Sunday, July 02, 2006

And so the biggest pain in the @$$ is over !! A job !

Twas the 23rd of June 2006. Wipro was coming to college .... this was my first shot at getting a job. And I was hoping I would land it. And since I loooove telling looooong stories, Ill fill you guys on every single detail I can remember.

The past few days had been hectic .. with all the shoe shopping and shirt and tie selection and ironing and what not !! With all that happening I couldnt manage to fit in much time to preparation. But I went with enough confidence in my CAT preparation that I wasnt too tensed about the test. What I was worried about though was my Tech interview if I managed to clear the test.
So I woke up nice and early .. took a nice long shower with warm water and packed my clothes. Now packing the clothes itlsef was a huge pain in the butt. What to wear, how to fold it, how to carry it so that it dosent get crumpled and all kinds of crap like that. So finally I came up with this brilliant (Yea right!! ) plan. I would wear a neat shirt and a pair of trousers so that in case I dont have time to change in between the test and the interview, I could just throw on a tie and go for the interview. And I carried my main attire in a box. My first stop was my friend Nabeil's place. There were like 5 people there already. And so all of us dumped all our stuff there and started pressing our clothes to keep them ready for later. With very little time left for the pre placement talk, we rush to college and it discovered that it hadnt started. So it finally started around half an hour late (Thank god the Wipro guys arrived late!! There was a problem with the projector....not very surprising:D). It was a pretty decent slideshow. I guess the highlight for Vivek, Manu, Abhay and me was when they said that there was a rock band in Wipro. The reaction of the students was priceless!!! They all turned to try and spot anyone of us :). So anyways at the end they showed the salary scheme and it bloody sucked !!! We were going to get only 1.73 lakhs pa compared to 2.04 for the other branches !! Bloody #@$@^@$!!!

So anyways, since we were desperate student in need of jobs, the sa,ary wasnt a huge negative :D. So we all did write the test. The sight of the answer sheet itself was scary !! 15 verbal... ok manageable, 15 quant and LR .. not bad .... HOLY $#!T !!!! @) TECHNICAL QUESTIONS !! SCREWED !!!!! And so it began ... i spent atleast 45 minutes trying to clear the cutoff for the tech section. Fortunately there was no negative marking and so the old tried and tested shortcut method was called into action ... Eenie Meenie Mynie mo .. :D .. and so cleared the test.

So then we went to have lunch... and just as we were about to leave the restaurant ... IT BLOODY RAINS !!!! So we wait a while and finally decide there is no point in waiting and we go back to Nabeil's house drenched. My interview slot was supposed to be at 4. So we spent the time we had "refreshing" our memory of C++ (more like learning for the first time !! ).
And at 3:30 we started our second round of pressing our clothes when Abhi called and yelled at us and said that they were callin us for the interview. So we throw on our clothes and rush to college all tense and worried. But luckily it din't turn out to be a huge issue. I was sent to room number 103. Luckily the guy there was great. The interview seemed more like an HR interview than a tech interview (Thank god !!! ).

He asked me how the computer faculty was and what my attitute towards computers was. And after making up crappy answers to those, he asked the scary question!! "Do you mind if I ask you some basic questions in C Plus Plus? " ...and there I could feel my heart skip a beat. So since I had no other choice I said "ok". Luckily the guy was nice and he said "I dont usually ask very tough questions to Mechanical engineers.. so write a program to give your name as the output. So I wrote this program with whatever I would remember. And luckily for me there was just one small error. And he dint mind that. He then asked me about header files and Library function and I with no hesitation what so ever, no need for a second thought said "I have no idea"!!! And fortunately he said "Ok fine..I'll ask you something from your branch ... Mechanical" ...then he stares at me for a bit and says what has become one of my favourite lines of all time ... "I am not a Mechanical Engineer so even if you tell me a wrong answer I wont understand .. seriosuly." :D ...and so he asks me to descibe my "FAVOURITE motor "!! ... and AC Induction motor being the only motor that I knew anything about .. i explained the working of that. And so I cleared the tech interview. Some people who we all thought would get through were unfortunate not to make it. I got the easy panel. Some unfortunate souls like Vivek, Abhijith and Abhay got the horrible panel . But Abhi and Vivek managed to get through.

