Dont bathe with your mobile

"Dont bathe with your mobile"

Firstly no offense to the guy who sent a mail to student@coep; obviously he has great concern for mobile users all over COEP. But this was too funny to ignore. The whole mail is filled with tips as shown under, but the weirdest tip given below is the one which says - "Dont bathe with your mobile".

I mean, seriously, who in the name of Sony Ericsson "bathes with a mobile"!

Anyways, I'll now blog more often about some gems sent on our COEP Mail, it's too irresistible. And please remember kids, as the wise man said - Dont bathe with your mobile!
Also remember, don't try and make phone calls with your soap! :D

Gold

I am 21 years old, in the past I've participated in a lot of contests, competitions, events etc. On many occasions I've won stuff like certificates, shirts, pen drives, cash awards [i love cash] and even a digi cam. But until the 27th of March 2009, I had never, ever won a Gold medal. On 26th and 27th at TRDDC, TCS' R&D wing, we had a project competition. My project came under the Systems Research Laboratory and was scheduled for demo on the 27th. The demo was complete days ago, and the PPT too was done by the 25th. But it was only on the 26th when I actually found out that there was a Gold-freaking-medal at stake, that i became serious about giving it a shot.

My friends Anshul and Poorva had already got Gold Medals on 26th for their amazing work and Shrirang, Andy and Bagga also got Bronze Medals. Their good wishes really did help my project group, so here's me thanking you all!

So there we were on the 27th, D-Day at TRDDC, on Gudi Padva. And from 1030 am till 1:15 pm we literally were giving our demo and ppt to different groups of people one after the other non-stop. It was a test of stamina, but is on such days that my ability of yapping non-stop comes to the fore.

Teachers from my school days who threatened me with the stick for talking in class, take that ;)

Anyways after the main show in front of the judges was over, which went off very well; we continued to give demos and the ppt for other groups as well. Finally at 4:30 pm we decided to pack up, since the official time was till 4 pm and we were all really exhausted.

After some TP [time pass] with other project groups and friends at TRDDC we were told to head off to the Auditorium for the Prize Distribution ceremony. Now let me tell you all one thing, no matter how well or badly one has performed in a competition, at the time of the Prize Distribution, everyone in their heart of hearts hopes that somehow they win something. It's a fact, everyone has that fantasy of their name being miraculously announced and the applause that follows.

Anyways, I loved the way the ceremony was conducted; it was a great mix of informal fun and the necessary "serious" element it should have. The medals were the really amazing bit. I was actually very impressed with the whole affair.

Once the 3rd and 2nd place awards were given, everyone was kind of tense, no COEP groups had won so far in the Systems Research category. I was also tense, though I didn't show it. I seriously wanted that Gold medal. Then came the final announcement. Our group had one the 1st prize. Mrunal and Akash were all smiles and I was laughing, laughing all the way to the podium. Even when I was given the medal I was laughing. I laughed out of various reasons, firstly coz I was really happy, secondly because my record of winning technical competitions of a serious nature remained intact, thirdly because I finally got a Gold medal and lastly I remembered all that had transpired since Third Year when groups were formed. Every single memory flashed through my mind and I laughed. I remembered those 3 nights in the last two months when i stayed up coding my brains out! I also remembered doing TP at the "katta" near TRDDC with my best friend. I remembered irritating the hell out of employees near my desk at TRDDC by talking and laughing all day with Akash and Mrunal. So many things happened at TRDDC in the past few months, the Gold Medal just went on to make them even more special memories.

I am glad things turned out the way they did. It's been an amazing experience.
The celebrations are still on, I owe quite a few people treats.

7 things I will remember about TRDDC

7 - The first night I coded like mad
6 - Watching Sachin Tendulkar bat while eating at the canteen
5 - The phone number incident
4 - The video Akash and I shot in the lawn
3 - The conversations at the katta
2 - The contest day
1 - The Gold medal

Now I'll conclude this retrospective post about my B Tech project at TRDDC. There's a lot more enjoyment left in these last few weeks of college life and this Gold medal thingy has just given me more reason to celebrate!

Thanks a lot everyone at TRDDC!

