The Aaromale moment of my life

Funda:

The last segments of the song "Aaromale" from the movie "Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya" show a re-union of sorts between two people. The guy thinks he has permanently lost the girl from his life, when all of a sudden she jumps back into his life, out of nowhere. Seperated in Chennai, the couple re-unites themselves in New york amidst a film (within the film) shooting. Those sequences are wonderfully picturized in the song under the beautiful backdrop of a bridge. Well, something similar happened in my life too.

The happening:

It was Day 2, Shaastra 2010 (thats October 1st). I was having my breakfast in the grub stalls (I was having Pongal and Onion Uthappam if I am not mistaken) with the EP core of Shaastra. I was just finishing my onion uthappam when my eyes caught the side view of a white+blue chudidhar at about 150 metres from the stalls (near the big dice that was erected). It just caught me for a fraction of a second--and my mind was racing--"could this be the Aaromale equivalent in my life?". After a second I looked again and this time I almost confirmed it was. I was in downright disbelief as the uthappam was still struck in my mouth. I was too shocked to believe this! So I had one more look--and there I confirmed! It was that woman, whom I thought had walked off from my life nine months ago. I never imagined to see that girl in years, never imagined I would see her at IITM, never imagined I would see her at Shaastra and never imagined I would see her that very day! I was beginning to push that woman from my life-yet she just bounced back from nowhere (yet again). And I couldnt but just admire the skills of my eye--it just took me a fraction of a second to notice her (that too I didnt notice her face-on. It was from the side).

I followed her and noticed that she seated herself on the mini stage that was erected near the dice. I quickly wrapped up the remaining uthappam, turned down the EP core's offer to go round the exhibition stalls and walked towards the dice. I was a little nervous all through my walk, partly due to disbelief and the rest in the diffidence I had about my eye-sight. I was wondering what to say if it was a wrong woman. But I didnt know what I was going to say had I met the right woman-anger and surprise was catching me short of words and expectations. Finally I turned over the other side of the dice, the side that she was seated and found that my eyes didnt lie. It was a deluge of emotions-happy that I had spotted her out of nowhere, anger on her walking off from my life and surprise that she turned up all of a sudden. I was also acknowledging the brilliance of Gautham Menon, director of "Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya" in depicting those sequences so beautifully. I felt those few minutes of my life to be a beautiful depiction of those scenes in real life.

I spent most of the day with her, trying to sort some things out. It was also one of the longest chats that I had. It came out to be a nice experience on the outset.

Moral:

a.Film incidents can happen in real life too. And when they happen and if you are able to relate to them--the beauty just strikes you down! Those few minutes of extrapolation are just so beautiful in life! Never miss them.

b.You can trust your eyesight, especially if you are a teenager (or round about that).

The Video of the song:

PS: This might be the last post of mine in 2010. So I wish all of my readers a Happy 2011.

cheers,

Shaastra 2010 and Core works

Funda:
Briefly, at the later half of my fourth sem, I was selected as one of the core group members for Shaastra 2010. Cores are popularly referred to as the "bosses" (:P) of Shaastra and I was made the core for the Web Operations dept apart from my co-core. Together, we also had to take care of the Mobile Operations as well.


Following will be a time-based break up of the things I remember and the things that I did.


March and Early April:
Happiness knew no bounds when I was elected the core in March. Had some core meetings which were kinda "brain-storm" for Shaastra(but I mostly slept through huge portions of those meetings-being rudely awoken for the web related ones). We maintained the applications portal(the 2005 coded version still worked!) for aspiring coordinators to apply. We also put a full weekend+two evenings to conduct interviews in selecting our coordinators. We did select a team of 12 for Web Operations and a team of 4 for Mobile Operations. We also had the additional baggage of the QMS coordinator. So, in all our team comprised of 19 members(including us). And looking back, I have no regrets about the selection of the team--we did well.


