Life comes a full circle ...

For all those who wanted to know, we didn't make it to National Finals of the Imagine Cup this year.

Now, unfortunately (or fortunately) the BE Project that we guys were doing and our IC submission was one and the same thing (for the sake of our sanities) - so atleast we will be seeing this thing through (hopefully)

Our theme and ideas were kept somewhat hushed up (which feels kinda stupid now) but anyways, will be letting the cat out of the bag soon enough.

In other news, came back from an awesome two day picnic to Nagaon (which is about 8 odd kms from Alibaug) and it was awesome fun. Will be posting pictures of the trip soon.

Perhaps the last with the guys from college - everything went off nicely and everybody had loads of fun.

For starters, here are a couple of images that I took on the beach ...

Low tide at the Alibaug beach at sunset - small kid with his dad

A family of four moving towards the Alibaug fort which is accessible by foot during low tides

The Constant Gardener

I caught this movie recently, after a friend of mine "highly" recommended it to me ... and I'm glad that I caught it.

This is one more addition to African Centric movies - though this is of a different nature.
The last african centric movie that I had watched was Hotel Rwanda, which to be frank, was brilliant.

These movies paint a very sad picture of Africa, and honestly, even India, with the gzillion problems that we face everyday, seems like heaven compared to what some people out there go through.

Some parts of Africa, are really, really bad - which results in the more well to do countries treating them like expendable guinea pigs - a premise on which the Constant Gardener is based on.

I've heard that the promos of the movie are very misleading and you'll be better if you've missed them completely - and if you have not, don't go according to what they say.
But a movie very well worth watching for its underlying base.

BTW .. the movie has Rachel Weisz (Mummy, Runaway Jury) who is brilliant and won the best supporting actress for her role in the movie.
Also has Ralph Fiennes (Schlinders List, Maid in Manhattan, The Prince of Egypt) who is equally brilliant.

A definite watch.

My review on the film : Here

Gdrive ...

I was surprised to see a pretty big article in the Indian Express talking about Google's GDrive. For those of you who still haven't heard about it, GDrive is supposed to be google's entry into the online file sharing business.

This news however, was not supposed to be released to the public, but as the story goes, a presentation made by Google for its investors on GDrive, got placed on Google's investor site by mistake and was downloaded by many people and the news spread like wild fire - thanks to the blogger community.

The presentation, has since then, been taken off the site and Google has kept a "no comments" policy on the entire thing.

Anyways, the GDrive is to offer its users, unlimited file storage - including many different file formats.

I did some lookup and found out that GDrive was infact a product of a thrid party company which had created an app by which you could store files of a max size of 999 MB in your gmail account using their tool.
They even had the domain name (http://www.gdrive.com) registered with them.

The version 0.6 of the tool can be found at this site : http://www.puremango.co.uk/cm_gdrive_109.php

Now, the reason why I am posting this is that all this thing about gDrive and unlimited storage being awesome and all, does bring up the entire issue of privacy and security.

How many people will trust google with their files?

In recent events, the Bush administration had forced google into giving them (anonymous) data on user search patterns.
What if tomorrow (though this is very unlikely) they make them give them access to files and stuff? After all Google IS a U.S based company.

Google is slowly, but surely, growing bigger and bigger - and they are becoming for the internet, what microsoft is for the personal PCs today. Even as of now, Google is pretty respected - with millions of people trusting its search, email, Earth (Google Earth) and many other such services.
All it will take for all this to end is one teensy weensy mistake ...
For my sake and everyone else's, I hope that this never happens ...

People are like ... crazy man !!!

While doing some webdev work today, I wanted to know what are the best methods to get rounded edges on layers, images etc ...

I know I am not very brilliant googling (it generally takes me some effort before I can zoom into the stuff I was looking for) but I was shocked beyond belief today.

I use firefox (which rocks by the way) and it has the google search bar with the auto completion feature turned on.
( for those who don't know, the google auto completion feature is something which fills in your search query by the most popular queries which other users have used - it is quite helpful when your brain is not working and you need to get a proper query in)

So, I start by query with "methods of ..." and before I could type further, the list gets filled up with suggestions.

(my actual query was : methods of getting round edges using CSS)

But these are things which google filled up:

methods of suicide - 3,410,000 results
methods of abortion - 1,210,000 results
methods of execution - 5,370,000 results
methods of mayhem - 29,000 results
methods of torture - 1,450,000 results

I mean - what the hell are people searching for?
There was an actual page in the "methods of suicide" search result which would be about 40 pages in printed pages - which talked about all the methods of killing yourself, along with tips, tricks and also an advice column.

Freak ... some people are just plain crazy (which is an understatement - it should be more like retarded !!!)


Please dont read the links above and kill yourself - not that I care much, but I don't have time to attend funerals :p
Hehehe ...

