Startup Saturday at Hyderabad

This Saturday, my original plan was to visit Warangal and the neighboring areas. Why you ask? Apparently the Government is trying really hard to convert it into a tourist attraction. Some ministers have gone to the extent of calling it “One of the most beautiful places in the world”. Alright, so I guess he hasn’t travelled much, but I wanted to check the place out nonetheless.

I didn’t.

Instead I decided to go for Startup Saturday which was scheduled to be held at IIIT Campus in Gachibowli. This was the second such meet, with the organising party (who are the same people who organize Barcamp Hyderabad) gauging whether the concept works out in Hyderabad or not.

The meet began on time and within a few minute had enough people to ensure that my neck received enough exercise for the day. With nearly 35 people, including students, professors, Vice Presidents, academics, part time academics, Entrepreneurs, Unsuccessful entrepreneurs (a rather unfair term, for we all learn from our experiencesJ).

Discussions were lively, ranging from iPhone debates to Nirma’s success to importance of filtering in Google reader. Start up Saturday also takes an initiative of inviting entrepreneurs to give presentation and talks. This week it was Suheim Sheikh, the founder of SDG (which is now acquired by 3i Infotech), an Anti Money Laundering software developing company. Suheim’s presentation was witty as well as inspiring. He was also modest enough to tell us that one thing that he felt they didn't do was dream bigger. With nearly 70% of India’s market under them, they should have thought bigger, maybe try to capture the global market.

This is where he brought up an interesting point. Coincidentally, this is the same point that my boss at my internship also highlighted.

Indians are generally very apprehensive to admit that they are the best at something. Because since we’ve grown up, all the theories that we’ve been taught are works of foreign scientists. (Pythagoras apparently came to India and took the theorem back to his native land).

Mr Sheikh was saying that not for a moment did they think that their software was the best there was at that time. Had they given globalising more thought, maybe they’d have been eve more successful.

I was wondering. Apart from lack of the conviction that we can be the first or the best in something, could lack of marketing skills be another reason? Just a thought.

Startup Saturday in Hyderabad:

2nd/4th Saturday of every month at IIIT Campus, Hyderabad. IIIT, Main building. Turn towards the first right in the main building and head off to the third room. 10 AM

Humari Maange Poori Karo

I came back home a minute ago.

I was caught in a traffic jam. So I decided to get off the auto rickshaw and walk the extra distance home. After walking a little distance I saw a few hundred police men and nearly 200 pedestrians look up. Immediately a show called Candid Camera came to my mind, where such phenomenon would be common. Surely this was taking the joke too far, since the traffic jam affected an area up to a 3 kilometre radius. Looking more closely, my jaw dropped.



A man had climbed the billboard. The message was clear.



There was some brouhaha around me and upon asking one of the bystanders there who had been witnessing the commotion I got to know that the gentleman on top, Mr Madan Mohan Reddy, was a resident of interior Andhra and had lost nearly 2 acres of his land. He had tried to contact the Chief Minister many times to seek his assistance regarding the matter, but to no avail. And that this isn’t the first time he’s doing something like this. Already having climbed several billboards this month, this guy is out there to make a point. This particular billboard, as shown in the picture is right outside the Chief Ministers residence at Begumpet, Hyderabad (guess that explains the hundred policemen). Apparently this was a classic case of land grabbing. He realised that the only way to get the CM’s attention is to do something radical. He is sitting (and occasionally standing) there right now, even as I write this article.

My point is; this was what he was forced to do to make himself heard. Upon hearing this, my maid had a glimmer of hope in her eyes. She too had lost land worth 2 lakh rupees and jokingly said that maybe she too should occupy one of these billboards and create a scene. Hopefully, this should give him enough media attention for the CM to take a notice.

Also, quite often what does happen is that these people get beaten up rather badly by the police later. That’s what happened on earlier instances which had a man climb up the flood lights of the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad.

Another point: more than half the traffic blockage had nothing to do with the man. It was the police who occupied half the road.

Update: I was just flipping through the news channels and saw that some ministers have negotiated with him and asked him to come down.

Worn those Microsofts today?

I was out shoe shopping a couple of days back. Whilst at the store my eyes fell upon the brightly hued slippers which adorned the hooks

And while they were cheeky enough to use the name, which obviously implied that these footwear were the softest thing to ever touch your feet, the reference to THE ONE was unmistakable, almost as though piggy backing on its brand image. I could only think of one thing. How long before a Microsoft employee sees it and reports it to the lawyers?

The Microsoft lawyers, though, haven’t hogged the media limelight as much as the Nazgul (popularised by Slashdot), but they too are kept busy throughout the year. My favourite incident being that involving a 17 year old Canadian boy way back in 2004. I am sure many of you will remember Mike Rowe, the young boy who thought it would be funny to start a website called Mikerowesoft.com. But well, the MS lawyers showed him that they have absolutely no sense of humour and asked him to take if offline. After which things got a little ugly and MS surely lost a lot of supporters due to that row(e).

On 7k Runs

This Sunday morning, I was violently woken up by Mumma dearest.

"Lets go for breakfast."

"Wathaf...what? Its 6.30 mumma, come on. Just go back to sleep"

10 minutes later the whole family was in the car. The reason? Mom has a verrry busy schedule traveling to opposite ends of the globe in the next couple of weeks. So, the much cliched "quality family time" issue was brought up.

Breakfast it was.

While taking a U turn near our house, and going up the fly over, we saw hundreds of girls wearing tight white tees.

Ah yes, the 7k run. A premier women's college in Hyderabad had organized a 7 kilometer run as a fundraiser for their silver jubilee celebration. And well, obviously they were playing to their strenghts. I did remember seeing girls from the colleges at all malls wooing guys to attend the event. Anorexic guys who didn't look like they needed a run hounded the stall as if waiting for the girls to perform a trick.

The sight on the D Day was amusing. I realised the shirts were not tight at all. It wasnt the shirt. Bloated beauties...huffing and puffing as they took those giant leaps, inspiring the thousand behind them to follow.

The only problem?

Each one of them were given water packets. They realised since this wasn't an environmental drive, its ok to litter the flyover.

Rocket Science and beyond

Every now and then I listen to “It doesn’t require a degree in rocket science to figure out that….” Or “I may not be a rocket scientist but I know that…”

Rocket Science on Wikipedia leads us to a tiny article, 80% of which is:

Due to the complexity and depth of this area of engineering (requiring mastery in subjects including mechanics (fluid mechanics, structural mechanics, orbital mechanics, flight dynamics), mathematics, control engineering, materials science, aeroelasticity, avionics, reliability engineering, noise control and flight test), it is also informally used as a term to describe an endeavor requiring great intelligence or technical ability. More often, the term is used to describe an endeavor that is simple and straightforward by stating that the aforementioned endeavor "is not rocket science".

This is amusing.

I think that as such the courses one does in aerospace engineering (aka Rocket Science for the layman) do require a high amount of intellect, but then so does training at Langley or John Hopkins. I think it’s the whole feel of having thousands of buttons around you and being responsible for manning something which is so colossal and worth so many billions of dollars (with minimum scope for error) that enables Rocket Science to be revered as the final frontier in terms of intellect. As specialisation increases, we perceive the task to become monumental because we start to dissociate from the field . It just happens that compared to other engineering branches, probably aerospace has a very high percentage of people going into specialisation (for I don't think NASA really wants a jack o all trades).

