Off My mother’s lap and father’s shoal,

I had a dream,

I had a goal,

But then I saw life, like never before.

Innocent and like a child,

I never saw, of world, this side,

Crowded with filth, and blood,

I soon got engulfed,

Into this ruthless world.

As Nothing went by my stride,

With every failed attempt to hide,

My dream, My goal,

I was losing their sight,

I should go back, I thought,

Coz I had no courage to fight.

Just as I was turning back,

With discourage and complete Lack,

A voice I heard, in my ear,

“What Happened friend? Why You fear?”

I looked behind,

To see an extended hand,

A soul like mine,

Who now I call a FRIEND.

A Friendship, my friend,

Changed my entire life,

No Longer was the World ruthless,

For I had someone to share my mind.

A shoulder to cry upon,

A soul to share my joy,

Friendship is a virtue,

with no pretense, no ploy.

Thanks for holding my hand,

Thanks for all the laughs,

I owe you my success,

Coz had I not heard your voice,

I would be back in my rabbit hole,

In my mother’s lap and my father’s shoal!!

As another semester at MIT, Manipal comes to a close, I cant help but wonder how quickly time passes. Seems like I entered into this campus, alien to me, just yesterday.. The fact that I have made it through 2.5 years here is just unbelievable.. In another year or so, the time will come to bid farewell to this place, which will always hold a special place in my heart.. After all, this is the place which has thought me so much about Life..

This place has made me independent.. It has taught me things, like managing my time, money, which,3 years back, I never thought I would be comfortable doing on my own.

This place has given me memories to cherish. Those long walks across the campus, chit-chatting and enjoying with friends till wee hours of the night, the various trips, daily ordeal to search for a place to have dinner (PS: I haven’t joined any mess.. ), sitting with friends in KMC Greens,  and so much more.

The most important thing, which this place has taught me is how to judge people. My judgement senses, probably before this semester were NIL. Things, that have happened this semester have changed my opinion about certain individuals, probably forever. Thanks to MIT, I am now in a position to distinguish between fake friendships and real ones, much better than before.

Lastly MIT has given me certain friendships and relations which probably will last forever. I dont wish to take names here.. But probably the people I intend to reach out through this post, will definitely realise it is them I am talking about.

Talking about the happenings of this semester, the few most remarkable ones are

1) The most unexpected visit to my home.. ( In the morning while leaving the room i had no clues, I’d be in Mumbai in the evening. )

2) My inclusion in RED-X Executive Committee.

3) The most horrible and disgusting teachers.

4) The RED-X Trip to Savandurga and Ramnagar, and the amount of fun we had during the night chit-chatting, sitting on the rocks with chilling winds. )

5)That friendship with one person, which I shall try and maintain throughout my life time , and the time he got committed!! On the latter part of it, I was more happy than him or his girl on their commitment.  :P… PS: You two make a great couple…

6) The true nature of few people, whom I had thought to be my friends, but now, I wouldn’t want to see them ever after my College Life.

Well, this is pretty much it.. This has been a semester with mixed feelings. But going by recent events, good ones have beaten the bad ones, and it has been a semester worth remembering..

Signing off.. Gotta study for End Semester Exams.. Next post after the exams are over.. ciao!!

Lets go back a little in time to March 21, 2010….

A few days ago I heard from people in Red-x( a club in Manipal) that there is this place near Murudeshwar where Scuba Diving takes place. Initially tensed, and pretty scared, I decided against going for it. But then when I saw the videos of people who had already done it, my hydrophilic nature overtook the tensed bit and I knew I was doing this somehow.

The only negative point was the cost which was Rs 4000/- Pretty high?? Even I thought so. But then I also felt that this was the opportunity to try something new. And as many of my friends were going, I thought what better opportunity to try out something which otherwise I wouldnt have dared to try throughout my life. After talking to my parents, I confirmed that I’ll indeed be Scuba Diving on 21st.

Tensed throughout the week preceeding the week, I had this feeling of withdrawing my name as I would definitely chicken out at the last moment… But then I held myself strong!

Sunday, 21st March, morning , we were to start from Manipal at 5am to Murudeshwar. A cab had been booked. Me along with my 3 friends started our journey into a day which all of us would remember for a lifetime. It took us 2hrs to reach the temple at Murudeshwar. The PADI(Professional Association of Diving Instructors) have a dive shop located near the temple, where we were accompanied by Mr. Abraham.

