or am i the one i think i am not?

Am i the one who they all see?

Or am i the one who i think i might be?

Why cant i understand my inner call,

Why cant i face the people on whom i stroll,

Conscience does make cowards of us all."

I would also like to add that this poem is not inspired by any person that i can recall of and neither are these the thoughts that actually go through my mind, infact these would perhaps be the last thoughts i might think, it was just for the sake of the competition that i wrote i So hope you enjoyed and please comment whether or not you like it! Guesses for third line are also welcome!

The Last dimension

this is a story i wrote for an online sci-fi writing contest...i didnt win anything but i'm posting it anyway...please comment!

“Man I am so full, that was 1 hell of a treat...i don’t think i have room for coffee at all”, said Ravi. “Well...i have given you the option of not drinking, you realize that don’t you??” , was my reply, as i continue to search every piece of penny left in my thinning wallet…man i thought birthdays were the best part when i was young….but now..I just wish I wasn’t born…first minute of your birthday and you are already holding your butt with 1 hand, have the cell phone in other, endure shouts of “treat” in the ears, bear the smell of rotten eggs in my nose coming somewhere from the top of my head, and strain my eyes by looking everywhere for more potential attacks on my body…and if this wasn’t quite enough, I also have to pay for all the gluttons gulping down my hard earned money(???) presented to them in the form of food..I tell you concentration camps would have been a lot more effective if they had employed a similar technique. But we do get a chance to redeem on other’s birthday though. “DUDE…where are you lost...we have already ordered, it is you who are left to pay you know..” said someone, drunk obviously, thus interrupting my train of thoughts from visiting places hitherto unvisited till now. I went to the counter and asked him for the bill...boy. Why is the cashier eyeing me so strangely?? I asked him again and still he doesn’t say anything...just continues staring…is he blind or what?? “ err exc..” I started but just then the door behind the shop slams open “get back you moron, ruining my shop earnings go and do the dishes” said the owner (I think)..”but don’t you see…?” started the cashier but was cut short again by the owner who seems to be terrified for some reason...”I do and i am wise enough not to be shouting loud about it...we cant mess this up..So just get out and let me handle”. What the hell were these guys talking about...are they …”sorry about that, your net total is 124” said the owner who seems to have quite a timing of interrupting people just when they seem to be suggesting something important..Might have come really useful to hemi paid the bill and joined my friends who were already halfway into their coffee. “Wow, this coffee sure is strong,” commented rave who has an opinion about everything apparently. Was it my imagination again or were they all acting strange again??? Dammit whats got to me?? I think too much...of course they are all right...they are all acting normal...it’s just my imagination.

“It’s not your imagination, son”.

WHOA…!! Dammit what the hell was that?? I turned around, saw no one and again thought i was imagining…I turned to my friends, “hey did you guys hear that as well??” I asked. All remained still. I asked again….and again…wait a minute...why are they not moving? I went to Ravi and hey…his coffee is hanging in mid air...ohh no...Everyone has stopped….just stopped. I run outside, all the cars, bikes, traffic everything has stopped….what’s happening?? My mind is definitely playing tricks…

”no it’s not playing tricks ronit”

..Dammit this time I am sure I heard it. I turned around and I am sure I saw it too. Standing before me was the owner of the shop with his cashier. I knew something was not right about that guy. “Who are you?? What is this?? What happened?? Wha..??”

“I know a lot of questions are there in your mind. And I will do my best to answer them all. Only if you have a little patience and come inside. I will explain everything. Trust me I won’t harm you, nothing will happen to your friends, just come inside.” Reluctantly I agreed and went inside though keeping a distance. Something tells me not to trust people who can apparently read minds and stop time. I went inside and saw a cup of coffee. The owner assured me that the coffee will help me relax. As I sat drinking the coffee...he started “my name is rofuus and i am not an inhabitant of earth. I am from planet napstia. I...” the statement was cut short because apparently the owner was wet, owing to me spitting out the coffee in shock. I mean come on...i know it happens a lot in the movies, but...”i know its tough to understand, the UIA has done a commendable job of keeping you in the dark till now.” The blank expression on my face was taken by him as a hint to explain further. “But of course you don’t know what UIA is, do you? You see the UIA stands for the ‘universal interact association’. It’s the representation of earth in the universe. Just like you have parliament of various countries, in the universe we have representations of various planets that has people from all over the world. As a whole all the agencies from all planets help in maintaining the universe’ order and at the same time discovering new planets and new phenomenon in the universe.”

