Am I doing something that I really want to do??

Today was yet another boring day for me. Got up at 7.30am , read the news paper- could not find any thing interesting : News about the hike in fuel price and some descriptions about yesterdays HARTHAL. I did not want to spend more time on them. Just sat in front of my computer at around 8.30 am. Got a friends request from one my school mates. So started thinking about the school. The days when I used to read the entire news paper. My father used to advise me to read 'The Hindu', to improve my vocabs. "No....I cant." Used to read only Malayalam News Papers. Though I studied in an English Medium school, we were not given any exposure to spoken English. Even English was taught in Malayalam in my school. ha ha...

At about 10.15 am, one of my neighbours, Rakesh, came to my house. He has completed his tenth standard and is having his vacations now. "Rakesh studies well", my amma has told me once. That guy has scored really gud marks in his tenth also. He came to my house seeking my advice. Advice?? I hate that. He asked me ," Chetta, what do we learn in Engineering?? My parents are forcing me to go for Entrance Tuition and all. I am interested in taking ' English' as my career. But my parents are telling me that I will not get good job if I go behind English. What should I do?" . I could not give any satisfactory reply to him.

After Rakesh left, I tried to recollect the things which he had asked me. Yeah, the same problem , even I faced in 2001, when I passed my SSLC exam. By GOD's grace, I got 14th rank in the state for my SSLC. Many of my friends, who congratulated me on that day, asked me ," Eni entha paripadi?? Engineer/ Doctor??" ( whats ur next plan? Engineer/Doctor). " No, I don't want to become an Engineer or a doctor. I want to do my higher studies in Malayalam Literature. I want to take my PhD in Malayalam and to become a good Professor". Even my friends said, " No, man. U are a great BUJI. U shud go for Engg or Medicine ,and we are sure that u will go . People like us, who will not get admission in entrance will take the literature". 'Oh God!! What will I do...I want to do my higher studies in Malayalam and these High Marks that I have scored have become a CURSE for me'..

Even my dearest friends were of the opinion that I should go for Entrance Coaching and that I shud try to get admission in some good Engg College. They were telling me that my love for malayalam was due to the good Malayalam classes of Usha teacher which I attended in school.

When I talked with my Uncle , a soft ware Engineer, he said, " The Engineering field will surely give you a job. You have the calibre for doing it. " He quoted some ' n' number of examples to prove that ''Engineering Rocks and Malayalam Sucks" . Thus my hopes of doing higher studies in Malayalam reached no where. I was forced to attend the Entrance Coaching classes. I started hating my life . "Having no courage to do what you really want to do... :( " . At last got some decent rank in the Entrance Exams and joined NIT. A place to escape from the advices...But, I could not find any one sharing the same experience as mine. Many people whom I met in the hostels were from the coaching classes of P.C . Thomas. ' They were speaking as if their Mission in Life was to get into IIT. They blamed their fate for getting into NIT. '

In the first year,I could not accept the fact that I was doing some thing that I did not want to do. Slowly, I began to accept my fate. I just wanted to finish my courses fast. Never cared to go to HARD CORE concepts. Despite that , I started to score good grades . That was only due to the help of my dearest friend , Prabhul. When I told my plans , while I was in my tenth, to some of my friends in my third year, no one believed me. "Why are you lying man?? Then how are you scoring good grades?.Veruthe DEMO erakkalle". Even my Profs started to advise me to go for higher studies. I could not think of that.

But again the fate!! No one can escape from it. I am doing my MTech in IIT Madras. Now my first year is over. Even now, I don't know whether I have any interest in my Engineering. But the love towards the Malayalam Literature still stays in my mind and it will stay for ever.

Proxy @ IITM

In my previous post, I wrote about an exam which we had to take even before our classes started. Yeah, the exam which tested whether one should attend the English O Level Course or not. The results of that exam were announced on 4th Aug itself. Luckily, my name was not in the list , hence I was not expected to attend that particular class. I felt very happy. My first Success in IIT Madras. More than 80% of the MTechs had to attend that course. 100% attendance was mandatory for that course. ha ha...Nice IIT System!! The schedule for the class was like this : " ME,AERO,EE,Ocean .....students..Classes on all Fridays from 3 to 5 pm. Venue : CRC 201, 202 ,203. "

