A Farewell to remember..

It's been a busy week, with formal tea parties, informal farewells, naughty write-ups, free dinners, PS - 2 stuff, project work and make-ups. Now I have several times, expressed my love for my department. Not the work and stuff... that's always secondary. The people and the fun times. And recently my juniors gave me even more reason to be proud. Now we have all seen and experienced farewells, but none like this one.

In case you have the time, do come over to Bhag new wing, Ram upper front wing, and Ashok pi wing, and look at our invite. Invites are made to be different, but this one stood out like an oasis in a desert. This was just a sign of things to come.

The next day, we psentisemites were asked to be ready by 8am... :) No need to smile, we weren't late, actually we were an hour early(keeping in view psentisemites' rule of arrival 2 hours behind schedule). We weren't told where we were going, outside campus was a 20 seater bus ready to take us to... Surajgarh. A piece of advice, do in your BITSian life visit it once. Awesome place. Its a former fort, that's been renovated into a resort.

Once we arrived, we were given red carpet treatment... literally. And with each of us being accompanied up the stairs, by lovely young ladies on eitherside, we felt nothing short of royalty. After a brief trip through the palace cum fort cum resort, filled with wierdly posed pics, singing, some really really weird games :) and otherwise generally running around, we spent time at the pool.

If I ever have to list out some of the best times I have had here (and I have had many) this would definitely be in the top three. It was really fun, there weren't any tensions, worries, phone calls, arguments..anything of that sort. Just a bunch of really good friends, having fun. The water brought out the best in us, the child within. We could have been mistaken for little children who have just found a new game to play.

The food was brilliant... I mean seriously GOD LEVEL, a customised preparation for us exteemed psentisemites with handpicked dishes.. the hands that did the picking i.e. our juniors did a fantastic job of it.

After hours of lazing around, we sat down for a session. Recounting all the great times we had, all the laughs, the work... (I wasn't involved here much :) ), the great times, the trips (ohh.. the trips), the politics :) , the fights, the arguments... in hindsight they all bring a smile to my face. I have no regrets for the things that I did, but just for a few for those that I didn't. We felt like learned gurus, sharing our knowledge for the benefit of posterity.

Thus ended a day that I will never ever forget. Despite all that has happenned, we... I speak for all of us psentisemites, love you all. And no matter, how much you screw up, we will always be there for you. Thanks again for a wonderful farewell.

A Thank You Note..

So its the last few days of my BITSian life, and every time I recollect and reflect over the awesome time I had here, tears fill my eyes. Now it would be wrong, rude, impolite, disrespectful and utterly improper, if- before I leave -I do not say thanks to all the awesome people that have given me such an eventful 3 and half years.

So here goes.. and a couple of points here. The list is in no order of priority, so please do not complain. However if you still have grievances, please direct them to google's customer care centre. Seriously try it, it would be fun :). And secondly there are a few 'thank you's that cannot be declared openly over blogosphere, however open and overt I try to be. So these people will be sent e-mails. Yes, I will try my best to send e-mails to all those people, who have affected me, however small their contribution. It is going to be a huge number. I will draft these as I feel appropriate.

Also a warning, this list is going to be modified often and also probably end up being really really weird, so please bear with me.

Thank You DC++

For:

1. Freedom from IP multicasts
2. Enabling me to fill up my 1TB hard disc
3. All the other reasons, right or wrong.

Thank You, 1681 BITSians who voted for me

For:

1. Believing in me....
2. Giving me such a wonderful opportuntity to screw up my grades.
3. Letting me take you for a ride, with my sweet talk, dashing smile, clean image and incredible persona. :)

Thank You, the rest who didn't

For:

1. Nothing man, just NE NE NE NENE(childish mocking chant). Hehe, light ra. Just joking, Prashant was and still is a good friend. 

Thank You, OASIS

For,

1. Giving me an annual dose of adrenaline, testosterone and the related hormones.

Thank You, PS Division,

For:

1. Allotting me my PS station early, so that I can spend my last few days worry-free and poke fun at others. 
2. Making my tenure as General Secretary infinitely less troublesome(am referring to the reshuffle a semester before my elections)
3. Having so many PS-1 stations in Goa, so my friends could be there.

