My interview...well I wont say I stared blankly at the interviewer, nor will I say I
knew the answer to everything. Trouble was that it was a purely technical
interview, no frills at all, nothing I could answer breezily and show him how
confident I was. No questions like " Tell me about yourself, family, goals..blah
blah" or " Why should we hire you? ". No sir, all questions dealt with C and C++.
Not even the fundemental concepts but more fuzzy ones like pointers and linked
lists. I could answer his questions for each concept initially but as he went deeper
into the topic, I found myself floundering until he went on to the next topic. If I
didnt know it, I said so .

My friends who attended the interview last week said the whole thing had been
quite an informal affair, not very techie. Mine was totally the opposite.

Then the interviewer carefully scanned my marksheet and said " You seem to be
answering well but how you come you dont have such great marks in C? ". Tough one to answer eh? So I said I didnt believe that my marks really reflected
my abilities. He nodded his head and said " Maybe so, but you cant use it as an
excuse." I grinned and said I totally agreed with him but insisted I was telling the
truth when it came to that particular paper. I didnt know what else to say.

So I'm not really sure how I've done. I knew something but nothing hardcore. I
was a lil dissapointed however my friends cheered me up saying that I was after
all an electrical engineering student and that Polaris wouldnt expect me to know C
and C++ inside out. I dont know if I can take comfort in that...

Its not in my hands anymore, if I get it, then well and good. If not, there's always
the CAT.

Well, I'm off to my interview...I'm not as nervous as I usually am...but I am still a teeny weeny bit nervous :P. I just hope it goes well.

I usually settle down well at the actual interview...its just until the interview that I'm all jittery. My mind comes up wth a dozen questions I dont have the answer to and then I panic for a while.
Anyway, come what may, even if I dont know a thing, I'm going to be positive and confident. I think that should help. Wish me luck.

There's some  good news and there's some bad news.
 
The good news is that I've been shortlisted for the second round of interview by Polaris. My interview is on Tuesday at 11:00 AM. Its supposed to be technical. Wish me luck. These guys do move slow... I attended the first interview sometime in May.
 
The bad news...well we just found out that my dad has both high blood pressure as well as diabates. We've been in and out of hospitals and clinics for the past week, taking blood samples, urine samples, having tests done and having tests confirmed....well now we know whats bothering him.
 
My mom has taken some severe measures when it comes to food. No oil, no ghee, no sugar, microscopic amounts of salt...well its been very hard on my dad. He sulks at the dinner table and hardly eats anything.
 
Hmmm, I also learned to make rice...I make some pretty decent rice I think...I'm learning more everyday...

I've quit fretting about my job status. It will come when it has to come. Might as well do things that are within my control like preparing for the CAT. I have a feeling I'll clear the aptitude test for CTS. The interview is supposed to be tough, so I've started brushing up my engineering.

Among other things, My cousin Prashant works at the Taj Coromandel. Poor chap leaves the house at 6:00 AM and returns at 10:00 PM. Anyway, he usually has an interesting story to tell every night. Right now the Indian cricket team is staying at the Taj, so Prashant gets to see them pretty often. (He's cleaned Dravid's room and folded Yuvraj's underwear..."Theyre all Reebok" he tells me.)

Anyway, Zaheer Khan comes to the front desk. The place is filled with kids and their parents who are screaming for his autograph. Zaheer Khan has forgotten his room number, so he asks the receptionist for it. The receptionist gets real nervous and goes into some kind of trance.

Zaheer Khan : " I've forgotten my room number, can you tell me what it is? "

Receptionist (dazedly): " One moment sir. What is your name sir? "

Sepulchral silence.

Zaheer Khan (looking her up and down): "Uhm, Zaheer Khan..."

Nothing else for now. I've started studying with my friend Archie for the CAT. Helps to have a partner esp when all you want to do is sleep in the afternoon. This way I'm more productive when I'm least productive and I dont feel guilty about wasting my time at the end of the day.

K,you know what? I'm getting sick of the Penis Enlargement ads that cram my inbox. Everyday I have to patiently clean out a dozen emails that claim that if I buy their
product, I will be able to satisfy a blue whale. Pills, powders, rubber thingies, secret Arabian techniques.....apparently there's this technique called the "Arabian Jelq"
or something which is taught by Arabian fathers to their Arabian sons so that they may use their thingies more effectively to produce more Arabian sons and thus pass
on the ancient jelq tradition. Now why do I want to know all this? After all, size does not matter when

a)you never have got any
b)you arent getting any
c)you are not likely to get any for a while...

Some of these emails have very detailed diagrams too....not something you want to see when

1) you are straight
2) you are frantically going through your email in search of a letter from a prospective employer.

Ofcourse there is the case of one of these penis enlargement companies is looking for a fresh BE graduate in the field of electrical engineering for a challenging and
exciting career in penis enlargement all for a "huge" salary...Now that I might consider....

What can I say? I miss her so bad.

Got this off an email forward:

Question: What is the height of globalization?

Answer: Princess Diana's death
Question: How come?

Answer: An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French
tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who
was high on Scottish whiskey, followed closely by Italian Paparazzi, on
Japanese motorcycles, treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian
medicines! And this is sent to you by an Indian, using Bill Gates'
technology which he stole from the Japanese. And you are probably reading
this on one of the IBM clones that use Philippine-made chips, and Korean
made monitors, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant,
transported by lorries driven by Malaysians, hijacked by Indonesians and
finally sold to you by a Chinese!

That's Globalization

Whew! So I'm finally an engineer :-). Results came out today, I got 83% :-D.
Highest I ever scored in my engineering (come to think of it, all my life:P). Now all I need is a job :P

I dont think I've come online so often before. Sure there was the time when I just got my internet connection and I realised there was a whole world of porn waiting to be explored. Porn got boring after a few years, after all, there's only so much 2 people can do (and 3 people and 4 people and...n people...and sometimes not even people....I wont go into the details).

Since I am kinda jobless,I log on every 2 hours to see if some company out there has decided to hire me and pay me a fat salary. So far, no company has..but I've got my hopes up.

What I dislike right now is not having a schedule or a purpose for the day. You know that somethings wrong when the weekend is no different from the weekday.

I keep telling myself that I should sit down and study for the CAT again..but finding motivation is hard, esp because I'm also hoping to get a job. I've got confused goals now. I thought I had it all figured out when I told myself " I'll prepare for the CAT and if I get a job then well and good ". Trouble is,I didnt bother to account for all the heartbreaks, the tension, the jealousy that an intensive job search brings along. Its very distracting. Besides the thought of going through all that preparation again for the CAT isint attractive.

I guess I have no choice though.I really have to study...here's wishing I'll stick with it.

Well, nothing worth mentioning has happened in the last couple of days. I might get a call from ICICI Infotech..but dont wanna go into the details of it. The last time I got too excited about a job, I paid for it.

Watched Anger Management...not too great a movie. Not really funny..

Hmm, CTS keeps postponing the date of its aptitude test. Now I have to check my status again on July 13th. They've been postponing it since May 12th!

Among other things...I just wish July 4th would never arrive. I hope we get caught in some kinda time warp and that its now December 18th 2003 :-(

Here's a nice article I got off Rediff:

The truth about IT cats & dogs

June 24, 2004


There are two kinds of engineering students in India -- the cats whom all companies run after, and the underdogs, who are running after the companies. The cats usually bag the cool jobs which pay you well, send you abroad and keep you far far away from sweaty industrial shopfloors. 55,000 such cats found employment with the likes of Infosys, Wipro, TCS and other such companies in 2003-2004, by Nasscom estimates. But considering that India produces over 300,000 engineers annually, it's a dog's life for many fresh graduates out there.

So, what is it that separates the IT cats from the dogs? It's a question that needs to be asked, as yet another admissions season is upon us. The mad rush for engineering seats continues fuelled by this simple logic: Engineering has more value in the job market than an 'ordinary' BSc. And the jobs that are fuelling this perception are the lucrative software careers. Few would be happy building roads and bridges or working in factories -- as previous generations of engineers did.

Let's face it -- an engineering degree is a means to an end, not an end in itself. But it can turn into a dead end if you don't keep the following facts in mind:

* It's not what you study, but where you study that counts: Always, always choose college over branch. The reputation of a college is what determines campus placement prospects. This might mean doing civil engineering at VJTI although you have little interest in the subject. Live with it. At the end of 4 years, a bunch of software companies will visit the campus. If you pass their aptitude test and interviews, you're in.

It sounds illogical but companies look at it this way. "We believe in the generic concept of learnability," says Hema Ravichander, Senior VP (HR) at Infosys. "This, we define as the ability of the individual to derive generic knowledge from specific experiences and apply the same to future contexts." So when the company visits a campus engineers from any stream are welcome to apply for the aptitude test. All recruits are subsequently put through 14 1/2 weeks of intense training.

The scene at Wipro is similar. "At one time, we insisted on BE Electronics/Computer Science," says Ranjan Acharya, corporate VP, HRD, Wipro. "Now we look at basic analytical ability, understanding and grasping power." Wipro has a 45-day training program for computer engineers, and a longer one of 70-days for those from other streams.

Here's the catch, though. Infosys visits 60 to 70 engineering colleges for campus placements annually. IITs, NITs and a few top colleges in every state make up that list. "Historical relationship, performance of hires from a particular campus, ratio of offers made:joined are the main factors which determine which colleges we visit for placement year after year," says Ms Ravichander. Wipro visits 120 colleges, but its intake is less than Infy. TCS is the other large recruiter which visits about 130 colleges.

