The voice within.: 2009

Back on Top Baybe!

December 19th,2009

Almost Midnight

Ever found a long lost thing when you were least expecting it? I bet that joy cannot be expressed in words.. That is exactly how I am feeling right now! :D

December 13th, 2008. At around 8 in the night, I was on my way back home, deeply disappointed at the show that we had put up in the Dumb Charades competition at REBOOT-08. We had gone in as the defending champions. So, I was at least expecting a finish in the top 3. But again, I had an entirely new team with me and even after the numerous practice sessions that we had been through to get ourselves in sync, we faltered. We were the top team in qualifiers. But missed out a spot in the top 3 in the finals.

Now for most people, Dumb Charades means exactly what it sounds like. A dumb game.If you have the same opinion, try conveying something to a dumb and deaf person. You will know how difficult it is.

I had the same impression until I came to Halcyon-05 at SIT. Man! I was awed at the way the SITans acted out the toughest of movie names with ease. I remember harry slapping his face almost 5-6 times to enact American Pie. :D We were that noobs in miming out stuff. Even then, we managed to scrape a third spot in the finals, thanks to some very good guess work from Nagya and meself and some hilarious miming from Greeni. :D

Now, almost 5 years after that win, I feel that if not for that 3rd position, I would never have taken this game seriously. I remember spending around 6-7 hours that day (the return journey in the train from tumkur) to form most of the codes that we use even today. It was like a flu. I remember people sitting 10-15 rows apart in the train and trying to mime out stuff. We were all infected.

It just didn't stop there. Back in college too, in the classrooms, bakery, canteen, labs, everywhere. We were miming anything and everything that we could think of. Abuses, Lecturer names, funny words. There was no end to it. The dumb charades craze had become a wildfire. The effect was immediate. The next Fantasia at our college saw a huge number of teams competing for Dumb Charades. And the satisfying thing was, most of the codes that were being used by the other teams were the ones that we made up. :)

From then on, there was no turning back. DC had become our favorite pastime. Even at home, we made people go crazy with our miming and guesswork.

Its a pity that my DC team has been ripped apart, with most of us working in different companies and at different places. But then, we are always ready for DC whenever we get a chance to get together.

Coming back to today! Yuzzz... ! To say the least, " We beat the **** out of the other teams"!! :D

Even though I was in a new team yet again this time, and with only one week of practice, I was very nervous when we started off. But I had two very good team-mates, Muthu and Shailesh. Shailesh - the movie database, Muthu - the acting genius. The sync was just perfect and it was as if we all had drained down a bottle of Felix Felicis today.. :D

We won the finals by over a 100 points and reclaimed the Number-1 spot. And to make matters worse for the other teams, the Infy B team took the second place. :)

Today, I sleep peacefully, because, as Muthu rightly said "today, we bask in Glory"... ;)

12/19/2009 11:52:00 PM
2 Comments

Death for Dinner!

Wednesday.

November 26th, 2009.

9 PM.

I reached BTM layout via the 8:15 bus from Infy. As per routine, I stopped at the Gokul Cafe, picked up a parcel for myself (some rice item) which was supposed to be my dinner, then stopped at the bakery, took a cup of hot chai in the other hand, and then started climbing one by one, the 50 odd steps that finally lead to my home chweeeet home on the 3rd floor.. :P

BY was already home (I remember we going to office by bike that morning) and was watching the latest episode of HIMYM (Mininova rocks! Or rather rocked till last week.. :P). We had our usual office gossip session for the first 10 minutes, and then suddenly he remembered -- "Hey macha..! Forgot to ask to you to get some parcel for me.. :(". Actually, BY had called when I was in the bus to tell me the exact same thing, but had mentioned everything other than that. :D

Now, I shoulda mentioned this a little earlier. When your house is on the 3rd floor, and you are back home after 10 hours of work (or on weekends, its waking up after 10 hours of sleep), its sorta ground rule that the first guy who gets down to the hotel or the last guy who comes up to the house has to get a parcel for the other. :D

So, now we had one parcel only! And both of us weren't gonna get down and get something for the other to eat. So I said -- "Its ok ba.. We will eat in this only. Anyways, I can't eat this much. ". Now, that was a good solution given the circumstances and the level of laziness we both were in. So finally, the matter was settled. BY added -- " Imma go cook some boiled eggs for myself!" ( I don't eat eggs).

