A failed attempt at 'Darshan'...

Well. We all occasionally make mistakes that midway through them, or afterwards, definitely wake our senses. This is the story of likewise for me. 

Sem - 5th
Most Recent academic achievement - Completed CT-2 (Called Mid-Term tests, or MTTs)
Mental Status - Peach
Date - October 1st, 2011
Place to go - Dongargarh, C.G's sacred Durga temple sits proudly on a hilltop there
Possible (and likely) problems - Lacs of pilgrims...
Time of departure - 19.15 (ex Hostel)
Time of Return - 02.30 

Well, after 2 years of part-stay in the hostel, out of the blue - came the idea of joining my comrades for their annual trip to Dongargarh during the Navratras (not the Rama one, folks). The idea is simple. It's just a fun trip for most, although I have to admit a few of them are really serious about the 'Bhakti'. 

#AIM :- Pilgrimage and safe return back to base

 

#PROCEDURE  :-
1. Board a packed local train after dinner.
2. Survive the seemingly never ending journey of 62 Kms (Yes I calculated it, CG's present CM's home Rajnandgaon is exactly in the middle at 31 Kms).
3. Ten minute walk to the hill base, the last 5 of it barefoot if you like.
4. Start a 2 hour, 1100 steps (from what I've heard) climb.
5. Escape!!!


#INFERENCE :-
Yes, as you would've probably guessed, we (meaning half of us) never quite made it past step #3. Everything went right up until then, and despite the local train - crouching us, denying us breathing  and standing space - we made it in 1 piece. The trouble began when the police, with an otherwise healthy view to avoid congestion on the stairs, blocked the crowd at the base for over half an hour. That sparked the crowd to force their way, and despite the attempts to control them, the mob caused an almost stampede situation, a situation that I thought was best to escape out of and save my life. After all, there's no point in sacrificing your life by making foolish decisions, is it?

So, handing out to my unscathed friends whatever was left of my supposed offerings to the Devi, I made my way out somehow and was pondering over what to do next -  considering I had deposited my footwear at one of the local "Seva" stalls and these stalls gave you your footwear back in the same way as anywhere across India - on giving back their token - when I received a call from my room-mate Nirmal, who had also escaped, and decided to wait for any more escapees from our 15-man strong group. 7 in total, we decided that there wasn't much point in sitting there in the chaos and time was up for us. 


We took the token back from the person responsible, got back to the stalls and wore back our footwear, and this is really where portable Internet rocks...:)


I quickly did a search for train listings and found one train in the next couple of hours back home - but only in 10 minutes. Barely able to stand, we gathered ourselves and ran at full speed to the station. Once there, we did what I normally never do - not purchase a ticket - and boarded the train's unreserved compartment. 


This is where the vast disparity between various categories of trains and their operating priorities comes into light. While the forward journey in the local train took a whopping 1.55 hrs(D: 20.50, A: 22.45) at an average speed of 32.3 Kmph, the return leg took just 45 mins in a super fast train(as they're called in India; D: 01.20, A: 02.05) at an average speed of 82.6 Kmph. Any ways, back at the base, I had yet another 1st in a single day (or wait. It's a new day, isn't it!) - Jumping the college main gate. You see, through 1st year, I've had requests to jump out of the hostel (quite crazy, it is..) and go to have Poha, a local breakfast favourite, right in the middle of the night. Crazy as it sounds, still I'd have to be a fool if I didn't admit a secret fantasy about jumping walls and gates - Especially when you've been locked in; it's human.

Now that that fantasy was fulfilled, I felt some satisfaction. 
Finally, before calling it a day, one final task. Drank gallons of water - After all, we were dead dry after our 8 hour, 125 Km "Mini" expedition!!!


#RESULT :-
Well, the mission didn't exactly go according to plan, but I did manage to bring home some 'prasad' and learnt an important rule which I henceforth wish to follow diligently -

"Never, ever, ever try to visit a sacred tourist spot during a festival

It's like walking into a reign of fire"

A Haunting

An eventful day. Eventful in the sense it's the 1st time I'm publishing events that took place on the same day. Hope that this run can continue.

