Hopeless Planning

Its been long time since I have blogged. Right now I am on a break but my exams are on. Ohh ya first time in my entire life something like this has happened. Our Software Engineering Paper has got 18 days holiday Thanks to Mumbai University's great planning for putting all elective papers before the compulsary ones. May be they wanted everyones vacation to get screwed instead of a particular batch who's elective could be the last paper. It wasn't only for Mumbai University(MU) for haphazard planning but even our college DBIT for that matter. According to our college rules we were suppose to be bombarded with 3 class test with incremental portion to be kept for the test. Few lectures did violate this rule in the last test who kept the entire portion. Well we were called for some silly journal submissions along with term work deciding vivas before and during our project presentation and external vivas. Where did the PL go? When do you expect students to study. Well as far as final year students are concern there are multiple things to be kept in mind. First of all they have to worry about their Post Graduation entrance exams which are not lined up with Mumbai Universities Academic Schedule. Then there are campus as well as off campus placements. A huge project to be handled. Weekday college from 9-5. Out of all these students are required some prepartion leave which was not managed by our college at all. It was simply hopless planning I had ever seen. But why did this happen. MU
now takes all the semister exams together. Till an year back they use to keep kt exams first and then the normal exams. This would allow students to get some preparatory leave. Today after giving 4 papers I am relaxed for the rest 2 since I know that there are 18 days holidays in between but then what is the use of such holidays where someone can't enjoy to the fullest. As he/she knows that there are 2 more papers to be tackled. Now our exams would end on 23rd December. According to our college rules it generally starts one week before the official date of starting given by MU. I do not know why do they start so early. Looking at the stretched semister 7 I am sure they don't start college early to end it early. Hope they do well in next sem as it is our last semister. Another paradigm by our college's hopeless planning is they haven't given us identity cards, which means currently I have no proof that I belong to DBIT.

Garba Rasa

Navratri, the 9 nights festival begins on the first day of Ashwina of the bright fortnight.The word Navaratri literally means nine nights in Sanskrit; Nava - Nine and Ratri - nights. The following 9 forms of godesses are worshipped during these nine days: Durga, Bhadrakali, Amba or Jagadamba, Annapurna, Sarvamangala, Bhairavi, Chandika or Chandi, Lalita, and Bhavani.
The most rocking part of the celebration of this festival is Garba Rasa and Dandiya. When the word rocking comes ofcourse mumbai Rocks with this. In Mumbai Navratri is festival cum buisness.
Huge grounds, orchestra with behemoth output speakers, colourful traditional outfits, and sexy ladies are the main attraction. Tickets varying from 100-500 per night. People don't mind spending on such occassion. Even after the ban on loud speakers post 10pm did not dampen the spirits of people to attend these places. In short the money makers profit graph did not see great dip.
My college group visited Mithibai college where Juhu Jagruti organizes Garba, yesterday. Even though I wasn't a great "garba" dancer just wanted to visit one of these places. We reached there by 8pm, rest of them were already there. The ground was packed, music was on, everyone was in their own world dancing. We went to hunt for a place. After aimlessly navigating our way we found one place. and started playing there. Jig, mayur, milan, purav were de experinced and pro in dancing, while de rest use to learn from them. Once they start others use to try to ape them. Well others could manage to get along the flow and I use to stumble many a time. Later everyone started enjoying and dancing. Music was good, the only problem was over populated place. There was no enough space to dance. Initially it was only 10 of us dancing later other groups also merged in. Till 10 there was music on loudspeakers. Later after a break they were suppose to play only drums. Since de gurls were getting late we came out. Had food and returned home.
Overall it was a good experince and worth for what we paid.

LaTeX workshop

LaTeX, A document typesetting language.

For the first time in my life I took a workshop. It was on LaTeX. Schedule after college there were round about 25-28 students who came for it. Workshop was about to start at 5 sharp. We installed Latex on college servers so that everyone can access it. Setting up the projector took a long time. I started with asking people to set up the path and then opening proper windows. Then gave some introduction on LaTeX and its superiority. It was followed by demostration of a simple Hello World Document. Later Milton and myself alternated in speaking. We did mess up because of time constraint couldn't take many things together. But it was a good experince so that next time we shall keep a track of timings also.

