My meeting with a "Far-Seer"

No, I am not kidding here! There was this guy advertised as someone who knows all about you despite never having met you before and would then give you tips on the future.. So I simply HAD to go see for myself, pretty sure this guy was a hoax.

The day was Sunday, 22/02/09 (3 days ago) and I was in Gurpur, a small town by the shores of the river Gurpur (Click on the map for a bigger image):-

There was some family occasion at the community hall over there and then I learnt of this guy at the Sri Varadraya Venkatramana Temple. This temple is believed to have been built in 1712 A.D; Punar-pratista was done in 1952.

So we all went- Everyone else with reverence for the guy and I with skepticism drooling from my lower lip. First up was my younger brother: The guy actually told about him (my brother) being in class 10 and being an average student at best, and went on to tell him to do blah-blah-blah for getting more marks. At this point I was a little interested but then it could have been deduced by any smart chap.

Next up: Me! He looks at me and tells I am an engineer and wish to go for higher education... WTF??? There is NO WAY he knew about me and at this point I was shell-shocked and would have remained so had he not opened his trap again. He says: There are economic issues so getting a job is difficult. Is that so?? Take a look:-

Strike 1! 

I controlled my smirk successfully. Next he tells me I havent prepared anything for the higher education process so I need to do so soon. He tells me to take TOEFL next month as it is a lucky month for me:-

Strike 2! It was getting harder to not laugh out loud.. He then tells me I am generally silent and experience sudden bouts of anger. Well nothing anyone can tell to that, except that he is wrong! STRIKE 3 AND YOU ARE OUT!!

I was gloating with a sick smile on my face looking at everyone else there and showing them I was right about this guy being a fraud when, and I never expected this, my cousin sister went up to him...

He tells: Canara Engineering College, Electronics & Communication, 63.2% marks, no job yet, only 12 in her class of 74 placed so far etc etc for about 3 mins. All facts, no guesses!

I was not ready for this, especially after my "glorious victory". That guy told everything precisely to 2 significant figures accurately about her. I desperately wanted to be told that he somehow knew this, that my cousin had talked to him before but she and everyone else vehemently denies it to this day.

Is he a seer or a fraud? I have my reservations about him and the entire world of "men-of-God" but that day was not the most normal of days..

Engineer: An audio-visual look at the magical event!

Before I proceed, take a look at the promo video:-

I guess that gave a good insight into Engineer as far as the sort of events held but this is more like what the students experience:-

Engineer saw participation galore and the actual events began as early as Feb 4th although the inauguration was on Feb 13:-

The two students at either end of the table are Anand Karpatne (Convenor- Engineer '09) and Deepan M.N (President, Student's Union '09). Two of the main committee members:-

Engineer and other fests give a reason to spruce up the college:-

A huge attraction was the laser show on the night on Feb 12. Here are a few pics:-

Any more and it would have lost the magic! The last day had symphony (Pics not yet out) and the last word:-

That is but a teaser, the real video is way too long to put up here. A pic will have to suffice though:-

That was Engineer 2009, and its just a week for an even bigger spectacle: INCIDENT 2009, The cultural fest of NITK which sees about 1200 outside students across 50+ nationwide colleges participating in the only fest involving a private beach.. More on that soon!

Engineer: Day 3

I thought my work at Engineer was mercifully over but I am not so good on luck lately. Waking up to a call at 8:15 am on Feb 14, I learnt that my "certain skills" were needed, no info on what those skills were. I didnt even have time to see the daily schedule for the day..

So I arrive at the Biotech department at 9:45 am and see a hustle of people going mad with confusion! Turns out it was Blueprint (Chemical) and the paper presentation event was going to start any time.. Mishra was asking others if it was too late to ask me to be the MC for the event but since I had no idea what was going on, he got the job. In comes GOD followed by a Babu (For those not in the know, GOD is Dr. Srinikethan and called so because he is the reigning deity of our department with a working knowledge of simply everything! The time is 9:50 am..

