Exam Time

Well after much deliberation we have got our datesheets for final semester exams. We can't call this one month lay-off time as preparation leave, rather it was something like a month long vaccation before a spending sleepless nights. The classes were called off on or around 28th April and since then, we all were just waiting for the university to decide and declare the dates for the final examinations. But nothing happened for long despite of all the talks and discussions with authorities and we just patiently kept trying to beat the Punjab's summer heat.

Anyways, exams are here and well, I guess that this blog page will soon be filled with the colors of life of an aspiring MBA grad. Will try to capture the survival story of an engineering graduate into a B School. IFMR, here I come.

Cricket: Ghosts of the past chose to haunt back again..

Ghosts of the past have chosen to haunt the Indian team once again. The recent golden run of the Indian cricket which resembled the steep ascent of the stock sensex ended just like that. Collapsed from a season high to perhaps an all time low. Indian teams has shown the signs of its past and it seems that the cricket crazy nation of 1000 millions/Justify Fullns is felling cheated after the series loss to a depleted west indies which is by no way close to what it use to be a decade ago. One of the characteristics of Indian team was it's unpredictibility. Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappel gave signs that the era is bygone and the Indian cricket is getting a face lift. But, well fans like us will be happy to find that no, it's the same old Indian team which has given many an heart attacks to it's ardent fans in the past.

Like every other cricket fan, I too like to have my own opinion about the team and I don't care even if it's the billion'th one. Long live freedom of speech and expression. Well here is my analysis into why India Lost the series with West Indies? Five reasons.

1) Opening trouble: Sachin's position might be debatable like of Ganguly's due to his recent run in cricket. But, then see what a non-regular opener can do the morale of the team. No doubt Rahul Dravid is a thinking cricketer who likes to meet the challenges head on but you need to learn this Mr. Rahul that no body is suited for all the roles. He hit a century in the first match but failed in the rest of the three and same is about the Indian team. What was the role of Robin uthappa? Was he picked up for serving the drinks only? It seems to me that letting Rahul Dravid score a century was a part of the bigger plan of the West Indian captain Lara who excelled Dravid in the art of putting his pieces together.
***Suggestion: Dravid should stick to the number three or four and let Dhoni/Uthappa open the innings if you don't have Sachin playing.

2) Number Three batsmen: For opening the innings, Rahul Dravid had to abandon his post at number three and it served as a weak link. I mean you can't afford to discharge an experienced soldier of his duties and ask a lay man to fill in for him at a post of strategic importance. Suresh Raina was happy playing his shots in the end of the innings and he was asked to fill in for Rahul Dravid. Well, he failed regularly.
*** Are you afraid of Dhoni garnering more publicity than anybody else? Then why he is not finding his place at number three during crunch situations. Do you want more experiments at that position?

3) The Dhoni Factor: Indians have got a cannon which can surely blast away the West Indian attack but, they chose to hide it behind their lesser capable batsmen. He has scored both of his centuries playing up the order and it's completely beyond my understanding that if players like Irfan and Raina are getting chances up the order then why Dhoni is instructed to play cautiously because the once he departs there is no sting left in the Indian tail.

4) Inconsistency of Sehwag: He hooks, he pulls, he flicks off his leg stump and then he cuts with raw power. He shows you signs of brilliance here and there and the moment you start feeling good about him, there he goes with one foolish looking shot either played in the air, straight in the hands of some fielder or on the stumps. He is no doubt an accompolished batsmen but his incosistency is costing us matches.

5) Selfish cricket: Kaif on the field and Kaif batting both are different situations. In the former, he roars like tiger, jumps over the ball with much fury and guard a territory which will require two fielders for sure. But, when he is batting, he gives you the feeling of a fragile looking player who is struggling hard to keep the ball away from his body. The brand of cricket he has started palying lately is nothing but selfish cricket and thanks to the captain and coach to create this sense of insecurity among players. Well, the fact is that this insecurity could well become inspiration for you (Raina, Uthappa, Dhoni, Sreesanth) or could play havoc on your mindset and in the long run with your career (Kaif, Venugopal, Pathan).

