• Found a way to give them feedback. Go to help and click on the question "How do I send you feedback?"


• Archived mails can be seen in "All Mails", labeled or not

But there is another problem - no place to specify signature. Hope to find a way around that too soon.

Categories: Others

It was the last departmental exam - with CS725! What a feeling - Did not realize it was so until I finished it! So, finally the "ordeal" of computer science education is over (hopefully nothing really unexpected happens in next one month :-) ). Unfortunately with the mess I made out of CAT - can't say its the end of computer science/programming. But its ok - at least a step in that direction!!

This department is nice though - I must say. And at the end of it all, even if I am not much of a computer scientist, I am glad I had joined this department. Now, why it was a nice department to be in and why I could not become a computer scientist - both need one article each. Sometime later - the Psychology exam is still left.

Categories: IITK

which I wrote earlier.

• The labels can be removed.


• Archived mails can be seen easily if they have been labeled

Categories: Others

Some translations. Sorry, you would not enjoy it if you do not know Hindi!

You did not go to see your tutor? - Tum apne tutor dekhne nahin gayee?
I had to call up XYZ. - Mujhe XYZ ko bulana tha.
He is not in station. - Wah station mein nahin hai.

And no, do not mistake it for her lack of fluency in Hindi. She scored in 80s in Hindi in class 10th, knows what "ibtada" means and recalls Hindi songs faster and more efficiently that I do, during Antaksharis.

But that's just her. And she has influenced myself and Karishma too. I can not recall some of our fantastic translations right now, but I am sure we will repeat them. So keep checking my blog.

Categories: TimePass, IITK

GMail appears to be my passion these days! :-)

Well, actually I have been trying to find some way to give them feedback, but have not been able to locate any specific mechanism! First good things about it:

• The idea of keeping the conversations together is fantastic!


• The ideal of Labels, as a substitute of folders, is also rocking. And especially the fact that one can label the same conversation with multiple labels.


• Searching and relevant advertisements are cool


• Have not been able to use the spam filtering - do not yet receive spams there, but seems it is a bayesian and would most probably work properly when needed.

But

• User should have more flexibility in organizing the conversations. There are some stupid replies in some conversations which I just want to see in my mailbox - what do I do? :-( I can not delete it independent of other mails in the conversation! Sometimes there are duplicate mails for some reasons and it is just natural to want to delete them to keep the conversation from getting unnecessarily crowded.


• Conversations are recognized by their "subject" - not this gives horrific results at times. If I write mails with subject "Hi" to several people, all of them including any replies will be clubbed together in the same conversation. :-( Not at all a good idea - I can have 'n' number of different reasons and context of saying "hi" to people!


• If a reply appends "RE:" instead of "Re:" in subject, it is shown as a different conversation.


• New mails in spam folder is not indicated on the main page. At least initially, when it does tend to classify genuine mails as spam - if I do not check spam folder regularly I would really lose some of my friends.


• The labels once put can not be deleted (or did I miss something on the page?) from a conversation.


• Archived mails should be visible more easily!

Categories: Others

Have been planning this one for long now.
--
For whatever reasons and because of whatever circumstances, at IITK, I have often found myself interacting equally well with people who hold exactly opposite views on some idea. What I have learnt through it is not something new, as such, but the practical realization of the same is an enlightenment, even if you theoretically know it is true. And it is as simple as this - most of the problems in the world do not get solved or do not even proceed towards a partial solution because the world-view held by both the parties is incomplete and whatever (mutually conflicting) stand each of them takes with their incomplete world-view is correct. What we almost invariably lack is presence of a person/agent who has a more complete view of the world and hence can make both the parties realize where they must give up, not as a compromise, but because of a genuine realization of the conditions. This complete world view can not be formed by simply putting together the partial world-views all the different parties hold - and hence something like "having representation of various stake-holders" does not work. Instead of turning into an agent of solution, such representative bodies become a place where everyone will fight for the superiority of their partial world-view - it does not work towards achieving a complete world-view for itself.

So, where will these agents with complete world-view or at least broader world-view than either of the parties come? Don't know. That is where the task lies - locating such people. May be the world needs more empathy to solve its problems!

Categories: Thoughts

If you are one of those who do not watch movies very frequently, you end up watching them during exam time. So, I watched "Roman Holiday" today (too late, eh? Well, I am like that). Its quite like many of the Hindi Movies, but what differs is the ending and that makes all the difference! :-)

Categories: Movies

The question was asked my someone while chatting today. I phrased the explanations then and there, but it turns out to be pretty correct. The reason I like ruins is very much like the reason I like Astronomy. Astronomy makes you realize how small you are in the spatial dimension and how vast things could be. Ruins make you realize the same in the time dimension.