A relatively new recruiter -- Cognizant Technologies -- has also started hiring aggressively from premier engineering campuses. The company planned to pick up 60% of its targetted 4,000 new recruits for 2004 through campus placements.

* Performance does matter: The top software companies are pretty sticky when it comes to grades. It's not enough to just get into a great college, you must perform once you get there. Consistency is a very important -- companies will look at your grades right from class X onwards and expect to see a first class through all years of engineering. ATKTs (Allowed To Keep Term despite failing a subject) or dropped years are a strict no no.

This is a tall order, especially in some universities like Mumbai known for its vagaries, which often affect even the brightest students. As a popular shayari on Mumbai engineering campuses goes: Woh baap hi kya jiski beti nahin... Woh engineer hi kya jiski ATKT nahin.

Jokes apart, performance is key even if you get into a college which doesn't have attractive campus placements. A 60% throughout your engineering career ensures you still have a shot at your dream job. You can apply when these companies conduct aptitude tests off-campus.

The story goes like this. Companies have to make offers through the campus placement route, 12 to 15 months before the actual joining date. A lot can happen during this period -- often requirements drastically change. So a certain % of freshers are taken in at a later date, through off campus hiring. Infosys for example will visit various cities and test up to 10,000 applicants in a single day. Graduates from any engineering college can apply, as long as they have a first class throughout.

Aptitude tests normally cover arithmetic and analytical skills, GDs (group discussions) gauge communication skills and in the interview applicants are usually quizzed on basics from their core subjects. Any project work you may have done, as well as extra technical knowledge, eg having leant a popular programming language could help tip the scales in your favour.

Since many engineers are eventually put on the project management track, qualities such as leadership skills, teamwork and all round personality also matter.

* The year you graduate matters: An engineering course takes 4 years to complete. A lot can happen in the IT world in that time.

Some factors are simply not in your control. The graduating class of 2002 had a tough time finding jobs. 2003 was better, and the current year -- 2004 -- has seen a boom in demand for freshers. Infosys alone recruited 10,000 employees, a majority of them straight from engineering campuses. At Bangalore's RV College of Engineering 43% of the 460 students seeking placement were recruited by just 4 software companies -- Infy, TCS, Syntel and Cognizant.

This upward trend is expected to continue. But if you are entering an engineering college today, it's hard to tell exactly what the job scene will look like in 2008. Especially since the ups and downs in the US economy directly affect the fortunes of Indian software companies.

In boom years, students have more choices and better prospects. For example, at IIT Chennai last year, a strange thing happened. Less than half of the 450 eligible students took the TCS aptitude test. And there wasn't a single computer science student in that lot. Why? The salaries offered by Indian software companies (in the Rs 1.8 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per annum range) weren't attractive enough compared to other recruiters like McKinsey (Rs 7 lakhs pa), Intel and HLL (both offered Rs 4.6 lakhs pa).

In a tough year such as 2002 there was a major hue and cry when Infosys hinted it was reconsidering some of the offers made on the IIT campus several months earlier. The offers were later honoured. Companies realise that some years are hard on freshers. For example, in February 2004 TCS continued to invite entry level applications from engineers who had graduated in 2002 and 2003, as long as they had not been interviewed by the company within the last 6 months.

* You're no 22, try harder: It's true that graduating from a lesser known engineering school may mean you leave campus without a job. But it's not the end of the world. It simply means you have to conduct your own jobhunt. Respond to ads in newspapers, upload your resume on job sites and start doing the rounds of companies. Staying in touch with friends and seniors who've already got jobs is a great way to get to know about openings and entrance tests. Some companies actually prefer to recruit through employee referrals.

The good news is, a sustained effort of 3 to 6 months usually gets you a job. The important thing is to stay optimistic! As an underdog, you may end up joining an underdog company, ie a smaller outfit. But with the right experience and skills picked up along the way you can always hop, skip and jump your way to the software company of your dreams.

* Engineers@call centres: Last but not the least -- the call centre option. BPO outfits such as Wipro Spectramind actively recruit engineers, paying them higher salaries than regular graduates. And they have no dearth of applicants. But most engineers see call centre jobs -- even if they're in technical support -- only as a short term option.

If things don't work out on the software front, there's always the option of going in for higher studies. Which for most, boils down to an MBA. But remember, there are two kinds of MBA students in India -- the cats whom all companies run after, and the underdogs, who are running after the companies... But that, is another story waiting to be old.

Rashmi Bansal is an IIM Ahmedabad graduate and founder-editor of the popular youth magazine JAM www.jammag.com

She can be reached at rashmi@jammag.com

Watched "Brother Bear" with a friend today. Good movie, quite touching. Its a nice family sort of movie, go watch it if you can.

Couple of things I should mention:

1)Nice to meet you Taruni. After 8 months of knowing you, it was nice to finally meet you :D

2)Congrats Shobha for getting a job with Barry Weh Mlller, you owe me a treat (and dont tell me you cant get cash because your dad put it in the bank)

3) Thank you 9444------ for a most exciting june 19th ;-)

Dropped off my resume at the L&T office on Mount Road yesterday.Also modified my resume because it was too big and didnt look professional.Kinda happy with the new one.

I also registered with a few job sites like www.chetna-jobs.com and www.monsterindia.com
I've heard that they send tons of email, so I created a new email id:
employdd@rediffmail.com . Please dont mail me there, its meant only for prospective employers :P

My parents went to Coimbatore for the weekend, so my cousin Prashant and I lived a very bachelors life for 2 days. We ate outside, didnt bother about personal hygiene, didnt bother to boil water, so there was no drinking water available until I went and bought some :P. Prashant got a dozen cd's to watch. I watched only one though(spiderman), I'm not too into movies.

I've bought myself a Terry Pratchet book, reading it now.

I love the number 6. I just hope it becomes 12 and multiples of 12 thereafter. If you dont understand this, dont bother.I know someone else out there does :-)

He He, the moment Gmail came out with its 1 GB account, Yahoo made itself a 100 MB account and now rediff is offering 1 GB too! What will I do with all that memory space?

I'm beginning to enjoy the benifits of unemployment. To do nothing all day seems like sheer bliss to me. However, 2 conditions have to be satisfied before I start basking in the luxury of idleness :

1) My dad has to go to work in Pondicherry
2) My mom has to go to work in school.

See, once the two people who worry the most about my future are out of the way, I automatically start relaxing a bit. This is not to say I dont worry about my future.In fact all I do these days is worry about my future.Its just that after a while worrying about your future starts getting on your nerves and you cant do anything without feeling like a burden to your parents.

Tamizh slang has the perfect word to describe my current status-" Dhanda Soru". For my very english friends, literally translated it means "Waste Food" (ie) an idle person who eats the food his parents provide and does nothing all day to deserve the food. My only consolation at the moment is most of my classmates are in the same boat:P.

Getting a job would be a major ego booster for me now. It would mean financial freedom, perhaps a vehicle of my own, a cellphone and most important of all, it would send a strong signal to my parents that I have grown up and can look after myself.

IGATE had another exam in Eashwari engineering college. I didnt go because I had attended the test in DG Vaishnav college a couple of weeks earlier and they had asked for Rs.29000 as training fees. So when I heard they were having another exam, I didnt bother to go. Now I get the awful news that no mention of the training fees was made yesterday :-(. A few of my classmates have got through the initial rounds...damn! Why didnt I write the exam! Its a missed opportunity and I feel terrible about it.

Here's what I plan to do with my life for the next 5 months ( sorry AJ, I had to flick your code idea :P )

void main( )
{
while (unemployed)
{
if (status= = employed)
{
cout<<" HALLELUJAH!!!";
break;

}

studyforCAT( );

goforcomputercourse( );

readthedamnnewspaperfindoutwhoprimeministeris( );

gym( );

}

}

A depressing birthday, but a happy ending nevertheless. And hey! my blog is a 100 posts old!

I share my birthday with Donald Duck, didnt know that :p

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/10donald.htm

So today I'm 21. Was woken up at the ghastly hour of 5 AM because my mother wanted to watch Sanskar TV, one of those religious channels. The bhajans sung slowly penentrated into my subconcious and proceeded to extract me from my sleep in slow painful steps. Its very uncomfortable to woken up that way. First you are fast asleep, then you slowly become aware that there's something is bothering you, though you are too befuddled to know what it is. Images from the TV brighten,darken, flicker and pulsate through your closed eyelids. Then the monotonous bhajan slowly pounds against your eardrums and makes you want to scream, pull your hair out and throw the TV out of the window. At this point my mother wished me a happy birthday and asked me to go sleep in the hall. Too drowsy to comply, I lay still. Then the bearded chap on Sanskar TV began giving a lecture on how to sleep well. The hypocrite! I picked up my pillow and bedsheet and went to the hall. Hardly had I closed my eyes when I started recieving phone calls wishing me. Sigh.

I'm reading Kalki's "Ponniyan Selvan". I've realised that all the books I've read are by european or american authors. Other than RK Narayan, I havent read any indian or more important, tamil ( tamizh! apar) authors. I'm not reading the original tamizh version though, its an english translation.

So far, the book has all the elements of a spy and war novel. Quite intriguing to say the least. It does take some times to get familiar with the names though, they are really hard to pronounce. My eyes just glaze over when I read sentences like

"There was a pallipadai of this kind near the village of Thirupurambayam, half a kadham to the northwest of Kudandhai, on the northern banks of the Manni."...quite a mouthful huh? ;-)

Went to collect some photographs from Guhan studio yesterday. I've been getting my photos developed there for as long as I can remember. The studio is run by two grim looking sisters with lots of make up. They never bat an eyelid and I've never seen them smile.Theyre presence is there is purely functional. You pay the money and they will give you the photos and if you are lucky, they will glare at you.