Then came the pain in the butt process of filling out this huge form (how I hate forms !! ). And after that came the HR interview ..heres how it went... this is as well as I remember it...
Panel dude: Hi. Hows life?
Me (With stupid expression on face) : Good
Panel dude: Why?
Me: uh ....exams are over and no classes. ..so I'm enjoying life.
Panel dude: (Looking at resume) Oh.. You studied in Dubai ... @@#$@#$@$#@$& (Something in Arabic)
Me (With an expression that spelt F**K) : uhh ... I dont know Arabic sir.. we learnt it just so that we pass the exams :)
Panel dude: You are the first person I've met who was in Dubai and dosent know Arabic
Me (Smilin sheepishly) : Sir.. I was in an Indian school and all my friend were Indians so I dint need to speak in Arabic.
Panel dude: OK
Panel dude: Why did you choose mechanical ??
Me (Gears start churnin in my head) : umm ... I'm a huge F1 fan, and before every race they show how each part of the car works and I found that fascinating and that really attracted me towards Mechanical Engineering.
Panel dude: Then why IT now?
Me: Sir IT is everywhere. For example like I has said about F1, TCS is doing the consultancy for Ferrari.
Panel dude: Then why Wipro?
Me (Thinking ..HAHAHA !! I Had already prepared an answer for that one !! ) Sir... Wipro is one of the leading companies in the IT field. IT had started out as a vegetable oil company and now its a leader in IT. Its not going to be long before it ventures into the Mechanical field and stars dominating there as well. (And ending with a hhuuuuuuge grin).
Panel dude: So you want to get into the Mechanical field.
Me: Right now Sir, I want to get into management and in the PPT it was mentioned there was a management section as well and I would like to get into that.
Panel dude: What are the qualities required for a good manager?
Me: blah blah blah (Dont remember ... made up a lot of stuff and then 2 more when he asked "Is that all?")
Panel dude: Ok ...What extra curricular activities are you involved in?
Me (I mention some along with) : Im a member of the college band.
Panel dude: How members are there in the band?
Me: Sir, we started off with 8 and now we have 4.
Panel dude: What happened to the others?
Me: Sir, they were seniors and they passed out of college.
Panel dude: If you are such a good manager, then why dint you get replacements?
Me: Actually we did sir, initially we had 2 singers and 2 guitarist. We lost our lead singer...
Panel dude (Interrupting) : Lost??
Me: Sir he completed his course and had to leave. We got another singer in his place and now we have a balance again. All the positions are filled.
Panel dude: Ok..Nice to Meet you ....

And I get out and sit and blab with the others till the results were out. One of my friends' mother came. And she was so anxious.
When the results were out I heard I got the job. And so did this person. But unfortunately one of my best friends did not make it. So that kinda dampened the celebrations for the 2 of us. 2 of our best pals dint get selected. But watchin his mother shed tears of joy when her son got selected made it all worthwhile. Afterall, isnt that what its all about? Our parents toil day in day out so that some day they can see us do well. And that day just proved it. And I felt proud of myself for making my parents happy as well. Because I know the sacrifices they've had to make and the hardship they have had to face so that I can lead a good life. Mom, Dad .. I love you guys .... You've made me who I am ... Thanks ... your prayers got me that job ...

Sunday, June 04, 2006

THE ROYAL MEXX - S3- Rise Of the Mechians !

So we had just finished our 1st year, and after an extreeeeemely looooonnnggg vacations of 10 days, it was back to college. Initially we were back into our 1st year classroom. And we loved that room !! This sem people started cutting classes ...they used to wait at the second door and as the teacher got in, they would leave. Some the more daring ones called out their numbers for attendance and ran out !! The teacher would enter with 55 in class and leave with 40 left :P!!

We had started becoming more like a family when 6 of our brothers went to TKM .. they are ...
Jayadev
Jayakrishnan
Jayakrishnan 2
Mohd. Raseen
Harish
Arif Rasheed

And new guys arrived .....

The results came in s3 and we were proud of our own Praseed ET !! 85 bloody percent !!
We also got our stupid electrical marks in which nearly everyone got around 25-30 marks less that they had expected. That sucked!!!

In s3 we had another football tournament ... we reached the semi finals ... the highlight probably being our 6-1 thrashing of the senior S6-IT class ...

The most memorable thing about S3 was probably the C++ classes . That was the first time that Mr. Jayaraj (AKA Kiliraj) taught us ... or atleast tried teachin us !! All of us hated anything to do with computers... a certain person dint even know how to operate one !! ( you know who u are!!)
And this guy comes and starts teaching as though we all knew everything about programming !! So basically that sem we got screwed in that subject !! Our main man in crime and getting into trouble the all rounder Jaikrishna got kicked out of class for throwing a piece of chalk at Manu ! That was so funny !!!!
Another funny thing that creative head Ajay used to do was switch of the supply lines when the others went to the computer lab (The main switch was in our class !! ) . Half the bloody computers used to turn off and with it the programs that the guys had written with all that pain also went down the drain. That was soooo much fun !!

The main Cpp incident thought involves our friends from the CITY ... yeps thats rite ! METRO BOYS Vishnu and Sajiv ... Vishnu dint have a text to study for the university exams .. so he and Sajiv(Who studied C++ in 12th btw ) went to the library looking for a book! And a book they did find !! They see this book labelled C# .. .and the brilliant Mr. Sajiv says " # is actually 2 +'s joined together !!" and so poor innocent Vishnu takes that book and studies C sharp all night long thinking it was C plus plus .. only to discover on the morning of the exam that it was the wrong subject .. but kudos to him for managing to pass that one!!
And so thats how our hatred to computers began !!