The imagination that these ruins could have been inhabited by real people at some point of time gives me a high! I think my fascination for ruins arose when at some point of time in school, I read a description of ruins of Nalanda University. It was in our Hindi textbook - I do not remember the name of the author etc. But there was a paragraph in that piece where the author was trying to imagine what the place would have been like when it was actually inhabited by students and monks, what those rooms, the open spaces and graveyards would have been like, what they would have meant etc. This description had a strange effect one me! I also had a chance to visit those ruins when in school itself. Almost at the same time, my interest in history as a subject was increasing. The two effects combined brought me to a situation that as soon as I enter a ruin or an old building I quickly go in that imagination mode and that period is a period of bliss - only if you have experienced it would you know of it! You might experience it in a completely different thing, of course.

I do love ruins and old buildings!

Categories: Thoughts

Have almost been getting myself off Ryze. Its becoming sort of useless. There are just too many people of the kind "Dropped in just to say a Hi" - wonder why people drop in just to say Hi?? They won't even look at your profile and add you to the friends' list. Half the time goes in doing away with unscrupulous friends' list request. The real "Networking" part is gone. One would fail to remember what their friends are like, what they do etc. If you really need to network with some specific purpose, you will have to do the raw search anyway, what is the point of having a friends' list.

People were discussing the fate of jabberwocky (a newsgroup at IITK) with growing size. Growth plagues everything! Orkut seems a saner place as of now. Developers have tried to make sure it stays sane. Let's see though.

Categories: Others

As I posted earlier, I do seriously doubt the sustainability of the claim of GMail - I got another idea behind the claim too. Consider this - if you do not do much of calculation and blindly start saving the mails. In three years you exhaust your 1 GB space and then? Charged for more space? And at that stage it might be impossible for you go through 1 GB of mails to delete the unimportant ones and retain the important ones. I am not saving mails blindly - whatever you choose to do for yourself!

I can hear Karishma saying I think too much - but so what? :-)

Categories: Others

This is the end of reading Trade Union propaganda for me, at least for now! Hey, interestingly the case study that came in HR exam was related to blogging. I am wondering if I grew too sympathetic to the lady who used to blog - similarity bias, eh??!! Well, may be, if the blogging continues at this rate and with this amount of information, I can very well imagine myself to be in a situation similar to that. Similarity bias or not - I enjoyed reading the case - no guarantees on the performance though :-D

Categories: Others

The way, it claims - "you do not need to delete another mail". I just checked the size of my mail folder. It has grown to 300 MB in last three years - and if a claim as tempting as the one GMail makes is made, I would certainly have saved many more mails, which I do not save, because, well, I am actually running out of space on my comp - even for my mails! And it is not at all difficult to think of many people who would receive more than three or four times the number of mails I received. And then, is three years a long enough time horizon? Are they not claiming a bit too much with 1000 MB? Remains to be seen.

Categories: Others

Thanks to the blogger.com and frequency of my blogging - got a Gmail account! I feel so privileged. I so badly wanted something like that before leaving IITK! Yahoo!

Categories: Others

It was the last working day at IITK. Someone asked how does it feel - relaxed? relieved? Not really - Rather empty. Something known to every drop of blood, every cell of the body is about to come to an end. It happens again and again in life and still, every time, it seems as strange and new kind of feeling as was the last time.

No need to hurry through or miss breakfast and lunch to reach the classes anymore (sometimes dinner!). And no more sleeping in classes of course (ah! The days of core courses). The restlessness in some of the boring classes and the eagerness to go to the classes of interest - phenomena of past.

The earliest memories of the classes at IITK is that of "Good morning! Welcome to IIT Kanpur. We will first have a quick overview of this course XYZ101, then the grading scheme and then move on to the first topic..... surprise quizzes, 2 mid-sems, 1 end-sem, tutorial attendance.... and now let's start with...." - what a pace on the first day of the classes. And about the last day of classes at IITK - well how does it matter if the working days are over - I have an extra class on the coming sunday - a day before the last end-sems! There could not have been a better and more representative way to finish classes at IITK.

Hail IITK!