Once into the dive shop, we were given our BCD ( Life jacket kindoff thing) , and the other gear for checking the fitting and stuff.

However it got scary when we had to fill up numerous declaration forms. But then, all of us gave each other the support and the ordeal was finished.

Then we were taken to the boat. We helped people loading the boat with oxygen cylinders, gears and food. Once this was done, as the boat was far from the shore, we had to push it into the sea. It was awesome fun!!!!

Now began the boat journey to the Pigeon Island ( Netrani). Once into the boat, it was fabulous!!! The journey to the island took approximately 1 hr 30 mins. As we went deeper into the sea, the scenic beauty multiplied every second. To say it was superb, awesome n spectacular would also not do justice to the scene around! The water was absolutely calm, the only sound being made by the motor of our boat.

As we were enjoying the scenic beauty, suddenly to our surprise, we saw two dolphins jumping up and down into the sea. Another lovely experience….

As we were nearing our destination, the instructor started giving instructions including precautions and safety measures. As he talked about how things could go wrong, I had kind of a panic attack.. But then after a while, everything was in control ( thankfully… pheww…)

We reached Netrani, a beautiful island, and the water near that island was crystal clear! No dirt, No filth, No pollution!! I was surprised to find such a place in the present times. And it definitely made me marvel the multifaceted nature! We were warned not to spoil our surroundings.

We were kitted up in our BCDs, oxygen cylinder, and other stuff. Then we were asked to sit on the edge of the boat and flip over, as that was the easiest way to get into the water. I was little bit panicky at that time… and I thought I would back out.. But then good sense prevailed and I did the flip. It was just a second.. and I was in water… all ready for my Dive!!!!

From here onwards, any number of words i write will fail to describe my experience! But i’ll still try..

Once I was inside the water, the diver thought me the safety procedures and gestures in case of anything goes wrong. This included various hand gestures, instructions on how to equalize the pressure inside the body and surroundings, and on how to clear water of the goggles. And then, I went down the water along with my instructor. As soon as I was in water, I could see an entire new world, alien to me until then. It was like living an underwater documentary shown on National geographic and Discovery. Various kinds of fishes, in various shades of blue, red and green, in various sizes, from small to huge, corals, eels, sea horses, and beautiful rocks were all around me! It was simply breathtaking.I was an amazing white cloud in the middle of the blue sea at various places(I was later told that it was the fish poop ).

At this one place, I was 3 huge tentacles out of an opening in the rocks!! Then I encountered one of the professionals who was taking underwater photographs, and he obliged me by taking my video under water. Also I met all my friends in the sea!!! (it was fun). I also stood on the bed of the sea! So lost in this beautiful new world, I went 14 mts deep into the sea, and stayed in for 34 mins (which seemed much less to me). It was just all so awesome. I never could have imagined an entire different world inside the water, had I not seen it.

The experience as I said before was unparalleled. Nothing of which I had done before this could overpower this one! The initial high cost didnt seem high anymore for no money could to justice to the beautiful and breathtaking journey underwater!!I am glad I did Scuba Diving!!!!  This will be one thing I will remember everytime I see the sea or hear anything related to scuba diving. At this very moment also, while writing this entry, I can again visualize myself in the midst of the blues of the sea and the lives it supports(and it was been almost a month now)..

And to everyone I would recommend scuba diving atleast once in your lifetime… It is totally worth whatever amount you spend. You’ll not regret it!!!

This decade has been the most demanding period of my time. The struggle to get into a college of your choice with a branch you want, Naah.. it isn’t easy…not at all!

But who’s complaining…?When I look back today, I may have the grief of not getting into IIT, but that is overshadowed by the most satisfying 1.5 years I have been to MIT. The amount I have learned, academically as well as socially, has made me think rationally towards my future.

Coming back to the III sem at MIT, what can be said of it when my last posts have boasted about it time to time, declaring it as the Best Sem for me!!!! and the cherry on the cake was my 9.46 pointer!!! Well, this sem has taught me a lot about the working ethics, as I have been working with various clubs back at college. Some good. and well some..(naah.. chuck it).