This sem we moved on from "chipping" and "bullets" into a more sophisticated form of entertainment ... throwing paper balls !!
And this is also the sem that Simon started giving every missed calls in the middle of class and we all would scream out the name of the owner of the cell that was ringin like mad !! :P

S3 also saw the arrival of our juniors ... we did unto them like the seniors never did unto us !! :P
The poor kids were tortured... I still remember Vishnu getting a junior guy to propose to Manu .. .the look on Manu's face was pricelesss :P .. it was fun until Arlene mam ratted on us to the principal ... like we cared !! :P
I remember 1 guy was made to dance in our class :P hehe...

By the time the juniors came we were shifted into this crappy little classroom. It was actually a big room split into 2 rooms by this stupid divider. Well the divider had a gap in it and during most of the classes, the back benchers could be seen peepin at the people in the other class or passing messages to them!!
Aaah ! The good times !!

S3 also witnessed the face off between Vishnu and Louie !!! The "banana" face off !! Louie ultimately won !! And Vishnu lost in disgrace after being a victim of the ultimate insult "Go stuff a banana in your mouth !!!" :P

We decided to throw our juniors their fresher's day !! And Jaikrishna and I shared the honors of hostin the event.. actually he did most of the hard work ... I was too lazy !!
That event saw the delivery of probably one of the most famous lines of all time !! Our very own Abhijith's "BASS KOOTI TREBLE KORAKYADA !! " We never forget to yell that out at every single college function!!
The freshers day also saw Rayu receiving "her" first kiss !!
And Me and Vishnu finally revealing to the world THE greatest dance step on earth ... it is simply known as "THE STEP"... that sem was the time Manu, Vishnu and I used to do all kindsa crappy stuff in class ! I still remember the time I did THE STEP to Metallica's Sad but true ... ( Music by Manu) ... That video was soooo hilarious !!

S3 also saw the first college elections ..with our very own Safdar and Jitin getting elected as UUC and S3 representative respectively.
Also in S3 Alen became our rep. It also saw the arrival of Sisupalan !
Alen once looked at Sisu's pic and said "I look like him"!!! ...Famous last words !!

Another weird yet memorable occasion of unity was when we heard that AICTE was coming !! We cleared the class room, borrowed a hose and started washing ... and I mean literally WASHING the class ... And that day also saw the creation of one of the greatest works of art .. Drawn by Kishore and Modelled by Vishnu ... Remember cleanin the fan Vishnu ??
We swept, washed, scrubbed and wiped till the class was sparkling clean !!
Boy that day was fun !!

S3 was also the first time we went to CET for a lab. It was SM lab that sem... we thought that was tough ... but we were wrong .. we had no idea what was in store for us the next sem ... HELL !!!
We dint have enough classes so we had to go for extra classes from 4:30 till 8:30 at night!! And the worst part was that one day the supply went and it started raining extremely heavily ! Not only did the roof have a couple hundered leaks, but the lab was getting flooded !!!
But the person who was goin to prove himself the star once again with another show of "extreme intelligence" was METRO BOY 2 Sajiv himself!! He used his amazing mathematics skills to find out that a small tiny rod was 9 METERS in diameter !!! So he finally decided that was wrong and decided to make a "small" adjustment in his calculation so he would get the right answer. And out of all the variables there at his disposal, he chose none other than the mother of all constants, "The acceleration due to gravity, g" .. he decided to make it 90 m/s^2!! Yep extremely brilliant of him wouldnt you say??? ..he flunked that by the way :P

S3 also witnessed the emergence of the artistic skills of Sreejith ... cos every single hour he used to shape a standard pencil into these beautiful works of art using just a normal blade! Yea thats called "Joblessness"!!!

Back to S3 ... another great day was Onam Celebrations !! The poor artists of our class arrived early in the morning to draw the pattern for the attapoo and found to their horror and dismay that the locals had drawn it already. And that day the flowers arrived reaaaal late. .. but at the end everyone chipped in and we managed to finish it in time. And then we went for the "Tug of War" .. it was an S3 team then .... we got beaten royally :P. But the most fun came after that. Vishnu, Jitin and I returned to class and that was when we had a brainstorm !! Lets bloody throw the flowers at each other !!! And so it started as a small "Flower fight " between the threee of us .. but soon the "Violence" engulfed the entire class and everyone started throwin flowers at each other. I remember Vishnu and I going and gettin a "refill" !! We got a huuuugggee basket full of flowers from the seniors and getting back into the fight !! After a few hours .. we needed a new idea ... and we got it !! There was a small length of rope and we decided to tie someone to the window and decorate him and for that we chose our perpetual scapegoat ... Manu S Das. So we tied him to the window as planned and made him a pretty little flower boy !!