Thank You, A3

For:

1. Deadly faculty
2. Deadlier time
3. Deadliest course of my life. ADVD and /or MuE

Thank You, mess

For:

1. Subsistence... not food, thats only on alternate Sundays. Just subsistence

Thank You, all the girls in BITS

For:

1. Making me realize, that good guys truly do come last.
2. Being the subject of so many midnight b'day celebrations... well that thank you goes to only about 6 of them, c'mon with so less choice, there's bound to be intersections.

Thank You, Bengal/Rajasthan.. jahaan kahin se aaya

For:

1. Giving us Bharat Mimani

Thank You, Shiv Ganga,

For:

1. Those wonderful stories. Mere liye stories hi reh gayi yaar.

Thank You, BITS dhobis

For:

1. Making me independent, by forcing me to wash my own clothes.

Thank You, that webcam that took our pics the first day we arrived

For:

1. Capturing our worst... absolute worst. I know people who have eyepatches on their ID cards.

Thank You, Nithesh, Vijay, Vikrant, Rachit, TPD, Sinchan, Arpit, Dhruv and the rest

For:

1. Making my last SU elections... so so very memorable. I just hope you people will feel the same and remember it for all the right reasons.

Thank You, Delhi

For:

1. Being just the right distance away, being accessible yet making every trip special.

Thank You, everyone who smiled at me any day

For:

1. Making my day that day.

Thank You, VLC media player,

For:

1. Playing anything and everything I throw at you. You give me hope, there's nothing you can't do. I wish to be like you VLC.

Thank You, GOOGLE.

For:

1. The many ready made assignments that you directed me to, WIKIPEDIA helped here too.
   
2. Gtalk and the many long chats, which would have otherwise cost a lot of money on phone.
   

Thank You, BLOGGER.com
For:

1. Helping me with my passion/part time ambition/interest in writing and communicate my ideas.
   
2. Helping me do this, 'Thank You' note with style.
3. Directing me towards some horrendously bad ( BITSian)blogs, so that I may learn from them.

Thank You, THE JINxD
For:

1. Letting me stay in the group. :)
2. Tolerating my antics and PJs and general weird stuff that I do
   
3. Being the bestest pals in the whole wide world, never to be forgotten. EVER!!!!

Thank You, PCr
For:

1. Being the best department in the StuCCA body :)
   
2. Giving me friends like, Kattu, Chussi, LJ, Vishwa, Ganeri and Sabbu, who I wouldn't have met otherwise.
3. The wonderful juniors, seriously man, you all rock. Not matter how much you screw up, I love you all dearly!
   

Thank You, BITS ELECTIONS
For:

1. Teaching me so much about myself
2. Letting me test my limits and capabilities.
3. Teaching me to judge people and handle situations.
4. Giving me so so many friends, and many many more admirers and fans :) I love you all!

Thank You, DC++
For:

1. Friends, Heroes, Prison Break, HIMYM etc

Thank You, Heather Graham, Jenna Jameson, Kim and the rest.. I think you get the message
For:

1. Helping me and so many other BITSians transit from boys to men. :)

Thank You, ANC, rediwaalas, FoodKing.
For:

1. At least feeding us during psentisem properly
2. Being the best hangout places in the world. CCD, Barista, KFC lite... ANC rocks!!!

Thank You, 2006 batch
For:

1. Giving me such an eventful psentisem. I will never forget this sem
2. The brilliant elections. Take this with a pich of salt
   
3. Proving that, only the first BITSAT batch 'really' rocks.

Thank You, BITS Goa
For:

1. Proving that, though the other Pilani batches don't rock as much.. they certainly don't suck as much either.
2. Keeping most Goans in Goa. I couldn't stand being responsible for another regional association here, and definitely not people swearing at my dear lovely Goa. For my fellow Goans, lets please keep it that way. Let Pilani BITSians experience Goan culture when they are ready and travel to Goa.

Thank You, Sharmaji, Blue Moon, Nobel's
For:

1. The lovely gulab jamuns, paranthas / fried maggi, MNBs, PPW / chicken rice, biryani respectively.

More to come later.. This is gonna be loooooong

Of Cats and Bells

We Indians don't have much to brag about, rather than our large brains, our educated young BPO worthy population and the difficulty levels of our national level examinations. Now AIEEE, IIT-JEE, IAS, CAT and the others on that list, revel in the fact that so many young people who should be playing and laughing and enjoying life, spend weeks and months of sleepless nights for a 2-3 hour performance, which is a stress test rather than a gauge of intellgence. The more lives ruined the higher the status of the exam. Now leaving that little debate for later, I would like to recount my experience at CAT.

