Most of us didn’t do much for New Year's

Before the scent of New Year’s fades into the stench of the rest of 2010, let’s take a look at what most of us almost did for this New Year’s.

I can only speak for the self in here. How does one have that perfect New Year’s celebration? I completely subscribe to the view that the night of Dec 31^st should be a special one. The reason behind this is more attitudinal (by now you do realize that the word attitude keeps popping up in this blog for more reasons than I can see).  Anytime there’s anything special about anyday, I just have a different attitude about it. Dec 21^st, for example is a special day in my calendar. So every 21/12 serves one purpose: what was a I doing last 21/12? Where will I be next 21/12? In several ways, that in itself is a good check to keep one’s goals and purposes on track.

And on the same grounds, I believe that New Year’s should be spent doing something special that you wouldn’t have otherwise done. That need not include getting wasted.In high school, New Year’s was spent strolling down the well lit but packed M G Road and Brigade road at 9 in the night. Until some drunken buffoon decided to get adventurous with an unsuspecting lady and the cops intervened to disperse the crowds. We went home and watched television. In college, New Year’s meant gathering around a camp fire with beer and boiled potatoes, and prophesying the fact that girls’ hostels in years to come will not have curfews atleast on New Year’s. What a pity!

Back in the new city, we started making plans for Dec 31^st in the end of November.  We decided to head off to Goa for the new years: every person’s dream budget-new years! But alas, they told us we’d have to choose between sleeping in postboxes, or paying an arm and a leg for a room in Goa. Neither of it happened. We tried getting to Gokharna, a tourist town in coastal Karnataka. They told us to try our luck in 2011; all the rooms were booked. We also thought of Pondicherry. But the mayor of Pondy himself came down to my home, showed me the finger and told me to shove it up and left. I’m not going back there in a while.

That feeling of self pity loomed large over us. We weren’t going to do anything for new years. With that submission, I woke up the following morning to make the ceremonial phone calls. Turned out that most people I knew hadn’t done much either the previous night.

As partners in guilt, things will hopefully be different in twelve months time. But if you do have a party, call me.  

Barter in the blood

I get these quotes for the day on my i-google homepage. Helen Keller is on today saying “College isn't the place to go for ideas.” All the due respect to the great woman, but I can’t seem to agree with that statement.

To the vast majority, college appears to be a collection of people who can be classified as the haves and the have nots. And I’m talking strictly brains here. You have those who have brains, and you have those who don’t. Or atleast that is the popular belief. The dogma persists that a nerd is brainy and the guy with gelled hair and torn jeans is thought to be sans the gray matter. Or the girl with the skin huggin' outfits. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

I’m doing the 3rd reading of a classic book written by Dr. Charles Schwab called The Magic of Thinking Big. Chapter 5 – 'How to think and dream creatively' outlines the meaning of the word creative thinking. He says in this chapter that when the word 'creative' or 'creativity' is brought to the forefront, most people think of the inventors and artists of the world. The author clarifies here that creativity includes even the smallest of things: like a person managing to live inside his/her budget, or a teacher who gets her students to do what they aren’t ready to or any of that stuff. All of that counts as creativity too.

If you aren’t familiar with the two halves of the brain, fyi the left side does the logical reasoning and the right side is responsible for the creative side of things. And so, going back to the case of the nerd and the non-nerd, the former might have a highly developed left sided brain, while the non-nerd might have a superior right sided brain. That doesn’t really make one better than the other, does it? But yea, our big bad black society likes to put labels on people.

I’ll prove it to you.

While I was in Engineering College at NIT Hamirpur until last May, we ran a bi-annual quiz called The Big Quiz. This was a major event for all the quizzers on the campus; the prizes were usually attractive and there was a rolling trophy attached to it as well. As organizers, we seldom expected the beer guzzling, late night-partying, movie watching crowds to show up at the quiz. We were mostly right. But there was this one guy who did all the ‘wrong’ things in life and he’d show up at these quizzes and would be seated in the audience. He would answer nearly 60 to 70 percent of the questions that were passed to the audience. And every time he got one right, the quiz master threw him a Perk or a Munch. By the end of the quiz, this guy would have collected close to 5 or 6 of these chocolates. He’d then leave the venue and make his way to the little chaachu’s dhukaan. He’d hand in the 5 chocolates to chachu and get a packet of Kings in exchange for it.

I think smoking is bad, but come on; that barter was some creativity from a right-brained torn-jeans beer guzzling dude.