Speaking of specialisation, medicine also requires it, but then I guess, there are just too many doctors around.

I remember asking my mother, one of the best retina consultants in India today, about what she thought was the toughest job on the planet. True, I did expect a standardized answer. I placed my money on Rocket Science. I will never forget what happened next. She looked at me, and gently whispered

"Parenting"

Updated

This week has been quite exciting. Both my Dad and me got to appear on All India Radio. Dad, yesterday and myself on Wednesday. It was quite an experience sitting inside that sound proof room with the RJ on the other side. The show was for 2 hours and was aired on FM Rainbow(101.9)

2 hours! Prime time 8-10 PM

As Shruti put it:

"Even Rani Mukherji doesn't get that much airtime!"

I used the airtime to express my opinions on a variety of topics ranging from the IIT-JEE (and other exams) coaching facilities and how it really feels to be there, to my early years to what malice I am up to these days. I also spoke about my life at BITS Pilani and how I totally and absolutely love it there. Later, I mentioned the various flexibilities that BITS offers, something which I still feel would attract a lot of students to BITS, if only they were aware of it. Then came the clubs and the departments and how they form an integral part of the BITS.

I also spoke at length about CEL and how it fosters the spirit of entrepreneurship and how Conquest, its annual international B-Plan competition is growing day by day, even as we speak.

All in all, I'd say it was probably needed. More and more people need to know about BITS and how its more than an engineering college.

The best part being, I got to select the songs which would be aired during my stay in the studio. Another point being that, since it was LIVE, my first task was to prevent myself from uttering something for which the Central Government might sue me later, for there are no beeps on live radio :P

They did have a wide variety of songs, I asked for Coming back to Life, Smoke on the Water, Fear of the Dark, Kashmir apart from from Hindi numbers like Doorie and Kabhi Kabhi Aditi(this was more of a compulsion, dedicated this one to some close pals)

On jokes

Have you ever heard a joke so many times you've forgotten why it's funny? And then you
hear it again and suddenly it's new. You remember why you loved it in the first place.
                                           -BIG FISH

Its amazing how this happens to me so many times.

Manto Ismat haazir hai!

Last week, as a finale to the TIMES Hyderabad Festival, they had organized a Mumbai theatre group to perform plays based on the works of revolutionary and bold playwrights Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai and was appropriately named Manto, Ismat haazir hai( Presenting Manto & Ismat).

The plays were in Urdu (as they should be) and were well appreciated by the crowd. On my part, someone who is not well versed with Urdu( read the youth and the Gults), it would have been something of a disaster. Disaster because, the USP of the play was the language used, but as such I didn't find the play to be that great theatrically. The dialogue delivery was a little too quick for an amateur like me to understand, but I guess that's how it goes.

The story was quite gripping( if only I could understand it then) and dealt with social issues such as lesbianism, sexuality and war. And for A Woman of a conservative Muslim family or actually anyone to come up with something like that right after partition is something commendable.

But here's the interesting part, despite the just-above average performance, the hall was jam packed. At first glance it might seem like it was because entry to the show was free.

But there was something else.

The play was directed by Naseerudin Shah. And that really had the effect. It really did. What a crowd. Needless to say the management screwed it up by allowing people to enter through one door(when there were 4) because of the shortage of metal detectors I believe.

But I am pretty sure most of the people came hoping to get a glimpse of Naseerduddin Shah, but ended up merely expecting him and never really seeing him.

Advertising works wonders, especially if you attach a big name to it.

On Mercy Killings and Euthanasia

Right above the huge tender was a tiny article about a teenage girl in Siliguri, who was demanding mercy killing. The issue of mercy killing has been discussed several times and yet there is no provision in the constitution about it. The legal hassles involved are just too much.

In the case of the girl, Ms Fulbari Das, is requesting mercy killing, where a person asks for death to end her suffering. It is voluntary. She is requesting her life be ended because she has been suffering from tremendous abdominal pain. After her surgery (to remove the kidney stones), her condition only worsened and for the past year, she has been living under a lot of pain.

I have lost all faith in doctors as I don’t know if my disease or wrong treatment is responsible for my condition

-Ms Fulbari Das

She is currently admitted in the North Bengal Medical College &Hospital.

Now there are a lot of factors that one needs to take into consideration. Now this is a rather complicated case (as most euthanasia cases are). The first and foremost is regarding terminal illness.

I have found no other mention of Ms Fulbari on the net. So based on the information in the newspaper, she is suffering from tremendous pain. I am assuming that’s the only reason why she wants to end her life.

What I mean to say is that I don’t think Fulbari’s case can be proved as terminal illness merely because the cause of her condition isn’t fully known. Another issue which might stop the stop the doctors from taking the step (apart from their inhibitions that they’re breaking the law) might be her young age. It’s quite convenient to think that a young girl like Fulbari might be making a hasty decision and this might just be a solution to end the short term discomfort. One way of looking at it is that it’s her life and now that she is legally an adult she should be responsible for it. Another way at looking at it might be that she is still quite young and has her whole life ahead of her and what if there’s a slightest chance of the pain going away. The question here is, as long as the doctors take their time to find a solution, this woman is experiencing pain beyond everything. Should that or shouldn’t that entitle her to end her life.

Indian constitution hasn’t really helped matters either. Verdicts in the past have shifted either ways, merely because of the complexity of the circumstances. The Indian Constitution says that the ''Right to Die'' is not a fundamental right under Article 21. However for the first time in 1987, during the The State of Maharashtra v. Maruti Shripathi Dubal case the judges at the Bombay High Court felt that the desire to die is merely abnormal/uncommon but not unnatural. They listed several circumstances in which people may wish to end their lives, including disease, cruel or unbearable condition of life, and a sense of shame or disenchantment with life. And finally held that everyone should have the freedom to dispose of his life as and when he desires. That being said there have been many more instances where panels of judges have simply overruled the plea.

I think the authorities should really work on the finer aspects and various circumstances. The reason I say this is because we’re really progressing as far as science is concerned. In the future years the technology might achieve so much progress so much so that we might have support systems which can keep a person alive, just saving him from claws of death but not really giving him a life. What if the person doesn’t want treatment? I think along side the research that’s going on in medicine (or any other branch), we must also keep updating our constitution regarding matters which might be affected dude to this advancement in technology.

Crossposted on Mutiny and Desicritics

Removing Blogrolls!

Innovation seems to be the most used jargon word in today's world (entrepreneurship loses out by a whisker). Every day I see newer feed reading products in their beta stages get their twitter accounts and advertise endlessly and find newer ways to make people use their products. The other day Nayak was telling me about a feedreader called Fresh and about a Twitter client called Alert thingy. Simultaneously I have been checking out a lot of new products too.

All this has made me think. Do we still need traditional blogrolls? Blogger Buzz updates me with this:

Today we’re releasing a new page element for Layouts blogs: Blog List. The Blog List improves on our Link List page element by using blogs’ RSS and Atom feeds to show update times, post titles, and snippets.