You know those moments of life when you have so much to say and you go completely speechless...well this wasn’t one of them for me...because i exploded after hearing this “WHAT???!!?? What is this supposed to be a joke??? What are you talking about??? How co…”

“I see you are having a tough time believing us. Let me show you something.” And with this he did some weird motion with his hands and well there was a screen in front of me showing a lot of weird people and some more weird machines. Before I could ask he explained “this is the agency on my planet. You might have noticed the people are not human. Hope you believe us now.” “Fine even if all this shit is true, why are you telling me this? What have I got to do with this?? And why you?? Why not earth??”

“Yes...yes now i see us getting down to business…i need you to listen carefully without interruptions. As I said before all agencies of universe work together in exploring new phenomenon. So far you must be aware of 3 dimensions and maybe heard about the possibility of time as the fourth dimension. But we have succeeded in not only discovering time as the fourth dimension but also have discovered 2 more dimensions. Please don’t interrupt now. You see the fifth dimension is ‘intelligence’ and the sixth is ‘noemic’ which means the ability to control minds. You see just as you travel through the 3 dimensions you can travel through the other 3. That is you can move in time, move through intelligence zones of the universe and and the worst, move through minds.”

Bang...here comes the lots-to-say-still-speechless moment. Though I didn’t really need to bother as he continued “and now we are at the brink of discovering another dimension. The most important dimension of all as unlocking this dimension will give us all the answers ever aroused in the entire universe. It can give us answers about origins of universe, about evolution of planets and life, vastness of universe and even about existence of god. However the problem is after the 6^th dimension was discovered the agency of earth feared that after the 7^th dimension is discovered their position in the universe as the superior intelligent species will be threatened and thus they have so far attempted in every way to stop people from going after the 7^th dimension. You see their intention is clear, they want to dominate the world”

“But why are you telling me all this? What have I got to do with it?”

“That’s because you hold a very important part of are the seventh dimension. You see as I said we can travel through time and a sneak peek into the future just showed us how important part you are.” Was his opinion.

“But if you can travel to the future why not see the seventh dimension itself??”

”ahhh good question, you see the fun of living life is when you know every day is different and unpredictable. If you know what holds tomorrow, what good is that?? What fun is watching a match if you know the result beforehand. Keeping that in mind each planet is allowed only 1 peek in the future that too only 6 months in future, except in emergencies. Thus we only know that you hold the key to the lock that unlocks the seventh dimension.”

Well I can’t help say that I wasn’t exactly modest at that time. I mean come on how would you feel a person from another planet came and told you that you can answer all the questions of the universe but still I kept my cool “but I don’t know anything, no special ability, nothing...”

“Don’t worry we’ll train you to think and act. And…” but just then a voice rang through the sky...”rofuus we know you are here. Leave the boy. You have no right to be here. Come out and surrender.”

“wha...what...i-is that?” i stammered.

“Dammit how did they know?? Seems we’ve been compromised, kurtin call for backup, quick”.

“There is no use of calling anyone rofuus. We have jammed all signals in the universe. The universe is united. You cannot go anywhere. Come out before it’s too late.” Just then rofuus took out a strange equipment from his...well…well in humans (males) that is…well anyway…he kept that on back and ordered in a strange hoarse voice so unlike his nice one “MARCH”. I just stood still but he just nudged and I shouted out in pain, a huge electric shock passed through my body. “DO WHAT I SAY”. And without further hesitation I walked forward out of the café and what I saw was better than any Hollywood movie, better than my wildest imagination, explaining it in words will completely devalue and demeanour the very grandeur of the spectacle. However I was brought back on ground by another electric shock.” You cannot do anything to the boy, you need him don’t you. You are surrounded. Just let the boy go and surrender yourself.” “surrender? HA, oh hi am not surrendering, but i know what I am about to do, I know I have no chance but I won’t give you a chance either, say goodbye to your planet.” And with this he took out some kind of weird device again...but before that he was on the ground. His eyes wide open and the last evil smile still on his face. I turned around and saw the cashier, whom he called kurtin standing with what seemed like a rod but before I could indulge further everyone came rushing in and a person came along and took me away as people surrounded his body. As he took me along I asked shakingly “i d-don’t un-understand..”. “of course you don’t , you are too young and you have just heard an hour of lies.” “you mean everything he said, about UIA”…”oh no no, that all I fear is true. in fact everything he told you about dimensions is true too” .”so that means the 7th dimension is there? Something that can answer everything??” .