And if you're still wondering if you can get rounded edges in CSS, it will be supported in CSS3 - which does not have a proper spec - so will have to wait a while.
Till then, images are the only way to go ...

Education thingy ...

This semester, the college attendance for our class has been pretty low.
On a good day, the class attendance has been about 60% at best.

I think this stems from the fact, that nothing much is happening in college, we have crappy subjects and people are basically bored having attended the last 3 and a half years of their lives coming everyday to college -- so they want to cut it short.

Not to mention project work !!

Besides, we have only 4 subjects this semester and our time table has been put up in such a way - that we have Thursdays off for project work and then again Saturday and Sunday (which is normal college holiday too) - so we're basically working only 4 days a week.

On top of that, we have no practicals on Friday - which makes it the juicy day to bunk on - something I did this friday - with disastrous effects.

It turns out, that more than half the class had the same idea which resulted in the only the other half turning up for class which eventually resulted in a very, very *angry* (read pissed off) Head of the Department.

So in order to get us back on track, there was a long lecture (I heard about it via many people who actually were present) and we're having a test tomorrow on 2 chapters -- in which, if we score less than 75% (which is again a pretty impossible result to achieve), we will be chucked out of the class.

Also, there were a lot of warnings about us getting very, very poor grades in our projects (which make up a good 150 marks) and term work if we didn't attend sincerely enough.
Warnings also on "how what we do for projects does not matter", as the marks eventually come from the internal and external examiner - whose good books we need to be in.

Using this logic, people who spend more time doing credible and decent work (and who happen to miss classes due to this reason) will end up getting less marks than other people who come up with some half baked projects BUT attend sincerely.

So, why should we bother at all?
As sad as it seems, this is how most of the places work - I think.
You need to suck up to the higher authorities to get anything done at all.

Luckily in our case, this fact has just been more "explicitly" mentioned.

Reports from a Bank ...

I don't know how many people will agree with me, but ICICI banks, generally, suck !

All the money they spend on the Amitabh Bachan ads and the stupid "Bharosa hai" campaign could be put to better use, buying some sense for the people running the bank.

My dad and grandfather both have an account at the Shangrila Garden ICICI branch which is quite near my college - and to my great misery as well.
The proximity of the bank to my college, accounts for my gzillion trips to the bank - mostly to deposit cheques and stuff.

These guys have installed a cheque accepting machine, which, hardly anyone knows how to use - and most people are afraid, would eat up their cheques.
If you want to withdraw money, you probably have to wait in line for 20 minutes atleast during anytime of the day - at the ATM adjacent to the bank - which most probably is out of cash and is being refuelled.

Many times, I've had to deal with their not so helpful employees who'd give you the "Oh - why the hell did you ever be born" look everytime I made a minor mistake filling out a form or something.

Once, they refused to make me a demand draft to pay my fees ( which I had to do in about 4 hours time ) because apparently, their central server was down.

So, basically, ICICI is one of the banks in my "I will not bank here off my free will" list and atleast for the time being, plan to keep it there.

So, today, to my awesome luck - I was to go and deposit a couple of cheques ( 4 actually ) in the bank.
I was already late for my first lecture at 8, so I decided to bunk it and go and deposit the cheques first. ( the bank opens at 8 am )

So, I enter the bank at 8:30 - and I learn that I cannot use the machine to deposit the cheques and I need to do it the old fashioned way off the counter.
Then to my surprise, I learn that they have changed the system and I now need to take a token to even do that ...
Agony !!!

Anyways, I do that and wait .... and wait ... and wait ...
With about 10 minutes left for my next lecture and still about 20 guys in front of me at 8:50 in the morning, I throw my token in the bin and decide to come back later.

Fast forward to 1:15 pm
I enter the bank again - and it seems like the entire population of Pune had decided to bank at the same time.

There is total chaos at the bank - with about gzillion people running about, with no place for a guy like me with his big college bag to even stand.
I knew I had it !

Luckily, the token generating machine crashed - and all the token numbers of the gzillion people there got mixed up.
When I went to get my token - the guard asked me to just go directly and give the cheques to the person at the counter.

There was a line out there - surprisingly consisting of only 5 people. I blessed the guard for having some sense and headed for the counter.

Now here is where the surprises start.
The female at counter number 5 - inspite of all the chaos and rush and madness was pretty chilled out.
She was actually genuinely smiling and thanking all the people for banking there.
She actually apologized when she asked another female to fill out another form which the other female herself had screwed up!
Hmm ...

When my turn came - I gave her the entire pile of 4 cheques - she flipped through them - and found that the last cheque slip did not have my dad's cell phone number.
The horror !
At other times, I would have gotten a look from the employee which would make me want to kill myself and everyone else in the room - but this time, this person at the other end of the counter, just smiled - and said "Sir, all the cheques will go separately - so you need to fill the cell phone numbers on all the slips."