So BY went into the kitchen. And I grabbed the cup of chai in my left hand, and sat down in front of the PC as my right hand automatically started typing orkut, Ctrl + Enter, Ctrl + T, facebook, Ctrl + Enter, Ctrl + T , gmail, Ctrl + Enter. By the time I had logged in to my mail account, BY had finished keeping the vessel on the stove and had made his way to the loo (which I didn't know). :D

A minute had passed by and I turned around to show something in facebook to BY. But I saw that the kitchen door was almost closed and I saw that there was a bright yellow shade on the kitchen door which was supposed to be the reflection of the gas flame. I wondered what BY might be cooking with a closed kitchen door. :D So I got up, and slowly opened the kitchen door. I saw that there was a big yellow flame near the stove and there was no BY in the kitchen. I thought, maybe he put the stove on full flame and reached out for the knob on the stove to lower the flame. Suddenly, I realised that the flames were atleast 4 inches away from the place where the burner actually was. It was the cylinder tube on fire.!

3 seconds and I was almost near the front door yelling " Kitchen alli benki!!! (Fire in the kitchen!)". Suddenly I remembered that BY was actually in the house! I shouted "Bharat!! Kitchen alli benki kano!!" and heard "Huuh???" from the loo. :D BY ran out of the loo saying "whaaaa??". Panic struck, we both took a bucket each and reached out for the nearest taps to fill them up with water. I turned on the tap in the bathroom, but then saw no water coming out of the tap! I was like "Whaad daaa phaaaack!". Then, I noticed that the knob was neither towards the shower nor towards the tap. :D So I turned it towards the tap and then started filling the bucket with water. In the meantime, BY had already filled up half the bucket with water from another tap. He rushed into the kitchen, and whoooosh! I heard the sound of water splattering all over the floor. Another similar attempt. This time with the bucket that I had filled up. I was hoping for the flames to subside. 2 seconds later, I heard BY's voice from the kitchen.. "Lo maga!! BeLitha ide kano!! (Its growing!)".

Now, this was serious. We had to decide whether we were gonna stay and try putting the fire off or run out of the house before getting blown away. And then, there was Eureka! I told BY -- "Macha! Cylinder knob off maado.. ". But then, it wasn't easy. It was like "What if the cylinder blows by the time we turn off the knob?? ". There was no time to think! And finally, BY reached out for the cylinder knob. I was standing in the hall, peeking through the kitchen door and praying. BY slowly turned the knob and the flames went off in a flash. Phew!

In the next one minute, we had detached the cylinder from the stove, and kept both of them outside the house and shut the door. :D I took a snap of the burnt tube and updated my status on facebook, while BY mopped up the kitchen which was full of water. :P

Half an hour later, we were all set to eat the parceled rice that was the only eatable thing remaining in the house (the eggs were gone, so was the provision to cook something else!).

An eventful hour, ended with a dinner of rice and laughter. Courtesy, a burnt cylinder tube and Sheldon Cooper. :o)

12/06/2009 04:24:00 PM
4 Comments

Beware of IT!

It was recession time. Layoffs were the norm and even our company had made news by kicking out around 2000 employees. The term "job security" was wiped off from every company's dictionary and people used to get terrified whenever they see a HR person pass by. Everyone kept thinking the same thing.

"Hey Uparwale.. Mujhe bacha le.."(no no.. not Havell's fan.. :P)

This was around a year ago. Back then, I remember this forwarded mail circulating among me and my friends. It was about a post on one of the matrimonial websites. It was posted by the parents of a mallu girl who was looking for an alliance. The post had all the details of the girl, the parents' address, contact info etc. But the most interesting and disturbing (I'd think so at that point of time) thing about the post was the one line at the end. Written in a bright red font, the line read:

"Software engineers, please excuse."