Categories: IITK

The best part of the whole thing for me was a walk through the time past. It was impossible for me to give any serious feedback on the courses. But as people were talking, very enthusiastically, about all the courses, I was recalling all these years. And there were so many things I had forgotten, which I got to recall today, including the fact that we had actually studies NP complete problems in one of the courses. I said we have not studied it in enough detail in the IIML interview - and I did not knowingly lie; I actually did not remember doing it in TOC!! And that POPL exams were the best of all - gosh I, still, can not recall what was there in these exams! I did not expect it to go on for so long; so had to leave at 8.30 because of other commitments. Also, with attendance issue cropping up, it was getting boring for me (and probably I found myself little trapped, since the HOD remembered very vividly the IAC meeting, in which I, accidentally, found myself talking on this attendance thing, about which I was no longer willing to talk!).

Anyway, nice walk down the memory lane.

Categories: IITK

I myself accept it and have been told by many people that I do not enjoy humour as well as a normal person should. Well, as such, I am not a drab, overly serious person - my wing-mates know better :-) But yes, it is a fact that most of the time I don't enjoy jokes or supposedly funny rhymes/couplets etc. And the single most important reason being the stereotyping involved in them. I think some social scientist may take up the research on popular jokes, as to how many of them are solely based on stereotyping of particular ethnic, sexual or other kinds of groups. I feel sure a very large number of them would fall in this category. In Indian context, for example, feminist women, sardars, married husbands - all these stereotypes are specific victims of popular jokes. Wondering where did this morbid tradition come from. May be we would have done better by sticking to Akbar-Birbal, Tenaliraman or Sheikhchilli kind of jokes.

Any comments?

Categories: Thoughts

April is a blogging month for me, it seems. Have been writing voraciously. On just any damn thing. Probably its the anxiety deep down the heart as to what the new world will be like. For last four years, things have been so predictable, everything so much like the previous one, so well defined "next thing to be done" (some assignment, some project, some meeting, some fight or some newsgroup posting!) that the thought of moving to a new life does create some anxiety. Nostalgic as I may feel, its not really that I am not looking forward to a change. I am very much looking forward to it, because at least for last one year - things have started becoming boring as well. It seems in three year some kind of wrapping up takes place. Similar kinds of threads on the newsgroup, same old forwarded jokes, similar concerns surfacing up again and again - predictability has taken the shape of repetition. Anyway, let's see what next.

I am thankful to those readers who have taken out time to read my blog and other stuff. Many of them have asked me to continue writing even after IITK. Of course, I will continue writing - it is the single most effective relaxation exercise for me.

Categories: IITK

"Girl Power=Verbal Shower" :-D Got thoroughly "politicized" in it ("Jayalalitha of the batch"!!). But was a fun and went pretty well, especially considering the short interval at which everything had to be prepared. Guys of our batch did a really good job at the titles and the skit. And despite the grudge against ACA that most of them harbour, I would say they did a fairly good job. Slightly longer notice would have helped making it still better.

Anyway, nice stuff overall.

Categories: IITK

8 semesters at IITK

Semester 1: A semester of pleasant surprises //And I thought getting good grades at IITK was easy!
Semester 2: A semester of exploration //Too many new things to do and explore - IITK at its best for me.
Semester 3: A semester of disasters //I discovered that a fall of 2 in SPI does not fetch you a warning...
Semester 4: A semester of recovery //What else can come after disaster?
Semester 5: A healthy semester //All is well with the world.
Semester 6: A semester of missed deadlines [//History repeats itself] and won battle.
Semester 7: An unproductive semester //Got good grades for doing nothing and lost interest in what I could do!
Semester 8: A "Networked" semester //Do not ask for an explanation

Categories: TimePass, IITK

The more I am reading of the blog Baghdad Burning the more horrified I am becoming. Whose world is this? Sometimes I forget what people in Iraq are suffering and just wonder how a human being could ever get himself to take decisions like this one - inflicting this war and occupation and rebuilding! How can they ever be so self-confident about a decision which can affect millions and millions of people. They greet their nation and people on Christmas, right? They do believe in God. How can they even think of becoming the creator and the destroyer? One still can understand if mobs or crowd go out of control and untoward things happen. Its not even those pseudo-religious principles which make people blind and irrational. Here it is a (small) group of people, and rather intelligent ones, doing something like this very consciously - possibly its just one person. Does his heart not feel heavy, does he not fear his conscience, does his mind not burst out (mine seems close to that right now - I must sleep!), does he not fear God, if he even slightly believes in Him?