First up: Rajesh Hegde, our pet sacrificial lamb. He somehow finds ways unimaginable to screw himself (Not literally). In this case, the judges were fresh for accepting our sacrifices and Rajesh had no idea he was actually disqualified from the event for having submitted his paper for reviewal in an international conferance. 

So in the end an 8-min presentation caused a 14-min Q&A session from the judges where Rajesh was left literally speechless towards the end. Once he was done, he wasted no time blaming us for selecting the judges, the schedule, his entry being selected first etc etc.. YAWN!

Teams from LIT, Nagpur participated well in this and the subsequent event:-

Manoj and Avanti won 2nd prize for their presentation on the SURGE project done at IIT, Kanpur:- 

The winner of this event was Parvathi, 3rd year Chemical Engineering, NITK Surathkal. No pics I have of her, and she actually won 3 events this day!!

After a quiet lunch downstairs, it was time for IDP or Industry Defined Problems at 2 pm and there was a total of 5 teams across 2 problem statements. Prof. Saidutta agreed to be the judge with the usual wit while Dr. Rajmohan made a surprise entry later (Even we were surprised though we were luckily covered with sufficient judge sheets and mementos). The aforementioned Parvathi won again while my personal favourite was this guy from SAIT, Bangalore who showed via a working model the use of piezoelectricity:-

All through the event both judges gave their comments to all teams regarding the poor preparation for the event and then gave more comments at the end. Frankly, I thought the teams deserved a lot more criticism as their work was nearly all shoddy!

So after the event is over and Chemical events at Engineer finally come to an end (Modal Combat was an online event), a quick visit to the Artist Forum room close by to see the work for Incident (Just 9 days away now) and then onto see the much awaited Velocity...

This event held in the sports ground saw self designed remote controlled cars race against each other in a rubber tyre capsulated track and was great fun:-

 

As far as the finals went, it was not as exciting when one of the top teams collided into the tyre wall but the last 2 laps and the ending was magnificent.. Here take a look at this video:-

That was the end of day 3, amidst smart-ass comments on Valentine's day this was a great day!

Engineer: Day 2

Like I said before, I was involved in the chemical events and hence this day saw me spend nearly all the time in the Chemistry lab.

Task at hand: Breakdown finals at 1 pm and we got problems.. I arrive at 10 am to find none there! Getting "helpers" by 10:30 was no good, we all mostly lingered around uselessly till the lab assistant came and took 1 list of full chemicals needed for analysis of ANY chemical you can think of, only to let us know that the "poison" of our choice was out of stock..

As only good engineers can, we improvised then and there and Arati made a stunning decision to switch the eliminated chemical with another having, as it turned out, completely different physiological symptoms but then we were the organisers so a simple disclaimer took care of it all.. So far so good right? WRONG!

A trip to CCC to get the corrections done and printouts taken only to discover the lab assistant refusing to give access to all chemicals requested (about 45 of them), things were beginning to look ugly when Arati (Yet again! Bless her..) made another list having a lot less chemicals; I guess a moral victory for LabMan was all he wanted as things went their way again. Time now: 11:30 am, 1.5 hours to go..

We discover absence of chemicals needed for analysis of some chemicals and I get this brainstorm of declaring them as "too dangerous to handle with bare hands" hence eliminating that particular problem. Of course a certain chemical (Nope, not telling which one: LabMan doesnt know too) went "missing" during the event itself but the participants were fully under our control by then to complain -_-

The time is 12:25 pm and no positive test for two chemicals which are in the event! One (Oxalate) was solved by getting a positive result for another test while we had to scrounge literature for getting another test for the cation of the 2nd chemical which as it turned out later, was not required at all as the anion was present only here..

So there was time for a Samosa Chaat from Pande's food stall at Engineer (If you ever happen to be in the vicinity, I will personally treat you at Pande's stall; not the lame drop-up for Engineer but the original one a lil farther off) and the event begins at 1:15 pm..