The immediate reaction of one would be WTF! I mean, nobody would even think of applying for that "Tenginkai"'s husband post . But for the last 10 years, Software Engineers have been regarded as some of the brightest minds in the world. And all of a sudden, we were the untouchables of the society.

Its been more than a year now. I don't say that things are back to the way they were 2-3 years ago. But there is some improvement when compared to what the world was upto a year ago. Last week, I received another forwarded mail from a friend that was quite similar to the one I described above. Only difference was, the last line now read:

"Software engineers preferred."

The cause and effect relationship here was astounding! Lehmann Brothers had a role to play even in the marriage of some 18 year old girl in some corner of the sub-continent. :D

So what makes us so unique? I am not talking about anything technical here. Its just the way IT transforms you into being what you currently are. Here is my list of the typical characteristics that a Software Engineer possesses/will possess in due course. :P But this doesn't make us uninteresting or zombie like or whatever you'd like to call us. Its just the way we are! If you are an SE, see how much you score against the below list. :P

1. Your 2 best friends are your i-pod and cell phone..

2. You don't know the name of the person sitting next to you in the office bus even though you've sat next to each there n number of times...

3. Girl friends / boy friends are like code releases for you.. You expect the next version to have better features. But often, you end up with more bugs..

4. Your PM is the target for all your curses and abuses..

5. You think that your job is the toughest job on earth and that you're doing the work of 2 or more people...

6. For you, everything that you learnt before your current job seems like a big waste of time now..

7. For you, a normal weekend is one where you've slept for atleast 20 hours...

8. You're a great worshipper of piracy.. aXXo and fXg are like gods to you...

9. You'd rather sit at home and finish watching downloaded sitcoms season by season than go out for a movie or catch up with friends..

10. Your prized possession is your 1 TB or 2 TB hard drive filled with movies..

11. You're hooked on to some multiplayer game like counter strike or DOTA and you haven't met 90% of the people with whom you play daily..

12. You keep in touch with your friends via facebook and orkut even though they live in the same city as yours..

13. You try your hand at cooking, some sport, some extra learning activity and then stop all of them after a week realising that playing online games is comparivitely easier..

14. You believe that the CEO of your company spends all his time on icicidirect trading all the company's funds..

15. Your perception is that as you go up the corporate ladder, all you need to know is Microsoft Excel. No wonder Bill Gates is rich.. Hmmm..

I don't know about you but I score atleast 10 on the above list of 15. :D

At the end of the day,

I slog, I crib, I play, I eat, I sleep.. I am a Software Engineer.. \m/ :D

11/14/2009 05:51:00 PM
3 Comments

The second step..

"You will have to mix these components in the right proportion to get a maroon colored solution. Illandre nimagenu barangilla antha artha." Munnu baba was twirling both his thumbs as usual looking at the students of E3 batch lined up in front of his desk. Suddenly, whammm!! Santosh Kulkarni had fainted and collapsed. While everyone in the lab was shocked, me and Sameer couldn't just control our giggles (puttu was in E1 batch). We two were thinking in a different angle altogether when Munnu baba called for the lab assistant, sprinkled some water on santya's face, and asked him to rest on a nearby chair. We were in the chemistry lab; around one month into the second semester on a Tuesday morning, when Munnu baba was lecturing us about coming with an empty stomach to the lab can cause dizziness and stuff. While everyone paid attention to what Munnu had to say before we started off with the experiments, we two were always engaged in some sort of discussion. The result? Typical Munnu twirling his thumbs at mine and Sameer's desk after every experiment. :D

Our first sem results had come well in advance. While most of them had scored a disti easily, I had flunked in Kannada, Civil and MES. :P (Lol! Kidding. We didn't even have an exam for Kannada :D). Anyways, a new semester, new subjects, new teachers and new idiosyncrasies to make fun of. While chemistry lab was taken care by Munnu, it was CDL at class taking the theory sessions. Anybody listening to CDL for the first time would definitely make out that the "full stop" for a sentence was replaced by "baba!" in CDL's dictionary. "What baba?! See baba! Baba baba!" Phew! Too many babas to handle. And a recent update I received about Munnu is that he is currently working as a professor at Oxford Engineering College, Bangalore.