And this works well with podcasts, twitter accounts etc too.

But now the question arrives, what if I have a huge list of feeds that I follow on my reader? And I have a list of friends on my blogroll who don't really update.

This is what I do.

One way or the other I do keep on checking blogs that are relevant to me(either students from my college or people I have met or people who link to me), but you don't really need a blogroll for that. (Google status messages, Technorati etc are helpful there). So in order to give my sidebar a more virgin look, I am cleaning up my blogroll and on leaving behind very very few links, mostly because, they're the only ones updating/or if they are really close pals.

Bangalore Mirror

Harshil from WATBlog/Consultancy was kind enough to inform me that my guest article was published in the Bangalore Mirror Tabloid. Thanks a lot.

Also, I found out recently that the verrrry best newspaper of the plateau, oh why not...the entire south, has hit Bangalore. Good, its also their problem now. Here it comes.

Apart from this...a lot of stuff has been brewing up. Have got my self involved in a variety of projects. A long detailed post is due.

Why the Western Invasion?

I was going through Indianroomates.in, a website quite similar to its American counterpart Roomates.com which aims to help and connect (mostly) the youth seeking accommodation. One thing that really caught my attention was the picture of Indian youth on the homepage. As bizarre as it may sound, when was the last time you saw a non-NGO Indian website which had Indian faces? At the most it might have the token Indian or Black person to show diversity, but I think it’s quite rare to find only Indian people. In the beginning I felt maybe such a strategy is employed to show that that company is global (or at least aspiring to be global) but now it just seems like everyone is following the crowd. But then what about those companies which are purely based in India and don’t seem to be expanding outside India in the likely future. I say this because couple of the web based start ups that launched from my college and had noting to do with foreign clients had picture of Caucasian women playing with their Caucasian kids. It just doesn’t make sense. Why should a premier IIT-JEE (Not too tough to guess which one now) coaching institute which receives over a crore hits every year need to put a header picture of some American university students on its website? I don’t know where the problem lies. Is it that the companies ask the web designing team to put in those pictures (in case the work is being outsourced) or the company itself feels its needs such a picture. The whole point being that if your pictures don’t gel with your venture, you end up looking really stupid.

By the way it was really disappointing to see that the moment I clicked on a page at Indianroomates, it took me to another page. And this one had phirangs on it, smiling.

Here’s one solution. The issue of portraying yourself as something doesn’t need faces. It can be done through symbols as well. If you’re ashamed of putting in Indian people shaking hands (though I don’t know why that would be the case), then might as well show only the shaking of hands on your webpage rather than show a Chinese and a Kenyan doing so, especially if you’re a start up based in a small town whose main market is the nearby city.

Cross posted on WATBlog and Desicritics

Archer's blogging blunder

Image via Wikipedia

I guess not much needs to be said about celebrity blogging. Everyday as I read my feeds, I find another name from popular culture entering the blogosphere. Recently I had heard somewhere that Jeffrey Archer had his own simple blog which he was updating quite regularly. It was quite well maintained. With running commentary about his recent visit to India and tryst with Indian cricketers amongst others, the blog got me pretty hooked. And this was only the beginning. It was really this post that got me sitting up straight.

971 emails were awaiting me when I arrived back in the UK- the vast majority of them from India, and I must say that having been teased about calling Mumbai, Bombay, could someone please explain to me why they've changed the name of that city? And indeed Madras to Chennai? But it seems that Calcutta is still to be Calcutta - which I am much looking forward to visiting next year when I shall be opening Landmark's new bookstore.

Clearly not many people seem to be reading his blog for only four kind souls decided to retort saying that Mumbai and Chennai were the original names. It was only once HRM invaded our land that the names were changed. I will not even come to the Calcutta bit, but then this is where I start thinking. Is it Mr Archer’s lack of awareness of global changes showcased here or the global trend? As in, does the world really care whether Bombay became Mumbai again? Besides that, I’m pretty sure a lot of Indians still consider the IT hub of India to be called Bangalore.

Jeffrey, always a gentleman, readily accepted his blunder and apologised in the comments section.

Delhi Duty free flooded with offers

Image via WikipediaIts a wonderful time to be landing at IGI Airport, Delhi. Not only will you have fond memories(hopefully) of your trip, when you come back a surprise will be waiting for you at the IGI Airport in Delhi, well, at leat it was for me when I landed there a week back. The power of bargain works best in India and no where will you see the emphasis on discounts and offers as you will see in desi land. Staying true to the game, Delhi duty free was divided into two parts, one with discounts and crazy offers, nearer to the baggage claim and one a little distance away. And when I say crazy, I mean crazy.

Buy one get one free.

I'm pretty sure that phrase cannot be found anywhere else in the world, it's just so swadeshi. That was all that was required to get me going. I hadn't shopped either at the Cairo Duty Free(well if any of you guys ever visit that Airport you'll know why. Despite all the mysticism and history that helps it get its tourists, that country has one down market airport with hardly any duty free shops worth going to). I am definitely not losing any weight this summer, not with all those Lindtt chocolate bars(85% cocoa, I love my chocolates dark) and wine.

So if ny of you people have relatives from abroad coming over, do ask them to do your bit of shopping. It's worth it.

On attending IPL Matches in Hyderabad

Image by miss_rogue via FlickHaving attending the last 2 IPL matches, I can say without a doubt that Hyderabad, Deccan Chargers, has been the unluckiest team in the tournament. Neither do they have the excuse of Bangalore, who can say that they have a test team. The only excuse they have perhaps is the lack of quality bowlers. Bu hey, this post isn’t about their “vurssht” performance as a team or succumbing in the final overs EVERY single time. It’s about what goes on outside the playing area.

Needless to say, there’s total chaos. As I make my way to the stadium from the main road, I observe 2 complementary trends. One is the price of the cold drinks and water. Albeit marginally, but still rising. Other is the temperature of the bottle, which drops as we get nearer to the stadium entrance. So when the guy says “Thanda matlab Coca Cola” you can’t sue him. However minutes after buying the bottle, we had to part ways for bottles werent allowed inside. Now this made for quite spectacle; for next to the cricket crazy fans trying to get inside, there was a big group furiously trying to finish their water and colas and juices so that their investment doesn't go waste.

Inside the stadium, I can safely say that there’s unless you’re in the balcony you’re missing the action because in the lower pavilions (the 500 and 250 rupees ones), cricket crazy fanatics can’t sit on their seats and have to stand up revealing their tushy to me.

The cheerleaders need to be applauded for only in Hyderabad would they have had to hear stuff like,

Arrey dhang se hilao ji, kya pukkat mein aye kya.

If that doesn’t send any Hyderabadi into rivets of laughter, I don’t know what will. Apart from this, because Hyderabad is still not as big as many would want it to be, you will still run into a lot of familiar faces (something you would not always desire). A strange observation that I made was that, water was sold at rupees 5 a glass in the 2500 Rs pavilion where as was distributed free of cost in the 500 rupees/250 rupees arena. Care to explain the funda?

And now comes the most interesting thing to happen to Hyderabad's sporting history. Induction of a Mexican wave. It is rather amusing watching thousands of Hyderabadis stand up with their hands above their head and take part in this massive wave, but they become memories to cherish once the wave attains perfection and then goes on and on and on, till it becomes annoying.

