Staring at the Ceiling Fan

Now, let me write something about the exam which didn’t allow me to pursue my career in engineering. Not gonna give you any substantial reason, just a number of excuses. The Villain of this post is neither me nor an AU guy, for a change it is the ETS. For those of you who don’t have any idea what that means or stands for, its only point of importance is that it spoils people’s interest in the field that they chose, Engineering and also to a certain extent helps India reduce brain drain. It conducts the GRE, i.e. Graduate Record Examination.

Well, in short, it is a computer adaptive test which has two sections, verbal and quants. Each section is worth 800 marks. The verbal section is one screwed up affair. The syllabus is simple: Anything and everything related to the English language. There’s a book that helps us prepare though, The BARRONS. I actually know people who put in all the effort in the world to try and learn every single word covered in the Barrons only to find out that these words are used only in the instruction set and not the actual paper. Of course, they understood how to use the mouse better through these instructions and ended up screwing the paper all together.

And I almost forgot, it also has two huge essays which you have to write back to back. No, no, it isn’t essays on automobiles or microprocessors, a perfect example would be “Give reasons why a guy died of lack of iron when all that he ate was spinach” (personal experience). Quant section is comparatively very easy. It is actually criminal to drop marks in quants. The rule is simple. Try and maximize your verbal score and get the 800 marks that quants has to offer.

How could an engineer be rated on his score in the verbal section is what I have to ask. It is fair enough to say that he or she should know English really well. But that’s what TOEFL is there for. One could easily just while away his time during engineering, enjoy and prepare in the end for a month or two and catch a flight to the US. (I wanted to do the same, couldn’t, so writing against it now) This is where I believe the format that GATE has, ensures fair mode of selection. Also to add to this confusion, there are people looking for favourable dates and venues to score higher. You write in May or June you score higher than in August or you write in Bangalore and your score is better than in Chennai. All in all, for people looking forward to write GRE, please remember you can get married any day but think twice before you book your GRE date. But I must say, GRE does help people improve their vocabulary to a great extent.If at all my personal opinion matters, join lycuem for coaching, Sir James rocks.

One would think. Here is a guy who has screwed up every exam that matters and still survives. How couldn’t I?? There are more engineering seats than there are students and the I.T boom needs more people than the this huge country can offer. I’ll survive.

I had given a hint of me aspiring to do MBA in one of my eariler posts (ain’t I speaking like I have posted many),I thought why not write about the experience I had a couple of days back.Out of some luck and also talent,I managed to just about scrape through the written exam conducted by IIFT (No,a million times no,it is not Fashion technology,it is foreign trade).The selected list was put up on the institute’s website.

So,the next step was GD/Interview,just like all MBA institutes.Well, Atleast as far as I knew.Then came my call letter ( an official letter saying I got selected..congratulations and all).Along with it came a booklet.Harmless,I thought.It wasn’t to be. It had just nine essays for me to write.Everything from career goals to what I do in my leisure time.career goal???.I had none.It was like the semester exam where you sit staring at everyone else when you donot know the compulsary question.So,I decided to start writing from what I did in my leisure time.It took me about a week to finish the whole crap.Then I sent it.

You know,as everyone under AU, I am used to local authors. So,with no proper material,I decided,in a positive mood,”I’ll just be myself.No preparation reqiured”.I even tried going to the T.I.M.E GD classes.Have to tell you,I found it the most depressing place ever.No doubt,talent was immense.A number of very eager future managers talking with great enthusiasm about stuff that I never gave a damn for.So,with no preparation I landed at spencers plaza ( seventh floor to be more specific ) on the 6th feb.No,no was not going to jump from there.Not with the sparkling white shirt,blue tie,light brown pants and polished shoes that made me look like a stuffed chicken.

I was the first one to get there.Half an hour down the line,there were exactly 24 people standing there trying hard to hide their anxiety and talk to each other.So was I.Not because I wanted to open my mouth and prove that I was a fool,but because a good looking female had come up to me and asked “when is the interview,its already late”.I hardly opened my mouth,when a couple of guys sensing oppurtunity stepped in and started “kadalai”.It was a matter of minutes before which they were very close to asking her house address.Then came the guys from IIFT.They instead of getting the thing started,stood near us.It was a couple of minutes before one of them announced “The office has not been opened yet.So please bear with us”.There began a good day,more or less,which I will take a long while to forget.