Maths was taught by JLo and ARD. While we hardly had the time to do anything in JLo's class, ARD's class was the one we enjoyed the most. "Onhe Praablem.. Same methud.. 100 praablems.. Same Methud.. Dhaaba ex baai dhaaba why.. ". Everyone was smiles when it came to ARD. And the guy never even cared about attendance or what we were doing in class. While his class used to start at 10:30, me, sameer and Puttu used to go to the class at 11:15 after a hard fought TT session. :D And the guy never even asked us why we were late. Whenever you greet him saying "Good Morning Sir", he always used to reply with "Namaskaar ri". :)

After an entertaining first instalment, Graphics was back in second semester. This time, to accompany DRR, it was none other than our "Dana kaayak hog" professor. :D While DRR's outburst at Roll No.520 was still intact in every class, a little actual Graphics was going into our heads, thanks to Professor "10 million" . :P I recall this incident from one of our graphics class when Samar had come to the class at around 2:45 when the actual class had begun at 2:15. Samar's reason for being late? "Sir.. I come from Hubli everyday". The look on DRR's face was priceless. Soon came the high frequency scream, -- "You come from Baaambey.. I don't care!! But you hyaav to be in class by 2:15." :D

Another namooona was Basic Electronics class. I actually was considering a change of branch after getting a glimpse of what I would be studying for the remaining three years of Engineering. The class, GAB's (The lecturer) tone was tailor made for a good one hour's sleep. One of the few classes in second semester we did very less talking was this class.

CCP was always fun because it was PS taking the theory classes. :P And in labs, it was PS with Aarti Ma'm. (oooOOOooo! Lucky eh? :D)I specifically recall two incidents from CCP Lab. After two or three CCP lab sessions, every student knew how to send messages to each other's terminals. In one of the lab sessions, Tanveer Sir was working on Kavva's system ( I think ) when someone(Samar) sent him a string of four to five faltoo messages. Kavva was sitting next to Tanveer sir and was seeing them pop up one afer the other on the console. The next thing we know, Tanveer sir was blasting the guy who sent those messages left, right and center in front of everyone in the lab. :D

During our lab internals, Sameer had written a program following a logic given in some VTU level book written by some Anand Naik guy. The logic wasn't entirely correct and the program was working a bit oddly. Aarti Ma'm was evaluating Sameer's program. And Sameer's viva session was:
Ma'm: Where did you find the logic for this program? Which book?
Sameer: In a text book.
Ma'm: Who has written that book?
Sameer: Anand Naik.
Ma'm:Aanand Naik? Who is this guy? Mr. India?? "
The next thing we noticed, both Ma'm and Sameer were laughing profusely at that remark. :D

Second semester was never complete without the English classes. It was very tough for us to decide which one was more entertaining, Kannada or English? :D English classes were taken by a grandpa whose name none of us know to this day. The maximum strength ever in his class was 4 or 5. And that number would never have reached 5 if it wasn't for me. One day, our classes were got over at 12:30 ( I was oblivious to the fact that we had English class at 12:30). Four students were still sitting at their desks after most of the students had vacated the class. And I don't want to disclose those four names. :P Anyways, Puttu and Sameer were all packed and ready to leave when I noticed some drawing done by Sandeep Rao on the board for some occasion. I went up to the board, took a piece of chalk, and started correcting some lines of the drawing that were erased by someone. The first 5-10 seconds were filled with "Eh santya.. Nadi le.. Time aagyada.. Hoguna.. ". After that, there was dead silence. My initial impression was that Sameer and Puttu had found some pending lab assignments to complete and were busy with it like the other four in the class. But then, I turned around slowly, and I saw our dead Grandpa crouched on the first desk reaching out for the English text book in his thaila.! In 10 seconds, I was standing at the bakery, panting and cursing Puttu and Sameer for not warning me when the grandpa entered the class while the two were laughing their heads off. :$

Soon came our exams, and I must specifically mention that I screwed up my Basic Electronics paper because the invigilator was none other than.. Umm.. you know.. :D

Two weeks of slogging and night outs and we were through with our exams. (Also, during one of our night outs, Sameer had dozed off with his mouth open and Puttu had poured a good 2 teaspoons of tea powder into his mouth. :D). After the exams, we were back to our cricket, WWE sessions and other timepass stuff.