BITSAT 2008 and changes in admission procedure at BITS-Pilani

This is one time of the year when the number of phone calls increase, even surpassing those during my birthday. Yep, its the examination season and all the mohalla-wallahs want to know whether pappu paas ho gaya ki nahin. All the aunties from random corners of the nation want an in depth understanding of the BITSAT procedure and all Babloo's and Chotu's want to know how many questions to attempt so that they don't screw it up.

So what is different this year?

Firstly all you Biology fundoos now have a chance to get a Masters(Hons.) degree in Biological Sciences or a Bachelors in Pharmacy.

BITS-Pilani has one of the best pharmacy departments in the country and it might as well become your one way ticket to some really good foreign universities for higher studies, for example Purdue University, Max Born Institute etc.

More information about this here.

Secondly, we have three campuses now.

Well four if you count Dubai, but then lets not get into that now, shall we? The Hyderabad campus offers all the B.E degrees that the Pilani campus does. Oh and some really kick-ass faculty is on its way to the Hyderabad campus, bidding adieu to the campus in the desert ;P
So rest assured the BITS Hyderabad campus will not miss out on the "quality" BITSian education which is so revered throughout the educational circles.

But the biggest worry of all the little ones are CUTOFFS. It's like they can't really think beyond this. So let me give my gyaan on the cut offs for this years BITSAT.

The main factors affection this years cutoff are going to be
1.The Hyderabad Campus
2.Increased awareness in the media regarding BITSAT and BITS-Pilani
3.Newer rival institutions being opened

In my economics courses, we use a term called Cēterīs paribus. Cēterīs paribus is a latin phrase, literally translated as "with other things the same." Now when discussing cutoffs, all we can do is take each factor individually, assuming other things to be the same w.r.t to last year and then analyze its effect on the cut offs. Since we can't predict by how each of these factors will fluctuate the cutoffs, we can't really algebraically sum their net effect on the cut off.

The Hyderabad campus, with its increased number of seats will obviously decrease the cutoff you might think. Well yes. That would make it a fair enough assumption. But then there's another effect. Opening a campus in Hyderabad will motivate a lot of students from nearby towns to attempt the BITSAT. A lot of these students are those who would probably clear BITSAT but are so attached to home or are not allowed to trot outside the state and this includes a legion of above average girls who can very well crack BITSAT. So does this imply that the Hyderabad campus gets more booty? Well not necessarily, since it depends on how much the girls score and how many boys want to be in the hyderabad campus(since the number of boys exceed the girls), but it has definitely increased the number of people giving the exam.

As I have noticed after spending two years in Pilani, the general awareness as well as popularity of BITS is increasing. Be it through social media(blame it on the net savvy BITSAT crowd), or the sudden increase in the number of BITSian achievements in entrepreneurship etc, but we've definitely getting more airtime and print space than what we used to earlier and this has helped lure many gullible young ones to consider BITS as their future alma mater. Effect on cutoffs? More students giving BITSAT, competition getting stiffer. Cutoffs rising.

Three new IIT's have been opened. So thats about 360 more seats, minus the reservations.
But with the whole reservation brouhaha creeping in again, BITS has suddenly gained the respect of the people out there in being the only engineering institution of a high repute selecting purely based on merit. I see a lot more serious aspirants giving BITS a thought while going for that JEE counselling session. In-fact I see a lot more of serious preparation for BITSAT even by the students who are confident of clearing JEE because of the reservation.

I'd like to end this sub topic by saying that according to me the cut offs for each branch will definitely fall, but by how much, that I can't even speculate because anything can happen. So if you do score around 250 plus I'd say you're still in the race.

Tips for BITSAT:

Carry a pencil and an eraser with you. For the sake of your favorite deity, do this. Because you will not be given rough pages, you will be given a little booklet to scribble which will fit in your palm. So you'd want to use the space preciously and then re-use it.

Please use unconventional methods to solve the maths questions, if you see a god damn trigonometry question and substitute theta as zero without thinking Well not without thinking but you get the hint. Don't waste time on traditional methods of solving stuff. Grow up.

Accuracy is as important as speed, so its not only about attempting those 150 questions, its about not getting many wrong.

Please please please don't fucking guess blindly. At least narrow it down to two options and then just GO FOR IT. Don't not, NOT guess if you have two options, just guess.


Ah feels nice.
Peace out.

Next post: Myths bout BITSAT!!!

Ads campaign for Obama in the hood!

Image by stevegarfield via Flickr
Bro's before Hoe's Y'all

Egypt Diary-1

Yes, I am back from Egypt and what a trip it was. Yes it was action packed with every possible element which made this a trip worth remembering. Probably not as long as any other of my trips abroad, but then it's all about what you do with the time there rather than how much time you have.
Ofcourse I'd have loved another week there so that I could visit Alexandria, Luxor and Aswan Dam, but oh well, getting to see the Pyramids as well as the ANTI - Narasimha was good enough.

What topped it off was that I got to go inside Khafra's Tomb, which BTW is this:
You think I am bragging?
This is just the beginning boys.
So I went inside Khafra's crib and it was really stuffy and I could hardly breathe. There are 2 entrances to the tomb and one of them is locked right now.
The next day I went to the world famous Cairo Museum and saw the hazaar statues of Cats and Kings and their bitches, all of who obviously had their nose chopped off by tasteless Britons or Arabs. The highlight of the museum trip had to be this!

And of course, these guys couldn't let the remaining gold go to waste so why not build 3 gold tombs, and place one inside the other. Oooh almost like a birthday gift. The third one being made completely of gold for the poor boy to R.I.P. And yea lets throw in a couple of these as well


Oh yeah, the I went inside the Mummies chamber and checked out the corpses of Ramses the great, his pop Seti who suffered a head injury, well that's the least I can say considering his mummy has a cracked skull.

All this is really historic and all, but the highlight of the trip....

I got bitten by a lion.

Ever been to Manali, where the old women there make you hold those cute little white rabbits and take your pics, well here in Egypt things are done a little differently. You pose with a harmless lion cub who is all awwww and shit. That's until he gets a little too heavy and then bites your frikkin hand.

And the beautiful aftermath of that:
Rabies shots for the next two fortnights.

Encounters on Gulf Air

When you change 4 flights in eight hours crossing two time zones, things get a little freak, especially if you have had a lot of wine on board (its free right?)

While on GF130 (that's Gulf Air) from Bahrain to New Delhi, the gentleman in front of me was hardly a teetotaller, after chugging three glasses of whiskey the dude wanted another shot, just for old times sake I presume. The steward, who looked arab but sounded jamaican came forward and in his polite tone asked Jack Daniels to ease it a little bit. But our fermented soul would not go down without a fight.
If the alcohol is free then why should it ever stop flowing. Its not like I am going to harm anyone. Let me be.
Something on those lines.
Steward replied in hindi, in his thick jamaican accent, that the guy should just sleep and enjoy the high for he ain't getting another peg. What continued for the next half an hour was a one sided negotiation between the drunk man and the steward, the steward simply brushing away all possibilities of a consensus, asking the man to go to sleep. He also said that drinking a lot would only make this man reveal the true animal that was inside him(for he didn't seem to have the capacity of an irish dock worker from any angle) which would only invite the police who would be more than happy to invene to bust his sorry ass.
Finally our man just reclined back on to his chair and started murmuring some gibberish.
Just an after thought:
I wonder if airlines possess strait-jackets.