And how come one person, a group of persons becomes so strong that it can act to the dismay of billions of people of the world and still get away with it.... I can understand all the economic disparities, power imbalances with regard to all the resources, which have come into existence because of the systems humans have built. But, it is the question of lives of people, of innocent ones - as peace loving as any one of us are. What are we doing? Human species does indeed seem to be an "obedient one". We can satisfy our ideologies with our marches, protests and boycotting American products. But every minute a life is being lost. Why can't we do something about it? No, in this frame of mind, I find it rather cruel to say that we are doing whatever we can do by stating our ideological differennces. Its just seems like making a fun of the cruelty of the situation. We can continue or discontinue to use all the American Products, but they will be as bad off as they are. The lives which have gone won't come back and lives which are still being taken away.... Whose world it this, whose world is this?

It can't be mine. God must exist - I can not explain this with all my wit. He must exist to explain this!

Categories: Thoughts

I do not blame them for that - I understand. But here it goes.

(All the characters, places, posts and events mentioned in this story are fictitious and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental)

Should Meander Publish It?

Once upon a time the editors of the students' magazine of an institute got this article. They were wondering whether to publish it. Can you help?

--
When I look back at these four years of my stay here, it was a pleasant stay. Life has simply been nice and I keep talking of the nice experiences all the time, but here I am going to recount a really bad, the worst one, I have had here. And forgive me for my political incorrectness and no attempts of hiding people's identity, because I can not help it. I started writing several times earlier, but in an attempt to incorporate these things, ended up in creating an incomprehensible mess.

Nevertheless, I must start with some clarifications. The article might tend to say things against a particular group. Again that can not be helped because in reality circumstances had been like that. What I do not intend to convey, however, is any permanent judgment on the nature of the group. I am only recounting a behaviour from them in that particular situation. This point is a subtle one and I hope readers understand this before proceeding.

The final push to write this out came from the information that there were 50 entries in the first round of Megabucks this year. To put it in the right perspective, I need to tell you that with the scaling up of Megabucks in 2002 over 100 entries were received. The following year process began pretty late; still over 80 entries had come and this time it was given in the hands of "experts" to get 50 entries!

Forced me to recount the drama the selection of Megabucks and Business Club coordinators has gone through and which had finally grown ridiculous and insulting to the extent that I had withdrawn my nomination (oh yes, yes! The political reason was 'health concerns', I concede).

I can not forget the ridiculous stand taken by my MBA friends as well as our honourable General Secretary, Science and Technology, where they would have any Tom, Dick Harry as the Megabucks coordinator, but not me. Again, to give you a glimpse, one of the persons they had agreed to, had to back off later from even being in Megabucks Team for some academic/administrative reasons. And why not me? Because MBAs would not work with me. If I am the coordinator no one from 2nd year MBA would work and they would not bring first yearites either. Hundreds of reasons were cited. My nature, my in-capability to build a team and God knows what not! When I could counter almost all the charges the "Brahmashtra" was our General Secretary, Science and Technology's statement that he can't take a decision favouring me because of his post. Did he believe other proposed candidates were better than me? No! But he would not want to appear "UG favouring". The only condition on which I could become the coordinator is if I share the post with an MBA. And why on earth? I know moderates of the world would not consider it quite right a thing to do, but I did consider it an insult and did not accept it (It was not just a personal insult, bigger issues were involved as I will state later.). Even if I should have kept personal philosophies aside, where would such an unhealthy tradition end? Why one coordinator from B. Tech. and MBA each, why not one from M. Tech., one from Ph.D., one from M. Des. as well? In fact why not have 30 (approximate number of senators) people as Megabucks coordinators, each representing 100 students! Where and why do you draw a boundary once you start this game?

The group even had the support of earlier Megabucks coordinator. His last moment shift had surprised me badly. What sudden enlightenment he has had about me in the last days of his stay? "Do you really think Megabucks is going to suffer, if MBAs back out?", I asked. "No, but..."

It was a big "BUT" on everyone's lips and it took me sometime to uncover it.

"See, their concern is genuine. It involves working and going out at odd hours." is similar to what the ex-coordinator told me.

"But you know I can do it and I have done it in past."

"Does not matter how brave you are, being a girl you will be a burden on the other person."

What was I supposed to do? I should have tried to understand, right? Society does not change overnight, right? I should have compromised.

I am sorry, I could not and I did not. I tried not to make an issue out of it. I thought that if the present General Secretary, Science and Technology sees me working for Business Club for sometime, his opinions might change. It did not. Meetings and meetings and meetings! I refused to attend any more.