Funniest thing? I had had a crime scene made up involving a circular chalk background in which was another chald outline of a body. That was it! But the innocent teams spent as much as 15 mins trying to see what's in there and a team actually asked me if the presence of a dead bee (pushed in by mistake by another team) had any significance.. We all knew it was bad on our part to keep them in the dark but what the heck? We were all having a lot of fun seeing them there :D

Finally the process of eliminations began and by the end 1 team stole the show by winning while the rest were still 2 rounds behind! Spot no. 2 was close, and spot no.3 still closer.. In the end all teams acknowledged the results fairly which is more than what I can tell for some certain teams who, after learning they weren't qualified for the finals for the 3rd time from us, went and told on us to the chemistry professor present there: Sour grapes!!

Once the mayhem of breakdown went down, Contraption going on in the inner room took centre stage (or the only stage if you will) and a team actually got as close as 29.88 secs to the set target of 30 secs! For more on the event click here!

I must thank all the participants of these two events and more so the committee members: Saurav, Preet, Arati, Meera, Prasoonna (Hope I got that spelling right), Pravin, Buddesh and Saklini, I remember none else.. I was however dumb enough not to take any pics of these events!!

That was supposed to be Day 2 for me, But sadly the news of the demise of Bijay Sandha (I knew him personally) in a train accident rocked us all as the "Final Year Jinx" continued for the 4th year (or so I know, none really keep count) in succession... Hum Yaad Rakhenge Tumhe, Yaar!

Engineer: Day 1

My day was spent mainly in front of a flat pc in an air conditioned room! Came to the college at 10 am and was busy making the final event of Breakdown with other people involved...

Noticeable, however, was the usual registration desk and this time the ENGI kit was in the form of a back-bag, the flimsy college variant of course! Lots of people coming here for the 1st time armed with digicams, were searching for scenes worth shooting and ended up taking pics of dumb notice board... I wonder if they didn't know of the beach/mangalore??

So far so good! I didnt get any chance to see even a single event but hopefully it will change from today. The prelims of Break-down were classified as a success as there were 41 teams participating and the quality of the teams was high. In case you dunno or are too lazy to click on the link provided in the last post, BreakDown prelims is a objective paper of Organic/Physical/Inorganic Chemistry and also Methods of Instrumental Analysis.. The finale will be a lot more challenging I can promise that!

So the top 12 were selected based on marks obtained (Total of 75 questions, 1.5 hrs) and these will participate in the finale today afternoon. Got a lot of calls late night from guys who didnt get the result (IT'S ON THE SITE AND IF YOU DIDN'T GET THE RESULT THEN YOU HAVEN'T QUALIFIED!!) Also on the cards today is Contraption, a event which draws a lot of attention too. 

Hopefully this day goes well...

Engineer is upon us!

Today is Feb 12th, 2009 and apart from my friend Manoj's bday today will be more known for the start of Engineer: The techfest of NITK, Surathkal. Of course some online events have already been held and they have given an indication of the popularity of this fest. Take online sudoku for example where people from over 44 countries spread across 6 continents participated in full measure.

Have a look here for full information on what Engineer is, and here is the list of events for the day, click on the links for details on the event:-

1) KPMG Six Sigma Workshop: 1 pm to 9 pm

2) Ad-Venture: 3 pm to 8 pm

3) Marathon: 3 pm to 6 pm; 7 pm to 8 pm

4) Mind-Bend prelims: 3 pm to 5 pm

5) Nirvahana: 3 pm to 7 pm

6) Automata prelims: 4 pm onwards

7) Guest Lecture by Tim Poston: 4 pm to 6 pm

8) Perfect Machine prelims: 6 pm to 11 pm

9) Student Innovators: 4 pm to 7 pm

10) Rectify prelims: 5 pm to 6 pm

11) Break Down prelims: 6 pm to 7 pm

12) Science Quiz prelims: 8 pm to 9 pm

13) Biz Quiz prelims: 9 pm to 10 pm

14) Video Conferance with Dr. Lutz Richer: 9 pm onwards

15) Geodesica prelims: 5 pm to 7 pm

So what is in it for you? Well I say go for BREAKDOWN! That's my event and I promise it will be worth every second of your time and more... But thats true of all events at Engineer, so why are you still here? Engineer is upon us, Are You Attending???

