Friday, March 31, 2006

Too silly????

Today was a remarkable day. Thats what i thought immediately on leaving college. It was one of those days when everything seemed to be working ultra proper. Man, I had at last finished my project and shown a working demo to my guide and even satisfied her with it.

Is'nt that a great accompolishment? is all I kept telling myself again and again and so absorbed was I with my "accompolishment" that I forgot that I was damn too hungry and promptly came to the bus stop and took the first bus that came there. But, yeah, though blinded by happiness, I still managed to board the bus that would take me home. Now, how was I to know that that would'nt happen?

Well, for all the nice things that had happened to me today, now, now, can I use "all the" cos the demo was the only thing that had at all happened till the evening, but anyway, getting back to where i left it, for all the or some of the or one of the nice things that happened to me, I got "battered" in just two hours time.

In a sense of de ja vu, I got into that bus and then realised that I was the only person standing and deemed to be for the next 45 minutes, thanks to our beloved CM. Now, you people must have started wondering where she fits into the entire picture. And maybe connected the title with this fact and got really very confused as to how I journeyed with our beloved CM. Sorry folks!!! You are terribly wrong. Actually, she was or was supposed to be coming on the other side of the road and her dutiful followers had all but blocked the road in order to give her a rousing welcome. Net result, me poor girl stood inside the bus a good 45 minutes and then got a seat only to know that the bus was not headed home.

As is the case most of the time in our city, a major diversion had been charted out to ensure the free flow of Amma's vehicle and we got lots. Yeah, you read it right. All of us inside the bus, including the conductor and the driver, along with the bus, got lost. For, none of us knew where the road on which we were going was headed. But, people like me, who had little experience with the 'n' number of roads in Chennai, except for their usual source and destination, had a field day today. The bus went through innumerable streets and roads, small and big, but, yeah, mostly small and crooked only. I was, like any good daughter, making a mental note of all the roads we were travelling across, and giving a running commentary to my mother. But, at one point of time, I really got very worried. The address out there was Mettupalayam. Now, if I remember right, with the feeble geographical knowledge I have, that's a place at the foot of Ooty. Tell me honestly, if you were in such a vulnerable position as me, would'nt you panic? Well, I dont know about you, but being the highly sane person I am, I did and before I could voice out my concern, we were onto a familiar road. What kind of magic was that? is all I could muse and muse I did with of course with no real knowledge gained.

Though familiar it was, we still were not seeming to be taking the familiar route and by hook or crook or god's grace or Amma's luck, I reached home but fom the opposite direction. I say Amma's luck cos, if I had got lost really, I would'nt have spared her. Now, I said that in a haste. What really can I do? At the most, I may vote for someone else. But does that make any difference to her? I understand what would be running through all your minds just now. What silly girl this is who would'nt vote for someone cos she got stranded in the traffic due to that person. Now, I am not really that silly, am I? I will give you the other reasons.

Hey, but wait a minute. What was the purpose of this post when I started it? To make it as funny as possible. Now this seems to have turned into some kind of political analysis. I cant allow that. But, now that I have typed this much, I really cant not post it cos it doesnt sound funny. Thats too silly, is'nt it????

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

P and C

Now, what strikes you on reading this title? Well, it depends on what kind of a person you are. If you are this geek kind who has lived your entire life with numbers, it would lead to Permutations and Combinations. But, fortunately or unfortunately, since I don't fall into that category, I would use it in a totally different sense, something more to close to my heart, something that brings elation to thousands of young people. Let me come to the point. I am referring to those magic words "Postponements and Cancellations". Does that ring a bell, any of you? It would, if you are that normal kind of person who just hates getting up in the morning 'cos of some impending assignment or assessment due that day. In that case, you need a lot of tuition from us(read me and my classmates) who have an uncanny knack for postponing and inevitably cancelling anything when the noose is on the verge of tightening around our neck.

It all started way back when we were in first year and we had to submit the damn e.d. assignments. Now, now, any average engineering student like me would get "petrified" hearing those two letters. For the benefit of lucky people who have escaped that ordeal, it expands into engineering drawing. Thinking back, really, there was no use for this postponement. It was the same kind of dirty unintelligible work I would turn in at that zenith point beyond which postponements were simply not possible. This habit just continued into subsequent years of our "education" and got nurtured with experience into the more favourable "cancellations".

