My Summer Wishlist

MANGOES!!!
Beware all you delicious mangoes, cause Ankit is going to chop you, shake you up, sandwich you, and search all possible ways to gobble you into his stomach....

First and foremost PUT PEACE!!!
   This semester has been a hell of sorts. All of my weekdays in class, well, most of it, Saturdays in labs, and Sundays, Ummm ummm umm I need to refer to the dictionary, does anyone remember what a Sunday is/was??? Well, let me define Peace for myself. As soon as I reach home, my schedule is going to be a simple four step process, wake up at 11, have lunch, go back to sleep, wake up at 6pm, have dinner and sleep by 9, oh that was just two steps wasn't it?? (In case you are thinking, why do I need to wake up for lunch and dinner as well, well, that's one of the core reasons, why I would be in home, besides, my mother won't let me do that, I hope she doesn't know about my eating patterns here in insti...)

MOVIES!!
  This summer is seriously going to be freakin awesome in this regard. Sequels to some of my favourites, and some of the most anticipated movies ever are coming up this summer. Here's my list of musts:

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (May 20th)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (May 26th) (First day show for sure)
      Awesome as expected. The furious five and the dragon warrior save Kung Fu. And I love pandas.. :D 
Ready (June 3rd)
      Hilarious, action, filled with Salman's crazy stuff.
Cars 2 (June 24th)
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (June 24th)
     Teaches you life man! One of the best movies I have ever seen. And I am seriously going to follow it. I am going to forget all my worries, fears and live my life. The thoda kaam, thoda discipline and lots of masti, happy life I used to. After all, Zindegi definitely nahin milegi dobara so what's the point carrying all those worries on your head! Just forget them and say cheers to life.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 1st)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (July 15th)
      A fitting end to the biggest saga of our generation. What more, Harry potter and Ronald Weasley have kids now.
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift (July)

Any other Friday left?? oh yes there are vacancies... help me fill them as well :D
Any more suggestions??

Go Fish
  No seriously. I want to go fishing!!, well, literally, fishing. Fishing used to be my favourite past time at my grandfathers place, back in Orissa (oh no no we are not fishermen by the way, we have a small lake, and it has fishes in them). But its been more than five long years since i have done that last!! This time around, I am determined to stay a bit longer than the usual 2 day trip in the past few years... lets see if I can get this done...

IPL:
  It's the fourth season already and I haven't watched a single live!!! This time at least I hope to watch one..

Now for some serious stuff:

Internship:
   I hope I can make my internship a learning expedition of sorts, and make it a great fun filled experience. I hope to learn the real world applications of all the stuff I have done in theory as yet, and try and innovate something by myself...!!! pretty high hopes... but you never know... This is going to occupy my first 50 days of summer.

Shaastra Circuit Design Challenge (SCDC):
  The very fact that I am the first 3rd year coordinator ever for this event (previous coords were all 4th years, since this event has begun), straight away hangs a sword over my head, to try and maintain its standards, if not better. Its one of the trademark events of Shaastra and the flagship event of Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Shaastra, with cash prize worth 40K!! (I am sorry if I am sounding like publicizing my event already...) Stay put for the problem statements...

Projects:
  The last month of summer, I ll be back here in Chennai, fulfilling my commitments to all my current projects. I hope to do a lot of progress during this interval and step closer to the final goal. True that this means I ll be all alone on my 20th birthday something that has never happened to me before..., but when at profession, personal errands come later.

Heat Index

  The other day, after 6 hours of continuous work on an insane project, I was absolutely drained. I was working in CFI, cursing for the first time that Sunday was a holiday, cause if it weren't, labs in my department would have been open, and I would have been working at 21*C, <10% humid environment instead of 37*C and somewhere around 90% humidity!! After I came back to room, I had a bath, a 500ml of Grapo fizz, and 1L of glucose, and yet was feeling bad, dehydrated, and sort of feverish. This made me wonder, was it really 37*C, cause 37*C on any other day, I could have taken it with pleasure, oh not really but still wouldn't have been this bad, afterall its my body temperature on any normal day. A little googling gave me the answers.