Also that very same day we wer witness to the greatest show of guitaring talent ... delivered by our very own ... and the University's very own ... Abhay Mohan .. AKA Afay Boban ! He played amazing imaginary air guitar that day. And that was soooo bloody hilarious !!!

I also remember us doin "THE STEP" in a line in front of the other two classes!! :P

We also had a new year party that year ...at Abhijith's place .. and that day we were pulling Nabeil's leg .. you see , Abhi's monitor had this problem ... the screen was predominantly red because of some fault in the connecting wire. But Nabeil dint know that ... so when he arrived fashionably late as usual and asked us why on earth the screen was red, we pretended there was nothing wrong with the screen at all .. and the worst part is that he actually bought that !!!
Boy that sure was fun!

Anyways ...
So that pretty much wraps up S3 !! Im pretty sure I'll havta edit this a lot too ...

So here are the teachers ...
Mathematics - Mrs. Sherly and Mrs. Usha
Mechanics Of Solids - Mr. Amjad and Mr. Louie
Fluid Mechanics - Mr. Rakesh
Computer Programming and Applications - Mr. Jayaraj
Machine Drawing 1 - Mr. Satish and Mr. Harish
Civil Engineering Drawing and Estimation - Mr. Anil Kumar, Mr. Amjad
Humanities - Forgot their names .. will find out !
Civil Engineering Laboratory - Mr. Thulasidhran and Mr. Jayaraj (Another one)

2 edits so far .. hopefully this wont be as bad as the other one !! :(

Saturday, June 03, 2006

THE ROYAL MEXX - Semesters 1 and 2 ... And so it begins ...

Ive completed 3 years in my mechanical class in GEC. I still remember the first day like it was yesterday. It was such a strange atmosphere ... it was the first time I was in a class with such a massive number ..60 !!!
And on top of that there were just guys !! The first day I noticed just two guys ... Abhijith and Nidhin .. cos they were the guys who were running around and meeting every1. ...the first couple of days were quite uneventful ... then we got to know each other and then all hell broke lose !!!! We discovered that our class had a large number of football freaks. So we collected money and used to play atleast an hour of football every single day ! Then came the inter-class football matches ! And that single tournament made us famous .. we beat the seniors !! So then the football craze went overboard with us playing inside the class and we broke exactly 4 tubelights!!! We also used to have a carroms tournament in class until our stupid staff advisor stopped us !! We also play cricket in class once in a while ! Also there used to be regular card games ... the popular one being "Bluff" ... we even played in the bus.

Man we sure have done a lot of weird stuff in class!
I still remember our first apology letter.... it was hardly 2 months after we joined. It was my sister's wedding and the entire class cut classes for that day and then next day it became a huge issue. Since we were new comers we were let of easy with just an apology letter signed by all of us!
The second one came on the day we were supposed to verify our ID cards at the IT lab. We go there and open the door and then someone screams "close it !! close it!! so 1 guy kicks it shut !! ... And the stupid IT people acted as though we had burnt the entire lab down !! So there came the next apology.
So within three months of joining college we were the notorious class !!
Then came the third one !! :P
We had this electronics teacher named Mrs. Sreelatha . .and she pretty much hated our class right from the first day .. so we gave her a real tough time in return. (And that was a time when we hated anything that had electronics attached with it .. not that thats changed now ..but still..).
So then one day she reads this notice in class and we start applauding .. then she goes like "There is no need to clap" . And so we stopped. And then when the notice was read out in the next class ...they started cheerin ... so we thought "If they can, so can we". And so we start clappin and hootin and screamin and so the teacher walks out . And so there came the next apology. ... and teacher walkout 1!!
A frequent visitor to our class was The Principal .. Mr. Varkey Philip. He used to regularly come and plead with us to shut our traps !! But to no avail ... :P.
The thing we probably hated the most in the first year was probably the workshop! The place was filled with a bunch of assholes !! They used to act like they dint have a spine around girls!
So we spent the rest of the year cursing the workshop teachers and hoping they would sign our records. I still remember standing behind one of the sirs .. it was carpentry I believe.. and was making faces while one of my best friends was trying to get his record signed and was struggling not to laugh his ass off!!
One of the new ideas we had come up with was " Chipping".. invented by arguably the most creative person in class..Ajay MNK.. We used to push the guy sitting at the end of the bench onto the floor in the middle of class... that sure was fun !! It was hilarious to see the look on the teacher's faces !! Especially kaatu's!! Also we used to shoot paper bullets at each other...
Another frequent scence in class was Vishnu, Manu, Athul and Nikhil dancing their heart out to the Ketchup song .. .yup .. it was a regular song and dance routine ... and during the lunch breaks me and manu used to "perform" Linkin park songs !!
The civil engineering classes used to be fun ... especially Mr. Shiju's .. he used to have 2 hour classes and we used to take a 5 min break ( Which we extended to 15-20). During that break we used to buy sip-ups (I know childish but then who the hell cares ???) and we used to stand and suck on them outside class till it was over and the teacher let us in. Then in class we used to take out our reserve stock and suck on them in class!!! Boy those days were fun !!
I still remember how we used to take on the seniors in Booing people off stage and beat em ... our class versus the whole of S4 :P..
That year we were shifted to an isolated location for a while cos we were becoming too much of a pain in the butt ... and there the HOD used to come visit and threaten us regularly ! ..But that class saw the beginning of our famous "Jaloltsavam" ... It started of between me and Nidhin... he had this pitchkoo thingy and he sprayed a little water on me .. so I waited and poured half of a small bottle of water on him .. so he chased me halfway around the block and emptied a huge bottle on me ... and so it began ... slowly atleast 6 ppl were involved.. and that marked the beginning of our most famous tradition !!
This year also marked our respected class rep Visakh gettin involved in politics .... he had one leg in the KSU and the other in the SFI .. so one day he was givin out these SFI pamphlets and the KSU dude found out and came in our class and started calling out the SFI people ... who were in another year altogether .. and all of us were like " Y the F*** is this guy actin like a bigshot here ??? That was so funny !! (He got beaten up later that day btw)..

