Valar morghulis

Last saturday was the longest day of the year, it seems, on account of it being the summer equinox. It certainky felt like the longest day. I was at work from 10 to 8 (and yes, I have to go to work on satutrdays as well, thank you for your sympathies). And i didn't get anything done. Not that I normally manage to get much work done (on account of the work being very boring and beneath my intelligence level..obvoiusly..definitely not because I totally suck at concentrating on one task for more than 1 hour. I can do it if I want to. Its just that I dont. Want to, that is). But this time, I really didn't do anything all day. Except doze in front of the computer.
So it was that in the afternoon, my boss came and found out what I had been upto (or rather, what I hadn't been upto) and told me that I better finish something before I leave or else. I wont bother you with the details but at the end of a very painful two hours I ended up getting debug messages in scripts that haven't been seen by human eyes since the last pharoah got bitten by a scorpion when he stepped on it. Seriously. It was heiroglyphics for sure or I am bk. However my boss wasn't impressed by the novelty of the results and made me sit till I had got the code to print stuff in boring old queen's english. And it was 8 by then.
Yesterday, over lunch, I was having a discussion with him about fantasy books. I told him I liked lotr (who doesn't) and he laughed at me(apparently, he doesn't). He said lotr is a fat boring (sounds like someone we all know..cough..bk) book filled with characters that work like clockwork and dont seem real. I grew red in the face(from anger and started to retaliate). He interrupted me saying that he preffered c.s.lewis. I got redder in the face. He prefers a girl opening a cupboard and walking into a half man half goat thingy(you know, that tumnus guy always used to remind me of gulati..though he looks more like rushi..perplexing) to lotr..which he doesn't like for its lack of realism. I was about to remind him that his pal, c s lewis was a room mate of tolkien at oxford and managed to steal some of his notes for a bedtime story that he was writing..and the result is more popolarly known as the chronicles of narnia. But then I remembered that my work progress that day wasn't much better than it had been on saturday and decided I didn't need to provoke him anymore and held my peace. And then, he said that last month he had come across a fantasy series that he liked better than lotr..I hope rushi now blows up in righteous wrath..it was called eragon. It took me two full minutes to recover sufficiently to gather my wits. Unlike people like rushi I dont have a vehement hatred for paolini and actually was quite amused while reading the eldest when he thought he was going to surprise everyone at the end with the murtagh=the other rider 'bombshell'. But to even mention him in the same breath as tolkien is blasphemy. I tried to patiently explain that paolini had, ever since he had learned how to read (which I am guessing wasn't very long ago) had merely lifted the plots of all bestselling fantsay writers he could find and the result now adorns his bookshelf as the Inheritance Trilogy (If I were going to plagiarise, I'd atleast do it from the best books..apparently star wars was the best he could do..which says much about his judgement). Which he casually dismissed.."After all, all fantasy books have more or less the same plots. Its not a big deal if there was nothing novel in his plotline". There are three kinds of people when it comes to explaining things to: the ones to whom you cant explain anything because you cant even get a word in as they shout you down (like bk), the ones who are rational and listen to reason (like me..yes, I've always been this modest) and the third kind who listen to you (much like a wall does) and dont hear a word (like..several people come to mind..but most prominently, ponky). I am sure you've realised what I was dealing with this time. There are very few animate beings that are endowed with lesser judgement than gulati, but my list just grew longer by one.

I saw dasavatharam last thursday. I had bunked internhsip for just that and I was sorely disappointed by the movie. It was so disappointing that I cant find the inspiration to criticise it now. I'll save it up for a later post. It'll suffice to say now that kamal hassan, the artist, who made movies like nayagan, devar magan and anbe sivam, who proved that it is possible to make quality entertainment movies, which actually have more than a semblance of a plot (unlike other entertainers like sivaji and the latest vijay movie..I have forgotten which one, but that doesn't make a big difference; if you have seen one, you have see them all), who played some of the most versatile roles to flawless perfection, is no more. First, the comedy called vetaiyadu velaiyadu (could have been an abhishek bachchan movie for all the acting effort involved in it) and then..this. Valar morghulis. All men must die.

Internship woes

Some things are just the way they are. We do not question why the sky is blue(or white when cloudy, or whatever), why sugar is sweet or why bk is fat. Its just in their nature to be what they are. You're probably wondering why i'm talking so much crap now..well, so am i; so join the club.

