Google Wave is awesome!

And they lived happily ever after

This is IIT, where there are a total of ten people on campus, five of whom do weed, eight are usually too drunk to attend classes, and every other person has either attempted suicide or made out with his professor’s daughter. Not to forget the perpetual muggu, who covers his window panes with black paper, so as to protect himself from the gaze  of 7 pointers. This is where people risk their lives, doing stunts even Batman would be proud of to get their hands on a question paper. Yes. This is IIT. Five Point Someone is probably the most factually incorrect book ever written; this guy actually praises MS Word(Open Office anyone??).

Chetan Bhagat should have been a Bollywood script writer; His books are a perfect recipe for success. There is a hero. There are his sidekicks. There is a chick. There is her evil father.There is action. There is tragedy. There is comedy(the farce that comes from IITians). And at the end, everyone lives happily ever after.

The other day I read his latest book; the one called “Two States”. All he has done is pitched Punjabis against Tam Brahms and poked fun at eccentric ways that supposedly exist among them. I read this book with no expectations whatsoever, and it turned out be a fascinating read, just to notice the amount of exaggeration in the it. What makes it popular amongst people is that there are not too many people who know about the lives and the ways of an average Punjabi as well as a Tam. They usually end up laughing at the other(you may want to read this later if you like this).

Now for some clarifications. There are 4000 people on campus. I do not do weed; hardly anyone does it here. I do not go drunk to classes. I have not tried to commit suicide since I joined. I have not made out with my Professor’s daughter yet. I do not have black paper on my window panes; I will probably end up getting close to an 8 pointer anyway. I have not tried dropping ropes from the roof in order to get into my Prof’s office at night; all their rooms are on the ground floor. MS Office sucks. And I am an IITian.

Lost in Translation

I have heard of Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, but this one really left me wondering. Yet another awesome board @IITM

The Shaastra that was…

Never in my life had I felt before that I couldn’t carry on working like this for much longer. 3 hours of sleep a day for a week and a half straight can take a toll on you. But then, it was the week before Shaastra and I had my plate full. I had volunteered for a project to build a control system for planes, had to write a few software for the Puzzle Championships, and had already been selected for the final round for the robotics event. Apart from all this, there were classes to attend, which left no time to do anything else. I have always laughed at management gurus talking of the importance of multitasking and time management. All I shall say now is that I have learnt my lesson.

This edition of Shaastra was like any other big college Tech Fest. From what I hear, it was not as big as last one; I was slightly disappointed, perhaps I expected it to be like what I heard from others of the last Shaastra. Only looking back with an unbiased mind makes you realise how good it was. The LASER show, and the fireworks were ordinary, the Air Show was brilliant, the Event organisers had put in a lot of effort for sure; but being a completely student managed fest, their inexperience showed at times, when the media player wouldn’t work during the closing ceremony for one. Overall, it was a job well done putting it up together in the way it was.

For me, it was a real mixed experience. The control system could not be demonstrated in flight because the engine was not powerful enough to take the load;Our robots were sure contenders for a top spot, but ended up failing miserably due to a minor design flaw. I had not been so frustrated for ages, but then, looking back at the whole thing, I can only be happy with the progress we had made from the last time we had tried to build a robot. I have decided to leave the sample arena we had designed for the robot in my room .intact. The Puzzle Championship went smoothly, and I was thoroughly satisfied with my work. Adding all this to meeting old friends, and free food vouchers, it was a Shaastra to remember.

Grammatically challenged II

You can find this on the door of our hostel common room. Credits to SS for the pic.