 And the answer is the Heat Index. As I am writing, Chennai's thermometric temperature is 86*F or 30*C but the apparent temperature is 99*F or 37.222*C. So why is it so??!! Here's the answer:

  Our body loses excess heat in three ways — radiation, convection and evaporation. If the blood circulating just beneath the skin is at a higher temperature than the surrounding air, heat is lost through the first two ways. When the outside temperature is higher than the body temperature, evaporation is the body's way of losing heat. We start sweating and the evaporation from the skin keeps us cool. The problem is that the capacity of air to hold water vapour is not finite; it can only hold a particular amount at a particular temperature. The term used to indicate how much of that capacity has been used up is relative humidity — the ratio of vapour contained to the maximum the air can hold, expressed as a percentage. So, the higher the relative humidity, the lower will be the capacity of air to hold any more water vapour. That means evaporation slows down and hence its cooling effect too is slowed down, making us feel hotter.

Fig: A screen shot from Weatther underground. Click on pic to expand.

Courtesy: Google, Times of India & Weather Underground

The force that unifies India

Well, what else can it be, It's Cricket!! Whenever I see the whole India celebrating, on TV, after a huge triumph on field, I get reminded of two particular lines from 'Madhushala';

मंदिर मस्स्जिद बैर कराती 

एक करती मधुशाला 

     How true!! And it very well applies to cricket as well. It sees no religion, no caste, no status, no regionalism... It's all the same for everyone, the emotions, the sudden rush of patriotism, the sense of pride, and of course the warm blood getting warmer. 

     It's really great watching Delhi going to one of those mini Diwali modes, Kolkata getting drowned in the syrup of the sweet Rasogullas, Chennai getting frenzy in one of those Rajnikant styles, and Mumbai well, celebrating with all the Tare Zameen Par. You see images of Bhangra pouring in from Chandigarh, all the folk singers, with their tweaked versions of the ever romantic Rajasthani folk songs, to fit to the occasion, from Jaipur, the actual heros of the nation, enjoying themselves in the most weird fashion ever from Srinagar, or may be even from the most dreaded sectors of Drass, Kargil and Batallic. If the images from the rest of the country are mind boggling, the images from just outside the venue of the game are even more so. You see people dancing in a form called, well I don't know, may be a mixture of Kathak, kuchipudi, and Odissi!! ; with the tricolor proudly clutched in their hands.

    Now that India is in the finals, and playing Sri Lanka today, I just hope that these celebrations continue even after 11 O'Clock tonight. I just hope, I get to see all these, ummm!! get to hear all these through all your pings on to my g-talk. I just hope.........

Go India!!! 1.21 Billion (1,21,01,93,422 to be precise) people will be there cheering for you tonight....

Time Machine

  Well, not exactly, I am referring to my alarm clock, yes the very clock which is responsible for destroying my wonderful and sweet dreams every morning, fortunately went mad, and started clocking in the opposite direction. Wise clock went anti clockwise!!!
   I wish it could actually take me back in time to those lighter and brighter days of school, or may be even a little before I was born...

3G., an experiment that went absolutely awry...

<This is what I wrote before realising what had happened to me>
 " 3G, the next big thing in India, is finally here. I was so excited, when I saw the full page ad. of Vodafone 3G in TOI, today, and obviously, as I love to try out new things, went ahead and activated it on my phone. And believe me, as the ad. says, its "faster, smarter and better", it actually is.... The biggest difference, you would straight away find is the speed of the Internet, loading gmail, which would take around 7-8 seconds on 2G, loaded within 3 seconds in 3G. Now that's a huge difference!!!

   Then I checked out all the other services available, and the only other services available as of now were Live TV and video calling. Looking forward to try out video calling, but tried out the Live TV, and whats more... it costs just Rs.7 a day, to view any channel you would like. Love it!!! Watched ESPN live (no buffering after the initial one), Cartoon Network !!(In case you are giggling at me, com'on, there is a child hidden in every person..), NDTV, Times Now, Discovery, Animal Planet, UTV Movies, to name a few. Now who would be more proud than me, after-all even I am going to be one of those "Communication Engineers"......(whats wrong in bragging a bit...:-D)"

Everything was great and I was loving it and showering praises on it, when I suddenly realised that I had been robbed off of nearly half a K!!! My balance was at a deficit of Rs 431 !!!.. Damn it!!! this one went absolutely haywire....money, nearly 24 hours of absolutely no connectivity.... huh!!! Seemed like I had developed an uncanny knack of creating trouble for myself, out of nowhere...sigh!!! But what's the fun in life if everything goes as you wish...!!! What say??!!