For the first time EVER! they smiled at me. Guess why? Because I refused to take a plastic cover.I've been refusing plastic for a few years now because I'll be crucified at home if I bring plastic in. My mom feels very strongly about the whole non-biodegradable issue.

Anyway, they complimented me and said I was the only MAN theyd seen who had refused a plastic cover.( Hmm, or maybe they were just turned on by the sight of me in shorts...quite a possibility...).

Its a new day, a new start. Forget about barry, stay positive.

Being a cynic, I always assume the worst is going to happen. A negative quality perhaps, but I'm a cynic because I know the higher my hopes rise, the harder I must fall when the truth revealts itself. Until yesterday my friend Poorni rendered glowing descriptions of how well I'd performed in the interview. She made me feel really good about myself. I was on a high all day...until I realised I still hadnt got an official phone call. So then I worried myself thin during the afternoon and evening. I called Poorni in the evening but she wasnt home yet. She finally called back and said " I'm sorry, you've been put on hold for the moment. Maybe you'll know in a week..." She then apologised for getting my hopes up and said I shouldnt worry. Sweet perhaps but my heart was already broken. The cynic in me taunts saying
" See, you were an ass to think you'd get through. You shouldnt have started dreaming about buying yourself a phone and a vehicle. You shouldnt have dreamed of a nice fat pay cheque! Look at whats happened now...".

I'm depressed because I've fallen once again to the mediocrity of unemployment. It felt good to think of myself as employed and earning a salary. Now that I've been rudely brought back to earth, I just want to cry.

No call from barry as yet. I'm getting scared. I called them up and the lady politely said she'd let me know if I'd gotten through to the next round. I'm slowly losing hope...sigh and I spent the entire morning dreaming of ways to spend my salary...

Blog meet photos at http://www.lazygeek.net/mbm2004/

Check em out.

I've got unofficial news that I've got through the Barry interview. This my friend Poorni who works over there tells me. I havent got an official call though. My friend Shobha however has got an official call. There's a final round of interview with the General Manager of the company left. Keeping my fingers crossed....

Went for a Madras Bloggers meet yesterday at the Amethyst. About 20 of us turned up, an eclectic mix of PSBBians and IITians ( Also one bi-sexual mallu, one girl who did not like PSBBians or IITians, one man clad in revealing shorts ;-), one man with a cellphone shaped like a video game and one veritable old man who claimed he had come to increace the average age of the crowd.). The first half was kinda akward. People who knew each other laughed and joked among themselves while newbies like me sat with a frozen smile on our faces, not sure what to do. I spent a lot of time just turning my head from side to side trying to get a feel of the crowd. Eventually the entire crowd did warm up and the conversations and jokes that followed were side-splittingly hilarious.

Among other funny incidents, a fashionably clad, fairly pretentious young girl of about 15 called out loudly to her friends " Yo guys! Lets meet up at Bikes and Barrels!". She turned around and saw 20 of us staring right back at her. Also one chap among us who wasnt feeling too well saying " I dont feel so great, dont want anything cold, I'll have a warm iced tea please.".

On the whole, an enjoyable evening with a fairly intelligent crowd. True the mosquitoes made things a bit difficult (esp for shorts), but I did enjoy myself. Made a few friends and most important of all, selfishly promoted my own blog. So a satisfying evening, to say the least.

And guys, if you are reading this, do check out : http://ddspace.topcities.com

Suggestions, criticism welcome.

The Barry interview...I'm not sure how it went. There were two interviews, a technical interview and a HR interview. The technical interview went kinda well. I was asked to explain how sea water could be used to generated electricity, so I drew a tidal plant. Then the interviewer said that if he had a small toy car on a black surface and there was a white line running on it, how would I get the car to run only on the white line? This I could answer too. Then came the surprise question. He gave me a big smile and asked " Why are man-hole lids circular in shape?". I thought hard, tried to relate it to area occupied but I said I didnt know it in the end. Other questions were mostly on my project. The interview went on for about 30 minutes. I was offered coffee but I politely refused( I didnt want them to see the cup rattling in my hand from nervousness). 2 minutes into the interview, the interviewer knocks his own cup of coffee over and coffee runs all over the table, drenches my resume and my appraisal form. A stream of coffee rushes towards me, comes right upto the edge of the table and then mercifully stops. The interviewer apologised so profusely, I felt embarassed.

After this, I went down to the reception and ran into my friend Poorni who works over there. I asked her the man-hole lid question. She thought for a while, laughed and said " Man-hole lids are circular because Man-hole's are circular!!!" DUH!!! I went for a technical interivew, not a Poor-Joke interview! I was annoyed!

What I'm really scared of is the HR interview. The lady interviewing me was very friendly and made me feel nice and comfortable. I think she did this to loosen my tongue. She asked me what my hobbies were and I told her about my writing, showed her a Colleger issue. She read the sports article and laughed. The interview went on for close to 35 minutes and mostly only my writing was discussed. When it was over and I rose to leave, she asked " Why not a career in journalism, why software?". So I said I enjoyed writing as a hobby and I would never enjoy it if I had to do it full time. She seemed to accept my explanation and I left. What I'm really scared of is that I might have given the impression that I was not suited for the position. I shouldnt have blabbed about how much I enjoyed writing, should have said I loved to program(white lie, but hey I need a job). She said she'd let me know by monday. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Barry interview is tommorow and its occupied all my thoughts today. I thought about it even in the gym. One chap kept asking for help and I was absent mindedly assisting him, my mind being completely occupied with the forthcoming interview. After a while, he came up to me and said " Hi, I'm Ashok and I work for CTS" to which I replied " Hi, I'm Dinesh, I have an interview tommorow." Duh!!! What kind of answer was that?? I felt like kicking myself. The chap gave me a strange look and went away. He didnt ask for help after that.

I have to go through C++ concepts, brush up my HTML(why ever did I mention it in my resume? :-( ), revise my project and give convincing answers as to why I want to join that company. So need to do some homework now.

In a way, I guess its my fault. Directly or indirectly, I have been responsible for one of the most action packed, high emotion, high drama days of my sisters life.The thing was you see, my sister had put on a lot of weight. Before her wedding, she'd been pretty skinny but afterwards, she put on a lot of weight. Dutiful brother that I was, I ensured that I made negative remarks regarding her weight whenever I saw her. After which I had the satisfaction of watching my sister squirm, wail,complain to my mom and then run to the mirror to check her physique from all angles.

She joined aerobics classes. The classes went on till everyone else in the class dropped out. Who'd want to jump and dance at 5:30 in the morning anyway? So then my sister took up swimming. A couple of days back, my sister found herself practically alone at the pool. Her only company was a 10 year old boy who insisted that she dive from the springboard a few times to entertain him. My sister dutifully agreed and jumped a few times for him. The bonding completed, she returned home,had a bath and discovered that her "Thali" was missing. For those of you who dont know what a Thali is, its a thread with some ornaments which is tied around the bride's neck by the groom during the marriage. Its the most important part of the marriage ceremony and its the final proof that the woman is married. Its supposed to remain around the neck for her entire lifetime. So naturally when she found she was Thaliless, my sis panicked. She dragged my Brother-in-law to the swimming pool so that she could find it again. Trouble was, she'd forgotten her swimsuit this time. So she ran to her friends room and borrowed her swimsuit. It never occured to my sis that the swim suit was too small for her. So pushed, pulled and squirmed into the suit and dived into the pool. First dive, no sign of Thali. Second dive, no sign of Thali. Third dive, her contact lenses drifted away.

You must understand that without her contact lenses, my sister cant even distinguish between night and day.(Luckily, I did not inherit this from my dad). So my sister struggled out of the pool, got onto the land, went to the changing room and found that the swimsuit had ripped.

She tearfully asked the trainer there too look for the Thali. He dived once and came up, triumphantly holding the Thali in his hand.

So in a way, I guess I'm responsible for the mishap. Trouble is, I find the whole incident uproariously funny :P.

Here's some stuff my cousin Prashant picked up at the Taj Hotel. I find it kinda funny.

Service Facts
Why do customers leave ?
1% -- Die
3% -- move
5% -- buy information from friends.
9% -- Lower price from competition.
14% -- Quality
68% -- Indifference towards customers.

5 Determinants of Service.
Reliability 32%
Responsiveness 22%
Assurance 19%
Empathy 16%
Tangibles 11%

Types of Language and their impact.
Verbal 7%
Vocal 38%
Visual 55%

Private and public Zones
Intimate Zone 0 to 1.5 ft Emotional relation
Personal Zone 1.5 to 4 ft Social oficial relation
Social Zone 4 to 12 ft Stranger postman etc
Public Zone 12 ft+ Large Groups

What irritates the guest the most ?
No
Not yet
I have been busy
Its company policy
I dont know
You will have to
That’s not my department
We dont do that here
It was’nt me
I did’nt tell u that
Have a pleasant night

I cleared the Barry-Wehmiller written test. My interview is on Saturday :-). I'm wondering though, I'm a EEE student, dont know too much about software. Lets see how things go.

I've changed my gym. This one is called "Slimline Gym". This will be my 4'th gym

now. Admittedly, the names of these gyms have been pretty cliched : Image Gym,

Power Gym(Now Gold Gym), Juvenile Health Spa( Now Power Gym.I sat on the

owners head until he changed the name, It took me a long time to explain the

meaning of juvenile). So now the latest is Slimeline Gym.