Late April and Early May:
After the end sems ended, we had a rush of inter-departmental meetings for finalizing the requirements. We also had a couple of meetings with the design team in getting on board the customized design of the Shaastra site and with our own team before we parted for the vacations. During vacations, I realized how hard it was to coordinate work. And the situation became worse once I joined TVS as I was almost cut-off from internet connectivity for a major chunk of day time. Whatever time I got, in addition to the restrictions on sites, I used it to push through work. Meanwhile, the events team was reluctant in its pace to fill up write-ups on the site and the PR team took care of the blog. Hence we waited and used the time gained there to fix up the design of our main site. All the while, the cover provided by the temporary landing page helped. Work was also a little compartmentalized and streamlined in the sense, the account management across the main site and the mail server was done uniformly. We were also helped by the fact that the evolve team decided to make (a mess of :P) the symposium site and the AGSTVC site.


May-June-Early July:
I had always set 2009 web operations as the yardstick when it came to deadlines and I wanted to make sure that the deadlines were met with earlier. So after a great push of last minute work, we made the beta version of the main site public on July 5 at 09:00 hrs. It was a remarkable feeling to put the main site up. But the design got a few negative feedbacks partly because of the crowded header and the dodgy right menu. Once the main site was up, work was split to getting the Userportal up, the Smriti site and the Coords portal up and running. Meanwhile, all the while the mobile guys and the QMS coordinators hardly worked :'(


Late July-August:
Late July always reminds me of franatic night outs close to the beginning of the semester to get the Userportal(portal used for registration of participants) and the Helpdesk up and running. It also reminded me of pushing through work in getting the Smriti site up and running(which was done a week after the sem opened). The beginning of the sem in August again marked a return of meetings(within web ops and inter departmental). The website needed a revamp of designs desperately and we did bring out a fresh looking website by the second week of August. The hits and the feedback also improved because of this, thanks to the design team. The first all core meet was marred by a 2 hr delay in Pizza arrival! Work was devoted to the coords portal in a full-fledged manner(despite which infinite password change requests were given later) and the portal was up and running by the third week of August. So that left with the Hospi portal to be done. Meanwhile userportal had been giving us the bugs all through out. August 2010 also set the record for the best bandwidth of all Augusts put together in Shaastra site's history and was second best in number of unique visitors by a small margin. August ended with the Chairman Committee Meeting and the Steering Committee Meeting(SCM). Its a nice memory to have gone on to the 5th floor of the Admin block(might be the first and last time I have got there) where the top bosses of IITM generally have their meetings. We also obtained the confirmation of our main sponsor during the meeting which was swiftly followed by a treat at an Adyar restaurant.


September:
Early September marked the deadline for registrations for Shaastra. Userportal had its issues of mass mailing and memory usage (due to zipping of files!!) which resulted in a "lockdown" of the site. It involved days of panicking emails and meetings to set the issue to rest. September 3 also recorded the best ever bandwidth in the history of the Shaastra site(at a staggering 8GB). Once the registrations got over-the only thing remaining were the Hospi portal and the Landing pages. Meanwhile the mobile application was put up sometime in the middle of September. The Landing pages(both the Home page and the official landing page) were taken care of by my co-core while I handled the Hospi part. Despite advance planning and execution, the Hospi portal, true to its nature, stretched till almost to the brink of Shaastra. We also had a small treat at the campus CCD to appreciate our coordinators of the work done so far. The Shaastra All Coords Meet also happened and it was good to address a gathering(albeit for a short while). The end of the month marked an amazing one-hour photoshoot session for the cores! The month of September recorded the highest ever hits and unique users in any given month in the history of the Shaastra site.


October:
The only thing that was threatening a peaceful Shaastra was the Hospi portal--which was stretching on and on with changes and modifications. Finally, we could get it up and running by the midnight of Sept 29(day 0 of Shaastra) and all the bugs were fixed up by day 1 of Shaastra (Sept 30). This was the first time ever that the Hospi portal was used in Shaastra(kudos to my team and the hospi coord who helped in coordination). Shaastra 2010 this time around was more majestic and bigger than the 2009 edition, though, on sheer footfall did not match the 2008 edition. Shaastra had some cool exhibitions and some good lectures and VCs. Personally, this Shaastra was a little let down in terms of events, coz I didnt make a single final or a semi-final (the best performance being a 4th round finish in the 5 round Pentathlon event on day 3 of Shaastra). Time was mostly spent on grub stalls(thanks to the large number of grub coupons) and walking through different events. Despite all the fight I had put in preparing for the Hackfest event, I packed it out of sheer fatigue and non-willingness to put 3 night outs together. The Laser show was good but the fire show turned out to be horrible. The RC car show was a different attempt which could have been better. The Air show wasnt as great as the previous edition and I missed out on the Planetorium. Overall, this Shaastra was the most peaceful Shaastra ever and I enjoyed every moment of it.