When I decided to make a pizza....

  probably sun rose from west, probably I had gone mad or probably I was so bored that it drove me to the levels of lunacy one day during my winter vacation of 14 days!! in the second year (Dec. 2010), that I decided to try my hand on a completely unexplored field, cooking!!! It took a lot of effort, and finally (yeah!!!) I convinced the "Master-chef" at home, my mom, to let me try out stuff. With a strict no-no for the use of the gas stove (taking due considerations of my past records), I was limited to the microwave only. I always try finding positives in every situation, and therefore was happy that at-least I was allowed to use that, moreover it was just the previous sem I had learnt how a microwave oven works, so was excited.

  Then began the search for the dish, and somehow, the first thing that struck was pizza. I had seen mother doing one of those, so thought wasn't going to be much of a hassle. Asked mother to arrange all the ingredients for me. Then it was the turn of the rookie, I arranged stuff on that gloomy base, the best I could, and it was ready to go into the oven. And then whatever happened in the oven is history !! Don't even dare asking me what happened, else there will be consequences....
I tried my level best to give it a face lift and:

  I thought, would better get back to things I was good at, but somehow managed to calm my self and give a second chance. And this time it was pop-corn!! I expected them to pop out white but they came out black!, not again!!!
  This was it, I almost decided to drop the word "cooking" out of my dictionary when a brilliant plan came to my mind. I was good at turning things into black ! in the oven, so why not make something that is supposed to be black !! So i made this:

a chocolate cake, and believe it or not, this time I was successful. It was so good that I finished off the whole thingy all by myself within a day. After-all I wasn't that bad, I proved it Yeah!! I did it... :D 

Birthday Blues

  Birthday, the day, some years back, which is responsible for ones very presence. Yes its absolutely one of the happiest days in ones life. What would you do typically on your birthday? Go to a temple in the morning, finish your wish-list of gifts and things you would like to do/achieve by your next birthday, most importantly spend a lot of time with your family and friends throughout the evening, and then the rest of the night unfolding all the awesome gifts and wishes you would have received. This is what you would typically do, of-course surprises and exceptions will always be there.
   But things are a "little" different when you are in a place like IIT Madras.You better do the following.

• First change or remove your birthday date from your fb account, and hope no one among your college "friends" (you better recognize them as friends or else...) remembers your b-day.
• Keep a good look at your friends throughout the previous day, any suspicious movements/ any unreasonable or sudden visits to ccd by your friends, find a hideout immediately, and get underground before 10 pm the previous day of your b-day.
• Do not attend to any unknown numbers or numbers of your potential bump givers after 10 the previous night..
• If you happen to miss any of these precautions, better get prepared with lots of ice and pain killers, cause you are gonna, well experience it yourself... :P

  It must be feeling like "why, why was I born at all". All those filmy dialogues "Dhikkar hai mere janam hone pe", "dost dost naa raha", "kutte kaminey.....", "#@%*&$#", "Aasman se gire, khajoor pe aatke"...would be on your mind. Let me tell you, typically what happens. You would be in utter pain searching for a soft place to sit, if you happen to show up your face at home with all those sticky chunks of the so called your b-day cake (which was used less to eat and more swahad on you), your mom would reply from the door "Its my son's birthday, but definitely not Haloween!!!!". 
Good thing is that I have never experienced it yet, thanks to the timing of my b-day. i still continue to celebrate my b-day the first way (but) minus friends.Yes it does feel a little bad that way, but life is a great mixture of happiness and not so good feelings, accept everything whatever comes positively and be optimistic. 

My Dream World...

My dream world, a world full of Tweeties and Jerries,

                                        a world full of chocolates and cakes,

                             a world full of fluffy toys and vuvuzelas, 

                                        a world full of love and affection.

My dream world, a world full of imagination and creativity, 

                                        a world full of new friends and great teachers,

                             a world full of superheroes and toy cars, 

                                        a world full of love and affection.

My dream world, a world full of choices and no forced home-works, 

                                        a world full of  role models and continued friendships,

                             a world full of virtual reality and real Virtuality,

                                        a world full of love and affection.

My dream world, a world without any boundaries and limitations,

                                        a world full of life and passion,

                              a world full of pizzas and puddings,

                                        a world full of love and affection.

My dream world, a world that works for humanity and not for money,

                                        a world full of humble bosses and smart colleagues,

                              a world full of tech savvy gadgets and cool cars,

                                        a world full of love and affection.
My dream world, a world with a loving and caring life partner,
                                        who would live for me and I would live for her,
                              a world with small and wonderful kids,
                                        a world full of love and affection.

My dream world, a world full of spirituality and truthfulness,

                                        a world with no violence and wars,

                              a world with family and friends,

                                        a world full of love and affection.