The first class was on Aug 10th. One of my friends, Mr X( actual name I am not going to disclose here) had to go home on that Friday (10th) . He was a bit desperate. Read the thing written in RED COLOR. So he approached me and asked me whether I could attend the class on his behalf. Or more precisely ,I should give a proxy for him. MY FIRST EVER PROXY IN MTECH . I agreed to attend the class. To avoid unnecessary confusion, I decided to sit in the Last Bench along with some of my Mallu QIP friends. I just wanted to remain as silent as possible so that the person handling the class , had no doubt at all. For that purpose, I decided to take down the notes neatly . The teacher came to the class at exactly 3 o'clock. She introduced herself and told that she was not going to take the class on that day. I wondered what she was planning to do for the next two hours.

The teacher was really friendly with the students. She wanted to know what they expected from her. Lots of answers came from here and there. Only a few things I remember properly .Murali said, " Mam, we want something thats useful for writing our project reports" . I dont know what he meant by that. Then some body else said that he wanted to have GD sessions that would be useful for the placements. She said that she would try to include every thing in her future classes and she wanted us to do some thing that day after she took the attendance. She started calling the names one by one. When she called out the name " Mr.X", I said, "yes, mam". I dont know what caught her attention. She told me to come to the front row. Shit!!!

She said that she would call the students from each state. The students, were supposed to introduce themselves and reply to the questions asked by the students of other states. Herself being a Keralite, she called the MALLU JUNTA first. Mr X also belongs to that category. So I was forced to go infront of the whole class along with my state mates. The most difficult task was, when I had to introduce myself . "I am Mr X. I am from Kerala. I did my BTech in....My future plans....blah blah..." Some how, I did that. After that, the students started asking us about ONAM, tourism, Communist Party...Those things we were able to answer nicely.After that she said, " Mr X. U are answering things really well. I wonder why you couldnt pass the exam".. I was happy when I heard those words from the teacher, but wondered what Mr X would do in the following week.

The class got over by 4.45pm. Many students came to me and appreciated my courage. ha ha...Even now, I dont know how I got the courage for that. May be, I might have forgotten how the lives of the three students got screwed up after they had to face the DISCO. (Ack: Five Point Someone) .

IITM Welcomes YOU

Beware!!

At last, I decided to do my MTech in IITM. The classes started on Aug 3rd. I came to Chennai on July 31st along with my parents. We stayed in a FIVE STAR HOTEL, named Abu Palace. On Aug 2nd, even before the classes started,we had to take our first ever exam in IIT. This is what is called as the IIT System. Some crap to avoid, attending O Level course in English. The exam just tested our basics in grammar and some writing skills. That night onwards, I started to stay in my hostel. I could not find so many friends initially. I was surrounded on all sides by people from other states...Not even a single mallu near by... Myself and Suresh , had gone to Tiffanys along with our seniors, by 11.15 in the night. The first ever visit to Tiffanys!!!!

The next morning, we reached the class at 7.50am itself.I remembered my NITC days when I used to go to the class at 8.15, for my 8 O'clock class. Many students were sitting inside the class. We sat in last but one bench, I hope. At exactly, 8 o'clock, one prof came to the class. The entire class became silent and just as a sign of respect, all the students wished ' GOOD MORNING SIR' . I still remember the first word that we heard from the Prof, " Are you trying to make fun of me? Who told you to wish me? ". ha ha...what to say...May be we did not act as per the IIT System. After that the Prof started explaining the contents in the course he was supposed to handle. " I can guarantee that this will be the toughest course you are going to face in your entire MTech. Last year, 13 out of 37 people failed in this course....( I felt very sleepy..Did not hear the entire talk...) ...

After some time, when I woke up , I heard him saying, "If you want to show respect to me , do it by scoring marks in your exam. From today onwards, no one should wish me when ever I enter the class. You , people are all matured and .....more blah blah" Thus the very first class in IIT , proved to be the MOST MEMORABLE one in the MTech life.

I had all the five periods on that day. Most of the Profs talked about the IIT System, how it could make the life of the students miserable, ...(remembered FIVE POINT SOME ONE )Thus the very first day of MTech life came to an end.

GATE or CAT???

Note: I do not guarantee the grammatical correctness in the matter I have written.