First was the essay we had to write for 20 minutes.Not going into the details.Next was GD.I did both of these really well taking into consideration I had not prepared nor had I slept the night before.

Then came the interview.The panel looked nice and calm except this guy who had come from AU.Are all people from AU like that,I don’t know.But this guy turned out to be the thorn in my butt.The HR part went fine.This was until the AU fool,coupled with a people’s eyebrow,said “so you doing mechanical”.And that was it.He went about asking me what ultrafilteration was.If you don’t know what it is,don’t worry.I share the same opinion.And I frankly told him that.He didn’t care.He asked me what can be done to make it better.Dah,Is he a fool.I tell him I don’t know what it is,he asks me how can it be modified.So,kept saying ” NO SIR”,like the way we used to say back in the NCC days.He finally said “Thanks for the effort,it was good talking to you”.Isn’t that enough,you want me to tell what that meant???Ok, in short, R.I.P.

p.s: You like it or not,do leave a comment.As everybody puts it “It helps me improve the quality of posts”.I know you wouldn’t buy that.Its just for me to feel good…

The topic of discussion is telivison media.To be more specific, my area of interest in this post will be Advertisements.One learns from their mistakes,a sentence that not only have I have heard ‘n’ times over,I have also used it an equal number of times.But,this ever growing industry doesn’t seem to have heard of such a thing.

Ads,ads and more ads.We have ads which I don’t even think the director of the ad will want to watch.Let me enlighten you with a few of them.The one that I personally hate most is the Birla cement ad.A couple,riding a cycle, accidently rams into a lorry and apparently the cycle isn’t damaged while the poor lorry driver loses all but his steering wheel in the accident.Other than the steering wheel,the rest vanishes in thin air.The so called logic is that the cement that the couple were carrying,is the strongest.If this wasn’t digestive enough,then there’s what a few “very intelligent” people call Digestive Marie.It must be probably what Einstien felt when his theory of relativity was released.No takers.As a lesser mortal myself, all that I can think of is if I can’t digest the idea,how are we going to digest the product????

I can go on and on with examples that are wierder.Get creative is probably the first thing that is taught in a visual communication class.But that doesn’t mean forget reality or for that matter common sense.I believe, the companies buy such kinda crap because they believe in age old management theory of “There’s nothing called bad publicity”.So,all that will matter is the air time and not the idea that is shown.

Just a humble request though.Don’t put these ads on TV, between overs, when the whole nation watches India lose to Pakistan.As it is,emotions run high.Do you want to give us a heart attack???

Please Note:
1. Not written out of personal experience.
2. Carries a very important message to all budding youngsters.

I have been writing till now, like a very studious guy, about stuff related to career.So thought why not write about something different.That is when I stumbled upon a very famous name,the one of “Thiruvalluvar”.So am gonna dedicate this post to the man who has touched our lives.The next paragraph is not for the feeble minded,nor is it for the perennial backbenchers (Personally,I would skip ). Google search on thiruvalluvar got me this.It is pure crap.

A genius,indeed.He was born 30 years before Jesus Christ.He is world famous for his thirukural.Thirukkural is the masterpiece of Tamil literature with the highest and purest expressions of human thought. It is written in the form of couplets (two line poems) expounding various aspects of life.It contains 1330 couplets, divided into 133 chapters of 10 couplets each.The Tamil Calendar is dated from that period and referred as Thiruvalluvar Aandu (Year). We find Thiruvalluvar as a moral philosopher, political scientist and master of public administration in the first two parts of Thirukkural.We find him to be a creative artist in the third part, depicting the fascinating aspects of lovers.

Now that I have told you who he is and what he has done,now I will tell you why he and his birthday are so very important.The day he was born is cursed,only in Tamil Nadu.Few might ask why.It is because,it is the only day of the year when all shops are open while the liqour shops and bars around the city are closed.It is even more irritating when that bad day falls on a saturday.It comes as a rude shock to people,who in their own words,toiled hard through the week and were looking forward to unwind on saturday night.