Somewhere, in the corner of our minds, we three knew that the next semester was not going to be the same for us three stooges because all of us were getting into different branches. I was about to join the Psycho Department while Puttu was getting into the CSE and Sameer into the Mech Department. :(

PS: Thanks to Kavva for the corrections . :P

7/05/2009 01:52:00 PM
6 Comments

The other side..

If it was Kannada and Graphics subjects on one side, then there were all other subjects like MES, Civil, physics on the other side. Civil, taught by SSB and MSP, was normally the first period for us in the morning which meant it was a 45 minute class for us. And if it was SSB, then it was a 30 minute class. I still remember when we three showed to SSB class at 8:40 in the morning. The reason we gave? "Sir.. There was a goods train on the railway track due to which we couldn't cross over and enter the college!" MSP, on the other hand, had a decent sense of humor that atleast made the class a little bit fun.

Physics class was almost equivalent to one full hour's sleep. With 4 different lecturers teaching different topics, it couldn't have been more confusing and boring. While on one side, it was the burnt Bonda going at snail's pace in Optics, there was the Rajdhani Express rushing through the other part of the syllabus. And then, there was the chirkut who filled in the bits and pieces of the leftover lessons. And then there was the Punjabi munda redefining Quantum physics in a way that would make Einstein hang himself. Everybody used to try really hard to stay awake in the class but when it came to Bonda's class, it was impossible. One afternoon, after a sumptuous lunch, we were sitting in Bonda's class. While half the wickets were down, Puttu was sleeping with his head on his desk as though he was being beheaded. Bonda, spotting this, called out -- "Hey you! Last bencher. Get up." Sameer nudged Puttu in the sides and Puttu woke up with a start. Bonda demanded -- "Whay are yhou shleeping in dha class? Whaat is yhour phaather?". This is one thing we never got to know. What does his father have to do with this? You don't attend the class, he wants to know about your father. You skip the lab, he wants to know about your father. :S Anyways, Puttu got up and said " I have a headache sir.". And the Bonda replied -- " Yhou must be hyappy man. Yhou have a head!" ( we highly doubted whether the Bonda had one :P). And then he looked at me and Sameer and said -- " Don't sit with him. He whill spoil yhou guys also." :D

MES was taught by the ever Sarcastic lecturer whose name I won't take here as he is my uncle's friend. :D I still remember the day when he made fun of Santosh Paradi ( I think) in the class while giving away internal marks. He kept on singing "Doni saagali munde hogali.." in the class showing Paradi's Splash Lubricator drawing.

Workshop was fun. Only bad thing that happened to me was after my first welding session. I never used the protective masks and stuff that were given to us and did all the herogiri in the workshop. At around 2 in the night, I was screaming " I am blind! I am blind! I can't see anything! " and had scared my parents too. My eyes were bloodshot red and I was not able to open them until it was dark around. It took me almost a week to recover from that. Sheet metal lab was always a laugh for us because we had that chotu lab instructor squeaking "Baalu! Baalu!" all the time in the lab for something or the other. Once, he gave Sameer to complete a half done circle joint in one of our sessions. An hour later, we see him screaming at Sameer, "En ree neevu! Circle joint shape maadri andra job kuttgi ne kattrisbitteeralla! Ella waste iddera nodri neevu!". Sameer had actually chopped off the semi circular portion of the job that was supposed to fit into another iron piece with a similar groove. :)

If we were in college and not in class, the only place we were to be found was the sports room. TT, carom were routine. While everyone rushed to the bakery and canteen during the 10 o clock break, we used to run to the sports room. Singles, Doubles, Three on each side, Round robin, we've played it all. Everyday, we had to fight. Puttu, with his never ending Gandhis, and Sameer with his strange smashes, both refusing to vacate the slots when they lose.