Finally Placed

Yesterday, I had my second interview of campus recruitment in Hexaware it was HR interview. On 13th of September, early in the morning I started my day. After getting ready I set out for Maphae, where Hexaware was situated. My interview was scheduled at 10 am in the morning and the destination was pretty far. Took a route via railways harbour line and surviving the forces of the people I reached Vashi in one peace. From here a bus too my destination. I reached Hexaware at 9:30. A very nice building, with amazing decor. After going inside just reported to watch man that I have arrived and would like to meet the concern athority. After waiting in their lobby for next half an hour we were called in other building for presentation. In the comapnies board room, the presentation was given. We were told about various visions, missions, and history of the company. This was followed by interview. I was 6th person in the line. First interview was for long time. The next few came out quickly. My interview lasted for 6-8 minutes. It was decent time. For the first time I was happy after interview. I answered well, confidently and tried conveying my all possible qualities in that small span of time through questions which were thrown to me. Interviewer could have trapped me twice but first time in my life I managed to tackle it by answering them. First trap was when he asked me the number of students from my college who had come for interview and the second time was about my goal in the current semister. The results were next day. I could hardly wait for it.
Hexaware's campus recruitment was most elongated process and its output came today. Right since 29th August it started. 30th was the first interview and then 13th was the second interview. I was in college and one of our mam had given a break. Suddenly my batchmate came running in the class and wished me and said "We both are in". I couldn't belive on those words that hit my ear drums. I ran with him to our HR. He showed us the printout of the students who cleared the second interview and got placed and there I spoted my name. My joy had no bounds. I was really happy with that news as finaly I got in somewhere. Well so after BE I got some option now.

Hexaware first interview cleared.

Hurray after giving atleast 100 hits to G4's site. Today finally they put up the list of students who are selected for the next round of interview. Well I just hope that all my batchmates (and ofcourse me 2) clear the next round and get the offer.
Next they will contact us and we shall have one more interview. Now the mystery is I really don't know what type of interview will they take..!! Lets hope for the best.

Hexaware on Campus

Recently G4 solution had recruiting program for Hexaware and after a long time I was eligible to atleast attempt hehe. Well it was a Computer Based Test. It was a simple software made using php and MySQL. Had lot of RC, verbal, logical reasoning, maths and technical questions depending upon your branch. This was followed by group discussion.
15 students per batch and many of my pals were in my batch. One minute was given for us to discuss amongst students and decide a topic. We decided "Television or Interne which is the better way of communication?" wow what a wonderful topic it was. Haha I had lot many points to put forth. GD was a total chaos. It was kind of you speak and everyone speaks but there was no one to listen to. Hence I had to raise my voice to such an extent that there was a pin drop silence. Later a question was asked by the person who was judging us,"Whom would you vote as your leader?". Most of them jacked me up by taking my name. But he said I was already out. The reason was still unknown. But then he started firing questions at me. Whom do you think is the best performer and whom do you think is the worst performer. These were few anoying questions for which I tried giving diplomatic answers. Naah but it wasn't allowed. So just took someones name and came out.
The next morning I was given a call by my friends that I was selected for interview and had to reach Panvel by 10. OMG. Just rushed there and gave interview. Most of the questions were HR type and only 2-3 questions were technical. Me now awating for the results of interview.

Live fresh, Eat fresh->Owen Fresh

I was suppose to post this one long time back. But always prolonged due to some or the other reason. I visited this place called owen fresh which served mexican and italian food. Its a small place but was nice and good ambience. The only problem was we were many of us and had ordered fewer dishes. This is because few of us 'claimed' that they were not hungry. But restaurant idiots were serving one dish at a time.
First was club sandwitch, then after sometime came ceaser salad. But as all were hugry what we had to do is share each and every dish which comes on our way. So with these 2 things I got 1/8th of the sandwitch and 1 salad leaf from ceaser sald. Had to steal olives. Then again had break, later nachos came on the table. I managed to take 2 small pieces. Garlic bread was amazing. Never had such garlic bread. Ya but had to satisfy with 4x4 cm piece. Well later came sizzler. I did not even bother to ask which it was but that dish i really hogged a lot.
Overall full food was good. But as usual prices were little high. I mean for salad when u pay 100 bucks and for one 6inches garlic bread when u shell out 60 bucks its really little too much.