I was dumbstruck! I just took the slip, filled it up, and returned it back to her which she promptly stamped and returned the counterfoil back to me.

I slowly made my way out of the maddening crowds - the counterfoils in my hand - wondering what was going on ...
Maybe ICICI got some employee etiquette program going on - or maybe she was just a nice person.
Anyways, need more such service around.

Even though I still don't approve of ICICI, just want to give credit where it is due ...
So there ...

Life on track ...

I haven't been blogging of late - have not had much time.

The last couple of weeks have gone in a blur actually. I was actively involved in organising our inter collegiate festival - and it was a mad rush of things ...

One thing that I learnt after the event got over was - to never organise anything like this ever again. Its very very painful.

However, the event went off decently well - and most of the people were happy at the end of it.

However, this saturday - the last day of the event, all our sponsor banners disappeared from the parking in broad daylight - due to which, this event hasn't gotten over - yet.

These things just never end.
Anyways, now that most of the thing is over and I have more free time, will be blogging more often.

The Pune International Film Festival

The 4th Pune International Film Festival is going around in town.
About 4 venues, with 6 screens are participating this time and they are showing about 100 movies.
The halls participating are: Gold Adlabs, E-Square, Citypride Kothrud and NFAI (National Film Archive Institute)

I, along with all the rest of my college crowd, went and got the delegate pass for 300 bucks (if you are not a student, it will cost you 500 bucks)
However, the benefit of a delegate pass is that you can walk into any movie without having to purchase any tickets at all.

Anyways, the general opinion is that if the pass costs 300 bucks, you should see 6 movies atleast to cover up for it.

Its a funny feeling actually, the all you can eat feeling.
However, I came up with my own rating - after having see a couple of really sidey movies.

My approach to this entire thing is, to pick and choose carefully which movies to watch - after which I decide an amount which I could spend to watch the movie, which would justify the movie.

If at the end of 7 days, I have made up the 300 bucks, I would be more than happy.
Anyways, got the opportunity to see some really awesome (and some really pathetic films).

Here is the story so far ( in the descending order of awesomeness)

1. Hotel Rwanda (English)
The movie is set in Rwanda (as the name suggests) and depicts the very violent struggle between the two different sects of people from Rwanda - the Hutus and the Tutsis.
The film has some very powerful performances and was nominated for 3 oscars.
A very hard hitting film.

My review on the film.
How much I would pay for this movie : Rs. 200

2. Dombivli Fast (Marathi)
This was my second good movie of the day (yesterday) and was pretty well made.
Told the story of a person - Madhav Apte - and what happens when you're driven up the wall (kinda). You flip.
Again, contains some really powerful performances and some awesome screenplay.
Last I heard, it won the Hero Honda Screen Award for Best Direction and the Best Actor (Sandeep Kulkarni) in leading role.

My review on this film
How much I would pay for this movie : Rs. 150

3. Lemming (French)
Not all french films are good. But this one was very well done. Extremely well done.
The movie had a very Alfred Hitchcockish kind of feel to it with the entire 2 hours 10 mins of it being very intense and gripping.
Though the entire film is mostly shot in one house - indoors - and was subtitled, it was fun to watch. The subtitles were very easy to follow and I really enjoyed the roller coaster ride that the movie took me on.

My review on this film (yet to come)
How much I would pay for this movie : Rs. 80

4. While it rains hard (Malyalam)
This movie was pretty decently made and it was worth my time sitting for it.
It talks about 2 families from South India (don't remember the exact place now) - one muslim and the other hindu.
Both the husbands are working in the Gulf.
Somehow, one manages to kill the other (in the Gulf) and surrenders and faces sure death penalty - unless the wife of the deceased decides to forgive him.
What I really liked about the movie was the "Malgudi Days" touch that it had - and the beautiful portrayal of South India - which transported you directly to the villages there.

How much I would pay for this movie : Rs. 35

5. My Nikofor (Polish)
Honestly, while it was playing, this movie was unbelievably slow.
Though the acting and direction were decently good, there were lots of editing flaws which caused a lot of confusion.
The movie is a story about Nikifor - a 85 year old Polish painter from the 1960s - who was a genius, but was living on the streets.
He also suffers from tubercolosis - and is shunned by everybody.
A 35 year old man takes care of him, and he himself is shunned by his family and friends.

How much I would pay for this movie : Rs. 20

6. A Real Man (French)
And they say, Indians make crappy movies.
After seeing this movie, I developed a phobia of entering movie halls, which, luckily for me lasted only one night.
This was the second movie that I saw, and in one word, it was pathetic.
The plot was paper thin and the movie was pretty badly made.
Though the cast acted decently well, the stupid story and untolerable songs (yes - they had songs equivalent to a Hindi movie) made the movie a definite no no.