And here are the stuff I had forgotten the first few times .. I cant believe I had left out such important stuff!! so here they are ....
The raggin we had to "suffer" in first year ..... The seniors were so kind to us .. we had a negligible amount of ragging! The only bit of ragging they actually did was the time they came to class and made people introduce themselves. That was the Vishnu had to get his "Sunshade" cut, Vivek Mohan had to relearn Marching and Thiru "defied" the seniors!!! They left him with a couple of empty threats but thats all!!

Then after a few weeks of joining college, we were shifted to the EC class ... and there we went berserk !! We started writing on their tables and walls. I remember we wrote "EC sucks" on their wall with coloured chalk !! :P Boy that sure did get us into trouble...and guess what the EC guys did !! NO they dint confront us or even talk to us about it ... they complained to the teachers!!! BOO HOO LIL BABY WANT A PACIFIER COS BIG BAD MECH DRAW ON WALL !! :( ... ughhh disgusting .. I think thats the day that the anti-EC sentiment took off in our class!! And after that there was this incident where one of our classmates referred to one of the EC girls' dress as "Inappropriate" on national TV :P. And its not her but their class rep who comes to seek justice and when we confront him, the dude is like "Dont make it a class issue!!" !! WTF ?? If you dint want to make it a class issue, then why the hell did the class rep come with a few other guys to clear the issue ??? Boy some people !! I guess all the other mech students everywhere can understand "The anti EC sentiments" .. its genetically imbeded in each of us and we just need something to make it active and I guess these were it for us !

So that was that .... and one day we were simply sitting in Civil engineering class when one of the teachers came and asked for a couple of volunteers. So we being the civil minded students we are (Yea right ... any excuse to cut class is fine ! ) we went to help only to discover to our horror that we had to help shift the entire library !!!! But since we had only like a 100 books altogether the books werent the issue. The problem was the bloody shelves !!! They were so bloody heavy !!!! It took 6 people to carry one !! Man that was some of the hardest manual labour that any of us had done!

Like I mentioned earlier , we used to play football a lot! And one such football match produced arguably the greatest soccer moment in History ..greater than Carlos's freekick, greater than Baggio's miss .. greater even that Maradonna's hand of god. I shall simply refer to it as " The Adithyan Manouvre" because there can be no name that can truly do justice to something so great! That was a "career ending" move for Adithyan .. he never played football after that day! Not because of a horrible injury ... just because of the shame! WELL IF YOU KICK IN A BLOODY BALL THAT WAS GOIN OUT BY A MILE INTO YOUR OWN BLOODY GOAL, YOU BETTER STOP PLAYING AFTER THAT !!!!!

Moving on from sports, .. it seemed even mother nature couldnt stand the trouble we were causing the world...so she made one final attempt to end it all! Twas the workshop model exam. The first omen came when the electricity supply went off. The poor innocent guys in the Smithy section rejoiced not knowing that they were almost going to get fried!!! ..so they step outside for a breath of fresh ,non-coal polluted air when "BANG" a lightning stike just a few feet from them!!And then they get back in as quickly as possible!! Yea I know that wasnt that great an incident and I just tried to make that seem dramatic but hey!! Its a collection of memories from the first year !! Deal with it !!

We also had a Christmas/New Year party in class in first year. Yea guys..... remember we had one in class??? It was the time we were shifted to the class near the HOD's room. Mahesh and Visakh and all went and bought food with the money we had collected from everyone !!
Shaji sir was chief guest then and he said in his "speech" that it's nic to hav such comraderie in the students and that we should cherish such moments. And cherishin we are sir .. we sure are !
REMEMBER !! Yea!! That was a nice time we had but I guess we all forgot.