This sem started with me being separated from the friends I had made last year at MIT itself as we were segregated in different sections. Although I had few friends in here too, classes were not the same without them for the first few weeks. But as the time went along, surprisingly everything seemed like a cakewalk. The teachers barring a few were horrible( Infact calling them horrible would be an understatement). But somehow all of us managed through the thicks and thins of it.

Selection into the college Editorial Board and a nice experience of participating in NITK also made this journey beautiful.

As I came back home for my holidays, another good news awaited me. My dad was getting a promotion and for it we had to move to Kolkata. Well, I was definitely happy for him but the fact that we had to leave Mumbai saddened me. But then after a few days the feeling of exploring an entire new city in my next vacations seemed to get the better for me.

Well, tomorrow is the New Year’s eve and this time we have planned grand affair. Tomorrow, for the full day, I will be at my relative’s place at Worli Sea Face. At night, there is a grand program scheduled at Hotel Sahar International, Mumbai called ” Seduction 2010″ which will have celebrities like Bipasha Basu and Sudesh Bhosle perform. I will be welcoming the new year there. After that we will sit at the seaface and welcome the calm of the new year 2010 and hope that the next year is as eventful and successful, if not more!

Thats all for now I guess.. Signing off… next post will be from Manipal where i’ll be reaching on 4th Jan(that means i’ll start from Mumbai on 3rd.. sob..sob… ) into my IV Semester.

Till then, Wishing all those who read this post a Prosperous New Year 2010.

Adios 2009, u will surely be remembered..

Signing Off

WE WILL NOT FORGET, AND WE WILL NOT FORGIVE..its high time now..

The 60 hour carnage that traumatized the entire world, had a few lessons India learned.

I would like to say here that there were NO VICTIMS of this attack…ONLY MARTYRS.

I take this opportunity to salute all the Martyrs of 26th November 2008. You shall always live, in the hearts of millions of Indians..ALways…. JAI HIND….

Any specific reason…. no… but now i realize getting up at 5 and searching for a title doesnt yield good results..

Well, the Lab exams of 3rd Sem MIT are over for me. This week has probably been the most tiring week of all. 3 Lab exams on alternate days and 2 assignment submissions… GAWD!!!!! yea.. MIT gets cruel sometimes.. [:P]

We had a OOP(a.k.a Object Oriented Programming in C++) lab on monday. Apparently our teacher thinks that our class enjoys tough questions, and so had a treat awaiting us(puns intended). Nevertheless I was able to complete the program in time and well, frankly I enjoyed the question a lot… [:D]

Second Lab was STLD(a.k.a Switching Theory and Logic Design using VHDL). The most toughest lab because here the teachers itself dont know the language themselves… [:P] But as God would have it.. I got an awesomely simple program. Finished within 1.5 hours.

Third Lab was DS(a.k.a Data Structures using C) Pretty much chilled out lab combined with a simple program results in a double whammy!!!!

Plus 2 maths assignment had to be done…(ahem… okie…fine…copied)

Have to leave for Mumbai in an hour…(Manipal-Mangalore, Mangalore->Mangalore Airport, -> Mumbai)

Kind of felt like a small vacation before returning to the Ground ZERO for the End Semester Exams.

Ohh…I am getting late..have to pack and stuff….chao all….seeya soon!

Its just that when i thought my life was best…n nothing else would compare to it…. few other things happened and made my 3rd Semester even more special..

All those who keep the knowledge of the technical stuff going around… there was a Tech Fest of NITK Surathkal “Engineer”. Well, nothing was decided.. but on the day of its starting my friend Kartik just casually asked me if I wished to go there. Having nothing to do in Manipal, i thought it would be a good experience if nothing else… So we decided to go that very moment..

After a Roller Coaster Bus journey from Manipal to Surathkal( along with 3 of my friends) we reached NITK. The campus was huge but where we expected a lot of turnout of the outstation teams, even people of NITK were’nt interested in the fest. After roaming around in the campus for a while and trying to find out places (The outstation hospitality desk did’nt provide any information in this regard. And that was horrible).

Finally we decided to take part in an event called “Rectify”- A C/C++ debugging competition. We went for the prelims and the paper was comparatively easy. But we ( By “we” i mean me and Kartik) didnt think we will make it through it. Then started our journey to explore the campus. Believe me when i say this, their campus was DEAD. There were very few people out, and those who were, didnt seem to give a damn about the tech-fest. There was almost ZERO participation by the NITK students.