How much I would pay for this movie : (minus) - Rs. 40

4 days still left to go ... will update you as we go along ...

The event update ...

I haven't been getting time of late to blog ... been extremely busy - painting the town red - everyday, going around for sponsors and then later for project.

The funny thing is that I HATE to get out of the house and roam around.
Part of this reason being that to go anyplace worthwhile, I have to go quite a distance.

So, in the vacations, when many of my friends just hung out the entire day, I would wonder why do they do it.
I rarely ever did it, and now I think, have compensated for it in this vacation ... maybe even for the rest of my life ...

Anyways, as per the event, we've made some progress from the last time the post came about, but we are falling drastically short as of now ... unless some miracle happens soon, we don't know whats going to come of it.

The event's gonna be on the 30th of Jan, and we need to get some amount of sponsorship, by the 10th of this month. Then only, we'll be going ahead with additional expenditure, like poster printing, advertising and the works.

I guess, by this Monday, we'll have a much clearer picture.
Either we do a full fledged event as planned (decently possible), a more cut down event - with lesser prize money and stuff (pretty likely), or we'll be scrapping the event altogether (equally likely).

Lets see ...

One more thing that you come across while doing an event is that the various people who you work with, all, have an event which they love.
Now, when the axe is about to fall on a particular event, these people will try and defend the event till the very last.
It is difficult to be stern, coz firstly, very few people are working anyways, so you don't want to upset them, and secondly, coz you generally don't want to upset people.

The other kind of people, which I hate completely are the ones, who come up with their own damn, neat, ideas for contests or additions to the events - last minute - months after everything was planned and months after people have slogged their asses to get to this position.
Whats more worse is, that these people, take the liberty of talking to people and start organizing things for "their" new additions and contests without consulting the others.
Very annoying.

But I guess, these are the typicals.
During this entire month and a half, I've met many not-so-typical people, but I'll leave them for another post.

Lets just wait and watch and see where this all goes.

Playing hardball ...

I was going to let this post go, but now I am sort of compelled to write this piece.
Yesterday, something very strange happened ... there was a comment on my previous post about sponsorships and stuff, from a guy named saurabh.
When I clicked on the name, I was taken to my own profile ...

At first, I thought that either someone had gotten hold of my blogger password, or I, might have posted the comment in a delirious state myself ...

Anyways, the trick is simple.
You say you want to post a comment, then click on the "other" option and then paste my profile URL in the URL area and volla ... identity theft.

Though I have a pretty good idea who had done it (dude! I have a counter which tells me which ISP you guys come from), I thought I'd let it go and I deleted the comment, because it was pretty rude in context that the particular individual would go to the extent of spoofing my I.D. to probably mock me or for whatever reason he had ...

For the benefit of all the people reading this, this was the comment that was posted to my previous post.

Hehe, But I've agreed to sponsor 100K more to the Prize money from my own pocket money;) Well, If it dosn't suffice, I'd get it by selling my Computer, Bike and anything and everything I own;) For me, the Inter-College Festival is above everyting else...;)

- Saurabh

My verdict - not cool !

But then, after having deleted the comment, this person had the audacity to come and post the some comment again today - at approximately the same time as yesterday.
This time, I am not deleting the comment. You can read it here.

For your benefit, posting it here also ...

Oops! Somebody has impersonated me on the last comment! I just deleted it, and incase any of you saw that last commnet, I suppose I can assure I am not sponsoring my money on that;)

I don't know whether I am reacting to this in a proper manner or not, but I am pretty pissed.
Hence this post.
I am not going to remove the anonymous comment posting feature, because I believe that everybody reading what I write, should be able to express their opinions.

However, going way out and spoofing an identity, is just plain shameless.
I have a fairly good idea who you are, and you know who you are ... and I pretty much know that you are reading this too !

As for the statement about the inter collegiate event being above everything else for me, it isn't quite so.
The only difference is that I believe that something worth doing, is worth doing well - or not at all.

For people who have no motivation in life, and spend most of their lives just "planning" and who probably don't have what it takes to go and actually do something, this concept might be a bit difficult to grasp.

I am not complaining at all.

From the time the vacations have started, a couple of us guys have been slogging our asses off, trying to get sponsorship for an event, which has no "visible" benefit for the whole lot of us.
At times, we wonder, why are we bothering with all this ...
Things aren't going too well ... but we aren't quitting anytime soon.

It is easier to sit on the sidelines and pass judgement.
I don't blame these people ... I actually pity them.
And these are the same people, who will turn up at the end of the event to collect their "Certificate of Appreciation" for helping out in the event.
I am not complaining ... I have made my peace with that.
As long we get our event rolling, we can carry such people along ...
It has always been this way, and I guess will have to continue for times to come ahead.

In retrospect, I won't say that the entire sponsor hunting endeavour has been a waste.
I have learnt how to deal with people, and I now know, whom I can trust with some responsibility and what are the chances of it getting done.