A point has now been reached where in everybody looks upon us as the veterans of the art. Whenever I mention I have a test tomorrow the general reaction is "Oh!! You and people and your tests. You would obviously get it postponed at least 3 times before considering it worthy of taking up". Did that go to our head? It did, I guess. It is said, "Pride comes before fall". It has come 10000% right in our case.

This is the last assessment in our life and we decided to do complete justice to it. So we got into our favourite pastime and started postponing it-to different combinations of days and times- so much so that I have really lost track of how many times we did it this time. And, today we decided, "Enough of postponements. Let us cancel it once and for all". Now isn't that the best way to conclude your tryst with assignments once and for all in life? So, we went up to Sir and asked him to give us an assignment instead. Mind you, this was a unanimous decision even though there were poor souls who had already slogged with the thing day and night and completed studying (still there are some dutiful people on earth). Sir, after some deliberation, sweet he was or so we thought, accepted the proposition and asked the representative to meet him and get the questions later in the afternoon. Completely flooded with the victory we had achieved, I went about blowing my trumpet to my other department friends and blissfully saying "Mission accompolished". Now comes the blow. Sir, out of love for the test I guess, has changed his mind and has, for once, decided the time and date of the test, and imposed it on us.

Everything has gone beyond control now. I can only wait and pray "The postponement continues..."

Saturday, March 18, 2006

The M-C-K confusion

The other day, my friends and I were musing over when and in whose regime our good old Madras got its lovely Tamil name, Chennai. We had a heated debate on whether it was changed by Amma or Anna, and then realised our former CM is referred to "lovingly" by some other name, and not able to recollect what that was, moved on to another perspective of the name change.

Since Madras has now become Chennai, doesn't IIT-Madras become IIT-Chennai, and so don't we have to call it IIT-C rather than IIT-M? If that is the case, would'nt IIM-C become IIM-K because of the Kolkata change? And lo behold!!!What becomes of the present IIM-K? Does it get to become IIM-C because Kozhikode was once called Calicut? Now, if that is the case, would'nt it defy all logic, as we originally embarked upon the discussion of name changes from "old to new" and got back the other way round? Now, terribly confused and confounded at where we had got the discussion to, and really not being smart enough to find a way out, we decided to leave things as they are now and dispersed.