Just like my performances at AIEEE, JEE and BITSAT, I didn't really prepare for it. Why? Because I am a full fledged Board topper! I don't like competitive exams. CAT just happenned in a moment of insecurity when placements had just begun. But it was a well taken decision in hindsight. I even signed up for Career Launcher's mock tests, gave two of them, never sitting for over an hour (its a 2.5 hour paper btw)

My test centre was at Jaipur, the exam was on the 16th of November. So me and Dhall, went by bus on 15th afternoon, and stayed at Baidy's place. I reached the centre at 9 am(we had to reach by 9.45 and the paper starts at 10.30) Almost an hour to take it all in.

When you reach the centre, its more like an exhibition of local (international) B-Schools-than a national level examination centre-most of whose hoardings have spelling errors, some even misspelt business!!! :) I wonder if they teach advertising, because if they can't do it properly for themselves... only God knows what they can teach. I wasn't so sure until now, but laptops have become really really cheap, all B-schools offer them for free :) and of course they talk of having 100% placements, with a picture of a pretty made-up girl in a call centre next to it. Brilliant!! People who do get duped into such institutes of higher learning deserve such jobs.

Then of course there are the coaching institutes. The only reason I can think of, for their weird names, is that there are now way too many such institutes and in an attempt to be unique they end up being hilarious. I made sure I had memorabilia of each, anyways I wasn't going to 'bell the CAT' I might as well make the most of the money spent. :)

I'll relate my entrance. They will by and large have the main gate locked so that people enter through a narrow passage, and they can catch you attention. First will be a couple of young fellows, with bright blue T-shirts, hired by TIME to shake your hands and wish you luck. Did they give brochures, NO, there were others for that. These guys just smiled and shook, what an amazing job, don't you agree. I won't even mention the guys from Proton, Neutron, Electron, Taxila, CATzilla and others giving brochures.

After this comes a stretch wherein there will be guys... in suits this time, wishing you luck again and tying black bands on your wrist. At first I took back my hand, thinking she was tying me a rakhi. Then I looked, and smiled as she 'banded' me. This was from Proton. The band had stuff written on it 'Aaj ka din mera hai' 'Main kar dikhaoonga/dikhoongi' 'CAT phod aayenge hum' 'Jeet lenge hum', aur agar yeh nahin kar paye to Proton mein admission le lenge hum, paise barbad karenge hum, but saala MBA karke rahenge hum!!

Just when you think you've had enough, you see the market of Indians writing CAT, and you feel apologetic for all the curses you've unknowingly flung at local B-Schools and ubiquitous, funny-named coaching centres. You see, when there are people aged above 20, with thick soda glassed spectacles , sitting with their parents, with the mother reciting some auspicious schlokas, with the father pating the guys, others openly flirting and whistling at anything that moves, some who, forget English... can't even speak Hindi for Godsake, some whose last minute preparations mean memorizing tables and meanings of words, smokers and drinkers all coming together to write one of the world's most competitive tests, it all starts to make sense. If it weren't for these coaching places, where would these people be. They would all be engaged in anti-social activities, not that they're not doing it now, but at least they attend classes and do they're anti-socialitities for lesser time. Forget micro-finance, food business and IT startups, open up coaching Institutes. Market is great, people are dumb, parents will spend no doubt, and success is irrelevant. Just make an impressive ad and put it on major dailies, have air-conditioned, spacious, and wi-fi connected classrooms and nothing can stop. And of course, don't forget the laptops.

The paper started and ended. I guess you have enough people to talk about how it was, so I'm not going to waste precious blogospace talking about it. After the paer again it was a great scene. I as usual had to do something silly. I usually drink a lot of water when I get up in the morning, this morning was the same. Just that I didn't go to the loo. Then of course, nature called.. midway into the test and very loudly too. But no harm done, didn't really affect my chances. :)

After the paper, everybody ran out. There was this one girl, who loudly announced, 'Yaar, kal raat night-out maara, and aaj paper mein so gayee' , another guy on the phone, doubtlessly talking to his coachng instructor, 'Sir saare ke saare questions attempt kiye and I am very confident, bas idhar udhar thode guess maare'... and more hilarious stuff.

All in all, it was a great decision, and for those who haven't tried to bell the CAT, do try, if you can't bell at least you'll have fun seeing others try!