Well, Mr. Coach and Captain, Would be ever beat the eighth ranked team on their home turf? Or you need more experiments to get the results? Well accept my suggestion then, throw Sehwag and Kaif out of the team or give them some rest, and adopt rotation policy for your fast bowlers also. This Irfan boy is stressed out, don't burden him with more responsibities. And Mr. Dependable, please refrain yourself from opening the inning. Nobody wants to cut his fingers instead of cutting the ribbon during opening ceremonies, can't you understand?

"Voice of the nation" or "Voice of the national Government"

I am in habbit of reading newspapers everyday as soon as I can find one. Well, I have a subscription of The Hindu (The Indian NationalDaily) and I was pretty much satisfied with the contents it carries over the day. But, since the last few days, I am seriously considering over calling off my subscription and persuading all my colleagues and batchmates to do so. I am hugely dissapointed not to see any concerns being raised by the editors and journalist of this leading Indian daily over the recent reservation fiasco.

Today's national edition carried a front page column titled "Talks with doctors inconclusive" I want to ask that whose side you are on. Isn't it should be "Talks with the government inconclusive"? I mean don't you have any opinion of your own (or of your editors who are being paid to have an opinion of theirs?). Though I am not a pro to comment on the journalism as a whole but, I see that even print media is acting biased. The title definitely shows that you are favoring the governement policies on reservation and you are all set to brand the agitating doctors as the devils. I can't understand that why the "voice of the nation" has changed it's status to the "voice of the national governement".

In the yesterday's edition it carried an article on page 3 with bold letters that how 40 Doctors wrote a letter to complain that the AIIMS chief is supporting the anti-quota protests. Well, I can't understand that how come you completely ignore the plights of thousands of youngsters sitting in the open facing the sun, rain and police and instead you chose to gave a significant amount of coverage to these 40 of their colleagues. Though you prefer not to have an opinion, I
believe that no communication is also a means of communication. The GOM report anouncement was given a space on the front page though the plight of the doctors failed to find even a corner.

I don't want to say that only Hindu is adopting the policy of "Low coverage, negative coverage, kill the news" but, I am really dissapointed with it's negative coverage policy. I am wondering now, that even the so called messiah, the guardians of freedom of speech can be manipulated so easily then, it's better not to read a newspaper then buy one and get misleaded.

Punjab's Terrible University.

I was busy with the internals. Life of a final year student is really crazy. You have to meet the project deadlines and then have to keep an eye on falling grades. Have to attend all the parties and most of them include booze. So if you do not drink life could be terrible. Apart from these, we are getting troubled by a different kind of problem, so thought I can enlighten some folks around me and my juniors about the issue and well, attempted to vent out the frustration inside me.

Before starting with this article I have a few questions to ask.

1. Does your university asks you to fill the forms for reappear before even declaring the results?
2. Does the declaration of results always takes four to five months?
3. Does your university often spin surprises for you ie; by awarding you more marks then the total questions you have attempted or awarding a reappear in the subject where you had the chances of scoring maximum?
4. Does your university declares the re-evaluation result after six months or in some cases, after an year?
5. Does your university makes a mistake in spelling the names in your marks card and then taking forever to make the correction?

If you answer all the questions in a No, then perhaps you are missing all the excitement and fun of being an undergraduate student. Welcome to PTU. Punjab Technical University aka Punjab's Terrible University.

PTU is in news again, but this time for locking horns with IGNOU. IGNOU claims that PTU has jurisdiction only in the state of Punjab and thus, by no means is elligible to run distant education programs in states like Rajasthan, Himachal and Haryana. A petition is lying pending with the Apex court for the hearing. The students registered with these distant educacation centers immediately launched a counter offensive as they know that once the PTU claim is defetaed in the court, they will all have to give up their hopes of a degree or a diploma of PTU.