Friday, March 17, 2006

The 'C' Experience

This, hopefully, is my first serious post, not taking into account that blabbing on the name connection I had made in my previous one and let me get straight to the point. Well, not really!!! I can't start about my interview experience for IIM-C I had at the B campus without talking about the wonderful journey I had to bangalore. I had gone by the night train as my interview was shceduled for the following afternoon. Since I had had a really very tiring day, hoping to catch some sleep on the train, I crept into my berth. No sooner had I got into a comfortable position did the trouible start. There were this gentleman and lady on the berths above mine and they really wanted all of us there to have a very eventful night. They snored and snored so very rythmically and periodically, taking beautiful turns that you would have thought they had it all pre-planned. But the only catch was that they were total strangers to eachother. Now us poor souls in the other berths had no other option but to listen to the sonorous, or should I say, snorous concert and toss left and right, of course in rythm with the snores. "Waah kyaa baat hai!!!" Even Zakhir Hussain would have been surprised and appreciated the jugal bandi made by the nasal and spinal chords that night.
Well, net result, I went bleary eyed and yawning to my friend's place the following morning. And, being the adamant soul I am, I turned down an offer to enjoy a luxurious sleep, for no known, sane reason and instead opted to solve the "sudoku" of the day which to my disgust, turned out to be the hardest I had come across for some time now.
Now, for the next disaster. I reached the B campus and went prompt to the panel lists only to find my name 11th(last)on the list. This was certainly not turning out to be my field day. I was in for a loooooooong wait.
On a day which was turning out to be by and far disastrous, came the next bombshell. I was really expecting a factual GD topic. Not that I particular enjoy it. An abstract would have been better but not the one of the likes we got. "The kingdom of heaven is within you". It was certainly not within me that day and so I really had to squeeze my poor brain which was already trying hard to keep awake and get some points. A 11 member gd is bound to be chaotic or so I thought. But nothing was turning out as i thought it would that day, and so the peace and calm did not come as a surprise. The point was, none of us were really comfortable and ready with points for this topic. Ideas from ethics to culture to meditation to karma to fate raged over the gd table. But we ran out of ideas after some time and became very congenial and amicable to our fellow members, almost begging people to continue from where we had ended our blabberings. And finally the time came when the panelists said STOP. Whew!! I have never had such a long 12 minutes before. It seemed more so like 120 minutes. And then the random summarizing started. I think the C people really hated my name, for, even in the random order, I was called in the end to summarize. Now, just imagine, in such a topic where we already have talked to nothingness in the gd and 10 people before me have analyzed it from every nook and corner, what does a poor soul like me do. But, yet I talked. Talking does come easy to people like me, who have to talk their way through projects where there are absolutely no results to show. Now, my collegemates had heartily support me on that.
And then started the long and painful wait. Every time a guy walked out of the room after the interview, poor souls like me would run to him asking him how it was. The feedback frustrated me. "Very general". Now, for a person like me, who has fine combed the entire Union budget '06 for the very first time in life in the hope of tackling interview questions on that, and gone through all the technical subjects possible with finesse, this sure comes as a blow. But I consoled myself saying it was good to have "general awareness" and continued with the wait. Meanhile, we had a mini gd on the differences between the IT industry and computer industry, and mind you, we were not really vetti enough to do it. Only that a guy had been asked it and so, we wanted to be all prepared. We concluded that IT is application of technology while computer industry deals with compiling technology. Now a major question arised. If Microsoft is a computers company, which I believe it is, then is MS-Office compilation of technology? Now, to my already confused soul, such an "intellectual" question is just too much and so I had to give up on that.
To add on to my woes, there was this guy who was just before me on the list and so he was destined to wait for almost the same time as me. This guy was really bugged with life. Now, that is no excuse to bug others, is it? Everybody waiting there came under his attack, and yeah, you guessed it right, it being my very own disastrous day, could I be spared of the noose!!! He just had to talk on and on and on about something or the other, but thankfully, all he needed was someone who could nod his/her head understandingly. Me being an engineering student and having done it all my college life in class, even when I am really sleeping with eyes wide open, the feat came really easy. Now, thats how useful education, especially, an engineering one, can get!!!
Finally, after a long wait from 2.45 when my gd got over to 6.15, I was called in. I guess everyone else in all other panels had left by then. I entered and was flabbergasted seeing 4 panelists seated there. I thought, well fine, atleast one of them would be busy checking my originals. But, yeah, right, it was not at all my day. All four of them were ready to pounce on me. First things first, but. there were a round of apologies from them for having made me wait for so long which I "graciously" accepted. And then, the question I was least expecting was hurled at me. "Since we have kept you waiting for so long, you take up the post of interviewer and feel free to ask us any two questions you would want to know about from us." Come on, yaar, gimme a break. Bu, I had to think up something fast and ask some crap, to which I got, well, you could say, expected answers. And then the firing started. All while one panelist's laptop was churning out songs(dint notice which language) and another's mouth was churning out smoke. I had, due to bad luck, used the word "niche" in my form and was asked to explain on that. I gave some obviously unconvincing answer and then was asked about my niche in engineering. On hearing the answer, there was one round of, "that-could-be-anyone's-specialisation" kind of look and then we proceedeed. Questions on my Veena playing, how algorithms can be applied to Veena playing, the gd experience and so on followed. Am really not very enthused to give detailed explanations on all that and bore you people. Overall, I could just find out they were mighty disinterested with the whole thing, for not even my originals were checked, as all four of them were busy quizzing me. And then, after 15 minutes, they chucked me out.
That night I was back on the train again, on my wqay back to good old Chennai. Now I was pretty much sure I would not be able to sleep that night too, as I would be musing over my dismal performance at the big one's interview. That was not the only reason. The "snorous" lady of the previous night's journey was back in the station to journey back to Chennai. You would have guessed it right this time too. The lady went to a different coach and as had been the case through out the journey, my premonitions failed me and I slept heartily on the train back home.

The blyton connection

Well!!! You people must have already guessed there is absolutely no connection. I was just thinking for a very very long time for a cool name for my blog and found out after quite a mind boggling morning session that my mind is too very blank for a boggling and finding of ideas. And then well I had this great idea of taking up the name of one of my favourite authors, well authoresses to be more precise. The first to strike me was Christie, but well that's too common a name and you people might not really get the author"ess" connection. What if your thoughts go as far as Christie's and Sotheby's and you start guessing on an auctioneer connection? So, to make it easier for everybody I started searching for a more easily recognizable name and then, well, our good old Enid Blyton struck me. How could I have forgotten her? All those books with which I used to live life in those ages? And all those crazy ideas about adventure on the moors and pranks in boarding schools which I just kept imagining and never ended up doing? Well, they are nostalgic moments but let me cut it short to make the blog more readable and "enjoyable". Happy reading!!!