You can blame me for not taking it to the senate then and cribbing about it now. I do not know how much clarification about several issues should I give here. For now, take my words, all those had valid reasons. In any case the convener knew about it. Even if you do not believe me, even if I failed to take certain steps in time, the original issue still remains.

Lectures of Business Club (Biz101) were never held after I left, despite the fact that the first one was received extremely well. Several things were not done, which should have been done. Fine! My MBA friends wanted only Megabucks - it was me who emphasized all through that the Business Club and Megabucks are interdependent- but then this is what they have done to Megabucks. 50 ENTRIES IN FIRST ROUND!!

Do not give me figures of what you raised from sponsors and whom are you going to invite for the conference. Megabucks did these things well even when the market was down. This is the boom time when even the ailing Antaragni and Techkriti have revived! Further, they are only secondary gimmicks, even if necessary. Where are the entrepreneurs? WHERE ARE THE PARTICIPANTS?

But more than any of these things, I want to ask what did the team do, the team which I could not have formed being a girl? Where is the manhood I did not possess?

I believe, at least some of you recall "Being a Girl", an article in Meander, which had come last year. Let me publicly accept that I was the author. I was told that it had received widespread praises. Why? Because I had dared to take the responsibility that lied on girls of the society for their status. I did not ask for a reservation from your side, but does that eliminate the need of reciprocity from your side? I did not want what I did not deserve just because I am a girl, but can I please get what I deserve and not denied of that just because I am a girl? (For the uninitiated, please read the article "Being a Girl" in last year's Meander. You can write to me for a soft copy.)

I do not have anything to say to those who have to criticize this article or the author by finding loopholes in the situation or otherwise. Go ahead and do it, if needed, publicly. I am rather immune to such things by now.

If you are one of the persons mentioned in the article and would like to "clarify" things from your side, again go ahead and do it, publicly, if it satisfies you. I would just like to quote someone from the campus itself, "Today nobody is boorish enough to say that he is a chauvinist. Just look at what you are doing." So, please look at what you did.

And if you understand what I am trying to say, please do not discuss it. Just look inside yourself. If discussions had helped, enough have already taken place. What is important is to cross the barrier of action when you have to take the decision in the position of our General Secretary, Science and Technology and probably the ex-coordinator.

If you are happy with 50 entries in Megabucks so long as the reins are in the secure and brave hands of men, please call up Mr. Vajpayee and tell him that the country needs to grow at 16% and not 8% since you would not let half the population contribute positively.

Last bit of disclaimer: This article is not intended to serve anyone's political purpose or for that matter to harm anyone in politics. If it happens, I do not take any moral responsibility for that, but would request the readers not to use it in that fashion. The article is not meant to crib for the post I resigned from either. That is small in comparison to the principles and philosophies of life. In the hope that it would stimulate the right chord in your mind, heart and soul.

EPILOGUE

The history is written. There is nothing I can do to blame the new General Secretary, Science and Technology. He has a legacy to face and shall not be able to correct what went wrong almost a year back. No one amongst the UGs is even thinking about Megabucks now. So, there is no option but to let MBAs run it, but there are two things I would like you think upon (again to reiterate, this should not be used against General Secretary Science and Technology, if he has to take the decision; he actually has little choice. It might not always be possible to correct history, but there is no harm in learning from it):

1. What are they thinking? They want Megabucks to become an institute festival so that it can get funds from Gymkhana! Anyone who would be attached to the history and purpose of Megabucks would consider this rather insulting. In 2002 when all the festivals were literally bleeding financially, Megabucks went in profits! Further if a "Business Plan and Entrepreneurship Competition" can not generate sponsorship, who else will? This is really ridiculous. Even if they continue with the existing sponsors, they should have enough funds to continue Megabucks at the current level. Not that Megabucks does not have seed funds either. The interest amount of the corpus fund given by Pioneer Batch of our institute is always there as seed fund. So, the current senate should put at least this much responsibility on the "Megabucks Organizing Team" that they generate their sponsorship and not try to bag a piece of any Gumkhana Funds. If Megabucks has the ambitions to expand, it should have the guts to get more sponsorship. But with this pathetic level of participation (50 teams!) and still pathetic ratio of finalists vs. number of original participants (12/50 - compare that to 8/over 100 in 2002), it would be better if they concentrate on increasing the level of participation rather than adding some glamourous features.