Invitation

Party of the year!

It's going to be insane.

Loud music, lots of chaos and hopefully lots of people.

TIME: Post lunch till whenever. No RSVP, drop in whenever you like before 6.

Dress code: A fcking broom will do.

The things I have to do to gets things done. Sigh.

Nearly there!

Just one more exam to go and then I'm off to Egypt!

So everyone in Hyderabad, mail me your wish list!

Opening Salvo

Cliches suck. Big time. Yet we use them. Like hello world. Now just many fucking times have we seen this being used? Yeah Yeah I know, its like standard procedure, something akin to saying "hello" while answering the telephone or saying "check" while testing the microphone.

Why the baseless bitching?

No reason in particular.

Sometimes don't you simply want to find reasons to get worked up about issues which are always at the back of your head, yet you didn't give them enough importance earlier for they just seemed so trivial? But come the day when your head is exploding with rage and this acts like that little magnesium ribbon you read about during your school days, which were filled with those uninteresting experiments in those tailor-made-for-prisoners style text books which were wholly printed in just one color(as bizarre as bottle green). People living in developed nations obviously cannot associate with this phenomenon. For they always had glossy hard bound text books with real pictures and multi colored illustrations. Anyone who has studied history from the India's Central Board of Secondary Education text books will bear testimony to the fact that history was indeed written in black and white. When they did finally give color illustrations a shot, it gave rise to some pretty interesting pieces of art. Like the girl in ninth standard who for the first time read about the scrotum and little love ovals which dwell in them had to suffice with a violet nut and an orange vas deferens.

Yes, I agree immense digression has taken place in the last couple of paragraphs and you should give yourself a little shag if you managed to get to this point.

Be god with ye...

IIM CAT and BITSians. Results out!

The IIM results were out this morning, though not all at once. This year onwards, an extra IIM at Shillong was introduced(though one had to apply externally to the newbie). With the reservation shock handed to the CAT cleared junta in a smelly sack, I can only imagine the agony and frustration apart from the testicle crushing eagerness to know the result. Thankfully some of the seniors I knew personally have got through. So kudos to them. If you are aware of any BITSian who have got through just leave it as a comment, and yes a blog address would be helpful as well. So far I know only of:
Vernon Fernandez(IIM B), Rehan Jiwani(IIM C, IIM A WL 75), Dhruv Vishrani(Dum)(IIM L), Rakesh Lalwani (IIM A & IIM B), Saikat Banerjee (2002)(IIM B),Pavitra (Puppy) (IIM A), Swetha Raman(2002)(IIM L), Shrek(Music Clubber)(IIM C, IIMA WL 11)

Lets go Clubbin'

The water coolers are one of the premier hubs to ascertain any activity that's happening on campus. So much so that during the cultural and technical festivals there's a serious space problem and a cold war takes place where every club/association tries to strategically place their posters so as to clearly block the viewers vantage point and distort it to their advantage.

As I finished gulping down the cold water, half of which was splashed onto my hirsute face, splitting further into numerous tributaries, I stare at the wall which is filled with posters of quizzes and talks and meets but one such poster caught my eye.

It was about a club called TRENDZ. A club meant for "designin".

In my two years at BITS I have seen quite a few clubs emerge out of no where. Started with a tech boom catering to the ever increasing needs of Open source disciples who came up with BLUC( BITS Linux Users Club), though I did hear a rumour of another BLIC(BITS Linux Installation club) coming to surface.

Then came the environmentalists and the social entrepreneurs and we had MY INDIA aka Nirmaan aka Bharat Nirman Sankalp, aka you get the idea, set up a year before I came. From what I have heard, they have also set up camp at a lot of other places and generally help in social service and having tutorials for people in and around Pilani as well donating clothes to needy, something I got to know after seeing their propaganda-esque posters. Also was the emergence of bigger brand names such as Rotaract, a club that after some difficulty with the administration finally took off. Their modus operandi is to find innovative ways to create awareness amongst BITSians, mainly on environmental issues, be this through panel discussions, acoustic jams or open air documentaries.

Wall Street Club(WSC) of BITS-Pilani took off right under my nose, as one of my friends was (then) a core member of the club, and they basically wanted to foster the spirit of making money and introduce the n00bs as well as the pro into the world of business through late night skype sessions and even investing in mutual funds(the first of its kinds)

And then came Symposiarch, a club that has an active collaboration with the Languages Group of BITS Pilani. Comprising of a wide variety of people, they wanted people to speak out and from what I hear "wanted a platform where people could speak their mind through debates and group discussions, which would in the later future also help them in their GD/PI". The latest on their list is the Koffee with Karan version of BITS creatively called While the Coffee lasts.

These are amongst the lucky few that took off. Yet there were many which couldn't, which I am surely assuming had nothing to do with what they stood for. I strongly feel that its about time that BITS actually need an official Peacock Surveying Society or a Blue Cross or a Collectors Club.

With more clubs coming up this surely gives the students more opportunity to choose from and definitely makes it easier for the administration purposes. A student who wants to pursue something now has many choices to choose from instead of just on centralized clubs, instead now there are 5 centralized clubs. It also surely helps during festivals, where all the clubs need to host their events. More events obviously mean more people winning (for most of the events are clashing with something or the other and hence there can't be the same winner) which will surely boost the morale of the average junta who are anyways depressed with academics.

Obituary

It wasn't exactly an exquisite piece of art, yet I adored it. With 500 MB of memory and powerful earphones, it was my compensation for an IPod, with a 1.3 Mega Pixel camera, it was my makeshift digi-cam and with Monster Truck Madness installed, it was my time pass while waiting in long queues. Oh yes, it could make calls too.

After four years of begging, I had finally got a cell phone. Before that, my parents never quite found the need for me to have one. They never had a problem with me chatting with my pals at 4 in the morning. Whenever they felt that I might be going to a place where I’d need to contact them, my mom would give me her phone and for other times, they’d just hope that I wouldn’t get myself into a shady corner with no public phone booth.

Been nearly 2 years, and it has served me well. Squished in between books in my bag, dropped more times than the number of times a Mexican can fart, trampled upon, farted upon, played the ball in numerous dodge ball games, it withstood the test of stress and strain.

Loyalty seemed to trot in its circuit. It always did find it’s way back pretty much like the omnipresent pug which we all know from commercialism, despite its careless owner. Despite being quite dependent I always treated it like dirt, probably took it for granted too, ergo its little journey to the end of the world. That’s when it showed immense resilience and earned my respect. However the aftermath was evident. The incident did eventually take its toll on the gizmo. Gone were the days when it’d last awake all night long, gone were the days when I could put an alarm and count on it to wake me up for a 15 mark tutorial. Frozen screens would epitomize its new look which would obviously incur my wrath upon it. I’d through it around like stereotypical brute of a husband through manhandle his meek wife.