The actual problem is that nobody is warned about the bad day.Indians are known to be great planners. ( the worst implementers,though). If only had they been informed a day or two in advance, all this confusion and resulting frustration could have been got away with.I am amazed that,even Deccan Chronicle, a paper which reports crap from distant lands, I remember recently reading an article about the relationship between Sania Mirza and Irfan Pathan ,forgot to warn us about this day.So,to all dudes and dudettes,let me make it very clear,Thiruvalluvar was born on 11th Feb.*** Please donot forget Alcohol is injurious to health.(I can hear a very loud chorus “Well,who the hell cares????”)
*** -Relevent Only to readers in Tamil Nadu.

Well, well, well. The last two days could be nothing short of a revolution by velammal standards. Winds of change??? We can only hope against hope. I am talking about the two day workshop conducted by Wipro here on campus. It was what they called Talent transformation. Don’t actually think that it transformed me one bit but if you ask me was it fun, I would say “Hell yeah”.

The program was conducted to get the placed students have the feel of what corporate culture is. The setting was the awful ( so called ) auditorium, which like all other “monuments” in velammal, was perfectly cuboidal. One difference though. Unlike other buildings, it was not painted pink. The colleges which participated were Velammal, SVCE and VIT. One might think, with all the infrastructure that the participating colleges seem to have, why the hell did they have it here on this campus. Anyways, the wipro 2006 community from these colleges constituted about 100 very talented youngsters.

The day started late because although the attendance sheet had about 100 names, the strength was no bigger than 70.So,my colleagues, whose names were Sudip, Pandian and Robert decided to wait. After about an hour, they got the ball rolling. “The first rule”, as sudip put it, “No girl will sit near another girl and vice versa”. I could imagine my chairman’s shell shocked face if he ever heard such a sentence ( A “great” man who’s latest brainwave is to build a separate girls CANTEEN.). There began two days of mayhem. People doing things that I don’t even think drunk people would agree to. I have heard cut throat competition. But never thought I would find it when future software engineers play Rock, Paper , Scissors.

Sudip is complete fun. The problem begins only when Pandian comes into the picture. His language was amazing. But his side of the coin involved telling people how many generators and tubelights Wipro had ( just before lunch ).So, you can imagine what I am talking about. They, together, talked about everything under the sun from Sudip sitting on a grave smoking cigarette to what the Wipro symbol meant. The guys that I met there were amazing people.All in all, a couple of days noone would wanna miss out on.Exceptions always exist.There was this guy who had something very “important” to do .So he bunked.Thanks to the Deccan chronicle “party whirl”, I got to the bottom of the mystery. The reason : He won a slogan competition and had a date with none other than Asin for Valentine’s.Looking forward to a lot more fun when I finally get out of jail and start applying thought.

What do we have here, an annual day at the VEC. Yo bro, and why am I feeling sick ??? I’ll tell you why. An Annual day at VEC always delivers its mix of goodies. For starters, the chief guest is none other than the only person who could have been more hated than his predecessor, the Vice Chancellor of Anna University, Dr. Vishwanathan. Why is here??? Probably, because nobody else called him or maybe what he preaches makes sense only in this campus.

Well let me give you a feel of what the “Cultural Fest” is all about. Having just got the invitation today, thought I would start there. At the bottom of the envelope, there’s something typed in very bold letters and it reads “DRESS: FORMAL”. You might say, well you wear that shit through the year so do it for one more day. I don’t mind. But the rule is not just for me, it is for all the guests (which include a few helpless people who at the end of show would think “Why god, why did it have to be me???”)

The afternoon has a warm feel to it. Well, not warm but a grade higher, HOT. The college doesn’t have any place to occupy the 2500+ strength, so we have to sit under the sun (just to be clear, no “pundal” ) wearing a dark blue blazer which you can understand will absorb all the heat it possibly can. Moving on. Probably the most famous principal among the colleges under AU (Not because he achieved anything worthwhile but because the famous song “Where’s your id card” was based on him), gives us the annual report. This annual report that runs for an hour, about 15 minutes is taken to cover what the students at VEC have achieved, the rest is taken to tell us clearly the new rules that have been inducted into the already HUGE rule book.

The next part is the address by the chief guest which is anybody’s guess. “I love the way this college functions. The discipline is simply impeccable. I can visualize India moving towards growth seeing all these pleasant looking faces wearing those nice blue blazers listening keenly. (Give them the freedom of speech and see how that face changes) The principal’s speech had a lot of meaning. I am honoured to be here.” Ok, we are done with two losers now. Then the biggest loser steps in. Who else, but the man whose brain child has ruined my college life. What does he say, the same thing he says every year “Geniuses don’t do different things, they do different things” (well, what he meant each time was, Geniuses don’t do different things, they do things DIFFERENTLY).