Losing something Precious...

It had been a long time since I had gotten my dogs; about 5-6 years back. But what I remember most was that we had bought them on Oct 2nd..

Yesterday one of my dogs (Rocky), expired. He was having some sort of allergy from sunday and the vet diagnosed it as asthma/congested heart. It was in all probablity a heart attack and we found him not breathing in his den at 9:45 pm... I just hope it was quick and painless for I last saw him at 5:45 pm and he appeared dull yet very much alive!

Seems harsh even now as his body is still where it was found, we need to get some labourers to bury him in our backyard. I cant help feel what effect this is going to have on our other dog: Being of the Doberman breed, the two were together all this while and I hope the other wont give up on depression.

The worst part was that I was the only one in my family to not shed a tear, hell even the neighbours cried for Rocky was just that good! Is it just me or do I no longer have the heart to do something human?? I know I have changed the last 4 months and I care very little for people who have disappointed me.. But the least I can do is remember him, I guess for the rest of my life...

R.I.P ROCKY: 02-10-2003 TO 11-02-2009

Thanks for everything pal, you were loyal till the end!

Last Quarter of Undergrad college!

Its official! Once your midsems end, you enter the 4th quarter of the 4th year (For me atleast) and well this is it: No more midsems in NITK and the chance to be involved in my last Engineer and Incident and most importantly- No more of the college life here which was fun, even as a dayscholar!

The midsems this time? Well with 2 subs you got a 50% chance of getting 1 good and 1 bad- Trust me that is the case in final sem! So it was too, CRD was a major bust and BRD was simply rhetorical but thats the case till the marks are out..

In 2 days the techfest Engineer commences and I got work there, maybe because I want to give to my college something which I can remember for a long time! But I cant help consider the situation in 2 months when its all coming to an end, there is a reason the final sem is called the "Senti-Sem" or sentimental semester..

GATE Keeping!

For some reason my friends expect me to write on the GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) and I find myself indeed writing this. But before I write on how the GATE was for me, let me take this chance to tell you why GATE saw so much more participation this year: SUCKING ECONOMY! I know, "sucking" isnt even a word but sometimes such letters written together make more of an impact..

So with campus placements on the fall and education abroad hit, good ol' GATE had had to be the last resort for quite a few and so when I arrived on the morning of Sunday, Feb 8th, the first thing I noticed was the buses: With the national highway 17 being upgraded into a 4 lane most buses prefer NOT to stop at the dust bowl bus stand of NITK but here most buses stopped and out came major numbers of students and parents (WTF??) alike.. Pretty sure over 700 ppl were here!

If you wanna know what the GATE is, then you are at the wrong place (Click here or here) but hey if you are jobless enough to read more then be my guest!

So where was I? Ah yes, I must let you know I was NOT PREPARED for GATE (Too much Capslock??). What with the apping and placements combined with the midsems and the work for the 2 fests (A not of them soon), and the lack of interest in everything lately, studying for GATE was non-existent! And it was so bad I must have been the only one to not even know the syllabus in its entirety.. And then there was the pattern change!

60 questions, 100 marks with 1/3rd negative marking for a wrong answer. I came there for the heck of it and was major pissed off to learn I couldnt leave the exam hall till the end (9:30 am to 12:30 pm) and so most of my time was spent observing the various specimens of the human species around! But for others in my class this was an important exam for reasons mentioned above, and some were pretty disappointed. Hope the result proves otherwise (Out on March 15th)..

I turn 21

So I survived another year when the clock struck 6 15 pm on Feb 2nd: Big deal!!