And remember the song we sang that day .. the song we may call our class "Anthem" ?? Yes... I am talking about Nabeil's song !! The mapila paatu ... sorry but I cant utter the words here. The internet guys will get me banned!! :P

Guys .. remember the University Body Building tornament that was held in our college ???

Yea .. the best exam we had ever written in engineering was probably our first year second series test in Electronics. It was more a test of how many techiniques of copying we knew than of actual subject knowledge. Some of us passed question papers, while the more daring ones took the entire textbooks in!! I guess almost everyone got over 40 in that test. And so our sessional marks dint get totally screwed!!

And talking about exams, the first year story would never be complete without the "University Squad " story...... It was the Engineering mechanics university exam and Visakh as usual hadnt a clue what the subject was all about. But luckily for him, behind him sat geeko nerd Vishnu! So Vishak borrows Vishnu's answer sheet to check the paper quality. But unfortunately the university squad walks in. So the extreeemely brilliant Visakh drops the paper not behind him but under the guy sitting next to him who happens to be the unfortunate Rohith. And so the squad catch hold of him and start "interrogating" him!! But they still dint know whose answer sheet it was.. so they tell everyone to check whether they had all their answer sheets. And that was when there was a display of acting soooooooooo magnificent it has to be mentioned here..
Movie Title - Exam wars ... Attack of the squad!!
Hero - Vishnu R Nair
Heroine - Stadium owner's daughter
Villain - A feared gang from the University of Kerala known simply as "The Squad"
Scene : The search for the missing answer sheet...
The hero is under extreme tension and fear of being debarred and hence ruining his future. His first thoughts were .."Who will maintain the stadium?" ..and that single thought of his love was all the fuel he needed to pull it off.. Us lay people may think that he would slowly check whether each answer sheet was there and slowly reveal the fact that it was him with a look of pure innocence that even a baby couldnt have! BUT NO ... in what would seem like a piece of bad acting, the hero takes one single look at his answer sheets and discovers its his sheet! But that wasnt bad acting.... he was just using his X-Ray vision to look at all the answer sheets at one go. Everyone knows the hero always has super powers!He then made such a "convincing" argument that the answer sheet had infact been blown to the ground by the supercharged high power ceiling fan that our college was famous for. ....And so that scence produced one of the greatest moments of acting genius .. the kind that makes a little part of you die! ..
But all jokes aside, two guys almost got royally screwed that day... but it was through sheer luck that they werent debarred. Luckily the paper fell under Rohith and not Visakh himself. That incident pretty much ruined the exam for the rest of us in that room ... but most of us managed to pass that exam.

But some of the best fun we had in the first year was probably stickin stuff to people's backs and making them walk all around the college... our favourite target was Adithyan. Probably the best one was when Vishnu and I stuck "I STILL WEAR DIAPERS!" to Adithyan's back and made him walk in front of all the other classes:P .. everyone was cheering him on from the class till the cooler. Poor guy ..was so humiliated that he never talked to us after that :P!! There were many more such incidents .. but this was the best one.
We also used to pin tails onto one another ....I am still a regular victim of Vivek Livingstone's "Operation vaal". The best memory of the tails was when Nabeil had a tail pinned to him and at the same time went around lookin for people to put another tail on without having a clue that he had one on as well. That was sooo bloody funny !!!

Since the power supply mains were in out class, we made full use of all the huge switches and levers ......we hung our drafters on them:P. We also used to regularly hide Manu S Das's bag. Hey Vishnu ....remember that day in class when we were throwin stuff out of the class (All of them mine :( )??

Oh yea ... and we came in second place in sports meet unfortunately .. but that was the last time !
The sports day also witnessed the greatest basketball match ever! Between S12 and S6. And the referee ... me ...and I had no clue!! It was one hour of me just being yelled at and threatened by both teams .... in the end the seniors won just because of my amazing refereeing.. sorry guys :P
So by the end of the first year most of us had gotten pretty close .. and I guess the tag of "Mechanical" and "The Royal Mexx" we took to heart. So with that we came to the end of the first year.
So heres a list of our teachers... atleast the ones I remember .. 1)Basic Mechanical Engineering - Mr. Rakesh( staff advisor) and Mr. Suneesh
2)Basic Civil Engineering - Shiju, Louie( AKA mosquito), Amjad
3)Mathematics - Mrs. Nalinakumari and Mrs. Sherly
4)Chemistry - Mrs. Ally ..(I think that was her name ... If its wrong please let me know )
5)Physics - Babu
6)Basic Electrical Engineering - Mrs. Arlene
7)Basic Electronics Engineering - Mrs Reshmi, Mrs. Nadeera and Mrs. Sreelatha
8)Engineering Mechanics - Anil Kumar (AKA kaatu)
9)Engineering Graphics - Mr. Remesh
10)Workshop - Superintendant Mr Babu.