That’s about all the fun and laughter you can expect that evening. We move on to the cultural events. There are precisely five things that happen. A skit where everybody has their face painted weird (don’t ask me why, I am baffled), make more comedy by doing something I THINK they understand and then in the end raise the national flag (It’s a routine). Next comes the dance and the song. Well, there is talent. But when people are asked to sing and dance to songs which don’t have lyrics containing words such as “love” ,”war” and all, they just end up humming or doing aerobics. At the end of the day is the prize distribution, which no one knows who’s getting what and why. People just clap. I clap too. Not because I give a damn about the college but because I appreciate the guys who have won although they were put through the kitchen sink. The show comes to an end. Everybody goes back in peace knowing really well tomorrow cannot be as bad as today was.

As I had a lot of time to kill, I was wondering, what is the huge population of this country up to nowadays? Well, to talk of all the possibilities is very difficult. So let me touch upon the two most important ones. Other than trying hard to multiply the already existing population, that is.

The first and foremost is cell phones. A brain child of technology. It, as a market, is growing in leaps and bounces. Full of players trying hard to make hay while the sun shines. Leading the pack is Nokia and Sony erricson. Behind them come a huge heap of lesser players that include LG, Phillips, BenQ and a lot more. People nowadays are so crazed about these things that literally everybody wants a piece of it. Its popularity is so huge, that in a couple of years, people reckon it would be as important to a person as a TV is for a family. A perfect example of when it rains, it pours. So many brands and so much variety, only the manufacturers know the difference. So many features. Bluetooth, GSM, IR.. And a lot more. I bet, half of them don’t even know that their phone has these functions. They buy it because his/her friend bought it or it is damn costly.

Now comes the question. What do they do with it? They vote. They don’t bother voting in the election but the citizens of the country vote for who looks hotter, John Abraham or Sauruv Ganguly. A tough one indeed. They aren’t sure of who should lead their country, but they are very sure who Aishwarya Rai is currently dating. She, herself, badly needs some help.

The next culprit is TV Serials. They suck. Seriously they do. Who watches a show that in the very first episode has a female crying because she lost her child? Half the country does. The other half is still guessing who to vote for, John or saurav and for which question. People cry, I do agree but is it mandatory we need to cry daily watching some female, who unfortunately is bit too old or not glamorous enough for cinema, (lack of acting talent is universal in both cinema and sops) making a mess of a very serious character. Here too, there is a bunch of people who watch it to win the sms competition at the fag end of the show. Who is to blame for all this??? It isn’t the directors, producers, the actors but the people who watch this crap. Demand creates supply. More the people who watch this stuff, more the people who want to make money out of it. Now, if you excuse me, I am late for my 7:30 show. Where’s my make up kit???

There’s always a series of exams that everybody writes when they complete their schooling…You know for what they call “to pursue one’s career”…Well,I for one had no idea as what I wanted to become nor could I ,even after hours of pondering, think of something that I was good at.So,instead of getting into a vicious circle of thinking about it and feeling bad about myself,decided to take up engineering entrances,which from my experience I can tell you any tom,dick and harry can get through,well you know,as long as you are not a beautiful looking female.I am sorry to be making such a judgement,it might be because I spent the last 4 years in velammal,but then among the guys doing engineering it’s like an universal fact.

Getting on with the subject,I started off with what a true aspirant would describe as “The Biggest Disaster ever” ie the IIT JEE.It is probably one of the most difficult entrance exams there is for one to write at the UG level in India. People dream about it for years and make great sacrifices to get there.For me though,it was no bigger an event than probably a dumb essay writing competition where if at all you win,all that you’ll get is a miniature bat with saurav’s autograph on it.

So with nothing to lose,I got to my centre.As I reached there 15 minutes earlier,I decided to sit and scan around for good looking females.Well then,who am I kidding.Another ten minutes of confusion later,I was at my seat.Then came the tense moment where the hall incharge held the question papers that would change the future of many.Wow,what a moment.All around me were tense faces.People were praying hard hoping for an easy paper.Out of the blue,I myself started praying for an easy paper. Don’t ask me why.It must be something similar to when you feel like crying when an emotional scene in a movie comes up.Anyways,finally she distributed the papers.The moment of truth.Now that I had prayed and all,didn’t actually know what to make of it.So I decided the paper was niether too difficult nor too easy,and termed it as OK.Now having done all the thinking,it was time for me to get down to business.