2. Has the motivation amongst MBAs for Megabucks fallen from skies, which UGs particularly lack? For heavens sake no. UGs were no less enthusiastic about Business Club and Megabucks than MBAs, if the composition of list of interested people that was made when I was there is anything to go by, which was never used afterwards! No one was there to groom the UGs. MBAs were groomed like hell, of course. In any case, all the MBAs come with a technical background and hence the first year MBA, which is mainly involved, has no advantage over UGs in matters like Megabucks. So, I must say that this (that they are MBAs) should be the last consideration in giving them any preference for Megabucks over UGs. Both of them are as good or as bad.

But history is written anyway. One year and the tables were turned. Another year and nobody would even remember that the tables were turned. Congratulations to my MBA friends - getting Megabucks and leaving Business Club out was what they wanted, this is what they got - thanks to one chauvinist General Secretary, Science and Technology and one chauvinist ex-coordinator!

In a faint hope that the new organizing team would consider Megabucks something more than an MBA power symbol!

We have a brilliant future...

Categories: Cribbings, IITK, Thoughts

Recalling "that one week" in the last few days at IITK.

--
"GH Security issue" - that's how it is popularly known. "That one week" is how some of us recall it. It could mean several things to several people, but some of them would be common I believe - It was a fight for principles - principles of equality and freedom. It was a lot of politics, not doubt - taste of "real politics" as someone has put it. It was a lot of planning - the "open discussion" was not so open after all. Planning to the extent that I sometimes wonder now, if we over-planned it all! All that went on behind it was never properly documented. I doubt if it can at all be documented. We have had some of the most successful GBMs during that one week - without a formal body like HEC to lead. Never during my stay at IITK had I seen such mobility and shared enthusiasm to "do it" on the part of around 250 people. We had forgone several of the traditional techniques - signature campaign, newsgroup cribbing et. al. We talked to people, who
could help us with their experience. And we learnt a technique that many of us, since then, have applied in many other circumstances - personal or otherwise and will keep using it in future. In small group meetings or one-to-one talks, people in power position can actually get away with anything by giving the most silly of the reasons (or no reasons at all), but make it an open house with large (and disciplined!) gathering and they can not do that same - they have to have at least some pretence of democracy. Of course, have the composition of gathering such that it represents what can be called major stake-holders.

It succeeded because of several factors working the right way. We had tried all non-aggressive measures earlier - we could not be blamed for not taking the right channels. We had been able to identify the open-house-large-gathering factor. Very importantly we had junta, in the most real sense of the world, fighting for it. We had been able to build
support in several quarters (I really do not know how many people had talked to how many faculty members. It was just there everywhere, with everyone.). We questioned the right thing. We knew that "rules" are not so much in our favour - we questioned the basis of the rules itself. And we did it with solid and well-articulated reasons and principles.

On the lighter side I remember the first line of the parody we tried to make - "How do you solve a problem like 11.10?". Well, we solved it. Hail GH!! GH ka tempo high hai.

Categories: IITK

The GH farewell went pretty well. First yearites and the cultural secretary had worked hard at it. Especially on the titles - they were interesting. They made pretty badges. Following is what I got:

About this gal what we say is true..
Who always has something to do
When it bores her, you know
To go to and fro...
She reverses it and goes fro and to...

Suitable or not? What do you say? :-)

Categories: IITK

Iraq war is not over!!

Find sometime to read Baghdad Burning at http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com. I had come across this blog sometime in January this year and somehow the impression the following extract from the blog had made on my mind fails to die down or even fade.

"I sometimes wonder how the American people feel. After these last two wars with Afghanistan and Iraq, do the American people feel any safer? We watch the 'terror alerts' announced on television- politicians with somber faces and dramatic pauses alerting the population that at any minute, there might be an explosion or an attack. It's amusing because Iraq has been at the red level for the last 9 months. Why is it a drama when collective America experiences some strain for a couple of weeks during the holiday, but it's ok for Iraqis to experience five times the strain and apprehension for the next five years? Apparently, we are more tolerant- our blood pressures don't go up, our hearts don't palpitate and our kids can't be traumatized."

Well written blog of a well educated lady from Iraq - an international reader can not find a better place to get an insight into the situation.

We are living in a free world, indeed!

Categories: Thoughts, Excerpts

I had often wondered why people write poems with abstract symbols in it (I am talking about the Hindi Poetry which many of the contemporary poet(esse)s write). The day before yesterday, for some reasons I was feeling extremely sad and angry at myself. And I actually felt like writing a poem of that kind - "bikharta astitva, athah gahraiyan, bhatakta man" etc. etc. and since the conscience would keep bothering me (I always feel irritated with people, who write something of which it is difficult to understand anything and now I was planning to write one like that myself) - I decided to clearly declare that you might not understand anything of the poem. Named is "Kavitayen, Jo Kissie kee samajh mein nahin aati" (poems which can not be understood any one).