Yeah, these are the 'Strange names' , that a student entering the final year of his BTech normally encounters. Even I had to face the same problem. After getting the job, I felt very bored. Not so many students in the hostel were placed , at that time. So I decided to try my luck in management. ( The only source of inspiration was an S grade in the Principles of Management Course , we had in the fifth sem. I am not going to explain much abt the course, bcoz many of my friends know what we had studied in that course.[:D][:P])

I started to browse the net and downloaded the previous year question papers. I also joined in TIME. We had classes on all Saturdays from 9 to 5pm ...I hope...I did n't like the English classes, the quite obvious reason was " I was not able to follow the vocabulary classes that they were teaching". I understood that some of my friends also faced the same problem. So within a few weeks, I realized that ' I am a BIG ZERO' as far as vocabs are concerned. But I liked the Data Interpretation part of it. I also came to know that THE CUT OFFS IN ALL THE SECTIONS SHOULD BE CLEARED FOR GETTING A CALL : So it was now quite obvious that I was not going to clear the English part. I decided to go and try my luck in the exam,instead of wasting my energy by studying English. I wrote the CAT exam 'very well' . I wrote all the questions in the English Section: marked the option as C for all the questions. ( By the way, I have a superstition. If I don't know the answer to some question in an objective exam, I will mark the answer as C. It has helped me in many places. ) [:D] [:P].

The results of the CAT exam were announced by the last week of December. I got 88.9 percentile. 97+ %ile for DI and Maths, 32 %ile in English (DID NOT CLEAR THE CUT OFF )...Ha, ha ...But, I was happy.Got 32 %ile without even looking at the questions. Gud!!! But I was not going to get a call from any insti...[:(]...

Jan 30th 2007. So after getting screwed up in the CAT, I had gone home for collecting the GATE admit card. GATE::The only option in front of me for higher [??] studies.. Shit!! Again I have to mug up the technical stuffs. Just thought the long list of subjects I had studied in my BTech, till the seventh sem.. Fluid Mech, Solid Mech, Manf Sci, Mathematics, Thermodyn,Gas Dyn, ..................Long long list.......No it is impossible to study all of these in such a short time.. So I was sure of the FAILURE infront of me. But I wanted to have a DECENT FAILURE. I came back to college on Feb 2nd. About 10 more days for GATE!!

The only option in front of me : COMBINED STUDIES. We made some crap time table and decided that " only 3 days of study (24*3=72 hours) will be sufficient for cracking the GATE. After all we are all NITians. We have sufficient tech knowledge. " So we decided to start our studies on a Thursday. ( The GATE exam was on Sunday). That Thursday was a holiday for us. Some SPORTS Fest or some thing. I went to Suresh's room by 10.30 am. " Da DDLJ kandallo..Kure kalamayi athu kananamennu vichrikkunnu...(Da Lets watch DDLJ..)".Some one who was using his comp told. Yeah , we ( almost every one in E Hostel) watched it. Justice was done to Malayalam Film Industry also by watching Thoovanathumbikal of Mohan Lal. Thus we people were totally exhausted after watching two films back to back. It was about 6pm at that time. Suddenly, the thought of GATE came to our mind. We wasted one full day . " Tonight lets have a NIGHT OUT and study some thing. ha ha." ..

After dinner, " Where to start?? What to study?? " ...The usual questions before any exam..

The solution to all our problems....Some 800+ pages of Mechanical Stuffs+ previous question papers. When we started to read that, by God's grace, I was not able to answer even a single thing. Again, I observed that most of the answers were C. ha ha. We realized that if we studied Mathematics properly, we could score around 25 marks. We were happy. SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING.

Studied some important topics on the day before the exam. Some crap in Merchant's circle, Mohr's circle, PERT, Machine Design..Some Tool Life...Thus we finished the entire Mechanical Engg BTech in just 5 or 6 hours. All of us were mentally prepared for the exam. The night before the exam was really a memorable night. By 7pm , we ( Myself, Vishnu, Vinod,Sarun , Orkka..) had gone to SHANGRILLA for Orkka's placement treat. Came back to hostel by 10.30pm. I felt very sleepy and slept peacefully..

The GATE exam that we wrote the next day, was yet another exam. We were able to answer more than what we had expected. I answered around 45 questions. (including 6/7 guesses) .I hoped to qualify the exam. The GATE results were announced on 15th March. Most of us got good results in it.