My very first gym was Image Gym. It was a place where my friends and I would

religiously assemble each morning and have amazing workouts for our mouths as

we gossiped away. We really didnt know too much about working out. Often

some wise guy would come up to me and say " You're doing the exercise all

wrong, thats not the way to work your biceps!" to which I'd retort " Atleast I'm

working out some muscle arent I??" My friends and I thought that just by heaving

a few weights, we'd become huge and muscular. In fact, in a months time, I began

to feel huge and muscular, sneering at mere mortals who didnt lift weights. My ego

ruptured however when I visited my school and all my teachers told me I looked

thin and sickly. Apparently, just lifting weights wasnt enough. I did a lot of research

on the net. You had to lift heavy, lift proper, eat right and take lots of rest. None of

which I was doing.

My friend then visited Power gym and found it a lot more spacious, the equipment

wasnt old and rusty as it was in Image and the instructors had impressive

physiques. So we left image and came to Power (which we hadnt chosen the first

time because it looked like a "rowdy" gym). Power was a good place, but I

disliked going to Besant Nagar every day after college. So when they opened a

new branch in Adyar, I left Power. So now it was Juvenile Health Spa.

Some of my complaints against Juvenile Health spa are that its too small, getting

too crowded( which means I'm wasting too much time just waiting for equipment).

My biggest complaint however, is that the Pull Up's bar sucks. Its part of another

bench and I feel so uncomfortable doing the exercise I love the most. I cant move

up without banging and bruising my knees against the bench. The dips bars are

located on the same bench and everything shakes violently when I perform the

exercise. I guess the only real convenience this gym provided was that it was really

close to my place.

Slimline gym is spacious, has excellent equipment and there are always a few

trainers around to help you. Its all very professional. They also have some very

strict rules. What does tick me off though is that you have to work out in a T shirt

or shirt. You cant walk around in your banian. Also, you cant use the treadmill

unless you are on the weight loss program. Grrr.

When I had my first workout yesterday, the trainer told me I was doing the bench

press all wrong and I lacked balance. He treated me like I was a babe in the

woods. I was insulted, but you know what? He was right. I was doing it all wrong.

So I've decided to swallow my pride and try to get things right.

So lets see how this gym works out for me.

I've been running around writing one exam after the other for the past few days. Polaris, Polaris interview,Barry Weh Miller, IGATE....

I've got through the PAT, Barry results will be out in 2 weeks ( I have no hopes though, I didnt know anything in the software paper). What really ticks me off is that I didnt clear the IGATE test. It was stupidly easy (Not that I'd have taken it up, theyve asked for Rs 29000 for the training program).

So I'm basically out of the house everyday by 7:30 AM, I come back in the afternoon and have a nice nap.Usually spend the evening with a book.

I've realised that I need to lose some weight. I stumbled across an entry I'd made 2 years ago in a notebook( I took my gym very seriously then). I weighed 60 kilos and had a waist of 30 inches. Now I weigh 66 kilos and have a waist of 32 :-(. Really need to go jogging. Dont want a belly :-(

Had my PAT interview. It lasted only about 5 minutes and the questions werent too vicious. I was asked questions like Tell me about yourself, describe your family, why should we hire you? What salary do you expect? Will you accept postings anywhere? blah blah blah. Anyway, the interviewer said they'd let me know in 10 days.

I've cleared the PAT :-). My interview will probably be tommorow or day after.

I'm obviously pleased I got through, but I dont want to get my hopes up too high. Its a lot more painfull when you get closer to the job and then get rejected in the very last round. LIBA was lesson.

K, anyway, I'm just going to stay positive for now.

Somethings not quite right.I've been rather uneasy for the past few days. I think its because I am so uncertain of my future at the moment and also because someone very dear to me is leaving for higher education. Its a gnawing type of uneasiness which gnaws away from the pit of my stomach.

I wake up each morning not sure what to look forward to. Time lies heavy on my hands and I'm painfully aware of each passing second. Right now I'm sending my resume for every software company that advertises on the paper or online.

Ok, enough of dark uneasy thoughts.

I've made a rough plan on how to prepare for the CAT. Data Interpretation and Logical Ability is something I need to really work hard at. Quants is something I used to be shit scared of but lately I've become more confident. My mind still freezes when it comes to DI though. I really dont know how to manipulate those figures. Needs lots and lots of work.

I went and wrote the Polaris Aptitude test at a school in Kilpauk today. You ought to have seen the number of people there. It reminded very nastily of the sheer competition one faces. When we had to get into the exam hall, it was like trying to board the unreserved compartment on the train to Bombay. I fought my way madly through the crowd and got myself a seat.

There were two tests, a technical test having questions only from electrical and electronics and an aptitude test having the usual quants, logical and verbal questions.
The technical test was pretty basic stuff but I wasnt so sure of how I'd done when I finished it. More than one answer looked very tempting :P. The aptitude test was pretty simple, I think I did it well.

Results will be out only tommorow, so I have to go all the way back to Kilpauk :-(

About the only place where the summer is worse than in Chennai is probably Calcutta. Its beastly hot even at 8 in the evening. Well, perhaps I'm saying that because the max temp in Darjeeling was 18 degrees :P.

I've spent enough time in the east and I long for the comforts of the south. Perhaps not comfort...but the familiarity atleast. I'll be home tommorow night and I look forward to it.

I have to give the PAT, the aptitude test for Polaris on the 22'nd. My dad insisted that I brush up with C and C++ for it. So we went and bought a book on College street here. College street is something like Richie street in Chennai except that they sell books by the ton.Quite exciting for a book freak like me :)

Not sure what I can acomplish in a day though, wonder what the PAT will be like.

Darjeeling is breathtaking. Thats all I can say for now. I'm just too tired to wax eloquent on the weather and the scenery. Will do so once I get back to Chennai.

Today, I went to the loo 3000 metres above sea level while travelling at over 600km/hr. Yep, I'm talking about my flight. I havent been in a plane in 17 years, so it was quite an experience.

I reached Calcutta in 2 hours flat, quite different from the usual 34 hour journey by train. Somewhat crappy food was served on the flight, I couldnt identify most of it. I thought I was eating Pizza but my mom told me it was a dosai :P. Anyway, it was genuine airline food, so I'm taking it as an experience :P.

Our Darjeeling tickets will be confirmed at 4:30 PM tommorow. If they are confirmed, we have to take the 7:00 PM train. If not, we stew in Calcutta till the 21'st :-(.

More tommorow.

I leave for Calcutta this evening. I'll spend about 3 days in Darjeeling, some time in Cal and then I'm back in Chennai. End of vacation, beginning of my adult life.

Congratulations to Aparna for getting into BIM :-). Way to go Apar, I always knew you'd make it :-).

I'm going to write the CAT again, I'm actually taking some study material with me. I wont be studying in Darjeeling( just in case you think I'm crazy). Once I'm in Cal, I'll be pretty vetti for about 3-4 days. I'm supposed to write a travelogue for the Colleger magazine on Darjeeling. Hope I get good money for it ;-).

Bye for now.

A few things I like about Bangalore :

1) The weather is absolutely amazing. You can doze for hours together without sweating your blood out as happens in Chennai.

2) Let me make it clear : YOU DONT SWEAT!!!

3) NO CONDITIONAL ACCESS SYSTEM (CAS) which implies I spend a LOT of time watching ZEE English and Star World and Cartoon Network :-D :-D :-D

My relatives here think I've put on a lot of weight. I'm about 65 kilos now and I think I look pretty normal. Guess I must have been one skinny runt back then.

I read Life of Pi and the book is pretty good. Its hilarious in the beginning, kinda sad in the middle and the ending leaves you in a lot of doubt. I know this is not the best of reviews, perhaps I'll write a better one later but do try to get your hands on that book. Right now, I just started Vernon God Little.

I'm sitting in a tiny cramped cubicle as I write this. Better go before my sis starts wondering where I am.

I have a super duper cold and it feels like I have a few cement sacks strapped to my head. Its THAT heavy.

my cousin Prashant finally got his call letter from the Taj. The good news is that his salary is double of what he expected. The bad news is that he has to join work on the 15'th of may which means that he cant come with us to Darjeeling :-(.

In case I havent told you about my impending trip: I leave for Bangalore on the 6'th, come back here on the 12'th and then fly to Calcutta on the 13'th. From there its Darjeeling for 2 days and I'm back in Chennai on the 21'st. Now that Prashant isint coming, everyone else on the trip is over 50 (My dad, mom, aunt, uncle and grandmother). Dad is a lil sceptical of grandmother coming cos her legs arent in very good shape and she walks really really slowly. He's not sure if she can take the strain of travel. Besides, my uncle and aunt also suffer from various health complications. In case of an emergency, it would be useful to have Prashant around.

K, dont have anything to do today.

Went with a few friends for a walk in interview at HCL BPO. There was a terrific crowd when we got there. In the end there was no interview as such, just an aptitude test. The results are supposed to be mailed to us.
We came back home and watched a bit of "Aley Payudhey" on TV but the power went off and didnt return till much later. Also, surprise surprise, it rained today!!

I have a terrible headache and sore throat now, hope I'll be fine tommorow

The end of an era....

I'm an Engineer now. Cant believe it can you? I cant quite believe it myself. 4 years of college have just flown past.

I cant say I progressed intellectually in these 4 years ;-) but I did make an enormous number of really really good friends. I'm gonna miss them real bad.Somehow when I was in school., I didnt really make too many friends but college has been a different story altogether.

