july 2004-april 2005, a recap

One of my friends asked me to write a post on our B.tech lives so that we can etch those memories permanently. I am not fully convinced but find a lot of time and some interest to begin with our freshman year`s events. I am not good at remembering dates. We joined IIIT in july-august of 2004. I had a pretty good idea of the 1st day. All my family members came to the college to drop their toddler child. I had to carry my damned heavy bedding all the way to the second floor of GHEB. I got a corner room at the end of the corridor which I appreciated. We ate at the NBH mess. I got a good idea of what is going to come. I did not give much thought to ragging. There was not much of it either. I remember a couple of incidents. The ball-room dance with Anil was funny. Badi used to skip those sessions saying he needs to sleep early as he has some health problems [:P]. It used to be fun, every senior picking one fresher for his share. I went only once, I remember, to Sriharsha`s (Bull`s) room. There was nothing to get frightened back then (I was not aware of “other-than-straight” concepts). I was just asked a few casual questions. Then I feigned a bit of inconvenience. They let me off the hook. It was Koyya who used to drag us to the rooms of seniors. He provided justification also “They will take it on me if you do not come”.

Later, I got bored with that stuff. I remained in the room for longer periods, reading novels and sleeping. Once when I went to the phone booth to call up my home, T3(shashikant) caught me and asked me to go to divya and wish her “Good afternoon, madam”. I doubted she would not take it well. So, I said that I am in a hurry to call up my home. He offered me his mobile just as a casual act. I immediately snatched it and started dialling. He was shocked, took the phone and went away saying”nenedho oorike icha ra babu”. My first friends at IIIT were Bhaskar, Anil, Sudheer n Cvc. As Bhaskar was my senior at school, I know him and got acquainted to others through him. We stayed in the same wing-me, bhaskar and anil. Later, I became friends with Boppay. We worked together for itws-1 assignment. I used to play a lot of carrom with bappi n ravikiran. Komal and jc were my grp mates n tt partners. The first movie I had seen at IIIT was donga dongadhi. Cvc and I found it very tough to get to geetha hall, a theater in which I would see scores of movies later. I spent a good deal of time in CVC`s room initially. He brought nearly 50 wafers packets from home and they were good. His bedding was also good to sleep on. I liked all beddings except mine.

Pramodh, Sandeep, Koyya, Madhuhaas and Naagas became my friends after the 1st month. Chetan and Sasank are two guys who seemed to be genuinely interested in computers then. I enjoyed writing an essay on love for naagas who was made to read it out to the class. I did the same work for madhuhaas,komal, jc,koyya and revanth(rarely). I used to get some back too. Most of my C programming and ITWS assignments were contributed by naagas and pramodh. We played a lot of caroms. Coming to the courses, English is the only course I enjoyed. Prof. Vishal garg was cool but somehow I failed to generate interest for the course. I should thank NDR for not failing me in ES. I managed to get a D. It was amusing that me, sandeep, naagas and pramodh got through with C in C-programming. During the second sem, I found it a bit tough to copy assignments as we had a strict professor. But it was easy to add a few empty while loops and change variables. The courses were boring and the attendance policy disgusting. We were the batch with whom the 85% attendance rule started. It was tough to get up at 8.30 and go to the class. Later, I learnt to sleep in the class and set up proxies.

The CO course was the toughest one to bear. I was at the bottom of the class after the midsems and managed to get average mark in endsem. I thought I would fail and was mentally prepared to repeat the course. Something unexpected happened. The exam was conducted again due to malpractice by some students. Endsem was given 100% weightage. Koyya bought Stallings and asked me to explain it line by line. I was down with fever but somehow managed to do it. He always asks anything more than the necessary number of times. I was spent by the time I wrote my exam. A surprise was in store for me. I got an A. A lucky escape. Nothing much to write about my acads during this year. We spent a lot of time watching movies and wandering out. I was my companion most of the times during the first two months. I ate out almost every day at a different restaurant. I explored a lot about hotels and theaters. I saw nearly 50 movs in those 6 months.

Koyya and Sandeep gave me company for movies. Some unforgettable experiences are watching vidyardhi, konchem touch lo unte chepthaa, suryam, sakhiyaa and many more duds. Pramodh was not that interested in movies. He joined us for dinners. I spent most of my time in the campus in lab 6. There were some funny incidents there. Vadi rebooted the system of a senior to Windows to open putty. Pondy deleted a project of a senior to justify his name(not sure of this). Arunaditya wrote exams in 20 mins to read fanfiction. Saki distributed a mms which was a rage then to some of us and we clung on to it as a valuable possession. We chatted for hours and hours, distributing yahoo friends among ourselves.

I could not remember much. It was a year that just flew by.

P.S 1.Some personal events related to the author are purposefully left out.

P.S.2. Volleyball practice was a good thing then.