Everyone in my coll seem to think its trendy to do internships and/or (yes, there are some psychos out there who are doing both..kareemangya for one (dont ask me, I dont know what kareemangya means)) projects during the summer vacations. When everyone at coll agree on something, it'll probably turn out that there is something disastrously wrong about it. I should have realised this and not forced myself to join them in the mad scramble to land up interns, but well one cant always be wise and imba (nope, not even me). Hindsight sees the farthest; I now realise that there are very few useful things that come out of an internship; well actually only one thing, and thats the pay cheque. Shashi would say that I was too institutionalised and was in bad need of disillusionment..he would have quite a few other things to say too, but no one really cares for anything he says, least of all himself. So I wont bore you with that stuff.
What I will bore you with is an account of my internship experience, that is (unfortunately) still two weeks away from conclusion. My daily schedule for this 'vacation' looks something like this:
Morning: 7.00 ninju messages 'come to the court quickly da dog'
Morning: 7.30 go to basketball court (quickly da dog)
Morning: 9.00 come back exhausted (after starring in the day's play as most imba player)
Morning(still??): 10.00 arrive for work
Several millenia later: 8.00 pm still at work
Here's one important requisit to be part of an embedded systems startup: do not, by any means, have a life (if you want to know what a person without a life would look like, stop by at NITK hostels 3rd block room no:%& and take a look at arindham). I am forced to work for about 8-10 hrs a day at this place. So you can very well imagine what the guys who run this company are like. I come back every evening totally exhausted, eat and crash. Period. And they call this a holiday.
I have been enduring six bloody weeks of this and am at my wits end now (if you want to know what a person at his wits end looks like, this is what you do. If you are a ps-ite, try to imagine bk answering a question put to him by sundari ma'am. If you are a nitkian, imagine
adi trying to explain that he is not gay. If you are ponky, look in the mirror. If you are anyone else, use your god damned imagination and bugger off..btw you cannnot be part of my readership if you are in this category, anyway)
If you still doubt that I am crazy, where are you interning this summer?
To the rest, dont blame me. Blame it on the internship.

NITK's Top Five...

I have often wondered whether I made the right choice when I selected NITK as my undergrad college, especially when I arrived there for my first semester, and saw, for my own eyes, what it had to offer. I wondered whether it would have been wiser to have chosen trichy as half my class at school did; I wouldn't have been alone in my suffering then, if suffering it was to be. We had plenty of fun at school together and there was little doubt that college would be more entertaining in their company. Moreover, since NIT trichy seems to throw grades like ninju throws fast breaks (i.e plentiful but to the wrong ppl :P) and only the likes of ju end up with grades less than eight ..and dare I say it, even seven ;) , it might seem to be a better choice.
However, after four sems at surathkal, I dont regret my choice. Its been more eventful and fun than I'd dared to hope, thanks mainly to a select few people. I have long been planning to post about these guys and now is the right time for it.
Its impossible to be bored when you are in the same college (and class) as a certain person called Vikram Gulati. God made joshi to top my class, he made varun to try to top the class. He made hanni to play dota and kewl to think he could play dota. He made Gulati...and then wondered why he had. I am sure that no one acqainted with gulati is not familiar of the 'lightning bolt' comment. For those who haven't (fortnately for them) had the honor of meeting him... whenever you there is a lightning strike, gulati pauses whatever he was doing, for a few seconds, lost in deep thought...and then says (invariably) "300 metres!"(thats supposed to where the lightning struck with respect to where he was standing). I dont think need to comment :P
If gulati has been a major contributor to keep our days at coll boredom-free, then ponky is a close second. Dipankar, originally from Dubai, who now claims to be a native of Chennai (because he stayed here for a couple of weeks last december) has been the scourge of all dasas in our batch. A devout obama fan, who claims to have been his most staunch supporter since the beginning of time (I personally think he came to know of obama's existence only after the iowa caucus) , his political opinions are a source of mirth and entertainment to everyone but himself. He seldom knows what he is thinking and even more rarely knows what he's saying. When he and gulati start arguing about anything, you can rest assured of a really good laugh.
"What is huge, makes a lot of noise and always need to teleported everywhere?" If you have been in nitk the last couple of years, I am sure you know the answer. "yoyoyoyoyo" indeed. BK, of lokoko and mokoko fame, the most talented druid ever to play the world of warcraft, whose hands bring healing (to his enemies during duels), who never moves an inch in wow without tp, the plague of vineeth's life last semester, lickus maximus of ieee...I could go on and on but you can guess the rest. From genial gaint to jealous lover (the 'lick' episode..for more details, contact me personally) he has made his presence felt in nitk (mainly through his blaring yoyoyos though :P).
For those of you who are wondering who can match up to these three, let me assure you, there is one equal to that task. Adi...when you hear his name, the first words that pop up in your mind are gay, fat, chinky, bully. Undoubtedly the most laziest person in coll, adi has dozed his way to popularity(???:P) in coll. The most (in)famous of the njs gang(and thats quite a distinction) and a veteran of two semsters of survival of datta's close company ;) this colossal eater of ice cream has been the target of many a chinese joke (especially at cherry square ;)
I wouldn't be doing any justice to this post if I dont make a mention of the inimitable tata. Many long hours of tronix classes have been endurable only due to his elderly presence. No one in ece is likely to forget his "hey raaagi"s of first year and more lately, "how much you teeease da"s. He holds an irresistable attraction for all teachers..witness his encounters with msb and kini :P
So thanks to these guys and many more,we have survived two years of engineering at nitk with such extraodinary teachers like kini and john d, not to mention mess food, not quite unscathed but still having enjoyed most of the ride. This is my way of saying thanks guys :P