Yesterday after the last exam got over, we guys went to the beach. We ate bajjis and yakked our hearts out. There were about 22 of us there. The guys wanted to play kabaddi. Never having played the game, I opted to sit down and watch for a while. All the guys took of their shirts, their belts, their watches, their cellphones, their wallets and gave it all to..guess who?? ME! For the next 30 minutes, I was richer than I'd ever been in my whole life. I had a lap full of shirts, 2 arms covered with wrist watches, my bag was bursting with cellphones and wallets and I had 2 gold chains around my neck. I could have simply walked away with the loot...sigh.

Anyway, after the kabaddi match, all the guys got into a huddle, just like the Indian cricket team. I expected someone to say something poetic but everyone was silent. Then we started revolving as a group, shouting on top of our voices and doing a mini dance kicking sand up in the air. It was GOOD.

So today I plan to go out with a couple of friends. I only hope I wont ever fall out of touch with them.

I came across this sometime back. Read it, it makes you think...


Nathuram Godse's self-prepared defense in the court



Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu
religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely
proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free
thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political
or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of
untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined
anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as
to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit
alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or
profession. I used publicly to take part in organized anti-caste dinners
in which thousands of Hindus, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Chamars
and Bhangis participated. We broke the caste rules and dined in the
company of each other.

I have read the speeches and writings of Dadabhai Naoroji, Vivekanand,
Gokhale, Tilak, along with the books of ancient and modern history of
India and some prominent countries like England, France, America and'
Russia. Moreover I studied the tenets of Socialism and Marxism. But above
all I studied very closely whatever Veer Savarkar and Gandhiji had written
and spoken, as to my mind these two ideologies have contributed more to
the moulding of the thought and action of the Indian people during the last
thirty years or so, than any other single factor has done.

All this reading and thinking led me to believe it was my first duty to
serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen.
To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty
crores (300 million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom
and the well-being of all India, one fifth of human race. This conviction
led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanghtanist ideology
and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve
the national independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to
render true service to humanity as well.

Since the year 1920, that is, after the demise of Lokamanya Tilak,
Gandhiji's influence in the Congress first increased and then became
supreme. His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their
intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence
which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or
enlightened person could object to those slogans. In fact there is nothing
new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional
public movement. But it is nothing but a mere dream if you imagine
that the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous
adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day.
In fact, hunour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might
often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never
conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust. I would
consider it a religious and moral duty to resist and, if possible, to
overpower such an enemy by use of force. [In the Ramayana] Rama killed
Ravana in a tumultuous fight and relieved Sita. [In the Mahabharata],
Krishna killed Kansa to end his wickedness; and Arjuna had to fight
and slay quite a number of his friends and relations including the
revered Bhishma because the latter was on the side of the aggressor.
It is my firm belief that in dubbing Rama, Krishna and Arjuna as guilty
of violence, the Mahatma betrayed a total ignorance of the springs of
human action.

In more recent history, it was the heroic fight put up by Chhatrapati
Shivaji that first checked and eventually destroyed the Muslim tyranny
in India. It was absolutely essentially for Shivaji to overpower and kill
an aggressive Afzal Khan, failing which he would have lost his own life.
In condemning history's towering warriors like Shivaji, Rana Pratap and
Guru Gobind Singh as misguided patriots, Gandhiji has merely exposed his
self-conceit. He was, paradoxical as it may appear, a violent pacifist
who brought untold calamities on the country in the name of truth and
non-violence, while Rana Pratap, Shivaji and the Guru will remain
enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen for ever for the freedom
they brought to them.

The accumulating provocation of thirty-two years, culminating in his last
pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence
of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very
good in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian
community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a
subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of
what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to
accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the
Congress and carry on his own way. Against such an attitude there can be
no halfway house. Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had
to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity,
whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on
without him. He alone was the Judge of everyone and every thing; he was
the master brain guiding the civil disobedience movement; no other
could know the technique of that movement. He alone knew when to begin
and when to withdraw it. The movement might succeed or fail, it might
bring untold disaster and political reverses but that could make no
difference to the Mahatma's infallibility. 'A Satyagrahi can never fail'
was his formula for declaring his own infallibility and nobody except
himself knew what a Satyagrahi is.

Thus, the Mahatma became the judge and jury in his own cause. These
childish insanities and obstinacies, coupled with a most severe austerity
of life, ceaseless work and lofty character made Gandhi formidable and
irresistible. Many people thought that his politics were irrational
but they had either to withdraw from the Congress or place their
intelligence at his feet to do with as he liked. In a position of such
absolute irresponsibility Gandhi was guilty of blunder after blunder,
failure after failure, disaster after disaster.

Gandhi's pro-Muslim policy is blatantly in his perverse attitude on
the question of the national language of India. It is quite obvious
that Hindi has the most prior claim to be accepted as the premier
language. In the beginning of his career in India, Gandhi gave a great
impetus to Hindi but as he found that the Muslims did not like it, he
became a champion of what is called Hindustani. Everybody in India
knows that there is no language called Hindustani; it has no grammar; it
has no vocabulary. It is a mere dialect, it is spoken, but not written.
It is a bastard tongue and cross-breed between Hindi and Urdu, and
not even the Mahatma's sophistry could make it popular. But in his
desire to please the Muslims he insisted that Hindustani alone should be
the national language of India. His blind followers, of course,
supported him and the so-called hybrid language began to be used.
The charm and purity of the Hindi language was to be prostituted to
please the Muslims. All his experiments were at the expense of the
Hindus.

From August 1946 onwards the private armies of the Muslim League began
a massacre of the Hindus. The then Viceroy, Lord Wavell, though
distressed at what was happening, would not use his powers under the
Government of India Act of 1935 to prevent the rape, murder and arson.
The Hindu blood began to flow from Bengal to Karachi with some
retaliation by the Hindus. The Interim Government formed in September
was sabotaged by its Muslim League members right from its inception,
but the more they became disloyal and treasonable to the government of
which they were a part, the greater was Gandhi's infatuation for them.
Lord Wavell had to resign as he could not bring about a settlement and
he was succeeded by Lord Mountbatten. King Log was followed by King
Stork.

The Congress which had boasted of its nationalism and socialism
secretly accepted Pakistan literally at the point of the bayonet and
abjectly surrendered to Jinnah. India was vivisected and one-third of
the Indian territory became foreign land to us from August 15, 1947.
Lord Mountbatten came to be described in Congress circles as the greatest
Viceroy and Governor-General this country ever had. The official date
for handing over power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but
Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected
India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after
thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what Congress party
calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim
unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established
with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called 'freedom
won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of
Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country -
which we consider a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful
anger.

One of the conditions imposed by Gandhi for his breaking of the fast
unto death related to the mosques in Delhi occupied by the Hindu
refugees. But when Hindus in Pakistan were subjected to violent attacks
he did not so much as utter a single word to protest and censure the
Pakistan Government or the Muslims concerned. Gandhi was shrewd enough
to know that while undertaking a fast unto death, had he imposed for
its break some condition on the Muslims in Pakistan, there would have
been found hardly any Muslims who could have shown some grief if the
fast had ended in his death. It was for this reason that he purposely
avoided imposing any condition on the Muslims. He was fully aware of
from the experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced
by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the
inner voice of Gandhi.

Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that
is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very
treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it.
I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved
to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and
his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled
before Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless.

Briefly speaking, I thought to myself and foresaw I shall be totally
ruined, and the only thing I could expect from the people would be
nothing but hatred and that I shall have lost all my honour, even more
valuable than my life, if I were to kill Gandhiji. But at the same time
I felt that the Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely
be proved practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with
armed forces. No doubt, my own future would be totally ruined, but the
nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan. People may even
call me and dub me as devoid of any sense or foolish, but the nation
would be free to follow the course founded on the reason which I consider
to be necessary for sound nation-building. After having fully considered
the question, I took the final decision in the matter, but I did not
speak about it to anyone whatsoever. I took courage in both my hands
and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the
prayer-grounds of Birla House.

I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action
had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus.
There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be
brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots.

I bear no ill will towards anyone individually but I do say that I had
no respect for the present government owing to their policy which was
unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could
clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.
I have to say with great regret that Prime Minister Nehru quite forgets
that his preachings and deeds are at times at variances with each other
when he talks about India as a secular state in season and out of
season, because it is significant to note that Nehru has played a
leading role in the establishment of the theocratic state of Pakistan,
and his job was made easier by Gandhi's persistent policy of
appeasement towards the Muslims.

I now stand before the court to accept the full share of my responsibility
for what I have done and the judge would, of course, pass against me
such orders of sentence as may be considered proper. But I would like
to add that I do not desire any mercy to be shown to me, nor do I wish
that anyone else should beg for mercy on my behalf. My confidence about
the moral side of my action has not been shaken even by the criticism
levelled against it on all sides. I have no doubt that honest writers of
history will weigh my act and find the true value thereof some day
in future.

I've spent the last 2 days being blissfully lazy. My mother has reminded me several times that my exams arent over, but that hasnt sunk in yet. I'm hoping it will sink in before the exam though. Knowing myself, I'll be up at 3:00 AM on the day of the exam cursing myself for not touching the books before ( 10 days time, where did it go?? ). Actually, I've got so used to doing things in the last minute, I've become quite cocky about my ability to mug up so much information in the last minute. I'll come out from the exam hall, swell with pride and say " 1 semester's worth of education studied in 3 hours and I think I've done well! " Then I'll tell myself " If I can accomplish so much in just 3 hours, I would have really aced the paper had I studied earlier.. I'm a genius! "

I've realised I need to start making some money. Gym is quite expensive and my mom and dad always crib about the expenses. I do have some money saved up in the bank, money I got from writing for a few magazines. Problem is I dont know how to withdraw it :P. Should find out.