      These are my dreams. Now go back and read them again, but this time, see the first stanza from the perspective of a baby, the second from that of a small kid new to school, the third from that of a high school kid, the fourth from that of a college student, the fifth from that of a man, the sixth from that of a married man, and the seventh from that of a senior citizen.....

A nights ordeal en-route a holiday....

   It was Christmas eve (24.12.10). The day was just perfect. I had planned a holiday for my parents (and myself of-course) to Dalhosie and Dharamshala. We had to take a bus that evening to Pathankot air-force base, around two hours away from Jammu. All plans set, we started off from home in a taxi at around 5 PM. First came some of the most gloomy and not happening places in Delhi, the roads along the official residences of MP's, the BJP party office, etc (my journalist friends would disagree though, they generate their roji roti from these streets). There were infy NEWS channel vehicles in front the BJP office, probably contemplating another BJP leader popping out of it and trashing the raids on A Raja's houses' that day (can't think of anything else so contemplative). Then came some of the most happening places of Delhi, the La Meridian, The Tajs, Santas all around, some of the famous Pubs here, etc. Everything was fine till then, when suddenly, my mother exclaimed, rather shouted at me "u forgot your jacket!!!". Oh shit!! That was real bad news for me. I was to face Punjab di lassi errr thandi (Bus was to go through Punjab) with just one sweater in my armory, when I suddenly remembered that we were going in a "volvo", ab Punjab ki thandi toh kya hum Greenland ko bhi jhel lenge... but probably I was getting little over confident...

    After some time we reached the bus, from outside, it looked swanky and attractive, proudly showing off the Volvo logo on the front. But when we entered inside, it somehow didn't feel like how it felt from out. We sat and I happened to overhear the discussion in the rear seat. They also seemed to have felt what I felt of the bus from inside. As time passed, the whispers grew and turned into a huge discussion, people proposing theories after theories, most common being the bus being a duplicate Volvo, after-all it was heavy tourism season and anything was possible. Then came in my antiques of taking things light. The seats were more or less comfortable, enough leg room (something I generally crib about), the climate control working fine, with the display showing a modest 20*C, compared to a definitely single digit temperature outside, and the discussion growing unbearably boring now, I thought, hatao yaar, Shakira pe errrr mera matlab hai gane pe concentrate karo...and I got lost in my world of music "whenever wherever....Tumse hi Tumse...roop husn ka deedar hua...Bahara hua...pocket full of...Hips Don'tzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZerrrr what..Pick urself up and dust urself up "for Dinner" waka"...oh yeah right. The bus had stopped for dinner. I had already made plans to eat in a proper Panjabi Dhaba, some awesome Parathas (makkhan marke) with Dal Tadka. But when I saw out, it was an absolute wrong number....Cause it was Haveli, a hotel recommended by the Kingfisher cookbook, and Highway on My Plates (NDTV Good Times)...a proper hotel but not a Dhaba...(Yaar ye mere saath hamesha ulta kyun hota hai???). But I was probably unaware of the fact that this was gonna be the best part of the whole journey...Had some regular vegetarian dishes and of course Punjab's very own Lassi.