My problem has been that I trust people way too much. I learnt it the hard way this time.
I may not have turned into a cold calculating machine - yet ... but I think I am getting there.
And I know it is for the best.

It takes all kinds of people to make the world ...

Sponsor hunting ...

These vacations (if they qualify as vacations) have probably been the worse ever ...
Which I guess was pretty obvious after the disastrous exams that I gave before them ...

Anyways, we guys are having our inter collegiate festival in the last week of Jan - from the the 30th Jan to the 3rd of Feb.
After a much smaller event last year, we guys decided to spruce things up a bit - with 5 days instead of the customary 3, and 12 contests compared to the 5 last year.

Naturally, to get more people to participate, we guys even cranked up the prize money we "intended" to offer.
So, from the 19 grand last year, it jumped up to 119 grand this year.

We guys thought, what the heck ... we have lots of time (we've been working on this from the last week of Nov somewhere) - and we should manage to raise the dough.

Now, with only about a month left for the event, and only 46k from 2 sponsors, things are beginning to look a bit hazy.

The reason that the vacations have been sucking so far, more than the fact that we're literally hauling our asses every morning - to go sponsor hunting, is that the response we've got so far is pretty dismal.

We've been trying to analyse the reasons to this and can point to a few, but these are primarily out of our reach.

I just hope things start picking up now, or 2005 will be a year best forgotten.

Hehe ... I intended to put down a blog later about "successful" sponsor hunting, but I don't see that happening now ...
Lets see where this goes ...

Torture on the airwaves ...

The Pakistani's have developed a new torture technique.
It's guaranteed to get any information out, from any human being, or even otherwise.

What they do is, they tap into Doordarshan signals broadcasted every Sunday night at 9:30 pm and tape this serial called "Kalakaarz".
Then they repeat the 30 min episode 6 times to make it a 3 hour long version and store it by day and date.

They also rank it from 1 - 5 stars depending on the intensity of torture the show can inflict.
Then they tie the victim to the chair, in front of the T.V and play the tape.

Apparently, they later realized that making a 3 hour version of the episode was a waste of man power and good ol' tape, because the victims would either surrender within the first 7 minutes, or if they resisted, they would die by the 9th minute of the episode.

Tests show that none of the victims survived after the 11th minute.

So now, they just tape the first 15 minutes of the episode and save multiple episodes on 1 tape instead.
Quite a save, don't you think?

Not having cable has its good as well as bad effects.

The good thing is that you have ample time (about 3 hours everyday more) than your fellow mates to put to better use.

The bad thing is that once in a while, when you just want to take your dinner and sit in front of the T.V. set, you have only one channel to turn too.
And with Doordarshan and its C grade programming, you'd be better of watching the static screen.

Today was one such day.

I happened to turn on the T.V and watch - one complete episode of that crappy show "Kalakaarz" which recently started on DD - and the worst part is, I somehow managed to survive through the entire show (Doing Engg gives you a lot of patience).

The show is about trying to scout for acting talent.
It is definitely in response to the huge successes that shows like Indian Idol and Fame Gurukul have been.
But even though I don't like the way these shows go about doing what they do, at least they have some quality standards.

No offence, but the people who turn up as participants on the Doordarshan show, would not even qualify to be extras in a C grade flick, even if they offered to work for free.

And I have heard, that these participants undergo a number of screening tests before they go on air.

Woah ! Can you imagine how bad the people must be who dont make the cut?
Or maybe no one turns out for the auditions.
So what these Doordarshan people must be doing is, sending out agents to catch people from the street opposite their studios, kidnap their family members and threaten to kill them unless they turn up for the show.

I really, really pity the judges who come on the show.
Atleast we have the remote control.

I know Doordarshan charges a LOT for advertising time ... even on the most crappiest shows, because their TRP is generated automatically.
If you don't have cable, then you're watching Doordarshan - and the number of people not having cable in India is pretty high ...

The only real good thing about this entire crappy TV channel is that you get to watch decent news and the occasional India match, if its being played in India itself.

My entire point being, if Doordarshan charges so damn much to put up advertisements and the people watching the channel is HUGE, why don't decent shows go to it?
And why does it not push for better shows?

It is not that you cannot make out whether a show is good or not till the end.
It's right there - on your face - and its pretty much pathetic.

And most of the shows look like table scraps from bigger distributors (Balaji telefilms) which were thrown out from other channels.

Doordarshan, once upon a time, was pretty darn good.
Remember Malgudi days, Surabhi, Amravati ki Kathayen, Tipu Sultan, etc etc?
They even had Street Hawk (man how I miss that show) and Knight Rider (pretty lame by today's standards, but still watchable)
Now, those were some really good shows - even compared to today's standards.

