A PC and 3 hours- A Flashback!!

Its crazy the way things are changing! 2 years ago i used to be some1 who wore a uniform shirt and some torn local jeans to college on uniform days or some t-shirt with some bizzare writings (which annoys most people) to go with a pair of cargos which had at least 10 pockets and some of them so huge enough that one can easily hide a bottle of beer in it...!! Today am promoting brands sitting all formal in an office building and stare at a monitor and do what they call "Work" simply because it pays me... What used to be fun few years back is now all stale and i yell at god "Is this why u made me pass engineering for??!!. I was so happy even with those suppliy papers!!" I could hardly spent my 3 lab hours in college with patience and now i am speniding more than 8 hours in front of a system not even knowing by end of the day ,how those 8 hours flew by me!

The 3 hours of lab sessions we had in College was typically spent like this :

Get in 20 minutes late in the lab.
If u r superlucky then the ma'am would tell you to get out..!! Happily you go out either to hostel for an afternoon nap or to the internet surfing centre or to your favorite food stall outside campus (Thambi's food stall in our case :-)) and spend your time lavishly. And about the attendance, just an SMS to the most daring mimicry artist in class to call your proxy -"Dude, Roll no.47. If possible, then tonight dinner my treat. If not then leave it".This trick was possible during the early days of the semester when teachers hardly know your name, roll number or recognize your faces.

And if you are not that damn lucky then ma'am would allow you to enter lab and then 3hours of super boredom! Even net access is restricted in labs. But thank god Linux games were enabled. One very tough game of Sudoku, for beginners like us would easily take up 2 hours to fill in. And thus by the end of our Engineering most of us were sudoku Champs!!And in between these 3 hours there would be minimum 4 breaks of 15 mins each we take in the name of drinking water and to use the restroom, though the truth would be to roam around the campus and eye-siting the most beautiful girls in college even if they are sitting inside classes.Doing the programs and showing the output is done by the bhuji's.Once that was done our job was to master the art of FTP. How to copy those programs to your system ASAP and by the end of the day to show the output by slightly fine tuning the best brainy's code here and there :). Life was heaven! Hail the guy who invented FTP-he would be the guy blessed by most number of students in the world.

P.S : There were copy CATs who had better lab grades than these so called techie brainies for their internal assessments coz the way these CATs would manipulate the code was such that, the output would look like a masterpiece. They had artistic talents when it came to formatting and doing the cosmetic works on the codes!!

And lab exams.. All of us would top them on par!! Again the dark hands of we CATs come to play. The day prior to Lab exams days were the most important day in terms of arrangements for us. By around noon 10 -15 of us would go to the lab in the name of preparing and practicing the programs for exam and then copy bulk folders of these programs to each and every system available in that lab (Again hail FTP) because we dont know which bloody system we are gonna get tommorrow for the exam.Why take a risk, spread them in all systems, be safe!! Once that is done, we go to hostel and While all the buji's study sleeplessly for the exam, we sleep peacefully or play cards or listen to the love story of some heart broken room-mate till sun rise next day. That day morning ,we allow no god to have a peacefull long extended sleep. WE pray and pary and pary like hell for just one thing "God, whatever may happen let the questions be the same as the lab assignments.If it changes then all our hardwork yesterday will go in vain". And most of the time our hardwork pays off!!

Whenever it doesnt pay off we had our savious in the form of 'partial output'. The art of picking any program already in the system exam backup folder, Modifying the print statements in such a way that it resembles the output of the given question and then showing it to the invigilator.. since its almost similar to the required output we get partial output marks which is more than enough to pass :-). Sometimes some smart asses type these print statements such that it will give exactly what the doctor ordered. And they walk away with a full output seeing which the less luckier lots fume with jealousy and murmuring : "Bloody lucky b*****d!! Come to hostel tonight @#$@$ , we'll pulp you like cotton!!".

Ohh.. those days when we cursed those 3 hours of labbing and we boasted of our bold adventures prior to lab exams as if we won World war - III, i thank you "lord of time" for those were indeed the best times we ever had with PC's!!

That was all that Mattered!!!

Day : 6th April,2010.