Class topper - Mr. Praseed E.T. with an awesome 85 !!
Football team - Jaikrishna, Ajay,Praveen,Praseed,Athul,Aravind,Jojo,Jayakrishnan, Vivek Mohan, Binoop and Arun SS who betrayed our class and shifted to EC !!
Class cricet team - Vishak, Mahesh, Anurag, Vishnu, Jaikrishna, Kiran, Jitin, Mohd Raseen, Jayakrishnan, Ajay, Praveen, Niju.
1st year also saw the formation of the college basketball team .. kudos to these guys .. they started the team all on their own without a coach and grew into a cohesive unit .. guys .. were proud of you ... they are .... Vivek Mohan, Jojo, Jaikrishna, Aravind, Athul, Manu, Nabeil, Praveen, Faisal, Nitin Panicker.
Guys who represented the college in a cricket tournament - Vishnu, Mahesh,Mohammed Raseen, Visakh, Jayakrishnan
Guys who got into the college football team - Ajay
College TT team ... Adithyan, Jojo and Jaikrishna ...
Chess team ... Thanzeel .. special mention of Honeru Kambi Vivek Livinstone on his valiant effort to get into the team that ended in a humilating 10 move defeat!!
College Band - Vivek Livingstone, Manu S Das, Abhay Mohan, Rohin Thampi
University Youth Festival - Group song - Jibin and Nikhil.
Initial dance group - Jaikrishna, Praveen, Manu, Rohin, Jaikrishna(Yeps he is all over the place..multi talented) .. (we never made it to Dhwani)
College quiz Team - Abhijith and Alen


If I forgot anything please remind me ...
P.S. - ive already edited this 4 times !! make that 5 .. no 6 ... aaagh !! 7 ...8... aaaannndd 9 !! damn .. 10..11 ..got a little more to go ! and finally done with the 12th edit .. atleast I hope I'm done !

Friday, June 02, 2006

The Da Vinci Bored. ...

Yea ... so today had a stupid exams and so a couple of friends and I decided to go watch the much hyped about movie " The Da Vinci Code" . I was thinkin that we would be the only engineering students there since the exams were still going on. But I was proved wrong !! Almost 70% of the viewers were engineering students ! Thats what makes us engineers so different from the rest.!!

Anyways as for the movie .... please dont waste your money on it. Read the book. The movie is a drag !!! It isnt even a fraction as interesting as the book. There is no thrill and no sense of excitement during the movie. The movie isnt worth the great actors that play the parts.
Tom Hanks .. who I consider one of the greatest actors , seems uninterested and lacks any emotions and expressions during the movie. I would have preffered to see Nicholas Cage in the role of Dr. Langdon. The girl was cute. Jean Reno got a crappy role for his immense talent. And Ian McKellen wasnt that great as Leigh Teabing either. The only outstanding performance for me was Paul Bettany as Silas. For everyone else, it was a waste of their acting genius.

I might have found the movie so dull because I read the book before watching the movie... There were only a few scenes that were real good for me .. like when they show Sophie's parents Car crash and when Silas attacks Langdon in Teabing's house. I also like the very last scence. The rest was a damp squib. The special effects were good and it ended there. The first 45 minutes seems rushed through, and we never get a chance to connect with the characters. Bad directing job altogeher. So you can watch this movie if you want to see some magnificent old buildings and brilliant churches. But otherwise NO.!!

So my reccomendation would be to save the money to watch X3 or Pirates of the caribbean : dead man's chest. .. Or if you are hell bent on watching an adventure that involves clue solving and discovering historical artifacts .. then go rent National Treasure.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

CONGRATS TO ARYA NANDAKUMAR !!!

This post is to congratulate one of my dear friends.. Arya Nandakumar ... cos she kicked major butt and secured 3rd rank for B.Com . She got this through sheer determination and hard work and intelligence. She always was a good student and she got what she deserved. A mug shot in the newspapers and loads of accolades and appreciation.

I hope that she becomes real succesful in life. So for now .... CONGRATS and GO GIRL !!!!

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

My best friend !

I met my best friend after a long time yesterday. And that made the whole day absolutely great. You know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see someone you really care for ?? Yea that pretty much describes it ! It was great being with her. She has always been there when Ive needed her and shes always given me the best advice. She has been my shoulder to cry on.

So I got her a gift just to say " thanks fer bein the greatest friend there is ". I hope she really liked it . no loved it . She said she did .. and she also said it was something that she needed. So that made it all worthwhile. Actually just the look on her face when she saw it made it worth the while. But nothin will ever measure upto what a great friend she has been. And the sad part is that yesterday might have been the last time we ever meet. And just the thought of that fact rips my heart out ! She has been one of the most influential people in my life. So here is the story of our friendship...