“ i am afraid there is. In fact the seventh dimension has long been discovered and its power is quite evident.”

“ “ what?? Its already been discovered?? But he said..that i hold the key?? But then what he needed me for?? “.

”ahh yes you see,when the seventh dimension was discovered everyone feared the enormous power it had and its implications if used in the wrong way. Thus the universe collectively decided to lock away the 7^th dimension forever and not to be used ever again. The 7^th dimension was locked by a complicated code whose algorithm changes every day. and the algorithm for each day is stored in a different person of the universe though that person is not aware of it. Every time a new person is born a random algorithm is planted. No there are no adverse affects of planting the algorithm. But you see you hold the algorithm for this day exactly 6 months later the closest in the future found by rofuus by unimaginable means. His sole intention was to unlock the dimension and control the universe. “

“but then if i know the date of my algorithm, that means i can unlock it??”

“you can try but i bet it would be the last thing you ever do” and he smiled though i didn’t find telling people about their last deeds remotely funny. “but what is the seventh dimension that is so powerful”. The agent smiled at me and moved his mouth and it hit me. Of course what else could it be? So obvious,so simple..but just then a needle jabbed into my arm and just fell down asleep, with the name of the seventh dimension fading from my mind.

IIT's IIM's follow BITS

Okay, the topic might be a little biased owing to my bitsian nature, but no one can deny the fact the two premier institutes in the country have gone the BITS way. Kapil Sibal’s new proposal makes it mandatory for students to have a an 80% board percentage, and IIM’s seem to be going online (you can read the article here), something that BITS did long ago (both of them). I wont argue about the online test system because its high time we did that, but is 80% percentage really necessary for any institute??

First of all as an IIT aspirant myself who has given both boards and JEE, i can say that even though syllabus of both boards and JEE is more or less the same, there is a huge difference in the level of the course. While boards keep to the basics of without going much into derivations and details, JEE expects us to know the in depth analysis of each topic we study. Therefore it is safe to say that a person preparing for JEE wont find it difficult to get 80% in boards because basically the concepts are the same. And if a person is good enough to clear IIT, boards should be a cakewalk for him. Moreover, mostly the board question pattern remains same every year and it is easy to predict the questions. So i don’t particularly think that keeping the 80% cut off for JEE will drastically change the quality of students getting into IIT, unless you take boards too lightly and write the exams with too much overconfidence. (which happened to a guy In my college, who scored 350 in BITSAT ,the entrance test for BITS but failed to clear the 80% cut off as he took the boards for granted and therefore had to join in the second semester. Though the fact that he couldn’t score 80% in boards doesnt make him less worthy but does make him lose a semester.)

However i do feel that the cut off criteria will certainly create unnecessary pressure on the students. Even though there was a minimum of 60% required in boards before, but that’s something that you usually get without much bother in boards. But 80% cut off will definitely be playing on the back of the minds of the aspirants. Even though i maintain that isn’t difficult to score 80% in boards, it is enough to make the students uncomfortable. They would definitely take boards more seriously and spend more time on it than they usually would. Till now, people just used to open books a day or so before the exams but now they will definitely be more watchful in boards, considering the fact that boards are now playing an important role in their dreams to crack JEE.