Well, I have a completely different side of the story to tell. PTU can take the credit of running several courses which benefits thousands of students in and around Punjab but, does it really cares for the future of all those students? I guess I have an answer for this question. Five months have passed since we appeared for our pre-final semester examinations and still the two junior batches are waiting for their results with bated breaths. Due to some peer pressure and a decent diplomatic stance put in by our newly appointed director (again a make-shift one), we the final year students have been awarded a bargain in the form of early declaration of results. Man! what a crazy definition of early.

Our academic session was scheduled to end during the last week of April and it did completed on the scheduled date. But, we were really shocked that what is taking so long for the declaration of results. The students went for a strike and then only the authorities at our institute woke up from their slumber took the trouble of dialling some number. The results of the final year students were declared in a haste but the results of the junior batches are still lying pending with the university and so are the examination dates.

Well, my question is that if an university fails to take care of it's regular students and compromises with their future life (due to the late examinations an imminent danger is lurking on the careers of those students who are either placed or are all set to go for higher studies) then, on what premises it could justify it's stand to run correspondence courses and distance education programs? This is the university which was once served by the expert scientiest and a colleague of president APJ Abdul Kalam, but well, I am forgetting this fact that he resigned (or was made to resign due to the totally inept system) from his post. May supreme court do the justice.

Wanna use the new writing tool by Google??

I have been recently introduced to the new writing tool marketed by google for the bloggers and to all those, for whom, writing is a passion. Wanted it to share with all my friends and readers of my blog and even to those who accidentally have gate crashed into my web-log. However, like the other popular google sites, orkut and gmail, membership of writely is also by invitation. I am using it for the first time but I can see the loads of benefits attatched to it. I can see that my document is automatically being saved after every couple of minutes and I can manually save it in different formats including .doc.

So, if you are interested in using this tool and haven't manged to get an invite. Just leave me a message at rajneeshsha@gmail.com and I'll be happy to share this wonderful tool with you.

Munna Bhai MBBS.. the patched "Patch Adams"

Watched "Patch Adams" yesterday.. starring Robin Williams.. I always thought that Munnabhai MBBS was an honest movie and Indian newspapers carried all sorts of stories about hollywood trying to make a remake of MBBS.. Well, guyz the whole idea was drawn from this movie. The medical student, his age against him, his debate with the dean, person trying to redefine the medical ethics.. everything has been copied from there.. Add a little bit of humour, change the mental setup of the character and add a circuit (Arshad Warsi).. in short.. patch it with little of everything that indian cinema goers love to watch on screen and there you see patch-ed MB. MBBS..

The actor Robin Williams was an inmate of a mental hospital where he meets all kind of crazy people. By helping them , he realized that he actually feel satisfied in helping people and decided to make his career in medicine. Our hero got admission into one of the medical school where, he always find himself at odds with the established and standard medical norms. He regularly sneaks into the patient ward in his freshmen year (though it was strictly banned).. He was expelled from school on the charges of practising "excessive happiness" but, decided to fight a law suit.. where he give a emotional speech on medical ethics and a moral one.. and the good guy finally triumphs.

For, a person who is even remotely related to medicine, I prescribe this movie for a change. You don't see a Robin Williams movie too often but, this one surely has the capability to be called a classic. If, not by the standards of hollywood then, atleast by the norms of bollywood.

Anyways, with no any good hindi movie on the block I decided to spend a free evening watching some hollywood flick. In the end my choice was justified as for atleast three times in the movie, i surley felt a surge of emotions. You will surely curse the story line atleast once, but, then it's based on a real story and is not like the typical hindi movie where actor and the actress always manages to get united in the end.