Urban Tadke ka chuna...

After a long time my full group was free yesterday. We planned for a lunch out since we had to treat our 3 pals. The venue was decided->"Urban Tadka". This restaurant is situated somewhere in Andheri Versova area. After usual delays we reached there little late. We had heard that the place served good food and it did include non-veg food. Hence Rohan was dam excited.
After entering it the first thought which came in my mind was there are "Chutiyas" in Mumbai and its really easy to shell money out from them. They had this strange theme for their ambience and it was an excellent paradigm for cheap way to build an attractive restaurant. As soon as you enter their old style wooden door you see a statue of cock. To the right they had their bar with archaic radio on top. Their celing had dirty white cream color and had made a thick jute mesh on it. Bunch of white onions at random intervals, bunch of bangles encirlcing the lights, Drums with glowing coloured bulbs inside were few things which was suspended from this rope. Wall was roughly plastered and was given the same old white color. This wall was decorated with few posters of films (probably they were advertising for those movies but these films were already released and outdated from the theaters and 2 were yet to come), then pictures of north Indian people. To add more to the chart there were few antiquated items like bed, plough, bullock cart wheel, craft items which were nailed to the wall. On the partition they had few earthenware with water and nice frangnant flowers(dunno its name hehe), an alarming drum which they banged to indicate that their kitchen is closed now. They had their basin made up of a aluminum bucket with a hole at the bottom.
After all this let me come to the place where we sat. They used these old wooden table which was painted with a dark colour and wooden chair was made with some thick rope tied at the seat. Plates were I guess copper and steel mix really can't describe but they were not the usual ones which we get in the restaurants. But ofcourse they were again those cheap plates bought from bhangar. Menu card was on the slates.

Their entire cost of raising hotel was really low and most of the things were put there from the waste. There are many sensless people in the world who would love such things. The only good thing was they had good quality of food for excessive rates and the place where we were sitting was not at all worth paying so much. Well but it was a good thing to see as it was little unusual than the normal restaurants we have been to.

Bomb Blast

My college had half day today. My pass had expired and had travel trough second class. After coming home I slept in my sleep I heard my bro shouting "Dad I guess it was a bomb". There was a huge explosion. I did not hear since I was sleeping. But the others could. People had gone bersk. My Bro immediately went down and my dad and me switched on the television on the news channel they were showing that there had been a bomb blast at bhandar station. We were shocked. Later someone from down had shouted that there was a blast at Mahim Station. On the news channel the number of blast was increasing third name taken was Mahim. There were 8 blast in about 15 mins all over mumbai on the western line. Oh my God how can people even think of doing such an act. At Mahim the blast was on platform number 3 in a fast local. People were wounded many of them were taken to Pickale hospital which is near by station. I was at home calling friends and relatives who were out giving them news and asking them to take alternate route for home. We were attending lot many calls that day and had to tell everyone that we were safe. I did not do any social work this time but was sitting home. I don't know if that was correct or wrong but still atleast I was alerting people and asking them to take a proper route. Well May God Punish them to those people who were involved in this act.

Trip to Matheran

After long time slogging with the exams my friends and I had planned out for a nice long trip but thanks for the time which we had in our time. Then we planned for some cool place near Mumbai. It was none other than Matheran. On 4th,5th and 6th July there were heavy showers . A huge cloud had bursted which halted most of the activites of Mumbai. We were stuck and had to plan it for Friday, Saturday, Sunday in July from 7th - 9th. This trip was finalized in the night after a few confusions over whoz coming and whoz not. We met at dadar for 5:39 train. Last moment we discovered sagar is not coming, he ditched. We travelled from Dadar to Nerul in a slow local chit-chatting and doing loads of masti.