I just finished reading " Bleachers " by John Grisham and I kinda liked the book. My eyes moistened when I read the last few pages. Its about a football coach who is dying and all the chaps who he coached return to town to attend his funeral. They get together and share memories and relive moments. I didnt understand much of the american football jargon but I did end up asking myself some very important questions. The chaps in the book discuss how hard the coach made them work and then I began asking myself " When was the last time you really worked hard for something?"... I didnt really have an answer. My board exams, the TNPCEE exam, my college university exams, the CAT, the XAT...did I really go out and out and slog my ass off? Do I push myself really hard at the gym? Do I give anything my full 100% and the answer is...no. And its about time I did something about that.

I went turtle walking wednesday night. It was hmm..interesting. First, Tushar came and picked me up at around 8:30 and said " We arent expected till 10:00. I've got a full tank of gas and the scooter does not belong to me, where do you want to go? ". So we went through every road in Adyar, Annamalipuram and Mylapore.

While we were driving in Mylapore, we saw a girl driving her scooter get rammed by a PTC bus. There was this huge BANG! I got off the bike and ran towards her,certain I was going to see a gruesome mess, Tushar following me closely. I got to the girl. The bike had some structural damages but the girl was unhurt. A small crowd formed around her. She insisted she was okay, got onto the bike and drove away! You ought to have seen the way she rammed into that bus, I thought she was a goner for sure.

After that, we drove rather slowly back to Adyar where we were supposed to meet Tushar's aunt and uncle and also our very own turtle of the class, Chandramohan. Tushar then very unwisely asked me to sit with Chandramohan on his bike. The chap drove like a maniac all the way to Neelankarai beach. We screamed down the highway with Chandramohan clapping his hands as he made me listen to awful rendition of " Manmatha Raasa". I spent the entire journey telling him about the accident but the chap didnt care. We never slowed down.

When we got to Neelankarai, the rear tyre became flat. No puncture shop was open so we left the bike in front of one of those numerous vilas which dot the place.We got to the beach and found our guides were 3 kids who were just out of school and had very long hair. They knew what they were talking about anyway and we commenced our walk. We walked for about 20 minutes after turning back. Turtles werent expected so they asked us to go see the hatchery. The hatchery was a small hut like structure, surrounded on all sides by wooden poles. We went inside and got to see baby turtles hatching. About 12 hatched in front of us and we kept them in a basket. It took some time for them to become active. At around 12:30, we took them to the shore and waited for the waves to carry them away.

We spent the night on the beach and it was so damn cold! With Tushar sleeping on my legs, it was even more uncomfortable. Small crabs kept running over my hands and legs. At 5:00 AM, I finally got sick of it. I kicked him off said it was time to go home. Chandramohan said he'd wait for a friend to come and pick him up, so I took a PTC bus and left. Got back home, had a bath and deposited enough sand to have my own mini beach in the bathroom. Then I went to my room and crashed.

Went to Nungambakkam, Spencer's plaza and the British council.The British Council looks amazing after the makeover. Got back home by 7:00.

I guess I have to start sudying today.

My mom put the pillows out to dry on the terrace last afternoon and forgot to collect them later. She remembered at about 11:30 PM and asked me to go fetch them. So, dutiful son that I am, I went upto to the terrace. It was pitch dark and I couldnt see anything. I sort of used my indiglo watch to find the pillows. To my surprise, they were damp. Anyway, I bundled them up and brought them back down. My mom was surpised too. Then suddenly we realised that someone had urinated on them! EEEEEEWWWWW! Dont know which sicko did it. I strongly suspect the kid who lives on the 3'rd floor. If I catch him at it again, I just might throw him off the terrace.

We washed the pillows with surf and lots and lots of dettol and put them out to dry. I dont know if I can use me pillow again :-(. It will never be quite the same between us.

Woke up early this morning and had an excellent back workout at the gym. Came back and had to go with my cousin Prashant to help him vacate his room. We'd hired an old, fit to be scrapped matador van with a rather volatile driver and 4 helpers. The driver was pretty voluble all the way, insisting we pay him more than the Rs.500 we had initially agreed on. We silently refused.

The road after Velachery was terrible and especially after a rather strenuous back workout, I found it even more uncomfortable. Prashant hastened to tell me the road was actually a lot better that it was before.

We got to the house and I helped them load the stuff onto the van. I went back into the room, squatted down to lift a rather heavy iron box and Rriipp! My shorts tore! Luckily Prashant had plenty of shorts around and I gratefully clambered into one of them. We then went to my grandfathers place to unload the bed and then came back home. Prashant had an old electric fan which didnt work and the driver asked him for it. We agreed. Sometime later he asked for the cycle. If the man had his way, we would have returned home with zilch. Anyway, the fan put him in a good mood and he didnt ask for more money.

Had some nice lunch and now I'm due for a nap. I think I'll go the library later. Cricket season at IIT has started, I'm looking forward to bowling :-)

PSS was...well easy, but I still feel I've screwed up. Something about the paper..I cant quite put my finger on it. I think its because I wrote so much, I often wondered if I was writing an answer relevant to the question. Another thing is that there were hardly any diagrams to draw. Any madras university student worth his salt knows that what really counts is not what you write, but what you illustrate. The answer paper basically has to look like a comic strip. Lots of coloured pictures and very little dialogue. So if the question states: " Draw Clarke's diagram for two machine systems with and without losses and explain in detail " and you write " My grandmother's neighbour in Coimbatore had a mutt named Clarke, and one day it got sick and threw up on the door step", YOU WILL NOT GET MARKS. Instead you need to DRAW the dog and the puke, use neat arrow marks and label the dog "CLARKE" and label the puke as " CLARKE'S LOSS ", you can be sure of scoring top marks.

Trust me, this method works, because the honourable Fenil Y Shah comes up with the most imaginative of answers and still gets fantastic marks. Here is a sample of how Fenil thinks:

Gnanaprakasam: You know, the transmission and distribution power loss in India is 40% !!. So hypothetically, if we had 100 power stations, 40 of them would be just for losses!

Fenil ( extremely puzzled ): " So why dont we just shut down those 40 plants?? "

Sigh, I know, I know.

Anyway, I have 10 days before my final exam, so I can take it easy for a while.

A pretty irritating day. Woke up with a headache, tried studying Power System Stability and ended up with a bigger headache. Asked my friend GP to come home and teach me the subject. Asked him to come at 10:00 AM, he turned up at 6:00 PM. Shobha my perennial source of notes, xeroxes and answers took the phone of the hook because she was getting too many calls and couldnt study. Sigh, it made me feel so helpless. I'd gone to her place in the morning to get another ton of xeroxes. She asked me to get a copy for her too and I kinda forgot. She ticked me off proper and cursed herself for trusting me with the job. Felt pretty bad after that. I guess I am a real scatterbrain. If I cant manage taking xeroxes, how can I manage companies? Will an MBA change me?

Also spent the morning discussing future prospects with my dad. Like all such previous conversations, he ended up telling me there was nothing better do than engineering. My dad has a pretty limited view when it comes to careers. Your either an engineer or you are a complete idiot for not pursuing engineering. Thats one reason these conversations go nowhere. I hate attending them because I already know what he's going to say. He's been telling me the same thing for 4 years now. After that my dad will accuse me of avoiding him and not facing reality. Reality sucks. For my dad, engineering is salvation. For me, engineering is well..something I had to go through because everyone else was doing it. My dad is so stubborn, he refuses to believe that people can make their money by other means too. I really dislike the way the dismisses other career options. I hate conversations where the ending has already been fixed.

Well, its late now and I'm drowsy. Have to get up early tommorow.

UEE wasnt so bad, I think I've done quite well. There was a lot of hue and cry over the 4'th unit, somehow I found it quite easy. I came back home, had lunch and then dozed off.

There is some polishing work going on in the next building and the noise generated is driving me mad! Its loud and relentless and fanstastically annoying. I cant catch a decent nap and it drives me to distraction when I try to study.

My table is littered with xeroxes, actually the entire house is littered with them. Until the exam I usually dont have a single scrap of paper to call notes so I take a helluva lot of xeroxes. Its such a pity, until the exam that xerox is more important than my birth certificate and then after the exam, it becomes completely worthless. The life of a xerox is so ephemeral, it makes me sad:-(

So next I have Power System Stability on tuesday, the mother of all tough papers. I have to go find out what its about. So I shall leave now and search for the xerox.

So the babe of my college is getting married. Sigh. Big Sigh. Yes, I know there are a lot of you out there who would disaprove of this entry but I'm a full blooded male dammit!

The babe ( I wont mention her name for decency's sake) gave me a choclate and popped the bad news. I was sort of taken aback and she laughed at my reaction. 5 minutes after she left I began kicking myself for not having said anything intelligent. I might have reasoned with her and convinced her that girls shouldnt be getting married at 21, it puts too much strain on the admirers hearts.

I noticed the babe in my second year, rather late considering most of my friends began drooling over her from day 1 of the first year. She has the kind of physique that would make your loins ache...and now some other guy gets to play house with her and do all the stuff that married couples do. BIG SIGH.

Now that I think about it, I dont think I've exchanged more that 10 meaningful lines with her. First year, I was too blind to notice her. Second year, one of the girls mistakenly assumed that I wanted her to give me an intro. So she yelled it out across the corridor. My ego plummetted to the very depths of the earth.

Third year, I was able to crack a few jokes, make her laugh a bit. Didnt make a big impression though.

Fourth year, Forgot all about her because I suddenly found someone WAY more interesting.