The Java Class aka The Laughing Incident

Ok, this post is a long awaited one, about the famed "Java Class" which was mostly attended by The Losers and from Comp it was just Ketan, Jai The Great and me. It was Akash's long overdue Orkut testimonial for me that triggered these fond memories. The Java class began at the end of our TY 2nd sem. It was mostly a defense mechanism for most of us, who thought ki yaar placement se pehle we gotta do some course at least. Thus began The Java Class. Now what I
remember of the Java class was most certainly the infamous LAUGHING INCIDENT; but I'll add a few details about the class for posterity.
There was this kind soul of a teacher from what i initially believed to be "Sun Java Education", but later found out she was a teacher from some STAR Classes or something. But then it wasnt that big a deal, the books we got were from Sun Java Education, so no harm done.

Now here's how the classes went about, Core Java started bang in the middle of the sem, so it couldn't be held for more than a few weeks. After that we had a break till the end of the sem. During the Core Java lectures, we [by that i mean Hasan, Sameer and Akash] used to be attentive and stuff for a fair amount of time, but once the sem ended we lost all our concentration powers.
In the holidays we were supposed to have the class, all day in our college lab. The maam used to land up at like 8 am or something, expecting our efficient college support staff to be prepared with the labs open and ready [hahaha]. She'd wait there, department locked and all. We students would walk in an hour or so late and chill. The halat was so bad that after some time, she even had to borrow laptops for connecting to the lab projector, one day the class didn't start
until someone with a laptop arrived :D
I was certain that by the end of the "Java Class", that maam would be seriously depressed!

Anyways, the classes suddenly changed hue from being a learning course to being an entertainment centre. Akash and i became good friends during the course of those days. I also met Abba [Abhinit] during the class, we soon realized we had a lot in common, a sense of humor and lukkhagiri instincts to be more precise ;)

Coming back to the point, The Losers and I would sit around, Jai couldn't stand Advanced Java for too long and left the course in true Jai style! Once the class started, for the first 20 mins we would all pretend to be attentive. Then Akash/Hasan and I would make eye contact and we'd suddenly start talking about something or the other which was always funny. Soon the class would go on and we'd keep laughing and talking.

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THE LAUGHING INCIDENT

This happened one day, towards to latter half of Advanced Java. In the afternoon, Hasan, I, Akash and Sameer [in seating order] sat in the front row and maam was teaching something about classes in advanced java. Now her slides had some really silly names for the classes, one slide had names like

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
and so on.

The next slide had names like

January
February
March...

Somehow all 4 of us found this really stupid and funny. It started with me and Akash, both masters of the "silent laugh trick". I was blessed with the ability to hide myself under the cover of the monitor kept in front me by sitting low on my chair. We laughed for 5 straight minutes, it was contagious, soon Hasan and Sameer were laughing as well. Maam was oblivious to all this energetic laughter going on right in front of her. Then we all looked at each other and gave ourselves the "ab bas kar yaar" look and we all controlled our laughter. We all now realize that January February and Monday Tuesday arent exactly the funniest things on Earth, but that day they were.

Then maam changes the slide and the next slide had the dumbest set of Java class names ever

Dog
Cat
Monkey

That was it, we all lost control and started laughing, still we managed the silent laugh; but then, Hasan, let out that shrill laugh for a brief second, the one which manages to slip out. That pushed us all over the edge, we all started laughing hysterically, full volume. The rest of the class, sitting behind us started laughing too, just for the heck of it. Akash actually got off his chair and hid under the comp table ahead of us. No one knew why we were laughing, maam was stunned. She had no clue about what just happened.

She says - "Why are u all laughing?"
"Maam, the classes are named Dog, Cat and Monkey" - was what i would've said, but i was laughing too hard to say anything.

The best moment was when we shut up for a minute, then said a brief "sorry"; then one of us again burst out laughing. Maam was so helpless that she offered us a 5 minute break - "Maam we need at least 10 mins" was our reply.

That was one of the most unforgettable days of The Java Class. We still don't know why we laughed so much that day, but it was legendary. Ever mention The Java Class and that day is the first thing our minds go to.