All in all i feel, even though it isn’t difficult for a serious JEE aspirant to score 80%in boards, it definitely does add pointless burden on the students and in the rarest of cases (as the guy in my college) costs a worthy student a seat (or a semester). Without the cut off, people can easily concentrate on their preparations for JEE which is undoubtedly more important to them than boards. Thus i prefer that cut off should be reduced to 70 or 75% as the figure 80 invariably plays with the psychology of the students and adds an additional onus of the board exams (and i speak for every institute which has this criteria, including BITS)

government austerity

Salman Khurasheed, the minister for corporate affairs in the country, recently remarked about the pay packages of CEO’s and indirectly described their high income as ‘vulgar’. For the past few months now, ministers seem to be keen on initiating an ‘austerity drive’ as the popular phrase goes. Pranab mukherjee started it with his plans of curbing government expenditure by reducing security and other benefits enjoyed by ministers and supposedly ‘driving’ tharoor out of his hotel. But is austerity, just for the sake of it justified?

Firstly coming to the point of CEO salaries, i see no point of government interfering in employee salaries there. What a company and its shareholders decide to pay their employee and CEO is entirely their business and surely they are more worried about the company than the government, so they will know how to reward their CEO appropriately. Moreover a CEO works hard to get in a position to lead a corporation and whatever he earns is well deserved and justified , as in contrast to some of the ministers enjoying free perks for just showing up once in 5 years. Also, as H P Singhania (ficci president) pointed out, lack of compensation for employee efforts led to a brain drain 15-20 years ago as more and more people found foreign offers more lucrative and beneficial. We must make sure that this isn’t repeated. Sure economic downturn has caused a lot of changes all around that requires government intervention, but this is an issue that is best handled by the firm itself.

Having said this, i feel Pranab Mukherjee’ attempts to curb unnecessary government expenditure is well placed. Many ministers don’t require Z+ security, but are still covered by its shield. I agree security is important for political leaders, but security should be according to need and not to fulfil the minister’s desires. Besides this, controlling other perks like railway passes etc also seem to be a good move and not just because of the recession but in a stable economy also. Although if a politician wants to live flamboyantly on his own expense, its completely his decision and no one should bother about how he lives his life, as long as he isn’t spending the taxpayer’s money. All in all, i think government should think about reducing its expenditures first before bothering about company CEO’S.

does gandhigiri work??

Recently we celebrated gandhi jayanti and every news channel and newspaper had a special coverage of the gandhian principles and ideologies followed by a note saying how his ideas and methods seem to have been lost as times progressed and gandhi jayanti has become just another reason to plan a weekend. Very very few people (read no one) today i feel lives by his methods and ideas. Have we forgotten him and his ideas or are his principles simply too demanding?
I personally feel living life by the gandhian philosophy requires too much of patience. Almost everyone wants to pace things up and do stuff as quickly as possible, no one is patient enough to wait for a long time to get results. Gandhi asks people to go on doing good deeds without bothering about results, but don’t we all get frustrated when results don’t show? Sure some time or the other we might reap the benefits, but is the wait worth it? Lage raho munnabhai aesthetically showed how gandhigiri can be applied to everyday routines, but again they gave out the message that even though it might work, it requires a lot of patience. I remember when people started sending flowers instead of using violent means to protest against the delhi demolitions. But nothing happened, so after 2 days it was back to violence. People do get frustrated when nothing happens. Same with pink chuddy campaign against pramod muthalaik. Did it actually work?? Did he actually stopped following his so called “Indian tradition”? even gandhiji had to wait about 30 years to gain independence. Could it have been if a couple more like bhagat singh would have come along that the independence would have come earlier? We can never say.
Gandhiji’s principles today are just not realistic. I don’t think people bother much unless we show them that we can do damage if you don’t listen. Can we imagine going to each terrorist and preaching non violence? Will it work?? And if they resort to violence, should we sit back and go about doing gandhigiri?? Will that work? Sometimes its important to follow tit for tat principles to have your way. And frankly speaking if we can get the same results much more quickly following other methods, why shouldn’t we adopt them? Why should we wait so long to get something done?
Its not that i have a lack of respect of gandhiji or what he has done for the nation. i sincerely respect that. and neither do i deny that his ideas work. All i am saying is that i don’t think anyone is patient and selfless enough to follow his principles today.
Opinions welcome.