I never knew I was this quick at solving papers,it barely took me about 2 hours to answer them all.Having done so,I had this urge to get out and go home.I raised my hand and called the incharge.She came up to me and made it very clear that I wasn’t supposed to leave until the end of three hours.So,I decided to go through my answers one more time and check for any mistakes that I could have made.The bell finally rang.I,pretty satisfied with the effort, submitted the paper and left.

It took me one whole day to understand the first mistake I had made.No,no it hadn’t got anything to do with any math problem and all.It was this simple sentence that read “Wrong answers carry negative marks”.But then,optimistic to the core I decided,so what, true talent comes out in the face of adversity.Don’t ever ask me what exactly “true talent” and “adversity” here really means.The results finally came.My rank was 175***.The *** doesn’t mean I have a note at the bottom of the page saying *** =”All India Rank”.It just stands for three non zero terms.And for those of you who don’t know how exactly that converts into performance, it just says “I sucked”.

A warning to people reading this…This ain’t like my usual posts. A lot of sense maybe.

What do I write about……as I couldn’t think of something big or funny to write about, I thought why not dedicate this post to my friends who have had a great impact on me. All the guys at velammal who have made my life much better than what it should have been, all my friends from SRM who have made me a part of their community…the list is huge. Thought I would take this post to introduce a few of my friends, very old ones. Not gonna do it like a typical youngster saying he’s good with gals and stuff like that, gonna try doing it like a seasoned pro.

Let me start of with the one and only B a.k.a Ram. A typical Taurean (my opinion that is). Doesn’t matter how stuff revolves around him, how things change with time, he goes about it at his own pace. A person you can be assured will remain cool in the oddest situations. He plans stuff to perfection. Not the one to read between lines, Mr. Reliable.

Now to next one, Athreya. Sanjay S. Athreya. I would wanna say he’s bubbly, most of the time he is, but then there are times you know… A typical Indian. He also plans stuff to perfection. Only difference is he’ll never execute it (Not even close to using the term “to perfection”). One guy, who like me, sits through the last night before the semester exam trying hard to do the impossible. Simply would go out of the way to help you out.

The third one, The BOSS, Vignesh. A believer of “Play while you play, work while you work”. Never says a word out of place. Very rarely do you see him making a mistake that actually matters. And because of all the above characteristics, his career curve is very different to all the rest of us. He’s on his way to the Stanford. Well, would say, I miss his jabber on the phone everyday but then as someone very intelligently put it,….

Some birds aren’t meant to be caged,
Their feathers are just too bright,
And when they fly away,
The part of you, that knows it was a sin to lock them up, does rejoice
But, still, the place you live in is that much more drab that they are gone
I guess, I just miss my friend…..

Well,as a eternal optimist,I have jumped into this whacky world of Blogging.I am pretty sure this ain’t my kinda thing,but that optimist in me wants me to go and waste some more space on the world wide web.Let the creater rest in peace.To begin this long and meaningless journey,let me use this post to tell you about me.

I am a not so simple guy from a simple city in south India.I have lived all my life here in Chennai.Well,people tell me this is a great place to raise a child.It quite is,might not be the most extravagant city in India but then I had great fun. Having said so,it would be a better place if one could remove the “conservative” tag the city has.I am a mallu from Cochin, the land of porn queen shakkeela.I know this ain’t the best way to describe the queen of the arabian sea but then you have to give respect to the new queen.

As a typical south Indian,I am doing my engineering in one of the 256 engineering colleges in the state ( thank goodness they maintain track of the number of engg. colleges,mind you they pop up every other day here). Life can be termed as mundane,you know,going to college, back and college again.And as I got into the final year of engineering,the “typical chennaite” that I am,got myself into an large I.T. firm just as expected and also have started preparing for CAT hoping to get into IIM Ahmedabad. A dream, just like a million others.

Just hoping against hopen,what if I had ambitions that very few Indians had and that I had the chance to go about achieving it like a Sania Mirza or a Narain Karthikeyan,you know, become a poineer in the true sense.I wish.