They should probably dump all the crap they are showing now and revert back to the programming of about a decade ago.
Sure it won't be glitzy and glamorous with pretty looking stupid women who do nothing but cry, bitch and conspire all day ... but I bet it would have class and grace ... and probably more "cable" TV watching audience would even consider tuning into to maybe watch Malgudi days.

And I challenge any of you cable viewing folk to tune into Doordarshan on Thursday nights at about 9 - I think to watch this show called "Aankhen".
Thats probably the only other show which could beat the one I mentioned above.
Writing more about it, would be wasting blogger's bandwidth and mine also.
So, I shall stop right here.

Thank God for the "moddable" XBOX and Bit torrents and the amazing number of people who seed TV shows like LOST, Whose Line is it Anyways, Joey, etc etc :)
And all your college buds who believe in sharing :)
I love you guys :)

The long march ahead ...

As I stepped out of the corridors of the college, into the sunset and the open fields, the Gladiator Movie theme (the one with Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerald) started playing somewhere in the background.

Was I imagining things?

No.
It was really playing.

As my other fellow mates slowly trickled out outside, squinting their eyes at the sight of the sun (or whatever of it remained at this time of the day), I slowly made my way to the fields.

The music was still playing in the distance, but I could hear it clearly.
I walked up to the more sandy parts of the field and stood there for a while.
Then, I dug a hole in the ground with my bear hands ... and taking the five sheets of papers from my bag, buried them in the hole which I had dug and covered them up with the mud.

I stood up (the music still playing), looked up at the setting sun and said "Now we're free"

I had just finished writing my last exam paper for the semester, and the five papers that I had buried, were the tragic question papers - ones which had killed many of my fellow mates and would kill even more (including me) once the results are announced.

However, the time had passed.
We were all free to live whatever life we had left.
As I walked across to my bike, the feeling of relief and jubilation set it in ...

The music in the background had gradually stopped and it was now replaced with a soft sort of ringing, which had gradually grown louder and louder.

Till I realised it was my alarm !

I woke up. It was 6:30 am - and I was in my bed with still one paper to go !
I cursed, got out of my bed, when ...

I heard a thud.
It was me falled off the bed.
I was dreaming about the alarm and was actually having a recursive dream (dream in dream) like the picture in picture feature of many TVs.

Just to be sure, I dug out my cell phone and read the date.
It said, 16th Dec 2005, 3:34 am

Exams got over yesterday.
Phew, what a nightmare !

-- NOTE --
Just came from watching King Kong as a post exam treat.
Wrote a review on it, which you can check out by clicking here.

The Tata Safari Dicor Ads

I had posted sometime ago about the Indian Ad market reving up of late. You can read it here.

Anyways, the TATA Safari Dicor ad is not doing the rounds as it was once ( or maybe I am not watching enough TV ) but I really needed the soundtrack for something.

So, half an hour googling for it, landed up on hundreds of posts and reviews about the ad, but no sight of the ad or the soundtrack.

Finally, thought of checking up the company website and what do you know ?
Both the ads ( though I had seen only one of them ) are up for grabs :)

A mere 2.5 MB with the respective quality also - they are embedded in a swf exe.
So, you can't really monkey around with them unless you have the proper tools ... well atleast most of the people can't, so its a smart move by the company.

Well, atleast have a working copy of it ... one of the best ads ever.
Always brings a smile to my face...

And oh, if you are looking for it yourself, they can be downloaded from :
http://uv.tatamotors.com/safari/gallery/ads.asp

NOTE : Please use Internet Explorer only, the download links don't show up in Firefox !!!
( When will people start making browser independent sites ??? )

Enjoy !

-- Update --
If you're looking for the Bajaj Avenger ad also ( I had written about that too .. ), you can get it from here : http://www.bajajauto.com/avenger/Avenger.zip
It's about 9.7 Meg and at a decent res ( much better than the dicor ads )

Another one of those tp tests ...

Hehe ...
Pre examination wastage of precious time ...
Well not really actually, took me about a minute and a half ...

You Are a Pundit Blogger!

Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few.

What kind of blogger are you?

Politics and Religion

I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how people - completely logical, sane people - make rules to govern the country based on some religion bias.

If you think, this does not happen in India, you should just take a look around.
Most of the things in our country are based on religion bias.

To me, religion should be a thing which you should practice at home. Period.
Don't bring it out.

Your a hindu, he's a muslim, he's a Parsi, he's catholic - who gives a damn?
Where in the world is all this going to help?

Will it help me get a job?
Imagine me walking into a company, slam my resume on the desk and yell "Hey you ! Yes you there! I'm a jain ... now gimme a job!”

I don't know if this actually is possible - but the thought that it could be ... even in the remotest, possible way is very scary.