Should I feel proud to be a part of the crowd?? part 1

Engineering students are considered to be a crazy bunch of maniacs who shares a common vision of fixing (sorry to hurt your spirits friends but, the way the university syllabus is designed, it makes you learn how to fix things and not how to create them). So, tomorrow some of us might fix bugs in the software programs, some may fix the faults in elctrical and electronics machinery, or some might pursue higher learning for fixing the things at some higher level. May it be politics, or finance or for the advocates of world peace, it could be as big as an aim as, fixing the moral disorder of the world. Now, I find that my self-percieved definition remains valid for most of the engineering institutions where I have my friends or friends of friends studying. But, the moment I try to take a saunter down the memory lane, I find this statement bogus and absurd. Life as an engineering student means studying your asses off for the most of the part of year, attend every lecture of even that lecturer who can't pronounce a correct word of english (he/she can't hide behind this crap that the institute is in Punjab, for god sake, we are not a punjabi minority institution). You find yourself submitting every assignment when you know that 80% of them are not a product of your creativity but, of your capability to cheat. To cheat your professor by making him believe that you are a genious when you are not even close to one. In the process you cheat your own self.

Speaking for airtime:
What's the use of studying for four months when, the purpose is getting only good grades. This logic seems to be far from my understanding that you speak in the class only for capturing airtime. You ask silly questions and feel confident about yourself that you are the smartest (when you know that deep inside you are actually a smartass type). And sometime you just keep trying to make sense with your spoken statements. I think those persons are much much better than you, who do not compete with you for getting hold of the airtime, because they are confident about whatever the knowledge they have and they never feel ashamed of admitting this fact that they know little. Well, I was the one who knew very little about all those things which were asked by those lazy professors during those crazy hours which, by no standards contributed anything to my learning process. I think that I have used those hours to perfection by reading Ayn Rand Classics.

Hated for humor:
As a person you should have certain sense of humor. And as an engineer I guess, it should become an integral part of your daily life. The daily dose of humor keeps you active and happy. Practising excessive happiness is by no measure a debacle to your profession but rather, it's a thread which will keep you closely knitted to those around you, in your personal and professional life. But, thanks to you all, I have seen another side of humor. despise for it. Humor is creativity and despise for it translates into hatred for creativity. Hatred for humor means you are too dumb to see a different side of life, you are too reluctant to allow your ego boundaries to be overcome. Well, I have been at the suffering end for our humor and I express my thankfullness to the almighty that he saved me from turning into a nerd or a book worm or a not-so-creative self. Though I am not a geek but I am proud I have retained my sense of humor and hopefully will get the enigneering certificate with all of you soon..

A Rainy Relief.

The summer in Punjab is really devastating. The morning soothing sunlight has a mystique effect on you and you pray that god! Let it be like this for the whole of the remaining day. But, slowly you see the orange color fading into white and it seems that the whole sky is set ablaze. The morning joggers tend to finish their jogging routine early. You start sweating profusely in your first kilometer and even a seasoned campaigner can’t even manage to complete a two mile lap.

Well, in hostels, the inmates are broadly classified into two types. The morning types and the all-nighter type. The morning types sleeps early to wake up and see the rising sun. Now, it depends on their shape and intellect that, whether they decide to take a stroll, jog or read. The all-nighter ones stays up late in the night during most of the days and I bet that most of them don’t study for all those sleepless hours. I belong to the second type and usually I feel sleepy between 3 and 5 am. Last night, I was unable to go to bed due to an interesting LAN combat of Age of Empire and I was feeling restless so I switched on my computer and decided to avail the 2 MBPS leased line facility for surfing.

Coming back to the summer heat, it’s really unbearable during most of the part of the day. You can’t step outside of your room for the fear of getting scalded. But, I guess today it was a little different. At 6, I felt a gush of cold wind that left my door wide opened. The coldness of the wind made me look out of my window and what I saw was too surprising. Tiny droplets of water were falling down from the sky and I was too dumbfounded to realize that it was actually raining. I ran past my corridor, jumped down the stairs to enjoy the rain falling in my face. There it was, fresh, filled with the aroma of wet mud and green grass. A brief respite from the scalding heat of summer sun, a cold respite.