P.S 3. Koyya`s initial aim was 8.5 cgpa. His first crush of our batch lasted less than 7 days.

P.S 4. I still remember the reply Pramodh has got from a gal of our batch. The fool didnt know then that mails can be forwarded.

A forgettable journey

This is not for Theists.

The author went on a terrible trip to Tirupati. It was mentally taxing. It gave me a lot of ideas to write about. I had never been a Theist. I remember questioning my parents and elders about the presence of God. There were a lot of unanswered (sometimes unexpressed) doubts lingering in my mind. It is said that God is everywhere. But, still we go to the temple, to be more precise, into the garbhagudi where there is no proper light. I always ask “Why should we go to temple if God is everywhere?”. I get the same answer. To make our mind rest in peace which is not possible at home. This is somewhat reasonable by the dismal standards of logic we have set. Then I move to the tougher question. “We have a temple of the same god in our locality. Why should we go all the way to Tirupati?” This finds no answer. I cannot understand this hierarchy among temples.

The only way in which Tirupati seems to be better is the standards of architecture and sculpture. The paintings were not that great. Especially, the one of Padmavathi is terrible. The one who did it needs to learn a lot about anatomy and symmetry, if he is alive. The architects and sculptors are top class. When I observe great work, it is then I think God may exist. By a definition more popular, God is the creator. The value of a creator is only known by his work. So, if the definition holds, God lies in these men. I saw some patchy, unfinished work too. There were many people to watch. Most of them had distorted faces, disproportionate builds and awry features. There were a few rare pieces of perfect art too. Finding them across such a vast domain is as tough as making sense out of Gratiano`s words.

There were a few people trying to elbow their way through the queue. Whenever they were met with resistance, they came up with “Our son/mother/husband is ahead. We should join them” I wonder what they would say if their family members die ahead of them. Even the girls were not that awesome to look at. One of my friends says,’ Only girls who do not get married go to temples’. I do not subscribe to this view though. There was something interesting to watch about everyone. A lady looked like she had been married too early. Her face still has that girlish charm. A guy ran at a good pace for an overgrown chap. Then there were beggars all over right from the disabled who project their situation to the innkeeper who asks for undue tips.

We went to Golden temple at sripuram near vellore. I heard from the driver that the person who built it (rather had it built) was not so well placed initially to buy 18 acre land and build a lofty temple with gold plating. I was wondering how he planned to meet those expenses. On entering the temple, I understood. There were fountains all over and coins could be seen in them. I dont know whether piligrims had offered them or the management had arranged that. Either way, the people took it as a practice and threw coins into the pool. The same people who bargain for a discount of a rupee to the highest of their voices, the same people who come up with “No, we do not have coins” to the beggars- they tossed coins into a region where fellow coins would give them company. I wonder if coins have souls. If they had, they would yell “You fools! What purpose would we serve in these pools?”

Other possible ways of income for this temple are releasing t-shirts, cassettes that would serve as souvenirs. The vendors sell a water bottle at Rs 15. They make 50% profit on every item, out of which a considerable proportion must go to the management. It was a boring experience. No good-looking gals in sufficient number. No mouth-watering prasadam. We had to wait at the railway station for 3 hours. I took to explore the other side of the station. I saw the physical center for students of veda. They were playing cricket. It was entertaining watching them adjusting their “panchas” before facing a delivery( I mean the ball). It was new to hear a few obscenities from their mouths which always seemed to produce mantras.

P.S.1. Rayalaseema gals rock! Decide that after hearing their voices.

P.S.2. It is disappointing to miss out on today`s booze session.

Indoor games at IIIT- Caroms n TT

This may be a boring post to those who are not interested in these games or have no interest in reading about persons who do not matter to them.

I hate writing nostalgic posts. But there are a few things that I cherish writing about. During the 4 year stay at IIIT, I was trying to remember where I had spent most of my time. If I excluded the sleeping  time, I realized that my room was the place I had least occupied. There are not many activities for which I used that. Reading novels at night and changing clothes ( I should have done this more frequently) are perhaps the only ones. Other areas where one could find me are rooms of Sandeep. Pramodh, Koyya, Bappi in the order of decreasing probability. If not there, it is caroms room/TT room (occasionally library). I enjoyed playing these two games.

TT is a game I started playing in the 1st semester. I remember the nite when bavirs,komal,jc n I played tt for 4 hrs instead of preparing for maths midsem next day. I played with many guys of our batch like kp,gaddam,cvc,bodla,chetan,urlam,haas,badi,pati,puli and many more. But the regular members who played with me were Sandeep,pramodh,bappi,pramod,sairam and satti. Initially, sandeep was the best player. He used to win over us convincingly. He had a good allround game. One reason why I find him tough to play is he spreads his legs, covering a lot of ground making it difficult to get the ball through him. From the last year, I started playing well against him. It was fun taunting him when he loses a point or makes an error as I need not expect such bad manners from him. I enjoy taking his serve in the doubles. It comes at a good pace.  Pramodh is a good player but it is easy to play him. He goes for a lot of shots and concentrates too much on the followthrough. He is also a bit short and finds difficult to cover ground. Bappi is a terrific player. He had a winning record over me but being the good guy he is, he never boasted of it. Later, I got used to his play and easily countered his smashes. He got frustrated and made more errors than he would have liked to.