Saturdays, it was Nuggikeri day for the whole college. While the hostelites went in the college bus, we three used to go on either sameer's Kawasaki Ninja ( Kinetic Honda) or Puttu's Hayabusa (Bajaj scooter) or sometimes both. Starting Sameer's Kinetic used to take a decent amount of effort because it needed a minimum of 15 kicks to start. Puttu, had this unusual habit of shouting at any person who used to block his way when he was riding and never once used the horn on his scooter I believe. And as per him, he used to get confused between the brakes and the clutch in the scooter. That explains why I was sent flying off the scooter once in Gandhinagar area when I was sitting behind Puttu on his scooter. In the middle of the road, I was sitting with a bleeding knee and palm, while a classmate of mine from PU ran up to me. I was under the impression that he was going to help me get up when he questioned -- "Hey! Heard your CET ranking was 200 odd? And you took E&C seat in SDM?". Geez.. I so wanted to kill that guy.!

Exams, the less I talk about them, the better. The best part of the exams getting over was, we could play cricket throughout the day! Starting from 7 in the morning, (yes! 7. I never woke up to study at 7!) going on up to 11 and then an evening session on Sameer's terrace. If not cricket, it was Wrestling. Monday-RAW, Tuesday-Smackdown, Wednesday-Afterburn, Thursday-Bottomline, Friday-Heat. We had to watch all the shows even though they were repeat telecasts.

Six months had passed in a blur and we were already a semester through in Engineering. :)

6/22/2009 09:10:00 PM
8 Comments

The-first-month.

The first few days of the first semester were filled with both fun and embarrassment alike. All credits to our senior batch and their ragging. How come both fun and embarrassment you ask? Its fun when you see someone else getting ragged. And now you know why the other component is. :) Anyways, I think we were put in Physics cycle first and to our luck, me, Puttu and Samya were all in the same E division. That meant, the plan we followed on the first day of college was to continue for the next one year to come. I still remember the roll numbers. 520 - Puttu, 547 - Samya and 556 - me.

Our classes used to start at 8 in the morning and go on up to 12:30 or 1:30 at times. Technically, 8:15 to 12:30 for us as we were very dedicated to being late for the first class in the morning. Unlike other freshers who spent a lot of time near the bakery or at the sports room in college, we three used to run home the moment our classes got over. Why? Cricket! We were a crazy bunch of guys who had to play cricket every single day. We three, along with Shiku (Samya's brother i.e. "Low keep aato!"), mama (Samya's dad, the best player of the lot), Varish and Veeresh (Shiku's classmates). Not even a single day went by with we not fighting over cricket. Every evening used to end with someone or the other cheating to win the match. It was great fun though.

At college, we had all sorts of subjects like MES, Graphics, Physics, Civil, Electrical and the good old Math. The only misfit in this lot was the Kannada class. :D Started specifically for the Northees to learn some bits and pieces of the local language, the best part of the Kannada class was that we got to talk and curse everyone in Kannada. And in case you didn't know, Puttu, who has studied in CBSE for like lifelong, was as confused as ever whether he came under the Northee group or the Local group when it came to Kannada class,simply because he had finished his 12th from Noida and not learnt Kannada in past 4-5 years. Nevertheless, it was fun to see Puttu asking doubts in the Kannada class. I recollect one of the lessons from our syllabus which was something like " Ane halla dalli hudugiyaru". As soon as the professor started with this name, we were all giving 90mm grins to each other. I specifically recollect one thing that happened at one of our Kannada internals. Yes. They had internals for Kannada as well.! Puttu, who is as fluent as TV anchor Aparna in talking and cursing in Kannada, was not that familiar with the Kannada script and hence for him, writing his Internals in Kannada was a wee-bit difficult. So, right in the middle of the test, he got up and asked the Professor " Saar.. Kannada nyaga dhodda Pha henga baritaara?? ". The moment he said this, he knew that he was going to remember that Internal for the rest of his life. :)