I guess another reason I forgot about her was that though I was really attracted to her physically, intellectually, the attraction was zilch.

I hope my readers will pardon me for this lecherous entry. I do not mean to compare her with anyone I know. Being a male I just had to write one just this one wistful entry.

Back to UEE now.

1 day to do 5 units in Utilization of Electrical Energy(UEE). God help me. I'm already getting sick of the long hours spent at the table. So I guess I need a change of mindset. For the next 24 hours, I'm going to pretend UEE is the best thing that ever happened to me. I shall drool over induction furnaces, smile coyly at tractive calculations and orgasm when I study starting and running characteristics of DC and AC drives. Like Rick Bayan, author of " The Cynic's Dictionary " said:

Self Improvement = Self deception for self improvement.

Had my High Voltage Engineering paper today and I have mixed feelings regarding my performance. 4 units went fine, 1 unit I could not do because there wasnt enough freaking time. To make it worse, we were sitting on the 2'nd floor and the wind kept blowing our papers away. My question paper went for a ride around the class every now and then. We closed the windows but it wasnt enough. After a while I got fed up and asked the teacher to shut the door. Something which aint supposed to be done. Poor thing complied but wasnt strong enough to push the door against the wind. A chap had to help her close it. Each time the stupid attender opened the door our papers would go flying. I got so distracted while tying the sheets, I missed one! Later as I was writing the page numbers, I began to wonder why it was so low. Then I looked down and saw another sheet floating aimlessly. That got me more flustered. I finally broke the knot using brute strength and almost tore the paper ( almost ). In the end, I couldnt write the 4th unit. Not that I knew what to write, but I should have written something!

Came back home, had lunch and had a disturbed nap. I had mixed dreams involving cricket and impulse voltage circuits. Somehow they seemed to be connected and I tossed and turned as I fretted over it. Guess its cos I stuffed so much into my head in the last minute, my brain is discharging all the information.

Have to study! only 1 day before the next exam! HALP!!!

I was wrong, High Voltage Engineering does bring tears to my eyes, thats because I dont understand a damn thing!!!! So many damn circuits, my mind keeps shutting down saying " Too complicated, I cant remember it all '. Sigh.

I guess I have to take a deep breath, get my mind to slow down and pick up the book again. Wish me luck.

Finished reading Man Woman and Child and it made me cry. Well, not cry..its not like I wet my pillow with tears or something, I just felt them well up. Somehow High Voltage Engineering by Mr.M.V Suryanarayana fails to me move me in the same way :P.

No getting away from it, have to slog tommorow and day after if am to entertain any dreams of getting decent marks.

I've got my hands on JACK STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT and Man Woman and Child by Erich Segal. So I'm happy that I have something good to read. I guess I would never rate Erich Segal as one of my favourite authors but what the heck ! I dont have to strain my brain to read it.

Reading Erich Segal's books is like watching television, you dont really have to think,entertainment ( or time pass ) is spoon fed.

I have to go study now.

My sis and her husband drove down from Bangalore yesterday. Thats my excuse for not studying both yesterday and today :P. She left this afternoon.

I'm toying with the idea of preparing for the CAT again, this time with full josh. Once I get the hang of DI( data interpretation for the uninformed :P ), I should be fine. The trouble is, what do I do all day? If I sat alone at home the entire day, I would go mad. Myabe I could do a computer course meanwhile, or maybe I could get a job. Dad feels that once I start working, I wont have too much time to prepare. Guess he's right. I would like to pay for all the application forms on my own though. At 1000 bucks a form, it aint cheap.

My next paper is on thursday, wish me luck.

I've become aware that I need to get a lot of things sorted out with myself, like what I believe in and what I stand for. Once I figure that out, I need to make sure that I dont stray from it. I really need a strong belief system.

I'm a little confused when it comes to God.My parents certainly believe in God but they arent very religious. They visit the temple once a week, but thats about it. Festivals like Deepavai and Pongal are celebrated as usual. I'm not so sure about my stand on God. I cannot take belief in God for granted. I need some proof of his existence. At the same time , I do not want to reject God either. So I'm sort of stuck in between. I sometimes ask myself whether we will find God with science or find him(or her!) with spirituality. Will science and spirituality eventually merge? Will there come a time when scientists the world over say " Damn it! We cant progress any further! We've reached the boundary! "

I wish I understood the significance of a lot of rituals we go through. This thread I wear around my torso, the poonal, why is it so revered? Sometimes I take it off and it keep it in my cupboard because I find it irritating. Then I feel a little guilty and I wear it again. I wish someone would tell me in a logical, rational way why we go through all these rituals.

My classmates believe rather firmly in God. The other day after a group study session, the 8 of us went to Madhya Kailash, a temple nearby. I did almost everything they did, alternately envying them for their profound belief and I'm ashamed to say this, but sometimes sneering at them for their unquestioning attitude towards God.

I do know that the people who succeed are those with very strong belief systems. I really need to evaluate mine.

Couple of things I should have mentioned before:

1) My project sort of worked on the day of the demo. It almost worked on the day before but we ended up scewing the microcontroller. So I had to rush to Mercy Electronics and get a new one. Of the 300 Rs we had remaining from our budget, 269 was spent cos of the micro :-(. All visions of hogging with the money after the project sadly vanished. On the day of the demo, we were all pretty nervous. We blew the fuse 4 times because one of the relays got jammed. After that, the project actually worked! The micro switched off the induction motor and resistive load when we overloaded them :-). The external didnt ask too many questions. My so called viva was limited to " what was your contribution to the project? ". He asked us questions as a group and it was mostly limited to VB programming

2) We had the comprehensive viva exam. Imagine being asked questions from 4 years of engineering! Other than Bharat and Pradeep, both GATE genies could answer well, the rest of us were totally blank! I answered every 3'rd or 4'th question only. I spent most of the time grinning stupidly at the external examiner each time she asked a question.

3) I should have mentioned this a long time back, I participated in my first bodybuilding competition in college :-). I didnt win and there were times when I wondered what I was doing clad in nothing but my undies in front of a large audience. It is an experience though and its taught me a lot.

I went to college and headed straight for the gym where I found some other participants working out. Until then I always thought I had a good physique but when I saw them, I was shocked! They had absolutely amazing bodies! ( No, I'm not gay ). Then the PT sir came and I asked him if we should wear shorts on stage. He gave me a disgusted look and said
" Yenna shorts? Jetti than! ".

As I was warming up, one guy comes up to me and asks " Why didnt you shave your arms and legs? You loose points for body hair! ". Actually,I knew that but I didnt have the guts to shave my legs the day before. Every guy has to have hair on his arms and legs, its a guy thing!!

Then everybody started oiling up, qute disgusting to watch. The stud from the mechanical department actuallly had people rubbing him with oil and colour! I put on some oil but I didnt want to overdo it. Everyone else had an oil bath.

We went on stage wearing nothing but our undies. We even had to pin our numbers to our undies.

We had to go through all the mandatory poses. It was my first time so I flexed too hard and my whole body started shaking with the effort. One mistake I shouldnt have made :-(. It was so exhausting. We had to stay flexed for almost an hour and half! Posing by itself is an exercise!

Luckily no girls were allowed into the auditorium. All my class girls wanted to come to make fun of me but thank god they werent allowed inside! Bharat, GP and Prabhakaran came to watch for a while. I couldnt notice them because I wasnt allowed to wear my glasses. Everything looked kind of blurry.

I didnt win, but I've learnt what areas I have to improve on. My chest and legs need a lot more work. My only consolation was that I had the best biceps and triceps there.

Right now, I have a new pupil, my friend Kumar. He's really skinny and wants to put on muscle. Considering I was super skinny once upon a time, I know just what he feels like. I'm going to make sure he gets a super bod. I've been pushing him hard at the gym for 3 days now.

Whew! Thats one long blog entry! Will write more later.

Yay! I fixed the bug on the comp!!!

I was able to access the net today ( thats the reason I was able to write the previous blog ) and I managed to download a firewall. The moment I ran it, it told me there was a program called NTSYTM.exe trying to access the port. So I blocked Ntsystm and then deleted it. No more internet troubles now :-)

Actually, I still have some trouble with svchost.exe. Not too sure what to do about it. Help anyone?

Well, I dont know whats screwed, my comp or my net connection. Each time I connect, there seems to be a whole lot of information being transferred, the modem lights blink like crazy. However, I'm unable to open any websites, it just takes too long!

In other news, I didnt get into LIBA :-(. Depressing I know. Made even worse by the fact that my friends wont remember it.

Myself : " Sigh, I dont know what to do after BE now."

Moronic Friend : " Dont worry, you'll get into LIBA .

Myself : " I didnt get in you moron! I told you so yesterday! "

Moronic Friend : " Oh yeah, you did. Why didnt you get in??What went wrong?? "

Myself : " Snarl "

Next day

Moronic Friend: " DD, gimme treat."

Myself : " Why? "

Moronic Friend : " Cos you got into LIBA? "

I'm beginning to wonder if theyre doing it on purpose.

Oh, I also had my first paper, Power Generation Systems and it was kinda easy. The next one is only on the 15th so I've been taking it kinda easy.

I'm also very irritated with my servant maids daughter, though I cant tell you why.

I'm an englipiss boy in a maths physics chemistry world. Sometimes I'm proud to be different and sometimes I curse myself for not displaying conventional Indian intelligence. Why the disparity in my abilities? you might ask, and I think I have an answer.