Well actually it is a big deal as it was my last bday in college, I wanted to celebrate it loudly but exams resulted in division of the classmates as per schedule and then there was the Car Festival in Mangalore ( Yesterday was the big parade and today is the celebration of colours called Okli, exactly like Holi but a lot more wilder and populous) so nothing eventually happened..

The usual sms tradition continued as the day began at 12 am and I got no sleep till 12 30, then had to wake up again at 1 am for round 2! I appreciate all the wishes but as the day progressed I realised that some friends, hell even just acquaintances, I took for granted wished me while some "close" friends did not- Did that bother me? Honestly no!

After a certain age, this whole "birthday bash" thing loses its charm and I think it was over 5 years ago for me.. Sure you finally hear from some old friends and far-off cousins but I have grown nonchalant over relatives recently.. Maybe its fault that I no longer care what many of the "friends" do, but I think that suits me just fine!

I did get over rs 1k in cash and loads of clothing apparels which is the advantage of having a Bday coinciding with the annual Konkani festivals in Mangalore and I hogged on food like never before, so glad I can work it out in the gym!

So if I happen to be here on Feb 2nd, 2010 I will write but at the rate I am losing interest in trivial matters as this, its doubtful...

The Tale of the Tramp

A friend of mine wrote this down when he was in one of his creative moods:-

I gazed upon the street 
Below the shining lamp, 
I thought it was just plain rags; 
But it was actually a tramp 

I pitied on his condition 
Walked up to his domain, 
I looked into his eyes, 
And felt some distant pain. 

I felt into my pouch, 
Placed some money on my palm, 
Held it for this pitiful tramp, 
And he took it from my arm. 

He opened his mouth to thank me, 
But instead came a cough 
I moved forward to console him; 
But he fell down with a puff. 

He seemed like a god’s reject, 
And I felt pity on this tramp, 
- felt an urge to help this man 
This man besides the lamp. 

I picked him up and 
To the clinic I took him, 
The tramp was now awake… 
But still looked pretty grim 

The doctor came in 
With a pint of the drug, 
He went to the sink 
And put some water in the jug. 

He then took the mixture, 
And poured it down the tramps throat; 
The tramp suddenly felt better 
And I went to get my coat. 

To pay the doctor, 
I got up from my couch; 
I paid the money – 
Right out of my pouch. 

Then as we left, 
The tramp thanked me, 
He took out his stick... 
And waked away slowly 

He left me on the pavement 
With a goodness in my heart; 
I had just helped a man 
Who lived with fits and starts 

Later that night, 
I walked to the nearest bar 
I felt very elated as, 
I had healed a man’s scar. 

I grabbed a seat, 
And got me a glass of wine 
Reminiscing ‘bout the tramp’s domain, 
Where the lamp still shines 

I reached out for my pouch, 
As I started to leave; 
You see – this pitiful tramp… 
…was also a thief! 

                                    ---AmC 

Nice huh? I liked it and hope you did too! There is a lesson to be learnt here but as you can tell from this earlier post (Click Here), I didnt learn it!!

Something Funny!

Today being my birthday I decided to just out up a few exceptional jokes I noticed in the joke column in my blog..

1) Newspaper Clippings

Washer. Owned by clean bachelor who seldom washed -- $100.

Snow blower for sale. Only used on snowy days.

Free puppies. Part German Shepherd, part dog.

Cows, calves never bred. Also, one gay bull for sale.

Free puppies: part Cocker Spaniel, part sneaky neighbor's dog

Full-sized mattress. 20-year warranty. Like new. Slight urine smell.

Found: dirty white dog. Looks like a rat. Been out for a while. Better be reward.

Nice parachute. Never opened. Used once. Slightly stained.

Free Yorkshire Terrier. Eight years old. Unpleasant little dog.

Tired of working for only $9.75 per hour? We offer profit sharing and flexible hours. Starting pay: $7 - $9 per hour.

2) Fortune Cookie says---

 -- Passionate kiss like spider's web. Soon lead to undoing of fly.