We alighted at 7:30 on Nerul. As usual those taxi drivers approached us for giving a taxi on hire. After having a wada pav and coffee we went to matheran taxi stand by this cab. 6 of us had squezzed in this cab with one driver. By the time we went on top everyone's legs were cramped up. Later we had a nice walk from the taxi stand to Matheran. This walk was accompanied by hotel agents and few monkeys. After reaching matheran the quest to hunt for a good hotel with low rates started. My expert friend Jigz is good at this task. The hotel for which we had enquired from mumbai gave us a shock with its high rates and wasn ready to come down too. After going through about a dozen of hotels we landed up at Panoroma which was offering us 4 meals a day.

It was 12:30 in the afternoon. We all were dam tired walking uphill with our bags on and through wet roads. Lunch was at 1. Somehow we waited for the clock to strike 1 and then the call was made. Everyone just rushed to the dinning hall and hogged as if none of them had food since 2 days. After that heavy meal we all had a nice sound sleep. After getting up from the bed the room service boy had already come with tea and evening snacks. The first meal was not digested and the second had come. After eating this we went out for a walk just to roam around. Later in the evening in the hotel we played pool and table tennis. This was then followed by dinner. The evening snacks was still in the process of digestion. In the cottage styled room all were lazying around after another heavy meal.

Bluff and napolean are our fav card games. We played bluff and few other games in the night and then saw a so called horror hindi movie. Can't recollect the name. This activity was interrupted by a series of electricity supply to the hotel.

2nd day all were in the bed it was 9:30 I woke and that time I was told by the room service guy that we need to go for breakfast since they are serving it only till 10. After completing my activities I just went and announced "Its 9:45 now and they are giving breakfast only till 10." This alarm gave a solid reflexive action amongst all others. Those people who never get up on time just got ready for the breakfast within no time. Jigs was down today. He was feeling ill. After having breakfast we again rested in the hotel. I went for a swim with rohan. Then again everyone gathered at the room. After eating all those heavy meals we had to burn those calories. I was already feeling sick staying in that room. Later in the afternoon had lunch and then just went out for a round. We were 4 of us. Bhavesh and Jig were in the hotel. Had a nice time walking through the jungles as we were trying out long and twisted routes. I made them go through one of the shortcut which was a small pedistrian road. This lead us to a private property but we went ahead and tried exploring new routes. It was getting late since Jig and Bhavesh were at the hotel had to go back to pick them. While returning we got to see nice fog. We spent time in doing time pass. Then return to hotel. Both these idiots had got up by that time. We had evening snacks and then just went out for a similar expidition. It was 6 in the evening and we knew that once we set out it will be dark. So had taken precation by carrying torch. The walk was endless we couldn't see any point So went to see Luiza point the place where we had intend to go in the afternoon earlier. By the time we reached there it was about to get dark but since this point was way about the ground there was little light.

There was a strange incidence at Louiza point. A weird sound of bird was coming from the tree which was on the side. It wasn't unique it was a kind of whistle but not in a specific tone. Rohan was most scared. Our torch was put on. Darkness had fallen. Fog was filtering light. We 6 and one torch was amazing experince we had while coming back. When we took another shortcut that time there was a tiff for the route. We first tried a new route in the dark and 3 of our legs got stuck in a pit. Jig's oshos broke. Then we decided to follow the old route back. With ghost stories we walked down the road and reached back to the hotel.

It was a splendid experince. Jig felt a little weak but later was found okay. Just after reaching the hotel we had went to have dinner. Since it was saturday today they had amazing dinner tonight. After having dinner we went to have hooka. There was a hookas and tikkas in matheran. Had double apple and straberry hooka. I had it for the first time. It was alright. Vineet had a bad time with his peach tea here. Excessive eating and the peach tea along with hooka had made him unstable.

We spent a lot of time there. It was almost 12 in the night. There were drunkards on the road enjoying in their own way. We traced the route to our hotel and only to realize that the hotels gates were closed there was no watchman and none of them on the reception counter. Had to climb up the wall and jump in. Everyone was tired so did not play today any thing. Just after reaching to the cottage we had little time pass session and slept.