A closing note

Stereotype demands me to resume blogging with a post on the senti-mity (I just coined the word) of leaving college. I'd have to be brain-dead to do that. So I thought I would give a little antithesis on the end of college and what's running through my mind at this point in time.

Without a whiff of a doubt these 4 years have been the best years so far, having taken away the cake, the icing and the little red cherry on top. But then, like I mentioned in one of my early early posts, this place is too rich that it gets to you after a while; kind of like the Death by Chocolate at Corner House. I like this place too much that it's now time for me to get out of here, go all the way around and come back to help it grow bigger and better (if that's making any sense).

And for the record, I showed Nagraj the middle finger. May he lead a long life. Having the last laugh is good, since you can laugh louder and longer than you would normally.

But as of now, it's time to play mentor to some fabulously promising people (Iti, I know you're reading this!)

Jaago NIT

Jaago NIT is a students' campaign for a better future.

This movement aims to fulfil two motives:
1) To strengthen student-­alumni ties and hence improve the value of NIT Hamirpur's brand in
the outside world.
2) To make ourselves (the students) more accountable for our actions.

A Students' Parliament is being organised on Tuesday, 15th of April at the conference hall of the Auditorium between 430 pm and 630 pm.Entry for students only. Participants in the parliament are free to raise any issue and talk about anything of anything of anything.

The only criteria for participation is write out your views on this question:
“If resources (like money, time or contacts) are not a problem in the future, what/how would you
like to contribute to this institute as an alumnus?”


Send it in to arjunbs@gmail.com or abhinavjogi@gmail.com

Full House

Here's hostel life for you:

Day before last, 5 guys get together in a room on B-top.

Reason: Major Project.

5 minutes later: Project chucked. A round of Tambola is in (one of them just remembers that he's still got unused tickets from the cul-fest).

One announcer and 4 players.

Prizes:

Jaldi 5: A spray of Axe deo on your underarm.

Top/middle/bottom row: A spoonful of Boost.

Four corners: A sachet of Nescafe Cappuccino.

Full House: A photograph with the basketball champions' trophy.

Hostel life is great.

Top 12 things I would do, if I were to start over again

With less than a month to go before I leave this place, I thought it is but right that I share my ideas on what would be some of the things I would do differently if I were to start all over again from 1st year at NIT-H.

12) I would care less about what others thought of me and more about what I wanted for myself.

11) I would treat my batch-mates as seniors and my juniors as batch-mates. I would stay away from the 'sir/maam' culture and would encourage people calling me by my first name instead (a nick would be far more welcome!).

10) I would get a girlfriend who lives in PGH. Not long distances. Not long phone calls. But a fabulous relationship with a girl that I can one day look back and say that “Yes! she was my college sweetheart.”. Life here is just so different when you have a partner, as against when you don't have one.

9) Exercise would be a part of my daily schedule.

8) I would work on improving my spoken and written English all the time.

7) I would read a lot more books than I did in my field of interest (outside of academics).

6) I would be obsessed about participating in national level events, especially quizzes, and I would focus on becoming a top of the notch business quizzer.

5) I would certainly pick up at least one art form – either singing, dancing, a music instrument or even a new language.

4) I would look for every opportunity to be an organiser of an event and I would do my part religiously.

3) I would travel around more often and see more places.

2) I would treat my projects seriously. I would focus on interning with an industry,a foreign university and a multi-national bank respectively in each of my three summers.

and the number one:

1) I would find the senior in the final year batch that I would want to model myself after and I would work very closely with him/her.

Inside the Moral Kiosk

Inspired over the classic R.E.M hit - Inside the Moral Kiosk

A school for engineers and architects like ours is often times looked at with a pinch of scepticism. Outsiders who aren't familiar with this field of study tend to perceive engineering as one of three things:

a) Opening up the bonnet of a car and staring into the jumble of blocks of metals and wires.
b) Erecting the next longest bridge/ tallest building.
c) Staring at a computer screen typing out characters in a code language inside a glass and steel building.

Classically, we have been looked at as a group of people who can think logically and can tear down any complex problem like Dhoni stepping out to bat in a 20-20 match. And as students of a T-school like NIT-H, it wouldn't be surprising to think that we have 2 left halves of our brains. While some of the above said is true, a lot remains unsaid or falsely assumed. And this is where it be can shown that an A-grader in Circuit Theory can be a good dancer as well.