-- Virginity like bubble. One prick, all gone.

-- Man who run in front of car get tired.

-- Man who run behind car get exhausted.

-- Foolish man give wife grand piano. Wise man give wife upright organ.

-- Man who walk thru airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok.

-- Man with one chopstick go hungry.

-- Man who scratches butt should not bite fingernails.

-- Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.

-- Baseball is wrong -- man with four balls cannot walk.

-- War doesn't determine who is right. War determines who is left.

-- Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cathouse.

3) Blonde's Alligator Shoes

A blonde was on vacation in the depths of Louisiana. She wanted a pair of genuine alligator shoes, but didn't want to pay the high prices.

After unsuccessfully haggling with of one of the shopkeepers, the blonde said, "Maybe I'll just go out and catch my own alligator, so I can get a pair of shoes at a reasonable price."

Later in the day, the shopkeeper spotted the young woman standing waist deep in the water, shotgun in hand. She took aim at an alligator, killed it and hauled it onto the swamp bank.

Lying nearby were several more of the dead creatures. The shopkeeper watched in amazement as the blonde flipped the alligator on its back and shouted in frustration, "Damn, this one isn't wearing any shoes either."

Chinese New Year at Cx!

Firstly, Happy Chinese New Year for all who care! 2009 is the year of the Ox and well, its a good way to have a zodiac based on animals and not star constellations..

So why the interest for me? Well I learnt that the food chain Chefs-Xinlai have opened a fusion restaurent "Cx" (Although the "C" looks pretty different) in Mannagudda and yesterday I happened to be in the vicinity only to learn that they had a Cantonese Chef brought here for a week (Jan 26- Feb 1) and had actually made a menu for this week only incorporating the guy's original chinese recipes: No people, Gobi Manchurian is NOT chinese, its actually an Indian creation believe it or not!

I thus decided to go there yesterday afternoon and was really surprised by the extent of "China" they brought in here: The outside is full of Chinese paper decorations in the shape of the famous Paper lanterns, Dragons and Chinese Letters and just outside the inner area is a small outer section with a couple of tables and the setting is in accurate chinese style (Watch any of the chinese martial art movies and you will see the tables and the walls in one scene atleast), but the real treat is inside..

I guess air conditioning is a given these days but what about Chinese herbs and aromas giving a soothing fragrance to the decor? Speaking of decor, more paper decorations hung from the ceiling and, according to the waiter atleast, the background song was from a recent film of a very famous chinese actress Ariel Lin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Lin). So far so good, I was already impressed with the extent of originality and the waiters looked chinese but thats true for most dhaba's also here lol..

In comes a waiter with a special menu and the regular one, I didnt even open the regular menu! The special menu had 4 sides of food items and most of it made me think of american tv serials where they talk about the food and I go- WTF is that?? Not this time! The waiter patiently explains to me what all the food items are and its gets tougher to decide what to take the longer he talks..

Finally i decide on a course of Chicken Dumplings (Starters), Spicy Chicken in Royal Thai Sauce and the Chinese Festival Special Fried Rice (Although I also wanted to try the Kwaithyao/Meifoon for the main course)! The starters were excellent in the sense that they were delicious with no frying and also light on the palate while the Saucy Chicken was succulent like hell.. The main course was Seafood endowed with Prawns, Fillet fish, Squid, Crab and something I am yet to identify along with Blue cabbage, green tomatoes and blood-red carrots.. My best thought was the table ware: The plates were real different in shape and the dumplings actually came in a steam basket:-

Here is the Thai Chicken:-

Sadly I got no pic of the rice items as I had them parcelled, but the icing on the cake, and it actually didnt spoil my mood, was when I was leaving the restuarent and the owner tells me to come again- IN KONKANI!! Now he pretty sure heard me speaking in konkani as I was talking there but I was surprised at that..

If you want a treat of the actual chinese eating experience (Or atleast as close as I got), head over to Cx, Mannagudda main road!