It has indeed passed its prime and was making its way for an untimely demise. And then today it happened.

After getting a 220 buck recharge, I switch it on and a message greets me

Start-up failure. Please contact the retailer.

Thought for the day

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Marketing Strategies

In a town like Pilani, where a samosa chat acquires the status of lasagne, the primary food station is a roadside stall (or simply called a redi).

The other day I was sitting at one of these redis and was contemplating over what to eat and I saw him squeeze around 25 lemons into a glass. My eyes just widened. As far as food is concerned my tastes are totally feminine. I love sour foodstuff. So I asked him he could make a lemon soda using that pulp.

“Umm…this has 30 lemons in it. You know that right?” He said in his rustic Hindi.

“Ahuh, imagine how sour it’ll be.” I said enthusiastically.

“I am sorry sir, but I cannot serve you this. I just cannot” He shot back.

And then he went on about how 30 lemons would simply kill me. It would just cut through my skin (him giving examples of how lemon juice can erode walls). He said it was his moral duty to stop me from harming himself.

Oh now we’re on to something I thought.

He continued saying how my health is quite important to him, for I was one of his regular customers. He later said that he wasn’t greedy and that, he could have very well made that mega-lemon soda which would have cost 50 rupees (for lemons aren’t cheap in Rajasthan these days), but then what? Would that make him a millionaire? No. Instead he was at a risk of losing me for a couple of days, which would result in losses far greater than 50 rupees to him (for I eat quite a lot).

There is cut throat competition amongst the BITS-Pilani redis. The redi owners (at least some of them), everything works on trust and honesty. You would rather build a relationship with a customer rather than try to get hold of his money (even if that is what you eventually want to do), for the student is going to be around for the next four years. It makes business sense to tell him that the redi pretty much belongs to him and that money isn’t an issue at all.

Also this particular rediwallah also knows that students can bitch a lot (after all he listens to them all day long as they gobble his food) and that he should provide them with the best service to his capabilities. And this makes them loyal which in turn makes these loyal customers as a sort of brand ambassadors.

Later on, this rediwallah also told me quite frankly how the other redi wallah( his main competition) is totally unlike him. How the other person would have readily given me the killer lemon soda with a smiling face. He also went on to say how in a college since we’re away from out parents, we’re like his children in some respect and it’s his duty to at least warn us before hand.

So by now:

1) He’s shown to me that he’s really cares about my health, for I am his main customer and that my health is quite important to me.

2) His competition is a money hungry leech quite unlike him

There is a reason why this redi wallah is so successful. Today he owns a taxi service, couple of restaurants, yet his major source of income is this redi which serves refreshments to over 400 people in BITS-Pilani. He is the undisputed tycoon here. And how does he do it? He keeps his customers happy and takes good care of them, because only if they are healthy will they spend more money on his venture. What he also does is that engages in some pretty interesting conversation. As a result you end up spending more time and hence more money at his redi.

I am planning to do my Economics thesis under him.

Elite institute of technology

The last few days, nearly everyone has updated their blogs and nearly all the editorials contain the same topic. After all no institution in India features mores in various forms of media than the prestigious IIT.

Content wise, it all been heard and everyone has almost taken sides. Yet this caught my eye. It’s an open editorial by one Aditya Jha, the global branding guru of Infosys Technologies, who also once in a while writes for outlook magazine. This time he chose the Indian Express to express his views. And quite interesting ones too.
While talking about the establishment of the hazaar new IIT that are going to be set up in various parts of the country, he says

The newly set up IITs are going to provide the HRD ministry with the democratic votes and moral position in an enlarged IIT Council, like Canada and Bermuda did to Dalmiya, that will drive one regressive law after another to finally reduce the original “big 5” IITs to a totally hopeless and supine position.

This strange analogy might still make sense to some but will this?

In a country of a billion people, what’s wrong with 10000 IIT-ians passing out each year? To begin with, it blows apart the core value of brand IIT: super brains.

Or this

Brilliance is elitist. There is a difference between brilliance and above average. The IIT entrance exam, the JEE, was designed to shock and awe and separate the brilliant from the above average. There is a difference between JEE rank 500 and 50,000.

If we end up producing 50,000 IIT-ians every year, we would, most certainly, be killing brand IIT.

For someone who has actually spent four years in IIT, one would expect that Mr Jha would know that all people who get through JEE are not exceptional or alternatively framed, everyone who missed out on the JEE isn’t really below average. Especially with the current pattern of the examination where questions are multiple choice, the JEE has certainly become an easier exam from the dreaded mains where the cut offs would be quite low.

Please let me clarify my point here lest someone points it out to me later. What I mean is that although its no surprise that IITians are quite smarter than the average lot (and some of them are really brilliant, I mean way above the rest of the lot), this in no way means that every IITian is “brilliant” or “super-human” as he claims to be.

If read carefully one can see that this isn’t a vent against allowing the OBC/SC/ST into the institution based on their caste or their past, but it’s a rant against diluting the IIT brand by allowing more people to gain access to it.According to Mr Jha, IIT should remain that hot blonde who can never be approached, the Holy Grail that can never be found, the horizon that can never be reached. By allowing more IIT’s to be built we’re merely destroying its sanctity.

Later he goes on to claim

Brand IIT is not about IITs; it’s about IIT-ians. And, mostly, it is about undergraduate IIT-ians at that. People who have done M-Tech from IITs always feel discriminated against. Since they never cracked the JEE, there’s no way they will be accepted into the tribe.

For his sake, I hope his boss doesn’t read this.

A quick look at the comments section of the article and one can gauge the agitation of the crowd upon seeing something like this.And he also acts cheeky by putting something like this in the article.

An IIT-ian friend of mine once went out for an arranged date with an air hostess in Hong Kong. As the music changed gears, the air hostess kept asking him to dance with her and my friend kept declining with a polite, “I can’t do the twist/disco/cha-cha-cha.” Finally, the air hostess lost her cool and is reported to have demanded, “What? You can’t even do the Can-Can? What can you do?”

To which, the proud IIT-ian responded, “I can do second order partial differential equations; can you?”

Now as Confused so brilliantly put it, how is this relevant? Seriously, how does solving PDE really make you super smart. For all I know, the IITian probably gave up an opportunity to score.

I don’t think Mr Jha read his post all over once before sending it to the Indian Express. Seriously I understand that one should be proud of one's alma mater, but seriously dude...

Crossposted on Mutiny.in

Critical analysis

Gone only...

Remember the chatter about the OBC/SC/ST quota last year. The row which made Arjun Singh into an instant villan and increased the number of hits belonging to his name by a crore-fold. Well, there have been some updates to the whole issue. And they're pretty SHOCKING. The supreme court today gave a nod to the 27% of seats to be given away as charity to the OBC's.
According to Rediff News:

A five-judge Constitution bench cleared the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 providing for the quota, by a unanimous verdict...The verdict came on a bunch of petitions by anti-quota activists challenging the Act. They vehemently opposed government's move saying caste cannot be the starting point for identifying backward classes. The inclusion of creamy layer in the reservation policy was also questioned by the anti-quota petitioners.