Shaastra was quickly followed by a core-treat at the Residency. Looking back, the core ship, in its entirety was an awesome experience. Six months of nerve-wracking work(with the last two months being so tiring) and the whole thing about leadership and working alongside a pack was superb. I would always remember this experience not only because of its high-points but also because of the subsequent burn out that it caused(from which recovery was extremely difficult). We had also failed in a few objectives we started off with, including making the Shaastra games event wide and well recognized, but those were minor objectives. Anyways, one duty still remains-that of selecting the next core, which will happen in March 2011.


My only wish is that the 2010 site is never dismantled or broken apart. It has taken quite a bit of work, and hopefully I can still see it standing 4/5 years down the line. An awesome coreship and an awesome experience.


PS: Sorry about the long post--just so many memories made in those 6 months.


cheers,

1/2 Alas!

It was sometime in early June, 2008 that I stepped into the IITM gates unknowing whether I will become an IIT-ian or not. Was filled with fear and nervousness that day as nothing was certain. I was just sure about one thing-I didnt want to let go off 2 years of hard work. Two years have flied past now. And here I am, finally a half-engineer.

Considering the state of mind that I had that day, I guess its quite an achievement that I have moved past 5 semesters of IITM life without major hiccups. IITM has been tough, but it has indeed taught me how to be strong and how to say a "no" boldly. These 5 semesters have been a great learning experience and hope the next half of IITM life also is.

5th semester was probably the toughest of semesters personally for me. It might not be as tough as the 3rd semester on the face of it, but considering the sheer mental struggle I had to undergo post-Shaastra to get some focus back, I hope I dont recount such an experience again. The sem is not done yet, but I have learned to hope against all odds. A brief break up of what happened during this sem.

August:

Moved into a bog room-201. I was really terrified to move into that room, simply because it was the room adjacent to the toilet, which was used by the freshies. The bog did become worse through the later days of the sem, but it didnt terrify me as I did expect at the start. Had my plate full with the core works of Shaastra. I had put full fight for it to get things done earlier than usual. There was another 2 week fight early on with the acad section to change my minor from Physics to Economics (thank goodness I did change it). It was also a month when I became the secretary of the Metallurgical Students Association (MetSA). It was another dream come true. I had only dreamt of becoming that when I was first introduced to Amalgam-the dept festival. Being the MetSA sec, I had to immediately coordinate with my co-secretary and conduct the Freshies night and the Brahmprakash quiz--I guess we did a good job. 2nd August was probably the last day I saw a movie for the next two months to come.

September:

Shaastra work load slowly crept up with events and hospi tightening the screws on us. It was also a month of crashing servers and desperate mails to keep the server up and running (looking back-it was actually fun). The pre-Shaastra core treat, where the pizzas arrived two hours late was enjoyable too. In between came the quizzes. All of my quizzes bombed, except for possibly the F-slot quiz(which might have been saved by a dumb question paper). Quiz 1 also witnessed an event, where a certain prof walked out of the exam hall without collecting the answer scripts! I cant forget the convo that we had with him, trying to convince him not to take stringent action against us, immediately after the exam. Cores for Amalgam 2011 were also elected. I also secured a coordship for Saarang, 2011. Late September witnessed severe fights to get stuff working. But I did like the workload that was given.

October:

Shaastra happened. It was not a very great Shaastra personally-my best performance being a 4th round finish at Pentathlon-but definitely gave me a high for the sheer magnitude of the fest and also my contributions in making the festival better. The closing ceremony was wonderful. Shaastra was swiftly followed by an all core-treat and the devil called quiz 2. I did manage to pull my socks up to a decent extent, but I wasnt out of the woods yet with respect to quizzes. Post quiz-2, I had one of the most torrid times of my life, when I kinda burned out. I lost focus, was searching for something motivating and was tired both physically and mentally. Add to this, slipping health and severe lapses in concentration. It was partly because, the huge workloads suddenly stopped and I felt like a jobless bugger all of a sudden. The month started with a high, but ended up spiraling down as I hit an all-time low. Had somehow evaded work for Saarang and ensured that most of the coords were selected for Amalgam.