I met her during the toughest period in my life. I had to leave the place I had been born and brought up in to come to trivandrum. That was the time I needed friends the most and unfortunately I did not know anyone here. I had to deal with all kinds of crap on my own. It was a life changing few years. I met this person during that period. And she was one of the very few people who were ready to accept me and see me for who I was and not for where I was from.....
The first time I saw her was during math tuition classes. I never noticed her then. The first time I actually looked at her was during a bus ride back home and I thought to myself " Hey !! Isnt that the girl from tuitions? She sure is cute.".... and we started talking thanks to a common friend of ours and we clicked right from the word go.

Most of the friends I make become close to me extremely fast. But this girl wasnt that way. She was the only person who became close to me gradually .. and I guess that just makes our friendship that much stronger. I was a student in a school that hated me. And she was 1 person among probably 6 who were my friends. She used to cheer me on whenever I needed support although I never thanked her for that .. well if she is reading this then " Thank you for all your support. It really meant a lot.".. Most of the memories I'd like to hold onto from that year of schooling involves her. She was such an active person on my life then and has been so far as well.

But then she was still just a friend. But I dint understand how much she really meant to me until the day she said that she was going to move to another state. Thats when it hit me properly ... She was one of the best friends I'd ever had .. and now she was going. I regreted never getting closer to her. But I never knew that she considered me one of her best friends as well.
That became evident after she left and I became the only person she kept in touch. The feeling of pride and joy I felt is indescribable. I know it sounds stupid but it was such a nice feeling knowing that I was someone's real good friend. So then we got a "little bit closer".. and then we had the hardest part of our relationship .. we had reached an awkward point in our friendship and a situation that almost tore our friendship apart. I guess its those few months that acctually brought us closer. That was when I realised again how much she means so me and there was no point in destroying such a great friendship. So we got back in touch. And then we just got closer than we had ever been. And I am so happy with the way we are now.

She is one of the few people who actually understand me. And the advice she gives me is based on that knowledge of me and not on what is logically right in that situation. And the best thing about her is she tells me stuff about me without hesitation. And thats what I expect from true friends. ( Plus she always keeps complimenting me .. just to make me happy .. love you for that!)...She is the kind of friend who can make you happy even when your having the crappiest time.

So thats how it stands so far. So what I bought for her is never going to be equal to what she has given me over the 4 years I've known her. Actually they arnt even on the same level to be compared. So I hope she keeps it as something she will look at when she gets real old and remembers her old best friend.

L..... You'll always be in my prayers. May your life be loads of fun and may it go exactly the way you want it to. Thanks for being the greatest friend on earth.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

HAH !! I WAS RIGHT !!

I was right all along !! You dont have to study for good marks !! Today's exam i dint study one bit and I'm expectin marks somewhere in the 80s. !!! The last exam i studied real hard for and that was real tough !! So now i have officially stopped studyin for kerala university exams !!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Exam fever ?? What exam fever ???

Its the sixth sem mechanical engineering exam... and I'm sittin and ritin my first blog! I dont know whether its cos im in a "Mech" class or whether its the fact that I've written more exams in three years of engineering than what i probably have written in the rest of my life ! Nowadays exams have lost the "appeal" (for lack of a better term" that they used to have.

I guess thats cos of a combination of the above said reasons. Three years in a guys only class with 60 testosterone powered freaks of nature must take its toll after a while... Nowadays i do most of my exam preparation during the bus ride from my house to my college ... and guess what ... thats more than enough ... I have statistics to prove it as well. In my S3, i worked my ass off and i managed just 358 sessional marks and a total of 888 in the universities. But in S5 .. i never sat in class, did not study for my series tests, and definitely did not prepare much for the universities ( A subject called Metallurgy and material science i studied 3/4 of a module and I asked my friends to tell me the important stuff from the other 2 modules in short and I converted their 2 senteces into 15 and wrote in the answer sheet !!) and that sem I got 371 sessionals and a total of 895 marks in the universities !! That was sweet. Thats when I made my fine discovery .. Marks are inversely proportional to hard work when it comes to Kerala University examinations.

And so I guess I'll just laze my way past these exams as well. There will be plenty more to come after all.. During my last series tests I sat and counted the number of examinations I had written after getting into engineering and currently it stands at a staggering 108 !!!! Can you imagine writing 108 exams in 3 years ??? Thats 36 exams a year on average !!! It'll be amazing if there is any one left who dosent loathe examinations !!!

So I guess that leaves me with two options .... Study for tomorrow or dont ...hmm ... do study or not to study .... we'll i guess I'll try . .. not that its gonna do any good, because the subject I have tomorrow sucks and the textbooks suck more !!! So I guess I'm in for a ride tomorrow from 9:30 till 12:30 .. aaah .. 3 hours at staring at others and telling them how screwed I am !!