Well seriously speaking for all the brouhaha about how the nation's population majorly falls into the above mentioned categories, its tough to accept the fact that most of the people giving the JEE belong to the backward classes. Its also tough to accept the fact that when you go to write the JEE, one of the most competitive exams our country has to offer ( though it has become relatively easier), you're basically fighting for just half the seats, which to begin with aren't a substantial amount.

This decision is going to be implemented from the 2008-2009 academic year across the IIT's, IIM's and other government colleges.

The IIM's are going to be the ones losing the most. Seriously the top management institute in Asia cannot have half the seats( which are around a thousand to begin with) going away by reservations. But from what I know, the reservation factor in IIM's comes only once the candidate has cleared CAT, which makes it a somewhat better process as compared to the "easy" way that seems to be case in the JEE.

I guess now the best thing to do would be to switch on the TV. Every channel will be showing the protests and there will be panel discussions and probably some hunger strikes I suppose as well. This will be followed by satires, editorials and what not. The government is really going to get it this time.

Also, I can almost count the number of seconds before I see every person on my gtalk list change his status message to "Proud to be a BITSian". As proud as I am about my institution, I feel this is a concern for all Indians.

Attack of the clones

Indeed it is.

And they're pissing me off. Those darned LGMF's (no relation to Little Green Men FYI) and those moths have engulfed my premises. Then there are those strange looking insects who for the lack of a better name have simply been called, "Peter" or "Michael", but as any BITSian would tell you, these are the most dreaded of the lot.
A tryst with Peter (who seems to have a strange affinity to people's crotches) and you'll be busy scanning the shelves for all sorts of Itch guards and Ring Guards. I've already decided to keep my nails lest some serious skin scratching be required.

Gone are the days when I could sleep wrapped up in my razai, gone are the days when my door would be open and lights switch on, I guess summer is seriously the time when we SHOULD practice and ore importantly market all the power saving tactics and events such as the Earth Hour. For people are low on enthu and seriously not too keen to turn on the lights.

This is also the time when I wish there were more lizards in my room. Despite my uneasiness around them, I still would want them, so they somehow seem on my side. But then that's probably because I haven't woken up with one staring down my throat.

Filling forms

There's something about filling forms manually that makes me very uncomfortable. In today's one-click and then refresh world, where I am accustomed to filling forms online, when I do fill manual forms once in a while, I just go blank.

Yes I know that was a bad one.

But bad puns aside, watching me fill a form is a treat for you black humor lovers. Like a retard, slower than a snail, my eyes squinting at the form so that I don't make a spelling error. Its like I can see the future. But despite the foresight I end up committing the blunder and end up writing the D as an O. Though higher up in the hierarchy of form filling sins are screwing up the cases and the worst of them all, filling the wrong blank.

Those darn boxes aren't of much help too.

I always take 2 copies of a form if I can help it. It helps me calm down, re assuring me that there's always a plan B.

Origin of creativity

Here's another comic strip I came up with in my free time.

Craigslist for BITS

Buysell, it's the BITSian version of Craigslist. Well sort of anyways. It's been high time an online system was made to sell stuff. The site started couple of days ago and since then has gathered quite a following. They have as an "introductory offer" revoked all membership fees for the time being( thank you very much). You can trade cycles, books, computer accessories , actually just about anything.

The site also is pretty uncluttered and has a clean look(unlike craigslist :P).


P.S:Though the fact that the site is hosted by one Cube Inc does raise suspicion among regular junta(atleast those who are familiar with who Cube is, or is it Qube?)

Also I'd personally advice these guys to change the name of the site to something else for there exists another Buysell.com, based in NewZealand. But since the BITSian site seems to be hosted on a local server, it shouldn't matter.

ADS-7UP's new Brand Ambassador

Experience MARIO'S HIGH!

DRINK

tribute to XKCD

Here's my tribute to one of my favorite webcomics. This is something I came up with while in my Measurement Techniques lab.

On open letters

Enough open letters written by bloggers are surfacing the internet these days. Letters to celebrities and politicians, letters about decisions been taken, mistakes been made, letters about what could-have-been. Letters from people with strong opinions and who probably even share a concern.

Hawkeye had an interesting article the other day on his blog where he shares his opinion on Open letters.

They Suck.

I have written one (or two) in my blog. I now feel very ashamed about it. Every open letter I read makes me cringe. Open Letters are usually defined as letters read by everyone else except the intended recipient. Mainly because the writer does not have the ‘vakku’/ is not important enough to attract the attention of the intended recipient.

I couldn’t agree more. Having seen enough open letters on the World Wide Web, I can safely assume that the people, to whom the letter is directed, seldom get to read it. These include our esteemed politicians, law makers or any authority. Open letters are more of a vent post than anything else. The satisfaction of typing ones thoughts down in a rather “in-your-face” manner more often than not, is compensation enough and no further effort is made to ensure that the open letter reaches the person it is intended to reach. At best, it receives comments from friends, fellow bloggers, stumblers and random passers who share the concern, and sometimes even generates enough publicity to uplift the blogger to than status of an “activist” but nothing more.

Open letters could also perhaps be an interesting way to generate more publicity for your blog. Apart from that it probably also boosts the writers ego. I mean, obviously, if a letter written by you generates 30 comments, most of which are a positive pat on the back, you would obviously consider your job done, even if the person the letter was directed to was sipping orange juice, completely oblivious to the fact that somewhere in some corner of the world wide web there exists a letter directed to him/her.

An open letter can only work if its the other way around. If a famous person addresses it to a group of people, like Steve Jobs’ letter to Ipod users, or Abdul Kalam’s letter to kids of high schools. For a blogger to get his point across to someone important, either the open letter has to receive a lot of media publicity or maybe he/she has to look for an alternative. Obama Girl anyone? If not that then maybe in the official forums of a company which has responsive moderators who will give a damn about your opinions. Another way might be through letters to editorials of popular dailies (for chances are they’re more popular and read by a larger diverse group than your blog).

Mirrored at Mutiny.in

Summertime

Summer is going to be very interesting. Compared to the lethargy that ruled last year's summer, this summer will hopefully be action packed.

First off, if the guys at the passport office don't mistake me for a criminal, I shall be packing my bags off to Cairo for 4 days. It'll be awesomeness beyond awesomeness.

Also, trips to Goa and Bangalore are being planned as I write this entry.

And the Practice School system, viz is compulsory internship for BITSians after they complete their second year, their results are out. I am so happy that I got it in Hyderabad. And what more? Chances are they give stipend as well. Probably one of the very few who do. The station is Ratna Infrastructure.

Some other plans also under wraps for this summer. Plan to get more involved and active this time around.

Here's to an eventful summer.

Un-social networking

After seeing my Linkedin profile one day, a friend of mine asked me:
“Dude why are you on this website?

I gave him the best answer to my capabilities:
“It’s a professional social network. It helps me maintain relations with other like minded professionals and helps in networking. Isn’t that sort of self explanatory?”

He retorts: “But how has this ever helped you?”

I shot back: “Well, so far it hasn’t to any significant extent but it will later, hopefully.”

This really got to him.

“Dude Rishabh! You know I am sick and tired of Social Networking. Seriously man! Orkut was bad enough and then finally when I got off my lazy tushy and signed up for Orkut, I realised I was a tad bit too late for it for all my friends were now on Facebook.”