The next morning had breakfast and checkedout. Went to the market to buy chikki. And then tracked down hill completly. Since that day there was some kind of bandh we were scrambling down dam slowly. And came down to the station with many halts. This was the time to say good bye to all the fun since next day we had college. Train came and we boarded to come to our respective home. Train journey had lot of roadside band players who were enjoying dancing in their own manner. on the music they were playing. We joined them by swaying on our place. It was one another picnic which we enjoyed during engineering.

Vacations...

After a month of slogging. My theory exams are over. Now waiting for a viva and practical exams to get over. Once it is finishes then I am done. Will have less tensions till 10thJuly. I was little bored with all these things. Well not planned much for vacations. Have to start studying for GRE now onwards. Haha bye for now.

Computer Graphics Practicals.

I had my Computer Graphics(CG) practicals yesterday. Had nice long holidays before that. So had prepared nicely for the practical exams. Few days before exams we asked our proffessor what kind of questions are expected in the exam. He said that whatever is covered in the practical journel (file) do that much. That will be more than enough.

So I was expecting some twisted question based on the file. I was ready for that. Based on the concepts of these programs and using some logic anyone could develop that. First batch got the programs from file as well as few were based on the topics which are covered in the journel. But my batch got programs from the topics that were not even covered in the file. That was so BAD. On top of it our internal examiner runs away from the lab giving external examiner the entire control.

I was asked to write a program to reflect an object on any arbitary axis y=mx+c. Objects should be taken in using a switch case. ie. Ask user if he wants a circle/square/rectangle.

Thank God once I had read the steps for reflection. and one of my classmate (PuNkS) who had similar question was sitting next to me. So we could manage something. It was like we had to translate the line (axis) to the origin. Then rotate it so that it coincides with the standard axis. I was trying with x-axis. Then reflect it. Then re-rotate and re-translate.

Finally after assuming a lot of things I managed to get some output. Circle was reflecting on the axis but was not in the correct position. Later square and rectangle were reflecting but they were scaling as well. At dot 4 she came and asked me to show whatever I had done. Thats it. That is how I managed to do it.

But now I feel Mr.Santosh Iyengar (our internal examiner and lecturer) should be hanged. If he wanted to give such programs atleast he should have given some idea that it is not only from the file but programs from the entire portion will be asked.

Well from this next time onwards I shall cover entire portion and go for practical exams.

Vivas are on...!!!

2 vivias are over 4 more to go. This time as usual till last moment nothing was done. In the end college declared prelims and my life got more worse. Since I also had to do my WT project RSK Blogger . Now what I did not complete that project did till it showed something to user. I had to take this step since I saw everyone elses site. It is so simple and there were no features in it. Well now Operating Systems(OS) and Advanced Database Management System(ADBMS) vivas are over. OS was kewl since I made external ask me things about UNIX and I answered her most of the questions. Internal vivas I guess is just a formality. Well ADBMS external viva was bad. She just went too deep. I couldn't answer her most of the question. Next time onwards atleast I shall keep my concepts more clear and learn all chapter names. Since the chapter which I did not know the name of the chapter which I did not study. So I was screwed there also. She asked me the name of that chapter. Well now me studying for Computer graphics....BYE

A fine tunning to life, 3D experince

Hello, My college had kept a seminar on fine tunning of life. It was compulsary for everyone. Since I missed the opportunity of attending this seminar it was scheduled for today. As usual I was little late but managed to reach there before it started.

It consisted of four diffrent modules. It started with the introduction which told us, why was the need of such program? The answer was given with metaphor : when you start your bike it hmms, with this hmm we actually come to know if the bike is properly tunned or not. But if it is not tunned properly it doesn't give optimum performance. We need to tune it from experts or by ourselves, hence this tunning of life for us. In first module we described how we are related to God and shared our experince how did we feel God in our life. Then a documentry "God in the dock" was shown. This described how people Blame God for diffrent sufferings in the world. God defends by saying that HE is not responsible for these sufferings but he allows them to happen. He has given freedom to all of us, so he just ensures this freedom. By avoiding any kinds of suffering on humans He would actually take away the freedom he has given to all of us. This documentry was followed by a group discussion on the same.