Unfortunately, this does happen on the caste level - which is just as stupid.
So many times you find advertisements in the newspaper which go:
Vacancy for the post of a professor: 7 (Open 3, ST 2, BC 2)

Not only is this really bad, what it does is turns us Open category people against the reserved caste people even when we previously had no problem against them.

C'mon - if I was a BC and had a certificate, I would be stupid NOT to use it to get a reserved seat in a college or a job.
But what the law in turn does is, gets the open category people pissed off on the reserved category people - and many times people don't spend a minute to realise that its not
the reserved category people which are to blame, its the damn, stupid pre historic laws.

And why aren't they changed?
Because it is suicidal.
Governments go to power to actually stay in power for eternity.
Doing this will make sure, a large percentage of their votes get depleted.

The biggest, most stupidest things that I have seen on Earth - something which walks away with the top prize for the Most Stupidest, Idiotic thing ever - are religious riots.

Hehe ...

It is like we all have a set of Pokemon cards, and we pull out swords and sticks and go at each other's throats because the other guy said that my Pokemon's powers were not good enough, or it was crappy.

Who cares?
I mean ... most of the religious backgrounds are based on mythological - fairy tale stories.
These things never happened.

But amazingly enough, the people who invented them, must be geniuses because thousands of years down the line, they are still effective - people are still fighting over the same, stupid reasons from the time that they were invented.

Somehow, I don't believe when people say that religion teaches you to live life in a nice way.
It does set down some guidelines on what you should do, but at the end of the day, isn't it just common sense?
Does it have to be written somewhere that it is wrong to kill another guy, or steal from someone else?

If you are not from India, you will not believe that we actually have different laws for different religions...
Some laws go like "You are supposed to do this, this, this blah blah ... unless you are a Muslim" or "You are not allowed to do this and this, unless you are a Hindu ..."

How about inventing one which says "If you kill another person, you will actually go to jail. Unless of course, you are a Jain - in which case, you shall be given the President's medal"
That'd be really cool :)

I studied in one of the best schools in Pune.
But, it was a convent school - Catholics being the minorities and so, had some reservations.

I mean, if you think about it, their primary aim is to encourage Christianity - it being run by the Jesuit society.
But then, that is not a valid enough reason to justify a boy with 60% getting into the institute just for being catholic over a non catholic boy getting 85%.
In the junior college, there were even reservation over vocational seats - the situation was that you could get a Computer Science seat only if you were catholic with a decently high percentage or a non catholic with an impossibly high percentage - above 90% which is only possible if you have just topped the boards exams, or are from one of them ICSE schools.
What this does again, is divide the students.

Imagine how pissed off a student would be who scored 89% and missed out a computer science seat just because another guy with 75% got it because of his religion.

In the hunt for an engineering college, I actually came across this college in Solapur, which had reservations for Jains.
I was like "Full on. For the first time, I can get a taste of reservation."

So, me and my dad go on a one day picnic to Solapur to check out the college and apply for it.
However, to my bad luck, the college was not what I expected it to be (it sucked in my POV) - and I probably would have hung myself on my second day there.
So, we came back which brought an end to my "reservation" dreams.

Hehe ... probably reason why I am so pissed off with this entire issue and am writing this.

But on a serious note, I just can't imagine why normally sane and logical people write such atrocious laws.
I mean, it's like a very bad director making a crappy movie and he knows it - because, he can actually see how it is coming out.
But instead of stopping it and improving it, he goes ahead and makes it anyways ...

I mean, c’mon.... grow a brain!

Some thoughts ....

The difficult is what gets done quickly.
It's only the impossible which takes some time ....

Shameless self promotion ...

Hehe ...

Have started this new blog to spread some gyan which I have gathered after years ( 3 and a half to be precise ) doing engineering.

The blog basically talks about Engineering life and different phases of it with how to choose your college or course and then later on to other more 'advanced' topics on submission tips and tricks, what to do for seminars, etc etc.

So, if you are in that field or plan to be in there in sometime, its worth a decko.
Go to : Saurabh on Engineering

Of quality and service ...

This issue has bugged me for ages ...
Ever since I was able to do most of the things myself ... booking tickets, paying the bills, buying and ordering things, I've had this major issue with Indian Companies ...

Most of them .. and I am talking of about the 99% of them ... have the shoddiest service and their product quality is so pathetic, that you could throw your money - literally - down the drain and be happier for that.

People and companies who actually deliver, are very, very rare in India ... and if you come across some person or organisation which truly does this, you should not even think of going anywhere else and never, ever forget about them ...
Recommend them to all your friends, and those who'd care to listen and do the people ( the customers ) a big favour.

Anyways, I learnt the lesson the hard way.
Never - and I mean NEVER EVER compromise on quality, OR the services of a professional to save a few pennies here and there ..
In the long run, you will be the one losing out on your time and money and mental balance in pursuing a jackass who promises you the world, but can't even deliver a decent product if his life depended on it ...