Graphics class was a different world altogether. While most of us struggled to spot the teeny weeny dark figure moving around in the class, students playing in the college field could almost hear the high pitched voice of DRR yelling at a student for not sharpening his pencil or not getting his own drafter to class. Graphics classes normally started at 2:15 in the afternoon which meant 90% of the class was on the brink of dozing off. Most classes had a lecture for the first half an hour or so and then, we were supposed to solve some problems. There were two incidents from the graphics class that we laughed at all the time, one involving Samya and the other one, Puttu.

One afternoon in the class, we were solving some problems given by DRR while Gadad sir and DRR were having a look at each of our drawing sheets. Sameer on that day, had forgotten to bring his eraser and finally had to resort to a stray piece of rubber that was lying on the floor in the class. From its looks, it appeared that the eraser was run over by at least two to three batches of students who had attended the graphics class that day. So Samya picked it up and used it during the course of the classwork.The moment DRR came to Samya's desk, he let out a shriek and shouted -- "En ri idu? Nimagenu baralla! Your drawing is so shabbby!". Every student in the class sat up with a jolt hearing the scream thinking that Sameer had just put a HB pencil through DRR's stomach. At that moment, Samya replied back to DRR with a wide grin -- "Sir.. My drawing is not shabby. Its the drawing sheet that is shabby.." :D

The same day, DRR was handing over roll number-wise our drawing sheets that contained our homework that we had submitted the previous week. We always looked forward to hearing 520 from DRR's mouth for two reasons. One, to laugh at the way he called out 520. The other, because it was Puttu's roll number! DRR always had a complaint to accompany Puttu's drawing sheet. It always took Puttu a while to realize that 520 was his roll number and he was being called, given the forgetting type fellow he was. The Ghajini of our class you can say.The moment Puttu went forward to collect his sheet, DRR's BP hit 200/140 and he started screaming like a puppy run over by a scooter --" En ri neevu.. Ond sheet alli Onde drawing na moor sarti maadiddera? Henge ri correction maadodu??". The moment me and Samya were waiting for had come. We were waiting for the showdown between Puttu and DRR. For a moment, we thought Puttu was going to catch hold of DRR and give him a choke slam on the drawing table. But then, we heard Puttu calmly telling DRR -- "Saar.. Naan front page alli aa diagram maadirodanna martbittidde!".. :D

6/18/2009 09:25:00 PM
7 Comments

The-Beginning...

September 15, 2002.

Dharwad. 8:15 AM

"Puttu..! Ent hodithu.. Lagoo elo..." ( Its 8! Get up..).. I was still shifting sides on my bed when I heard my mom say this for the 6th time that morning. Everybody knows its difficult to change something when you have been following it for quite sometime. I was no different. I was used to getting up at around 10 everyday during the holidays after CET. But that day, it was different. It was supposed to be my first day at Engineering! The moment this hit my head, I sat bolt upright on my bed. I was supposed to be at college by 10 and I was still in my bed! I got up and started getting ready while all the planning that we had done the previous day was running through my mind. Sameer was to come to my home at 9:15 and together, we were to go to Puttu's house. From there, we three were supposed to go to college.

This part went as planned and we were in college by around 9:45. As we walked towards the main entrance, we saw that the entrance was fully crowded. There were parents and students, perplexed alike in trying to find the place where the welcome ceremony was to be held. Here and there, there were small groups of guys and girls, friends from PU college perhaps, looking for the Auditorium. Everyone was either seeking directions from the guard at the main entrance or going around looking for the Audi themselves. Finally, everyone started moving to the left of the main entrance, and we three, hoping that it leads to the Audi, followed suit. On the way, I met a few more friends of mine from my PU and tuitions, Vikya, Adi, Boka Vijya, Santya kulkarni, Sameer Joshi etc..