As an example, we consider the case of three students from the Mechanical Engineering Department. We call them Alpha, Beta and Gamma respectively. Alpha topped his branch in the first year which facilitated him to slide to a branch of his choice. His favourite subject is Thermodynamics and can solve 3rd degree D.Es with ease. Beta is the design guy and has worked on a couple of projects with a reputed Auto house in designing cam shafts. Gamma can look at the production chart of an organisation and can say right away how efficiency can be enhanced by 3%. But here's the other side of the tale: Alpha can play 3 instruments (the guitar, keyboards and drums), Beta is a bass guitarist and a fabulous painter, and Gamma is a flamboyant writer. This is a clear contrast to what others might perceive students of a growing T-school to be like.

At NIT-H, we have come to realise that cultural activities are a necessity that is built into the DNA of our system. Each day, between 8:30 a.m. and 4:45 p.m, we exercise the left half of our brains, And between 4:45 p.m and 8:30 a.m, we exercise the left as well as the right halves. And that makes all the difference in carving out an engineer/architect whose creativity compliments his logic.

Hill'ffair 2007

I'm told this is a fine description. So here goes-

NIT Hamirpur is a gorgeous young woman in her early 20's. Many have spoken about her beauty. Fewer still have written about it. But seeing her up close and personal is the benefit of a handful. Each year,when it gets cold in the hills, the lady suits up, puts on her make up so her fair skin shows the fade blush and she steps out on the street for 3 days. Her grace instantly pulls passers-by to stare at her in awe. She is an enigma; and Hill'fair is the blush on her rosy cheeks.

This November, gravity becomes a myth. Hill'ffair is the annual cultural experience of NIT Hamirpur. This is the melting pot of all action; where art, music, literature,hot coffee, drama, rivalry, fire camps, hot-dogs, tears and a broken guitar string are all very much at home. To say that the open air theatre that houses Hill'ffair is the nucleus of all activity would be an understatement. But this is where that little seed of excitement that was sown months ago blossoms into a beautiful shower.

The clock is ticking away. And soon the young woman will go back to where she came from. Catch her blush before it disappears.

This is an attitude. This is Hill'ffair.

Triangles, chai and biscuits

I have had the good fortune of playing important yet humble roles in many of the insti activities here. Being the head of two student bodies, chief eddy of the college mag, one of the 6 core members of a national level tech fest etcetera might sound impressive. And so it does. But to all this, there's a hidden truth.

This afternoon was our big meeting. The six members of the NIMBUS CORE (the insti's national level tech fest) were meeting at a plush restaurant. Courtesy: Shweta's treat! And so, as we sat there; The Rat, Ntse, Agam, AdiG, Shweta and I, it dawned on me what this meeting really stood for. On the agenda was to discuss the future course of Nimbus. I looked up at the others and said - “Guys, do you realise something? This is a landmark meeting. Say 10 years from now, NIMBUS will be huge. And we can say proudly that we were there when things were taking shape.” We spoke, argued, ridiculed, joked and smiled at those 3 three days in March. And we walked out of that dining hall with a sense of completion.

From here I can tell you one little thing. The cool tags your given in college, like 'Overall coordinator' or 'Secretary' or even 'President' can give you posture for sometime. But ultimately, it all boils down to putting up a show - it's all about arranging for the triangles (those triangular shaped name plates for guests on stage) and chai/samosa/biscuits for the gathering. And if you learn to do this well, you might find your pic in a newspaper like the 6 of us did. Someday.

We had chilly mushrooms in lunch. We also had a good time.

Exiled in a resort

In my 3 years in NIT Hamirpur, I've come to learn that there's practically no place like this inside a radius of 5000 kms. There's no place, and I say this with a certain amount of confidence, where one can put out a chair in the balcony of one's room, turn on Brothers in arms, stretch out, sip on hot coffee on a cold November morning and stare at the snow capped peak looking into your face. There's no other place, where you could do what you just did and turned around and found her saying 'hey.. waddap :-)' on gtalk. Or you could bang on the door of your neighbour, and grab him out for a game of tennis.

There is no other place that I know of that will serve pipping hot Maggi at 3 in the morning even when the temperature is 3 degree Celsius. Where could you find a bunch of 20 odd guys sweating after a game of footie at 1 in the night? The benches at the Admin Block Nescafe and the view that overlooks it ; well, whoever said that the best things in life aren't free better eat their words. And I know not of another place that can put up a 3 day Hill'ffair (how aptly named!) that leaves you on a high. And kill me for saying this, but the nearest city is 5 hours away. And I'm glad it is.