Facebook, ah, the plight of so many of us. With its never ending applications and it “uncluttered” look, why it would irk me so much, I wonder.

He added, “And now there’s a professional networking site, Jesus man.”

He continued, “You know what I want to do Rishabh? I want to make an un-social network. You know, what’s the point in doing something that everyone’s doing? I want to innovate. So here’s what I propose: Just leave social networking. Anyone can make friends there. It’s futile. What’s cool is that I give you a month’s time and hundred real life friends and you have to lose them all. Piss them off; ignore them, anything, but after a month I don’t want to see any of their filthy faces in your friends list. Now that seems like something a Venture Capital should be willing to seed. That’s what I am talking about.”

Pranks at BITS

Though the pranks played here at BITS-Pilani might not match to the extravagant and elaborate hoaxes at MIT, on the occasion of the April Fool's Day, the students here decided to have a little harmless fun which well didn't involve any vandalism but certainly helped pop a vein.

Sometime around 12, a lot of my friends' gtalk status message changed to 'Bangalore' or 'Agilent NOIDA Yesss....' This immediately grabbed my attention for this could only mean one thing. The list of the Practice School Station ( the compulsory summer internship a student has to undergo after his 2nd year at BITS-Pilani and Goa campuses). Since most of these people on my list were unknown to each other I thought that obviously the results would have been out and quick;y asked all of them what the link was. They instead said that they'd be more than happy to tell me what station I had got. This was where my suspicion started and was strengthened by the fact that the PS website working( it would have broken down had the results been declared from the overflow) and well obviously had no links to the result.

I guess now that this is done, all I can do is wait for the Google Prank to be put up.

On faith

...Swearing to God was the ultimate act. If you swore to God and it turned out that you were wrong, even by accident, even just a little, you still had to go to hell. That was just the rule and God didn't bend that rule for anybody. So the moment you said it in any context you started to feel uneasy in case some part of it turned out to be slightly incorrect...

-Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid

Travel Woes

This is how things are supposed to work.

When a businessman is diversifying his empire after having monumental success with his existing ventures, and the newer ventures also cater to more or less the same audience, and on top of that he builds personal relations with these customers and adds that ‘you-are-doing-business-with family’ feeling, or the even more popular, ‘I’d-rather-die-than-double-cross-you’ attitude, after a point of time you fall for it and hope that it works out for the best.

And then you realise that he is instead outsourcing his work from people who clearly don’t look like they’d win the credibility award. Still, you expect that the deal would be satisfactory since his being involved gives it some sort of credibility (if not certification).I am obviously talking about the hawker outside my hostel that’s running a taxi service, a food stall amongst other activities.

What you certainly don’t expect is to get off from your flight and having to search half and hour with your luggage for your cab whose driver is conveniently sleeping and has parked the car in the most mathematically distant spot. Also what you don’t expect, is to be greeted to the intoxicated aroma of his guzzle-fest and possible debauchery and for your own good beg to the one up there that its all to do with the previous trip.Once the driver opens his eyes, your suspicion is strengthened for that’s the deepest hue of red you’ve ever seen. But then come on you could be just over-reaction. The poor chap just got up from his sleep, what do you expect?He opens his mouth and your assumption is validated.

Your pals in the campus few hundred miles away are busy challenging one another to online races, little do they know that your are in a little NFS Death-Guaranteed of your own with last second cuts, screeching sounds and the works. With your heart in your mouth, you tend to ignore little such as “Hey this isn’t the car I booked in the first place. I wanted a Tavera, I got a Sumo” or “It’s the dustiest place in the world, yet the dude want to let down all the windows”.

Every time I make up my mind that I am surely not booking my cabs using this chap and every time I end up doing exactly that.

Suggestive though of the Day

The only grinding I got to experience was in a Delhi Bus to Noida
-Anonymous

Spirit of HOLI

A western song that capture the spirit of Holi in entirety
Purple Haze

Catch them Young

There was an interesting proposal (which clearly started off as a rant against the system) which my friend concocted as we were talking about the pros and cons of Indian education.

The bulk recruiters ( you know who you are), who visit campuses in huge Volvo buses and simply engulf the students with arms wide open and snatch away a sizable portion of the population only to dump them into their cramped workspace, my friend had an idea for these guys.

For most (almost all) of these companies, the only prerequisite (if any) is that the candidate must be aware of basic C programming and can to a certain extent speak English. And oh yes, pass off that rigorous aptitude test they so carefully set ages to make.

My friend proposes that they should instead hire students (read outsource) directly from the tenth standard (or at the most 12th) for by then the student is highly comfortable with C, C++, HTML etc. I don’t think that the folks at my college who made it to these companies ever learned anything beyond the school syllabus, or even if they did, it’s certainly of no use to the company. The aptitude tests? Surely, a tenth grade student has a better chance at cracking them for he’s a seasoned problem solver (thanks to various comics and dailies). This way the companies can heavily cut down on the costs and also get most of their work done. Students can then learn the other stuff (such as Java and other computer languages) while on the job or can opt for technical courses.
The companies can approach the school authorities formally or ask the bloke in the administrative unit for the student roster (a transaction would take place obviously), quite similar to what web2.0/Insurance companies are using banks for. Or they can even hold their tests on one of the hazaar Sundays in a little hall down the street.
After four years of education if you are going to end up in one of these companies doing the same thing that you learned while in school, then why not go for it right after school?
The point being that the bus companies (for that’s what they truly are) know what they’re looking for, so then why not start off at the grassroot level?

Posted simultaneously on Mutiny.in

Marketing Practice

Okay, now I do understand that you need to market your product in order for it to capture the interest of your target audience. And one way the corporates do it is by showing happy people endorsing the product, or rather showing that the people are happy with the product. But seriously, this happy?
He's not won a lottery you know.
Now German wing knows better and they go for the more sober yet cheerful look. The confident smile and the not-so-tight grip on the notebook shows that the man under scrutiny is quite content with the security a Norton Antivirus provides his precious work with. Unlike the ultra ecstatic yuppie on top, the German endorser looks just the type who would lure potential buyers into possessing one of these CD's and not let them have doubts about the products efficiency.

Guess part of it has something to do with all of us being cynics inside. No one can stand someone being too happy with a product ( Which is probably another reason why we just can't stand Linux or Apple users)

Jailbreak

Reminiscent of the Shawshank Redemption, the Chilean Policemen discovered( much to their amusement) a tunnel, equipped with ventilation and noise barriers.

The 279-foot (85-meter) long tunnel resembled an underground mine structure, built with cement and wooden beams and boasting electrical power and carts for hauling away dirt and rock.

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Back

The Singapore trip was a blast indeed. It does feel great when everything has been paid for. Met up with a couple of pals from school. Respect for the SMU and the NTU campuses!

The quiz didn't go too well. We didn't win, but hey, we're getting IPODS which isn't that bad considering the runners up get 3 days in Singapore (we decided to stay 2 extra days there by extending our tickets)

The other teams were great fun, especially BIT-Mesra, IITB and NIT-Trichy.

All said and done, Delhi metro is better than Singapore MRT.