After a short break second session started. It was about relationships. It covered things like how do we keep relationship with society. We were divided into groups and then a topic was given whoes adjectives were to be written on pieces of paper. These piece of papers were then stuck on the board. These were discussed one by one. I suppose the entire thing sumerized like this : There are people like tribals, farmers, dalits, biharis, et al. They also form society. How do we solve problems regarding societies. There should be no discrimination. This was ended quickly. And was considered to be little boring.

We had lunch break then. After this we were exposed!!!! to street childern's life. How they survive with satisfaction?? enjoy within their limitation!!! I actually felt that I am quiet lucky to be what I am. Different experinces were then shared by the speakers which he had with the street childern. Like how they come to street?Are they at fault or their parents? How should we should ask them to return to home this is because it is very difficult to stay on street and home is the best place.

Last was a session where we explored ourselves. We were put to test and this gave that I am good self-esteemed person. Later we were asked to give marks for our physical, intellectual, spiritual, social, economical abilities. This was to test how much satisfied you are and then the lecture proved it that we should be look ourselves as we are best and "Can do better" remark should be removed from our mind. After this we gave our feedback about the whole program and concluded the session. Well it was a pretty good session but at certain points I was really bored. Specially the relationship module. Anyways this was something new than normal lectures. Well mentionning all the tips to tune our life I here by end. I did not go in details since I get bored to type more than this so may be break my flows many a times.

Visit to Innovate'06

Today I had been to CSI's Annual regional convention. This time for CSI's convetion I was not in organizing team. It was in Kalina University. Since I was unaware of the schedule being changed I reached little late. Went in Linux Power workshop after registering, but it turned out to be Linux Beignners workshop. It was taken by a TE guy, but he was pretty good in explaining various stuff. The only thing I came to know was how to write shell script rest things what he spoke about was Linux vs Windows and showed various basic stuff in Windows. I won a red hat notepad and a pen just for working on MAC. In that lab I was the only person who sat on MAC.
Later was the lunch time. I met my friends there and had a nice time eating chole, pulav, mali sandwitch were main items. Next I thought of sitting was for Aeromodelling workshop. That person was also good but the sound system wasn so had problem in listening. He thought 2 guliders one was with Indian TK paper. It was just a strip of paper with one part main body and one part with wings. Its main body had to be nailed and stappled to maintain some weight. The next one was with thermocol. Its intresting part was the way it use to gluide. This was also nailed in the front. and was circular in shape. He thought about 4 forces drag, thrust, lift and fourth one i don't remember. This guy who gave the workshop was from applespace.
The next one I went was Mahesh Murthy's Entrepreneurship. It was rocking, This person now owns many company but he started with selling vaccum cleaners, then he found people are more intreseted in hiring person for cleaning then purchasing vaccum cleaner so he started doing that. Then Once a resturant owner asked him to leave his broucher with him, this guy goes and desings one and prints one and gives it to the restaurant owner. After looking at the broucher he appreciated the design he suggested this person to be a designer. Slowly he went in yahoo or he was CEO of yahoo also. The this guy was like at the top level. Few things which he made was google, red bull never advertise. But insane fans, we human being publisize for them. But coke spents 2 crore on advertising. So your product should be unique and there has to be mouth to mouth publicity. The one should see which sectors are not touched and start buisness in that this gives one person more opportunity. The moment there is a big company in one field that field is dead for you don't go in that field this is what he said. Alright after documenting these few points we had a valedictory session and I left for home. So it was wonderful day and I had a nice time. Good bye for now.

First Blog

This is first post on bloggers. I along with my 2 friends have take up a project in a subject called Web Technology to prepare blogsite. So experimenting with diffrent blog sites. The problem is I gave my prof some synopsis but I really don't remember what did I give him. I had a feeling that he will sign on my synopsis and return it, but he did not do that. Any ways now I shall see diffrent blog sites and complete my project. I don't know how the database will be. But still will manage to do something. Any ways Good Bye for now.