To all those people in this lovely paradise - the guys at Nescafe who wont sleep to make sure we do, the chachus in every mess who gladly serve brats like us for half their lives, the gorgeous ladies in PGH who make our trips to juice bar worthwhile, the faculty that wouldn't mind staying for 20 odd years inside these walls so that we may go out to explore many more, the guards at the Gates who really know what drunk fights are, Tilak, Ekta, GTM, the newspaper boy and to every other breathing soul, I salute you for making these years worthwhile. It's a one time experience that's not meant to be repeated. There's too much richness in this campus that after a while, it's not fun anymore. But that's for another post.

An !dea can change your day

It's purely coincidental that Sagar (I prefer referring to him as Psygrr.. the psychotic tigrrr.. lol!) features in this post too.

Minutes

9:30 a.m: We are in the Dynamics of Machinery class- Nagraj's lecture :-). We've been mass bunking classes for the last 3 days in a row. And he's mighty pissed at that.

9:32 a.m: Two minutes after Nagraj's frowning entry into the class, Psygrr's phone rings. The Sweet Child o mine ringtone can be heard from a kilometre. And the 1100 is stuck deep in our man's tight pants; pants that can put Enrique Iglesias to shame. The seconds that follow are nervous. The whole class keeps silent. All eyes are on Psygrr, including Nagraj's. Everyone's watching as Psygrr wrestles his pant pockets to free the phone and turn it off. This is not exactly music to the ears. It is torture to the eyes. Everyone knows that someone can help Psygrr; but no one knows how to. And then the white candy bar pops out. His nervous fingers nimbly shuts out the ringing. He must have felt like a kid in diaper put on a dark stage, and suddenly the spotlight is turned on this little kid and a thousand people in the audience are awestruck.Applause.

9:32:05 a.m: Nagraj is quick to jump in and diffuse this awkward situation. He chooses to send Psygrr and his phone out of the class. Seriously, what is it with this guy getting thrown out every now and then, I wonder?

1: 18 p.m: At the mess table, I ask him cheekily- "So who called at that time?", though my question could have very well been phrased - "Was it your next girlfriend who called then?" But I thought that would be insensitive.

" Cut it called, da. Pain in the ass.", he replies.

"Oh! you mean chuck it called. " I say, laughing my ass off.

Cut it

For the uninformed, here's a brief description of cut it :

Also called chuck it, it is the phone call that one gets from an unknown number. When the call is answered and the receiver says hello!, he's greeted on the other end by a pre-recorded voice(asl: 22, F, who cares) that lacks the basic courtesy of responding to the greeting. She (or it?) yaks on for the next couple of minutes about everything from the latest Bollywood music downloads to mobile dating. The calls from this number are almost always made when the subscriber is in a board meeting/ at a class/driving/ in the bath tub/ making love/about to bungee.

Psygrrr is to be thanked. He observed that these calls were made from one or two numbers consistently. These numbers never changed. So the numbers were saved in his contacts as cut it (and in mine as chuck it). The days of answering these calls and feeling pissed/stupid are over for us. As a matter of fact, these calls are welcome more than ever. Every time cut it calls, the very sight of 'cut it calling' can send you into peels of laughter. Or it could be a source of entertainment for you (thanks to The Rat). Here's how:

STEP 1: cut it calling.

STEP 2: laugh like crazy looking at the cellphone.

STEP 3: phone continues ringing.

STEP 4: gather people around you and make them stand in a circle.

STEP 5: hold out the phone such that everyone standing in the circle can see it.

STEP 6: hit on 'answer' (put on the loudspeaker, if the facility is available).

STEP 7: in unision, shout - "FUCK YOU!", at the phone.

STEP 8: cut the call.

STEP 9:another round of laughter.

STEP 10: wait for 'cut it' to call again.

There you go - 10 easy steps to turn an annoyingly pesky phone call into an entertaining mid-day activity for you and your friends. Go try it. And let me know how well it worked.

Things that make a difference

I often times wonder why a person would go beyond his comfort zone to get what he wants, if he wants it bad enough. Though this has intrigued me a little in the last few days, it still fails to explain why some people attract certain events in their lives effortlessly, while certain others fail to do so with humongous effort; for what ever reason that might be.

Sunday last, I walked up to room no. AS-15 and knocked hard on the door. It was Sagar's room, my ex-roomie. Satyam computers were coming over to our campus (which is a pick in itself) for recruitment's. Despite knowing that Sagar didn't have the required numbers to make the cut off, I still thought he could give it a shot. The guy opened the door with blood shot eyes. Apparently, as I later heard, he was 'busy' the previous night till 3 ;-).

As he walked towards the hall, he msged in saying 'what's the point..? I don't think there's any use in me going'.. I replied ...' A'ole, just go.. who knows.. something might click'.... and hence, go he did. Never having seen an aptitude test before, he walked into one. With 5 minutes to spare before full time, the Satyam guy threw Sagar out of the exam hall.... for disturbing (if you know what I mean).