The story actually starts with us guys needing to make the sweatshirts ...
I am going to take real life examples here ... and these shops do exist.

So, we people decide to make our college sweatshirts ...
We had 2 options - Uberoi sports on MG Road and Champion sports at Deccan ( for those of you who are familiar with Pune )

I had previously got some sweatshirts made from Uberoi when we guys were in the tenth standard in Vincents ... and though they were not stunning, they were affordable and okay.

Plus, Uberoi was a lot closer to our college - and hence we decided to get it made there.
So, we go and place the order sometime on the 10th of September for the sweatshirts and give him the specifications.
Mind you, to do this, we actually visited his shop 3 times because most of the times the guy who owns the place - Sanjeev Brar someone, wasn't at his shop.

So, finally when we meet him, we place the order and he agrees to deliver the sweatshirts for 300 bucks on the 18th of September which is also the last working day of our college.
He collects 50% advance and agrees to get the job done even with the ICICI bank type of "Mein Hoon Naa" kind of glance at himself ...

We give him the slogan to be put on the back, which we write ourselves and mention to him that it has to be specifically done in a particular way, otherwise the meaning would be lost.

On 17th of September ( one day before d day ), his father mysteriously becomes unwell and so the guy does not answer any of my calls.
Later, what ensues is a series of calls which are just cut off. At one time, he himself put me on hold - after 8 minutes, when I disconnect the call and recall him back, his daughter picks up the phone and says that he hasn't been to the shop for the entire day.
I had to resort to asking my other friends to call him to fool him into answering the phone - which he did on all occasions.

Then suddenly, in the middle, someone falls off from the 2nd floor of his building, and our sweatshirts again get delayed because he was in the hospital tending to him.

After lots of hassles ... and believe me ... I have NEVER been so harrased in my life, we finally get to see the sweatshirts on the 28th of September.
But to tell you honestly, the quality of the material looked like stuff they use to make tents.

And best of all, he gets the printing all wrong in the back.
Not only does the sweatshirt suck, we will look like fools if we had to wear it.

To cut a long story short, he tried to rectify the printing job, but he got it all messed up and the idiot tried to sell me the story that it would all go away after washing it ...

I demanded my money back, for which I had to drag 10 of my classmates - the huge and hefty kind - to his shop ( thanks you guys ! ) to demand the money which he eventually gave us ( that too using a Post dated cheque which thankfully cashed in later )

Now, after collecting the cheque on that day, we rushed to Champion Sports ...

This is on a Saturday - 5th of November and we place the order for our sweatshirts ...
After a lot of thinking and looking at the hundreds of sweatshirts which Champions previously had made, we place the order for the sweatshirts.

He agrees to do it for 310 bucks and not charge us for the printing ( he has his own printer setup ).
They have an inhouse designer, who designs the print job for us on the comp - and hacks at it till we are satisfied with it, and then creates a template for the print job in front of us.

Champions then calls me on Monday - 7th of November - and asks me whether I could come on Tuesday to look at the temp embroidery job ( college name ) which they did.
I check it out on Tuesday and find it satisfactory and approve it.

Thursday evening -10th November - I get a call saying that the sweatshirts are ready and we can pick it up anytime.
Friday evening, we pick up the sweatshirts and by Saturday, everybody has it.
Boom !

Quick and painless - how to get sweatshirts made in 6 days.
After what I had gone through, this looked like a fairy tale ..
The quality of the fabric is awesome and everyone loved the sweatshirt.

I have very high regards for Champion Sports after this, and could not recommend you to anyone else for sports wear related matters.

He may be slightly expensive - for the more jazzy designs ( ours is a plain black with name embroidered and slogan printed on back ), but you can be rest assured he will deliver on time and the quality would be exceptional.

What he offered us for 310 bucks, made the Uberoi sweatshirts for 300 bucks look like rags to clean the floor with.

Lesson learnt !
Point noted !

• Never ever ever compromise on quality !
• Professionals charge more coz they know what they are offering you.

BUC - Bandwidth under Control

I don’t know how many of you know this, but BSNL has got this awesome feature called “Bandwidth under control” in which, they themselves help you in controlling your broadband usage.

I am using the Rs. 500 plan in which I get a 256 kbps line and a 1 GB limit for a month.
Now, 1 GB per month is roughly 33 MB per day.

I generally stick to about 25 – 35 MB per day, which keeps me in the 1 GB safe zone … however, during exams and submissions and seminars, this limit touches about 55 – 60 MB per day.

So, what BSNL does is awesome …
During the peak time, exams and practicals and stuff, my phone magically goes dead for 2 days.

No phone, no broadband.
This works perfectly.

Coz, during the peak times, when I really need to use the internet, I would be hitting about 150 MB in 2 days.

So, by cutting my phone, these guys help me save up on that.
It’s really awesome you know …

You should definitely give it a try …