Anyway, the day started with the 1st day of vocational training at CMC Bhilai. Yes, Java, it is.
2 and a 1/2 hours of it followed by breakfast consisting of Dosas. Its quite amazing how dramatically my food requirement has gone down in the past 2 years. There was a point when I was accustomed to late morning starts and breakfast on the bed but today, it was all about slugging at 05.30 AM. Damn. Owing to my disability with driving two-wheelers, it was all down to one kind friend to shuttle me. The course was exactly as I had hoped it to be.

Afterwards, slept quite unusually for an hour due to that unscheduled early morning workout.
But from noon onwards, it was all about playing games - If you know what that means.

After what seemed like a never ending day, the evening took us (hostelers) to some horror file show - "Haunted" was up in town at Adlabs and being a Wednesday, it was time for the weekly bargain - Balcony seats for a meagre Rs. 40.
To be frank, the movie didn't scare the hell out of me but had a few riveting moments.

To sign off the day in style, an ice-candy treat from seniors is always welcome.
More Java to follow... 

A Lovely Day...

What's your idea of a perfect day? Rain, thunderstorms, or the Sun shining brightly. Well mine's all of it. I finally had my day yesterday. I know people would call me crazy - Bathing in the Sunshine of a hot summer day, with temperature likely to cross 40 deg C as the day progresses. But it's just perfect - A hot, sultry day, with humidity less than 20%, making the sky sparkling blue and the sunshine all the more dazzling. 

I don't hate rain though; India's annual monsoon season is one sure thing to look forward to, but its days like this which make you admire the beauty of being on Planet Earth. The Sun radiating with all its might on a nice Summer day, the tree leaves shining, new as they are having just been born in the spring, and the people with all their vibrant clothes. Spanish people know what I'm talking about, don't you?

This wasn't the 1st and certainly won't be the last day like this. More to come and expected wholeheartedly...

Internet worries - ended, finally !!!

Well, one and a half years of waiting is quite a good enough time. Finally, time for change. That's where people power comes to good use. So, after waiting for 7 months for the BITWIFI to work, we finally turned towards the good old BSNL for help. The result - a 3G card supporting data speeds up to 3.6Mbps. Some teething troubles later, its working pretty well. More regular blogging to follow, I guess...

Linux Mania

Its Gandhiji's 163th death anniversary today - Not a day to be particularly proud of but still, we Indians are obsessed with dates. So, the Mahatama is forgotten after mandatory morning chat shows & late night reminiscences. After all, its Sunday - The day to recharge your batteries after another week of toiling in the college, although this week proved a little kind on all engineers, with the Republic Day holiday falling on Jan 26 nicely breaking up the week into 2 segments. Its also my roomie Vaibhav's b'day. 

  "Happy B'day once again, Mr. Verma"

Anyways, Linux fever has been spreading for the past few days and today proved a very productive day indeed with loads of downloads and new hands-on experiences. As if Maverick Meerkat wasn't enough, Ubuntu updated itself to Natty Narwhal - version 11.04 from 10.10. On top of that, my Wifi is also working now on Ubuntu so that should be fun. The Linux fever actually seems to have grabbed the entire CSE dept. with teachers repeatedly talking more n more about large-scale deploying of Open source software & Ubuntu now being installed across all systems of the CSE labs (almost). Can't blame them, though, with software licenses beginning to cost even more and more amidst all this recession. Actually, I think its quite a clever move as Windows XP as an OS is starting to get more n more outdated amongst all this open source furore. Add to that the innumerable viruses attacks that the college computers have to endure everyday with all those flash drive insertions - which contain - well we all know what.

The only downside is that the Linux lectures held every Saturday have very low attendances as people are more interested in dashing off to their PGs and if possible to home (outstation students) then attending what would form a very important part of their professional careers... 

Vivekanand - The forgotten hero...

Little did I know about Swami Vivekananda till January 12, 2011 except that he meditated on the last bit of Indian rock at the southern tip of the Indian mainland sometime in the 19th century which later became the site for the famous Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari and also was the founder of the Ramakrishna mission. But all changed that day.