   After the awesome dinner, we started off again.....me lost in my world of music...and eventually asleep. When suddenly, "crawlin..."   not the song but the bus. The bus was actually crawling.... and finally stopped. It was around 11:30pm, everyone half asleep, I check Google maps and we were on NH1, very close to the historic grounds of Panipat, yes the very place where three deadly battles took place, two of which during the rule of the mighty Mughals and last one during the Durrani Empire. After around 15 minutes, the cabin door opens and the driver comes in with a gloomy face wakes everyone up and speaks; "the bus engine is blown.... another bus is coming from Delhi and its not a volvo." (not exactly....but he essentially this is what he meant..). "A bus coming from Delhi" meant at least 2 and half hours. But amazingly every one kept their calm probably seeing no other alternative, but to wait for the bus. Time passed by very slowly. Each moment growing more restless than the previous. To top it all, my mind thinking little extra, Panipat, Battle, NH1...these words kept making rounds in my mind... actually thinking what would happen if India and Pakistan went on a battle, the first missile from Pak would land anywhere on NH1 (Delhi-Srinagar) for sure. Somehow I kept distracting myself, music, blogs, facebook, twitter, buzz  etc, jeopardizing my phones balance, which was already on roaming. Finally the bus turned up at around 3:00am in the morning. and we all disembarked from the bus, and damn....20 odd *C to definitely sub 5 in just a step...shivering like a perfect sinusoid, I bet some of the best wave generators and oscilloscopes would have felt ashamed of themselves. And then came the first view of the bus, and the first word W.T.F... we knew it was not a Volvo, but we were never told it was non-AC. Now everybody was actually angry...Non AC meant, sub 5*C at least for next 6-8 hours, that was absolutely unacceptable. So began, Dhishoom! Dhishoom!!, bechara driver, everybody pouring their anger on that guy... but finally, everybody, not seeing any other alternative at that point of time, better sense prevailed, and the bus began to move. The whole bus was like an extended family now, everybody helping each other and trying to make the environment lighter....We closed all the windows, tightly covered them with whatever we had, shawls, blankets, and some looted window screens from the previous bus. Trying to sleep, but the cold not letting us do that. Me and my mom holding each other tightly, and still shivering, father taking the whole wrath himself (he was in a different seat). Somehow we managed to stay alive. The bus moving slowly, fog playing the spoilsport. Finally, at around 8 we saw the sunshine. We stopped at Haveli Ludhiana at around 10 for breakfast, and reached Pathankot at around 1:30pm instead of 5am. Some awesome sceneries, and hopes of exciting next few days, consoled me. And as expected, next three days were wonderful. Some breathtaking sceneries, scary roads, views of green mountains, and snow covered peaks pre-dusk and star-like twinkling nadirs post dusk, and of course the sanctity of his holiness, the Dalai Lama's Temple and residence.

  Dharamshala (famous for its pastries and cakes), McLeod Gunj(famous for its Tibettan products and temple and residence of Dalai Lama), Dalhousie(famous for its jams, jellys and Lord Dalhousie, one of the so called good British Administrators), and of course Pathankot Airforce Base (One of the most strategically placed airforce establishments. This was the most interesting part of the whole trip, seeing some of the movers and shakers of India, its foreign diplomacy, and defence policy, and the very base of Indo-Ruso relationship, the Migs and the Sukhois. Obviously couldn't take any pics but did take some audio clips of the jet flying. It was awesome seeing fighters fly at supersonic speeds....) were all on our menu. It was great spending so much time with my parents and uncle, aunti and my 7 year old cousin, and ll never forget all the cricket, badminton, bonfires, shopping with my family.
ps: the above mentioned places might be famous for a lot of other things, but i wrote whatever was important to me :)...and you can see some of the pics of the landscapes there, on the first slideshow  to the right top of this page.

Mr Onion

    The new celebrity in making, the new news-maker, the new heartthrob errrr, heart throb, presenting to you Mr Onion....

     

    Overnight fame to Mr Onion, for taking away the "raat ki neend" and the "din ka chain" of aam aadmi sounds like a great bollywood movie plot...but its true. But seems like the aam aadmi has taken it quite sportively. Seeing some of the most innovative ways of protest on television today, inspired me to share this. 

    The current price rise of onions, due to crop failure (well atleast thats what the Govt. says..) in one region of India, has taken away the quintessential "pyaj-da-tadka" from the aam-aadmi's life.  But the most interesting part is the way people are protesting. The opposition(NDA) comes all guns blazing against the ever calm PM. Even the aam aadmi also got little creative  to get the attention of the government. Some of the most hilarious of them being:

• "Robin Uthappa changes his name to Onion Uthappa, and becomes the highest paid player in IPL"(source: Retweeted by Barkha Dutt.)
• Indore: In a market, the aam aadmi came up with a really creative plan, they gave loans for 5 kg of onion, which could be re-payed in Installments. Very practical solution to the problem...:P (source:Live India)
• Jalandhar: A garage owner came up with a plan to sell his ever growing tire stocks. He gave away a kilo of Onion free with two car radial tires. Howzzat for a business plan.(source: Live India)

• Onion prices have such powers that not even Petroleum, or sugar or any other commodity has. According to a report by Star News, Onion prices have the power to bring down governments, including the very surprising one of that of Sushma Swaraj's government bringing Shiela Dixit to power in Delhi. (source: Star News).
• Jaspal Bhatti comes on roads with his Christmas Carol for Onion....
• If Graham Onions is in IPL auctions, he should choose his reserve price per kilo.:Gaurav Kapur  

     Now it remains to be seen, the steps taken by the government, ban on exports, subsidy on imports, little crackdown on hoarders, how effective they are going to be. But this is for sure that the common man is gonna bleed for the time being. Hope the new year brings a little more happiness to the common man....