Very soon, the audi was packed and the welcome ceremony began. Invocation song, guests' intro, speech, chief guest addressing the students.. It went on for around two hours. I managed to gather nothing out of the those 2 hours except that we had a lunch organised and a department tour at 2 o clock that afternoon. I looked around and I saw the same "Lunch and Department tour in the afternoon" look on Puttu and Sameer's face.

The best part of the ceremony ending was the lunch. :D I think the lunch was arranged at the hostel (I don't exactly recollect. Growing old you know. :) ). We all ate to our heart's content at the hostel and then started roaming around the campus. It was around 12:30 and we still had ample amount of time before the department tour. So, continuing our habits from PU, me, Sameer, Sameer Joshi, Puttu and Boka Vijya came out of the campus to the nearby Tapri. Vijya and Joshi went in and asked "eradu Raju kodri..". Little did we notice that there was a gang of around 6-7 guys sitting outside the tapri, smoking. When Joshi and Vijya came out, we started discussing what to do until 2. A dark tall guy from the smoking group overheard someone say "Department Tour" and that was enough for him to know that we were freshers. That's it. The guy got up and asked all of us to come into the tapri. Even after this, we never realised that they were our seniors.. Joshi, with usual arrogance refused plainly. Then the other guys from the group started getting up one after the other and soon, we had no choice but to follow them inside. Puttu, who was in a different world altogether, almost told the dark guy " Eh hogole..! chaa maaravne.." thinking that he was the guy selling tea at the Tapri.

30 seconds into the Tapri and we all knew that this was going to be our first ragging session. The usual intros, tell me your name, "abey baap ka naam nahi bolega kya? Poora naam bata!", which PU college, which branch followed. Then came the worst part.While one of us was asked to measure the length of the tapri bench using a match-stick, the others were asked to say ABCD backwards. Some were asked questions like "what is the Integral of Body?". While everyone was struggling at their own tasks, I got pulled out of the lot solely for the fact that I was from Suku's tuitions. For the people who dont know, Suresh Kulkarni (referred to as Suku most of the time) is a slightly funny but brilliant Mathematics teacher and the founder of Suresh Kulkarni tuitions in Dharwad. Along with Hanchinmani tutorials, it is one of the top tuitions in Dharwad for PU students in Science stream. The guy who had singled me out was also from the same tuitions and so decided to get a bit of "Suku"ness out of me. Suku always had this funny way of talking to himself while teaching, turning towards the board and doing weird hand gestures while calculating something etc. We were so used to his idiosyncrasies in the tuitions that some of us used to do that everytime we spoke about Suku. The senior guy, who also knew this, asked me to do all these things in front of the 6-7 member senior crowd. The ones who knew Suku were laughing their heads off while the ones who were new to this were laughing hard just for the reason that it looked really stupid.! It was just so embarassing for all of us that we kept looking at our wrists all the time hoping that its 2. But as always, when you want time to fly, it seems to be running at half its normal pace. Finally, when we were let off, it was 2:15 and all of us were late for the department tour. Perhaps this laid the foundation for we never going to any class on time throughout engineering. Not even internals.

The moment we were out of the tapri, all of us rushed to the campus without even looking back once, fearing that we will be called in for one more session later. Once we reached the main entrance, I and Vijya left for the E&C department while Sameer left for the ME Department and Puttu to the CSE section. There was an intial briefing about the department in some classroom that went on for an hour post which, we were taken for a visit to all the labs.Finally, when the whole thing got over, it was close to 4. As soon as Sameer and Puttu were done, we rushed back to Sameer's place just to make sure that we are not spotted by any seniors in college.

That evening whizzed by with each of us recounting the ragging incident and each of our tasks. Puttu was still in a dilemma whether the dark guy was truly a senior or the chai wala at the tapri. I was still laughing at the way I imitated Suku. All in all, it was an eventful and unforgettable first day at college for all of us. :)

6/17/2009 09:57:00 PM
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On exile duty...

4/13/2009 04:23:00 AM
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