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The Aftermath -

Hasan, Sameer and Ketan left for their respective summer Internships for a few weeks. That was when Akash and I abandoned the front rows and settled down at the far end of the lab, we just sat through laughing our heads off, joined on occasion by Abba. That was a really great way to spend the end sem holidays, and a great stress buster for the, then, upcoming Placement Week!

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Related stories -

We once used the projector to watch the Aus/SA unforgettable final. Really gr8 use of our college lab :D

Anshul, Poorva and maybe a few more people were the only ones who actually learnt anything during the Advanced Java days. One day Anshul sat next to me; Abba and Akash were there too. I wasn't aware that Anshul thought of me as a "Sajjan". So there we were, suddenly i came up with a funny non-veg joke. After the laughter settled down, Anshul said to me "Yaar, mujhe pata nahi thaa ki tu yeh sab baatein bhi karta hai". Well, Anshul learnt a lot about me then onwards and since then we have become friends too. So i ended up having a great time during those days, Akash and I literally used to come just to chill and crack jokes all day. In the end we got some Advanced Java books as well, which we may use in the future; a certificate which we got after giving a really random test, for which no one prepared and still got like 17/20 minimum. I made quite a few new and gr8 friends in the process and well I do know Advanced Java to a certain extent thanks to my BE project, so no harm done there! A great investment of time.


It was one of the most laughter filled months in our COEP life and it was truly unforgettable! Special thanks to Akash, Jai and Hasan, because of whom I joined The Java Class.


THE END

The College Mail

Our college mail is officially -

a> A spam exhibition centre

Seriously... people come up with such lame crap, that even after 2 years of having seen our college mail, one can still get surprised. People are stupid enough to sign up with Bharat Matrimony using student@coep as their email id, but they use their full name for signing up, resulting in mails being sent to student@coep saying "Dear, Shilpa XYZkar, thank you for signing up with blah blah blah"

Then we also have the endless set of links sent in mails by various people about sites and events which nobody on earth is interested in.

b> A lost and found announcement tool

This is a slightly new method of tormenting the average user of the college mail, we had people at one time saying stuff like "Lost!!! Lost!!! Lost!!! 2 GB pen drive" etc on the college domain. Now we have the other half of the irritating spectrum with people saying "I found a red colour sweat shirt" etc. It was fine upto a certain extent, but now we have at least 10 such mails per week. I'm now waiting for the circle of insanity to get completed by having mails sent saying - "Thank you, i had lost my pen drive, but i now have got it back", we may then have people sending a reply to that saying - "Dosti mein no sorry, no thank you" and then a reply to that saying "Yes you are right"... sorry, kinda lost control there. But you get the point. It's kinda crazy at times.

c> The central location where people vent their frustration against the college -

Every once in a while we get mails, mostly from anonymous senders like "coepstudentforfreedom@gmail" and then it starts off saying what all stuff sucks in COEP and how we must all "get together" to improve it. That itself is stupid enough, but then it's followed by a barrage of other people, non-anonymous, thankfully who start castigating the anonymous sender with fundas about morality and other philosophical crap. This third thing is actually kinda amusing, so I for one don't mind it as much as the other two things.

The Quest is complete

The Lord Of The Rings

It is my favorite book of all time, my favorite movie series of all time. I’ve read the book, an insane 17 times and would continue to do so once every year. Thanks to the crazy no. of times that I’ve read the book, I am capable of, at times, quoting lines from the book in real life situations. E.g. when a couple of years back there was this whole, “Sachin must retire” bullshit campaign after India lost a few matches, I wrote this blog post and quoted an LOTR favorite – “Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens”!

Fresh after one of my readings of the book series, I end up having a hangover of the old English style which JRR Tolkien has used in the books. There was this one instance when I irritated the hell out of a teacher in 12^th standard when she asked me some shit formula in Chem II which I had no idea about, so I said, “To this question… the answer… I know not”. She got so freaked out, she just asked me to sit down and carried on.