November:

Recovery time. I took in a lot of time for introspection and managed to get some focus back onto academics (economics presentations helped). Project was not progressing at the pace that we expected and it was hard to motivate the core team for Amalgam. The design core was changed and hopefully the team has been motivated to the extent that I tried to. A lab course project was done at the last moment, much to the displeasure of the Prof in charge of the course. Add to this-myself and my co-secretary were late for the viva! Finally came the end sems and as usual, flunked most of the exams (including severe bulbs to utter non-preparations leading to being blanked by the question paper). Economics exam was particularly severe, as I had studied till 6 am in the morning only to be asked questions from those chapters that I had not covered. Anyways, all is not lost and hope I can have the results my way, God willing. The sem ended with a thud with growing disparities between ourselves(myself and my co-sec) and a certain MS scholar. I only wish that things are resolved the way that we want them to be.

Hence goes another roller-coaster sem. I am happy that I have crossed this. Hope this december can be peaceful and fruitful all at the same time simply because, sixth sem-academically the heaviest sem ever-is not far away.

cheers,

Summer of '10

Summer of '10 is probably the time where I spent the maximum time out of family. Lots of good things and a few bad things did happen. I spent most of my time at Hosur and I still recollect the wonderful weather that was around the two months that I spent there.

May:

Early May ended with the beginning of works for Shaastra 2010. With me in charge of webops, early May was flooded with meetings and discussions. I had hit my highest GPA yet of my insti life-so that gave me a good memory to look back on. Moved to Hosur mid-may after and quickly enrolled myself as a summer intern at TVS Motor Company Limited, Hosur. I thank my "athimber" here for his support in getting the intern. A typical weekday was like this,

6.30-6.45: Get up at any point of time in this range

6.45-7.30: The daily chores of the morning

7.30-8.00: Travel to the factory.

8.00-8.10: Breakfast at the company

8.10-8.20: A brisk walk to the R&D Dept

8.20-9.10: One hour of peace

9.10-9.15: Tea break--the best part of life at TVSM

9.15-12.30:Mostly peace plus some work

12.30-1.00:Lunch--sometimes good, sometimes bad.

1.00-2.10: Post lunch peace putting period

2.10-2.15: Second tea break of the day

2.15-5.30: Mostly peace plus some work

5.30-5.45: Brisk walk back to the entrance of the company

5.45-6.15: Travel back home

6.15-8.00: Refreshing+some mail checks

8.00-11.00: Dinner+Web ops works

A weekend would be a lot different with myself getting up late in the morning and sleeping late at the night.

June:

June was very similar to the times during late May except that it had rained for a few days and the weather was particularly awesome. Had a break of 5 days at Chennai, which I welcomed with both hands and had my "athai" and "athimber"'s 25th wedding anniversary late in the month. It was celebrated with much fanfare. This was also the month when I first drove a car on a highway at 110kph. Personally, I could never forget the moment of betrayal by a certain MS scholar at my dept, who left me hanging for two days with no results for one of my intern experiments. Those two days were horrible, with my intern being at stake. Rest of the days flew by.

July:

July was characterized by last minute fights to desperately finish off the intern. The last two days of the intern were packed with a punch and I guess I pleased the industry guys with my work and report. Was back again in Chennai for the rest of the month. The days flew by with more webops work(trying to get things up as early as possible) and battling failing health. The last days were characterized by semi night outs.

Thus ended a good summer overall. It included many firsts. Hope the next summers are great too.

cheers,

Back to my writing days

It was indeed one hell of a hiatus. My last post here dates May 12,2010 and its been almost 7 months that I have not posted. Its been one hell of a seven months-and I have been through a lot these times. Hope I can recount some interesting things along the way.


I am just back to my writing days--so ignore errors and the inherent "scratchy-ness" in writing. Hope I can set in a more continuous writing mechanism were this blog will not experience lulls like it just did.


To put it once again, whether you like it or not, I am KCAB.


cheers,