I've always had a deeper understanding when it came to English. I had a feel of what was going on, I knew why things were happening. The language spoke to me. Words were like pictures. The word " Happy " smiles at me, the word " ugly " really does look ugly. I understood Shakespeare and Wodehouse long before my peers did. I just had a tacit understanding for the subject.

Maths, Physics, Chemistry though, I loathed. Why was something happening? What does Sin Theta and Cos Theta really mean? Why were we given complex problems in calculus and asked to integrate or differentiate? I might get an answer after a series of laborious steps but what does the end product mean? Nobody knew what it meant, nobody told me the underlying reason for carrying out the prescribed steps. I spent my final school years immensely puzzled by dv/dt and ds/dt.Also it sure didnt help that all around me people found the maths, physics and chemistry childs play. I felt incredibly stupid in front of my peers. I decided I was dumb. Only the intelligent people were good at M, P and C. Those who do well in english were the silly ones with good communication skills and no grey matter in their heads.

Slowly however, I'm beginning to change my views. I'm not really dumb, who decides the definition of dumb anyway? I've finally gotten it into my head that I dont have to be good at what others are good at. I'm not conventionally intelligent, I'm rather different and that makes me bloody proud. So what if I'm not an IIT or BITS Pilani graduate? Why do we glorify them? I think society sucks when it comes to labelling people as intelligent or dumb.

A fairly eventful weekend. First about my GD and interview...it was nothing like I expected! I was sure that I was gonna get some really obscure topic for the GD and I was doubly sure that I would be asked questions on engineering in the interview and hence be screwed. Was plesantly suprised when the GD topic announced was " India is shining only for 10% of India ". Considering I'd gone so far as to mug up the budget, I found it fairly easy to come up with points. Compared to the GD's I've had at TIME class, this one was incredibly civilised. If you persisted, everyone else would shut up. TIME GD's were terrible, no one would give a damn about what you said, it was bloody competitive.

The interview was an anti climax too. There were 3 seperate interviews and I was asked the same questions in all 3 of them. They seemed to be more interested in my family than in me. No tough questions ,they were all qute straightforward.

Aparna and I came out of LIBA wondering if the GD and interview was done with serious intent or done just for the sake of doing it. Perhaps the candidates had already been selected and the GD and interview had just been a formality. It was nothing like TIME. Personally, I think I did the GD and PI well but I'm quite sceptical about my chances. Besides, LIBA has 50% reservation for christians! That means only 30 seats for other candidates. So 300 candidates for 30 seats...I have a 1 in 10 chance of making it.

Saturday and Sunday was spent in finishing the project report. Its finally over thank God! Now the only thing left is for our project to actually work :P

Well, the LIBA interview is tommorow and the butterflies in my stomach have officially crossed the 1000 Km/second speed limit. Any second now my tummy is going to launch itself into outerspace. YEAH I'M NERVOUS!!!!!

I was pretty confident till yesterday when I had mock interview which went terribly. The interviewer asked me a dozen question from software engineering, a paper I had in the 4'th semester (which was last century according me). Its ok when you cant answer a couple of questions but after a dozen consecutive
" I dont know sir, I dont know sir, hehe sir ", your feeling of self worth sort of comes down.

Anyway, I realise I'm not going to help myself by being negative. Have to think positive, have to feel positive, gotta be confident, have to believe in myself and lots of other positive stuff. Wish me the best of luck :-)

Sometimes when I look at all thats going on in the world today, I ask myself " Shouldnt I take a keener interest in whats going on around me? Shouldnt I closely monitor politics? Shouldnt I follow the
India-Pakistan peace process? Shouldnt I have opinions on outsourcing? Shouldnt I know what happens in a stock market? Shouldnt I...." and then for some reason I end up watching porn.

I know that it is good to be well informed but personally, I find keeping up with the news incredibly boring. Not something I should be saying when I have an interview for my MBA admission at LIBA on the 26'th....

Ok so I'm a terrible blogger.

its not like I have writers blog ( joke..hyuk hyuk hyuk ). Its just that off late nothing really seems to appeal to me.Everything seems remarkably dull. Nothing different between yesterday and today. Ok, something really different between moday and tuesday, but I cant tell you what. Anyway I'm brain dead, I'm in a coma, I'm listless,I'm bored, Ennui, weary, taedium vitae, dull, apathetic, down in the doldrums blah blah blah.

Somehow I feel OLD. I feel like there's nothing to really look forward to anymore ( No, I'm not suicidal, I havent had sex as yet ). Sometimes I wish I didnt know so much. I wish I could be more emotional. I havent cried in a decade, I havent let go. I'm quiet, in control, reserved all the time. I want to throw a tantrum, I want to hurt someone's feelings and feel GOOD about it. I dont want my concience, it gets me down. I think I need to go to bed. Good night.

p.s:- in other news, I got a call from LIBA, my one and only official call so yay! Lets see how that goes.

So I'm finally sitting on my own loo in my own bathroom and I must say it feels great to be home again. The four days spent in Kerala have been well...mentally and physically taxing. I didnt eat or sleep properly and my excretory system just shut down completely. My excretory system and I have a very good agreement. Whenever I go on tour, I dont have to bother about going to the loo. I can eat what I want, drink what I want and I wont even feel the slightest urge to attend natures call. Once I get back home, everything changes dramatically and I seldom leave the loo.

Most of my time in Kerala was spent sitting in a tiny bus for hours without end. It became really uncomfortable as I sat next to Tushar and each time the bus took a sharp turn, he would fall on me.(There were a lot of sharp turns) Tushar is completely unaware of the damage caused as he was asleep most of the time.

The wildlife sanctuary was the most dissapointing as the only wildlife we saw was a chicken. It was hot dry and dusty and I was almost tempted to burn it down and build and engineering college. After hours and hours of travelling on an empty stomach and see nothing but a chicken got us all really mad and we yelled at the tour guide.

The food was mostly unavailable or foul tasting. Kerala is a terrible place for the vegetarian. On the subject of food, we also had a fight with a really rude waiter in a classy hotel. Things would have gotten worse id Mr.Gnanasekaran and the hotel manager hadnt intervened.

I think I had fun only on the last day. We climbed 5000 feet to see the Edakkel caves. It was also an unusual spot for me to recieve my ATMA exam result via SMS on Tushar's phone.

We visited another spot after that and we had no idea what was special about it. We'd been brought there to admire a heart shaped lake which had dried up.

From there we were supposed to go to Meen Mutty falls but that didnt work out as we were too hungry, tired and frustrated to travel another 50 Kilometers. A lot of them wanted to skip lunch and go there but Tushar and I didnt give a damn. We had to eat no matter what. In the end we decided to skip the Meen mutty falls and go to another one only 8 Km away. That too was kinda dried up. We were supposed to leave the falls by 6:30 PM but our bus broke down and we were stuck till 10:30.We got worried as it was a 3 hour trip to Calicut where we were supposed to catch the 1:30 AM train to Chennai. Anyway, while the bus was being repaired the guys got together and had a major truth session. We sat in a ring and each guy got about 20 minutes in the center. He would be asked really personal questions
( Eg: Why does your breath stink? When did you start masturbating? Why dont your parents trust you? etc etc) and he would have to be completely honest. His various positive and negative aspects were also pointed out. Under a moonlit starry night on top of a quiet mountain, it was really really good. I got to know the guys really well and it was rather touching to see the most despised chap in the class openly confess his problems.

The bus finally started and we raced down the mountain to get to the station on time. It was a nauseating journey as the bus wound down the mountain side and with Tushar continuously falling on me, I was ready to throw up any second. Also every one stank and it was hot and sticky.

We made it to the station on time and got into the train. I was asleep by 2 AM and didnt wake up until 9. We reached Chennai by 3:40 PM and I'm just so glad to be home.

Finally got my gift vouchers from Sulekha.com :-D, thats been the highlight of the day. Otherwise pretty rotten as I got a stupendously high telephone bill, my mom is boiling mad. Went on and on about how I misuse the internet :P. Got a cricket match with my classmates on thu.

Spent the evening carefully packing all the CAT material into a box.It took me about an hour to organise the stuff , pack it in plastic bags and place it in a box. All kinds of feelings washed over me, nostalgia, regret, relief..quite a mixed bag. I plan to let it lie in the box for a couple months and perhaps take it down again after that. I'm not really happy with the way the CAT turned out. It also seems grossly unfair that I'd spend over 1 year preparing for something that got over in merely 2 hours. I havent unwound yet I guess.

I'm yet to get my gift cheque for winning the blog contest from Sulekha.com. The editor spent a week cribbing about the work involved in procuring a cheque..and now she's on leave. I just hope I get my hands on it soon.

We might be going on tour to Coorg on the 25'th, hope it works out.

I'm online now, waiting for a certain special somebody to come online too...

Are you one of those people who can bend down and touch their toes without bending the knees? Well I'm not, and its beginning to worry me. All my friends seem to able to do it, but I cant. Looks like I really lack flexibilty.

I purchased a book called " Yoga for students " and I intend to start practicing from Monday, after the CAT.

Well, the re CAT is tommorow and I havent given it much thought. I think I've written far too many exams to feel nervous :P

Life's been banal for the last 5 months: University exams, CAT and now CAT, University exams :-(. My project is dragging too and is a constant source of worry....sigh, life seems so insipid now. Must read some new self help book :P

My sis has come down from Bangalore to attend a wedding and the first thing she said when she laid eyes on me was " YOU'VE PUT ON WEIGHT!!!!".
I took it as a compliment but apparently it wasnt meant to be one, which I dont understand. I've been teased all my life for having a physique similar to alfalfa grass

and now that I'm finally not so skinny...I'm accused of being stocky!