Pramod concentrates on imparting spin to the ball and he gives it a lot of height. So, I enjoy playing him. I play his serve extremely well in doubles. Sairam is the afridi of tt. He comes up with some unbelievable power shots. He makes a lot of mistakes too. He makes contact with the ball extremely close to the bounce which adds quality to his game. satti is a different player. I had never seen anyone net 5 serves in a row (I was his partner then). He does not play well under pressure an easily gets frustrated. His defence is the best part of his game. He floats the ball a lot. Now coming to the author, he is a good player, sometimes too aggressive and makes more mistakes. His serve is not perfect but others are happy to not complain about that except taking a few occasional digs. He is a confidence player. Enough about me. We are not that good players of TT. None from our batch has passed the 3rd round in interhouse tournament. We were just an enthusiastic lot, taking heart from someone who is just in front of us, who is not out of our reach.

Next I am going to write about caroms. We had some exceptional players in our batch and I am happy that I played against all of them. There were some good players who did not play that often. Pradeep is a good allround player, but research in CVIT does not leave one with much time. kiran and ravikiran are good players too. I still remember the look of a scientist on ravikiran before hitting a shot. He does many calculations and goes for tough shots more often than he should. sana is a gud player too. He plays gr8 when things are going well. Komal is an awesome player. He could produce unbelievable shots at times. Nitin is a fine player when he teams up with pramod. They both make a fantastic pair. Vunda also plays well. He does not play regularly though. Mohit is a terrific player and I enjoy playing against him. I cannot forget the look on his face when  I put the last coin in the hole with a good backshot. He plays straight shots and reverse shots well. I liked to have him as a partner in doubles. His attitude is amazing. Same is the case with Pavan Pandey. He plays cut shots with good precision and adds a bit of humor too to the game. Gopal was my partner for the competition once and we went to semis (quite odd as I never played really well in competitions). There are many other enthusiastic players. I just find it tough to remember.

Now, the regular batch comes. Thummi is one of my favorites. So, I put him here. He doesnt play that often. When he plays well, he is the best. But his back shots are just terrible and I still remember him saying to someone “In Andhra, they play back shots, you know” in his typical would-you-believe-it voice. He is absolute fun to play with. Next comes Bappi. He is our jester (no offence at this word, in fact all of us are so except Sandeep n pramod). He is like Dravid. He plays all standard shots with amazing consistency but does not innovate often. He is my favorite partner. He has that typical style of playing backshots. Sandeep is a treat to watch when he is flowing. The pity is he is stagnant most of the time and whenever he plays well, I am at the receiving end more often than not. He is not that confident of his abilities.

Haas is a big match player. He doesnt play to his full potential in our day to day games. His game is very good. He has a slight problem with release and that comes out when he is under pressure. He goes through the shot with discomfort. He is a good strategist. His back shots are not that good. Sairam is again like his TT self. He hits some good shots and some flukes. He is not very confident and that affects his game. When he is going, he blows away the opponents. Pramodh started playing caroms in 1st year and he was used just as a filler. He was the weakling initially. But later, he improved a lot. He plays extraordinary shots and misses some ordinary ones. His release is not ideal. His hand shots are funny sometimes. He has that zeal for the game.

Pramod is next up. He is the most formidable opponent among these.  It is a good challenge playing him at his best. When we played, the matches were competitive most of the time. Some of them were of topmost quality. He has no apparent weakness. He played backshots in an OKish manner initially. Later, he came close to mastering them. He is good when the board is on the smoother side. He does not impart that much power on the reverses. So, it becomes tough on a slow board.  If he were not in CVIT, we would have played a lot of great matches. Next comes me. I am really good at backshots. I like playing a lot of reverses. So, the board should not be too smooth. I try to avoid cutshots. I start slowly and try to fasten the pace as match proceeds. I am not a very good finisher. Many a time, I would lose a board or gain less points than I am supposed to, thus wasting a good mid-game.

We were deep into these games in our 3rd and 4th years. We would start after having the dinner and go on till 4 or 5 in the morning. I never thought of sleep while playing and I guess it is the same with a few of them. We had an awesome record in interhouse too. Pramod was singles champ once. Haas was the runner up twice and doubles champ fr 3 years. I couldnt think of a more abrupt ending to a post than this.

P.S 1. This is the longest post I have ever written

P.S 2. March is boring with no new releases.

P.S 3. My latest crush is getting married. Damn the despo!

P.S 4. I think next couple of months are going to be gala time for me.