The occasion was the 148th birth anniversary of the sage whose birthday is now celebrated as the National youth day in India. It was commemorated by our college's university, the CSVTU - Chhatisgarh Swami Vivekananda Technical University (estb. 2005) during the course of an inter-college debate competition between 4 major colleges of this area.

From all that talking, the gist that came out was that the Swami, who was born on Jan 12, 1863 and died on July 4, 1902 - The US Independence day was a great ambassador of the youth was greatly involved in reformative programmes. He was also an excellent orator - as evident from the standing ovation he received while delivering a speech at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago on 9/11/1893.

The programme ended with two performances - A badly-scripted skit on the ill-effects and limitations of being a working woman in India and a half-naked dance by boys from a nearby college on the tunes on a remixed version of "Human Chalisa" from the 2005 hindi movie "Vaah! Life ho to Aisi!" which had absolutely nothing to do with the essence of the occasion.


But one thing is for sure. Everything has a positive effect. The 1st was that I came to know about the connection between Chhattisgarh and the Swami. Apparently he lived in Raipur for sometime when it didn't even have a proper medical facility in place. And 2nd, it reignited my occasionally dormant researcher capabilities and I vowed then and there to make myself more knowledgeable about the Swami who saw something different than his predecessors and was a true "Maverick"...

Back we return

Two and a half months since the last post?...Well, it has been some time. We've since progressed to the 4th sem and so have our juniors. Classes are going well and as a lot of juniors maybe aware, 4th & 6th sem students have to undergo 4-6 weeks industrial training. Not that many people take it too seriously, most have some or the other contact just waiting to pass them the certificate without interning even for a day. But as far as I'm concerned, a lot of head scratching is going on in my camp regarding this. After all, this is what prepares us for the outer world, not the school-esque theory classes and labs...


But anyways, a lot of time still has to go. Weather has been great. Too much great in fact. If I had been in Delhi at this time of the year, it would've been a strict no-bathe condition for weeks. But times are different. Brilliant sunshine and clear skies (A bit like Delhi's Feb weather) means that you could trouble the bucket everyday.


So, since the talk is after a long time, it has to a long one. I don't think I reviewed out 2nd sem performance. Well, 2nd sem performances of the whole college in general have taken a hit, courtesy shortage of time and exceptionally hard papers (Designed to fail I think), mini paper-leak scandals (which certainly affects your frame of mind) and bad to horrible teachers. 


A few exceptions always exist, like Nirmal who pounded and impressive 838 to add on to his 826 in 1st sem. He even received a cash prize recently for topping the college in BEE. Vaibhav's was a bit on the downside as well, plummeting to 655 and mine was the worst hit and came crashing to 621.


As if that wasn't enough, I suffered a 2nd blow as our horrible maths teacher and the dislike I developed resulting from his bad lectures meant that I was handed the elusive-till-now Backlog (Failure) in Maths-II. 

People are sometimes funny and inexplicable. Situations make them like that. Three categories of students - Engg. students especially - exist according to me - 

1. The first are those who panic a lot and screw up their exams in spite of studying well
2. The 2nd are those who still study well but a cringe a lot about screwing up their exams after the exam
3. The 3rd are those who neither study well in spite of it being in their reach nor make a fuss about it after the exam and keep a good smiling face always. 

It is the 3rd category that I belong to, though I'm trying so desperately to change it. If I screw up an exam, I know get a feeling that I wouldn't scrape through and that day the feeling was firmly in place. 

"A good teacher makes a good student"    

So they say. And I couldn't agree more when I was preparing to give the exam a 2nd time a few months later using notes from one of the most highly rated teachers of our college. I had a positive feeling - and a sad one at the same time when the re-revaluation results came out - many of my accomplices in failure had passed having got fewer marks than me - which all highlights a bit of the ill-practices going on in our education system as throwing Rs.1100 can pass you in the re-revaluation when Rs.300 can't in the initial revaluation. Still, I'm proud to say that the back paper was taken care of on Jan 17, 2011 without a fuss - even though the results haven't come out.