The list of qualifiers came. Sagar had made it. He had turned up in a Tee and a pair of denims for the test. And his interview was to start in the next 10 minutes.... I rushed in with his formals. He changed. And went into the interview.

I lay half asleep on my bed. Narayan rushed in shouting - "Oye! Sagar got thru' da!" ... At that instant it seemed like the script of my dream had just changed. But 5 minutes later... as I saw a beaming Sagar kicking his feet and hands in the air.. I knew it was true. And yes.... all of us were sure glad for him. Way too glad.

Despite knowing that he would have to fight it out for getting a placement in this coll. , he had held on to that one thought for long.. And held it strongly. And he got it. There were people there in that test who didn't make it. And I'm told they had better grades than my friend. But that noon, they didn't make it. I think they didn't focus hard enough. And full points to Sagar for doing just that.

Big things in life never walk in with the drums sounding loud and the glitterati all over. They creep in through the door, when you are sleeping. And they creep in because you were expecting it. And you deserve it. And it's the expectancy that makes all the difference.

Congrats, Sagar!

Nuts in an Eggshell

Bill, Larry, Sergey and Murthy are among the few who have exemplified this cult that’s growing at rate faster than the much talked about Indian GDP. Here’s a lighter look at an oft-plagiarized Indian version of the tale.

PROLOGUE:
India’s obsession with degrees is well known the world over. If you were to stand on a street corner and throw a stone, chances are a little over 13.6 (after much calculation) out of 10 that it would hit a person with the letters next to his name. Stats may seldom fail to impress, but how would you possibly break down the ‘technical + business knowledge’ mantra of the new millennium?

An IITian friend of mine openly declares- “I’m technically challenged.” To say the very least, there are plenty of these ‘differently abled’ fish swimming back and forth in the technical pool. But then, the only fish that do swim with the flow of the stream are the dead ones! We have arrived from hiding, the TCs (Technically Challenged) cry out loud. The cult is growing, and a community on the Orkut web site is the proof. The time is probably ripe for the Indian Government to issue licenses to start ‘institutes of technology for the technically challenged’. These institutes would not need labs, obviously. The sole requirements would be classrooms, a few dispersed chalks and yes, MBA aspirants (Beer and Business Administrators alike) to fill up the benches. Like any other disease, TC also comes with its set of symptoms. So who do you think you are?

1)You know the types of brakes, parts of a brake, are a mechanical engineer, the composition of the brake material and the forces acting on the brake pads. But when you sit on a bike, you guess between the front and the rear brakes.
2)You think that The Tower of Hanoi is a tower in Hanoi (Courtesy: Microsoft).
3)As an electrical engineer you can draw and label circuit diagrams faster than current can flow through it. You pick up the phone and call the electrician to fix the geyser.
4)You classify chips as junk food.
Due to constraints in space, we have withheld any further instances. For the complete list of the 4267 disabilities, refer Volumes 3 and 4 of Eggs in a Nutshell.
[In case you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above 4 instances, please make a bold assumption that you could be classified a TC.]


EPILOGUE:
The new age investment banker is truly a jack-of-all-trades. He is not only in the top 2% of the MBA entrance exam crackers; he also features in the top 50% of the engineering entrance exam crackers. A beer guzzling globe trotting fella, he boasts of a 4 yr vacation he took when the wind blew him through the technical course. Sadly so, that didn’t happen in business studies, he admits. While he conditioned himself to talk to lathes and computers while on vacation, what came as a rude awakening was that business required talking to people! Our man can also be seen living in a swanky 3-bed room apartment (fully furnished with an Air Conditioner), wears Jockey inners and Nike outers, owns an American Express and drives around in a Ford. After a couple of years of hard work, the technically baked business pie is ready to lay rubber on the tarmac for the next 35 years. A hop, skip and a jump away to the next big paycheck (with the tax deductions in mind), our man has successfully combined obsolete and irrelevant technical knowledge with business know how. The Great Indian Corporate Czar is in the making (breaking).

Elsewhere, at the Daimler Chrysler headquarters in Germany, a man in his 30s is hard at work on the Merc SL 600. Further insight reveals he is a PhD. in Fuel Injection Systems. “As a PhD, don’t you find it rather bizarre working in a garage”, we ask.

“I wanted to work in this garage. So I had to do a PhD.” he says with a smile, in his
heavy German accent.


(appeared in Srijan 2006, the annual mag of NIT-H)