But alas! Seems this one is a bit too comprehensible. Is there something innate about the kind of stuff you can write? Someday, someday I will write a "poem, which can not be understood by any one".... Watch out!

Categories: TimePass

And mind you, please do not do this if you want to succeed in one.
"Its bad that you are majoring in Computer Science and you say that you are not good at it. All these Cs and Ds. I would not really give you credit if you got an 'A' in Consumer Behavior, even if you had gotten an 'A+' there..."
"May be it is - but I do not have an aptitude for Computer Science and I can not defend it. Grades speak for themselves. I do not want to defend it."

God, its fun screwing up your interviewers. And I really regret I did not do it in earlier interviews. But yes, if you can (or want to :-) ) lose an interview, do it sometime. It actually lightens your heart.

Categories: TimePass

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Epilogue: (10/07/2005) - This interview was the interview for entrance to IIML. And they did give me the admissions offer!

Have been doing lots of "consultancy" these day! And have realized at the same time how fraud it could be :-) Probably this is the only thing you remain capable of doing by this time - already old in this system. No wonder I do need a change. "Computer cum counseling Service" as Priya would name it - "Jaya, my mails have moved somewhere...", "Jaya, Redhat is not getting installed on my computer...", "Excuse me, I need to write a program which can read outputs from a Java as well as a C program, can you help?", "Got some book on VB/VC/Database/blah-blah?", "Hey, I have to install Linux on my machine", "I installed XP and now when I boot the option of Linux does not come at all", "my comp. is not booting at all, it was fine till yesterday night!"... Have never seen a better and more convincing example of "Andhon mein kaana raja" . God knows how many times do I actually have a solution. On other things, most of the time I can say something (secretly thinking to myself what does it mean) - "What all should Meander publish? What do people want in it?", "Politics in Business Club once again...", "What should be the vision of Gymkhana Executives?", "Preparation for CAT...", "Job interviews...", "BTP guides", "MBA courses to be taken" (the most frequent one), "whom to go for this and whom to go for that?", "where to find rules related to xyz?", "the wardens are not listening..." etc. etc.

And why am I writing this? Go to the fist few postings in this blog. Its for "From Orientation to Convocation" :-)

Categories: IITK

Chehre tamam lagne lage hain ajeeb se. (Have seen the life so closely that all these faces appear strange). Was listening to this song a while back. Replace Zindagi (life) with IITK here :-) Its too early to claim something like this about life, but its certainly so true about IITK (never mind that I said few days back, "IITK means life to me"). Actually knowing it too well makes it so strange.

A bit too familiar senate-environment seemed so amusing yesterday - "I would request the convener to let the discussion on this item continue. I am present here as a general body member and have been sitting for an hour for this discussion to come up...". Now when anyone refers to "the GH security issue" I burst out laughing (which I almost did even in yesterday's HR class, when it came up). I can see that the history will be repeated in Business Club. Nice people are since ever so helpless. They would not want to be politically incorrect and are unable to do the kind of politics which would let you get your work done while also being politically correct. The sudden increase in the number of mails on iitk.clubs.business and business club mailing list is the most hilarious of all. Turns out that my article has reached in the hands of MBAs, though it is least likely to be published in the Meander now. Anyway, it will come out in this blog sometime soon. Ah! This stupid issue has clouded my thoughts in the last one year. There are other things as funny as this one. Director addressed the students' senate yesterday - as the patron of Students' Gymkhana. Internet access, gaming, academics, projects, new constructions - all featured up - usual stuff still so strange, so alien. The new set of executives in Gymkhana look promising, even going by the way they were answering the questions in the senate yesterday (In past I have found these post holders to be no naive and impractical about the scope of their work), but I feel concerned as to how far their motivation would continue. Senators seemed no better than what they earlier were like. As far as I have seen, senators flare up against all the right things being done by the executives (I am not talking about the BClub issue here) and no one even blinks at the things which are bound to go wrong, until they indeed go wrong - and when they do go wrong people shout and shout and shout and that's it. Many a times though not just even this shouting, but also the realization of something going wrong in missing. Anyway, can only wish luck to them. Its high time people started judging the intentions right - but does not seem it is going to happen in near future.