Anyways, I have to thank my brother’s friend PL Kashyap, it was he who introduced me to The Lord Of The Rings. Since then I’ve gone on to having finished all of Tolkien’s works. But I would say one thing, my fanatic love for this “trilogy” [Tolkien buffs will point out that it wasn’t a trilogy, but what the hell, I’ll call it a trilogy for simplicity], has its roots in the fantastic movie series directed by Peter Jackson. Each movie was a masterpiece of acting, direction, dialogues, action, drama, and exceptionally awesome special effects. The journey of The Ring-bearer and The Fellowship from Rivendell to Mordor has been shown so brilliantly that one can safely say that if Tolkien were to have directed this movie, he’d have made it exactly the same.

Other fantasy books off late which have been made into movies haven’t had the same success as The Lord Of The Rings, maybe because the creators of the movies aren’t exactly fans of the books. That explains why the Harry Potter movies haven’t been regarded as good enough movie versions of some great books. The Eragon book series isn’t exactly the greatest series to have been written, but the movie was definitely one of the worst movies to have been made. The kind of effort that must’ve gone into making LOTR as a movie series can only be imagined, but apart from the exceptionally good music score, or special effects; the one thing that sets LOTR apart is the amazing ensemble cast [which was acknowledged by an Oscar]. The casting and acting has been more than perfect. Gandalf played by Sir Ian Mckellen was according to me one of the best books-to-screen depictions of any fantasy character.

I am writing this post, fresh after completing my quest of watching all 3 extended DVD versions of the movies, consecutively. I had wanted to do this for a long time, and finally managed it in the fag end of my B Tech days. Another awesome memory to add to my engineering days.

Thank you, JRR Tolkien, Peter Jackson and unknown dude who burned the DVD’s for me!

For those who haven’t yet watched this masterpiece of film making, here are a few snapshots which may make you want to see it immediately.

Bhor Bhayi and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

I'm not exactly an expert on Indian classical music, sadly, I'm quite the opposite. But this song from Delhi 6, called Bhor Bhayi reminded me of an amazing classical number called Laga Chunari Mein Daag. I heard that song a year ago and it totally blew me away, insanely awesome.
I somehow haven't had the time to hear classical music, but what little I have heard has made me promise myself that I'll definitely take out time in the future to hear a lot more of it.

Meanwhile check out the song I mentioned above, the last half of the song is mind blowing. I don't know how many of you will actually like it, but I love this track. Manna Dey, I salute thee.
Once again I salute A R Rahman for using such an old and forgotten track in Delhi 6, I also noticed how even Shreya Ghoshal struggles at a few notes in the song to match Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.

Anyways, just thought of posting this to remind me in the future to come good on my promise; lest I forget.

Dil Gira Dafatan Lyrics - Delhi 6

Dil Gira Dafatan from the album Delhi 6, is my favorite song of the year so far. Prasoon Joshi has penned some amazing lyrics for this track. A R Rahman has filled this song with mesmerizing melody that only he is capable of creating. There are some songs which are made for the charts and then there are songs made for the heart. This one is a soul stirring song that is a must-hear.

Dil Gira Dafatan Lyrics

Dil mera dil mera dil mera
Dil mera…aaaaaaaaaaaaa
Dil mera dil mera…

Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Jaane magar yeh nayan,
Teri khamosh zulfon ki gehraaiyaan hai jahan,
Dil mera uljha hua hai wahin kho gaya,
Tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar,
Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Kyu gunj rahi hai dhadkan,
Jaane magar yeh nayan..

Sipiyon ke honth se,
Moti chalak rahe hain,
Gazlon ki sohabat mein,
Geet bhi behek rahi hai,
Samunder lehron ki lehron ki,
Chadar odh ke so raha hai,
Par mein jaagu, ek khumari,
Ek nasha sa, ek nasha sa ho raha hai,
Tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar..
Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Kyu gunj rahi hai dhadkan,
Jaane magar yeh nayan,
Khushbu mein lipte mausam,
Teri khamosh zulfon ki gehraaiyaan hai jahan,
Dil mera uljha hua hai wahin kho gaya,
Tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar,
Dil gira kahin par dafatan..


Movie: Delhi-6 (2009)
Music Director: A R Rahman
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi

One hopes that this is just the start of another great A R Rahman year.