After wandering around for a while, we came across an event called “Blitzkrieg” – or Laser Tag(Yeah..Same as HIMYM). So we decided that was the last thing we do before going back to Manipal that day. That event was Ok types.. and my first attempt to play Counter Strike.

We named our team as Black Hawk and were up against “Real Engineers”. We beat them 2-1 in a 5 min game and then embarked upon our journey to Manipal.

Next day in the morning me and Kartik get a message that we have been selected for the Rectify Finals which is to start from 1pm. We were shocked and excited! We took all the necessary permissions for attendance etc. and started for NITK again…

After a terrible bus ride( blame the roads) we reached there almost on time. After reaching the venue, the real nightmare began.The competition which was to begin at 1pm began at 3pm. Even after that in the middle of the competition, their server crashed and they didnt have any backup for it. Further adding to it, they changed their rules in the middle and after all this crap we had just about 45 mins to work on the codes, which were very unclear. We were certainly irritated and gave an organiser a piece of our minds.

But then we were of the lucky 11 selected for the finals after the first day prelims which approx 70-75 people gave. And added to that we got NITK certificates!!! This one was a first for me in college and thus i was pretty excited!

This had many learning lessons

1) Never go to NITK for a competition. Go when you have to present a paper or a project.

2)MIT is way better than NITK.  Thank god i didnt get a nice AIEEE rank. Atleast our TechTatva was way way better than their Engineer in terms of Organisation..

way to go MIT..or rather Mighty Mighty MIT…

Catching up from where i left last time.. I did go for the Ed-Board interview and guess what, i got selected as a member of the Board.(There’s my photo on its website..go check out http://www.magmit.com/?id=edbd ) I was pretty happy the day i got to know the results of the interviews.

This semester is sure one of the bests i have had or probably will ever have. It has given me so much… made me understand how precious college life is, and how to enjoy it before the exit turns up.

Friends: Probably the best relation you can have after your family. Wont be wrong to say that they are infact an extended family. The laughs, the tears, the joy, the support is unmatched. Though i don’t have many of them, but i have some real close ones n that is probably the part of my college life i’ll always cherish.

Aimless walks in the rains, hours in the canteen, at the chat stalls, to laugh at particular items in “Picolo’s” menu, pulling each other’s leg, studying together, to share joy and most importantly providing shoulder to cry on… friends are all this and much much more..something that words cannot describe.

My this post is dedicated to friendship. If you have them cherish them as long as it takes and if you don’t, go seek a friend for yourself. World is much better that way…!

All of my friends who are reading this, thanks for being there for me….n making my life like it is today! I wont take names here but yea….the people i m referring to, will definitely get this..

This sem made me more self confident and much more prone to the politics played around. It made me realise world is not always a Happy Place afterall….

I kindof gave a small talk in Linux Install Fest organised my LUG Manipal which i m happy to be a part of… This was the first time in the college i addressed a gathering.. Felt really complete..

Sessionals… First sessionals were disastrous at the very least. Second and Third were way better.

As this sem is coming to a close, and I see 4th years going out, I somehow feel that its only 2 years more in the college and it inspires me to enjoy even more so that atleast i’ll have amazing memories to share…

Signing off…Good Night……

Catchya soon!

Two tests tomorrow, not a single word studied… Thankfully they are Open Book…

Another situation that demands a lot tomorrow is the Ed-Board Interview….but as i always have been unlucky…tomorrow also bad luck strikes…and at the precise moment where i wanted everything to go well.. My interview clashes with my Open Book test….. still in the dilemma of what to do and what not to…

wish me luck.. till then

signing off!

Firstly wishing all my fellow Indians a very very happy 62nd Independence Day. This is the day where Indians wherever they stay unite and determine in their heart to do something so that their motherland can be proud of them!

Its almost been a month since i have come into 2nd Year. The coveted tag of being a senior still gives a high nonetheless. Last year was a probably one of my best years in terms of learning about life. Academics(touchwood) have been good with a CGPA of 9.35

I had heard a lot that our department faculty isnt the best in here but believe me, after attending the classes for a week, i can vouch for that even in a state of total sleep!!!
but still life is pretty much going on. dashes of homesickness thrown in jolly times with friends….. i am practically loving every moment of this…n hope to continue to do so!!!!

i think i should now go and study for my upcoming sessionals or the above feeling will change pretty soon!

signing off…..