Some changes are also there . The rising concern amongst students about the attendance is kind of reassuring, but is strange for very valid reasons :-), more valid ones than "knowing it too well". The notice on the library gate "Please switch off your mobile phones before entering the P. K. Kelkar library" so much epitomizes some of the changes. Like the earlier wave of increasing number of computers in the campus, its now the increasing number of mobile phones. Can't see any ostensibly imminent problem because of this, but you never know. May be gaming industry is eyeing next at the mobile phone users! And then even if students attend classes, they might actually be playing games sitting on the back seats.

Hall 1 hall day created a lot of buzz and some faculty members (especially DOSA and wardens) were particularly concerned about the programme not being in accordance with our culture. Can't comment on this particular programme, but again this tussle is here to remain - was always there, will always be there.

Year-book team's "we understand but we do not agree" is another story altogether. Will not write anything right now lest we lose any chances of getting something done in tomorrow's meeting.

And Jaya Jha! If you continue wasting your time blogging, may be you would not be left with any reasons to feel nostalgic.

Bah! Petty considerations of life... Good night.

Categories: IITK

Its a season of nostalgic feelings - people criticized nostalgia a lot (Criticizing is something one can always do, can't one? Knowing the Gymkhana Executives, I could not really criticize formally - things do go wrong at times and the reasons are not necessarily intended carelessness on anyone's part), but Hall 2, Y1 batch seems to have done a good job at making people feel nostalgic - at least that's what seems to be response of people on the newsgroup iitk.misc. Have been wondering for a while if I should put one of my nostalgic poems/article on some newsgroup. For whatever reasons have decided against it - something should appear in Meander. Departmental farewells have already started and am looking forward to the one by our department. But the ACA has not yet handed over the charge - I do hope we get the farewell :-) Departmental farewell is a better occasion to feel nostalgic than the institute function (Nostalgia) - there are just too many people in the institute one to make the cohesive group required to bring up the feeling of nostalgia. Am also looking forward to GH farewell. Ideally this should see the most cohesive group, but am not quite sure of it. With less than 50% of us actually graduating (let me add hopefully before that :-) ), the real feeling might just be missing. In my wing, anyway, I am the only one going out.

Heck, I am rambling here - but so what? This is the reason why I have created this blog. You can skip first few posts here - these are all the creation of nostalgia or whatever this feeling before going out from here is. After that issues of more general interest would come up.

Categories: IITK

Do not classify me as a maggu or one intending to flatter the professors (In fact, I do sincerely hope that no prof. lands here - I guess there are enough confessions of mischiefs in the classes on these pages), but its really tough to be a prof. Just had to give a talk for one hour today and now I feel too exhausted to think or do anything (Its terribly different from 5+2 minute debates!) A reason why you should not miss classes, you see - enormous effort must be going on in giving each of the lectures professors give. Simply out of respect for the effort, its worth attending classes - may be not-so-cool-and-trendy-a-thought, but one should consider!!

Categories: IITK

Its so difficult these days to write or speak on specific issues of life at IITK. Things do not come to mind in bits and pieces any more, every thing is so mixed up, everything superimposed on something else. The hazy recollection of the day I came here, of all the things I did and did not do, of all the things I observed closely and from a distance, of all the things that happened to me, pleasantly or otherwise - its all just a lump - a round one and a slippery one too - its slipping away from my hands - with no corners, no hooks to hold on to - its so meaningless, yet so meaningful and so engrossing, it is all past and yet it is so much alive... Another phase of life is passing on. That's it. Its too tough to take it (or any part of it) seriously any more, but the effects it had on me, when I did take it seriously, are irreversible!

Categories: IITK

Can I summarize what IITK means to me? I do not know. It can mean so many things - It means "growing up" to me, it means "getting to know so many people" to me, it means "knowing how large and vast and varied the world is" to me, it means "learning to have high ambitions" to me, it means "so many good people" to me, it means "moments of building self-confidence" to me, it means "shattering of so many rigid boundaries" to me, it means "action" to me and yet sometimes, it means "a loss of any base of life" to me, it means "loss of faith on everything" to me, it mean "so many hypocrisies of the world" to me, it means the "arrogance and self-centred nature of people" to me, it means "enormous unconcern of people" to me, it means "something so alien to whatever I was" to me, it means "so much confusion about myself" to me, it means "an aimless, mad rush to me".

It means joys and sorrows, success and failure, good and bad, laughter and cries, reason and non-sense, concerns and the lack of it, aim and the lack of it, action and inaction, all at the same time, to me.

Probably, that's why it means Life to me.

Categories: IITK