Venue: M.A Chidamabaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai

Match : Mumbai Indians Vs Chennai Super Kings


It was a day we all were waiting for long. It was not about the Match. It was not about Cricket. It was not about a Win or Loose. It was all about One Man!!Some call him Master.Others call him Genius. And some treat him as a Legend. But for all we people who were dressed in 'blue' among a sea of 'yellow' in those stands he was nothing less than GOD!!And we came to see GOD play that day... Its true that Chennai was indeed our second home now, the place we are settled as for now... But in India , when it comes to Cricket -Home support always came second to this man wherever he played.

There were strange looks staring at us from all around. Their frowns questioning : "What are these South Indian looking bafoons doing??? Supporting the visiting team sitting in our stadium!! How dare they?? " But our voices , shouts and enthusiasm bowled their frowns with yorkers and when we chanted GODs name in the typical way it is cried out in this country, Even these men in yellow outfits who gave us glares had no other option than to join us to chant his name. Because deep inside them even they too feared GOD!! They knew that if they wanted to win today they had to pray to the GOD of cricket himself and no one else.. Even a win for their team rested on his decisions.



The game went smoothly for the home side when they batted.. Put up a score which was looking OK but not impossible especially for the genius. We were content with his captaincy. He did well to restrict them. Next he is gonna step out to bat. The moment we waited so long to see.. A glimpse of the man himself, fully equipped in his gear.. Walking out of that dugout in such a manner that it commanded respect!!! Even the opposition players turned around to have a look at that sight as if they were thanking him for giving that cricketing visual delight which they could see from a touch and go distance. Take a bow master!! We bowed to him from the stands! And we were not surprised to see that it was not just the blue jersey ones but the entire yellow sea(except a few hard core local supporters) made the bow and stood up to see him, but of course we dint know how many of them stood up to pray to him.. " Lord, please favor us today and we promise all the support and poojas for you for the World cup next year". And it was not long for the magic wand to start the flash and it was raining boundaries all around the park. Elegance, Class, Perfection, Genius.. Every shot had its own definition. The Yellowers were stunned to silence.. GOD was playing against mortals! Even their best bowler was treated as a worm! Our Joy had no limits.. We danced around madly as the Superman show went on!!!

But the Chennai heat was taking its effect on the master.. He began to stretch and breath heavy after every run. And our heart beats were concerned. It was almost half waythrough the game and there came a time out.. At the end of which we saw the most dis-heartening scene!! A tired master walking away to catch up some energy... “Oh GOD please don’t do this to us!!” we cried to him.. But our cries were out-numbered.. 2000 to 38000!! And with such a majority praying him to take rest, he had no option that to go retired hurt.. That was it!! Once the hand of blessing is gone from the top of your head everything turns stone rather than gold. The Blue men from Mumbai collapsed.. what looked like an easy target suddenly looked like a Himalayan treck!! Dejected and crest fallen we sat on our seats as the yellow waves kept going on and on around us! Wickets kept falling...

The 6th Wicket fell and the yellow Crowd were dancing on their feet for say- 1 minute... But then suddenly it diminished drastically... From No-where we heard Gods name getting shouted in unision from a few Blue-ers in the crowd!!Thats when we looked to the dugout to see that sight again..!!! he is walking out again.. We were the lucky lots to see that sight twice in the same match!! Truly Rare... WOW! The stadium now was filled with roar for the great man.. The task was impossible 16 runs per over needed to win.. But with GOD in the centre even the local supporters got tensed!! Oh we loved it.. to see that tension on their faces. The same people who were mocking us and dancing in joy now swallowed their tongue and sat erect on their seats!! This is what we call GOD EFFECT!!

A tired and dehydrated man could not stay long.. He perished soon after giving us hopes.. But we still stood up and applauded for him while the entire stadium erupted on the fall of his wicket! All knew it was over, they are gonna win.. But we dint complain.. We knew he had no other option than to answer the prayers of the Majority!! The visitors lost miserably...

Dejected and cursing the Chennai heat for retarding the master off his energy we walked to the exit..!! On our way an excited Lady wearing a yellow jersey BOOed at me showing 'Thumbs down'.. I smiled at her and in my mind i said " I know whom you prayed to madam.. even i prayed to him... He dint answer mine and still i applauded him. He answered yours and still you boo him.. Strange!!" I turned my back at her and pointed to the back of my Jersey which said - No: 10 and the name TENDULKAR!!!

GOD was here tonight and that was all that mattered to us!!

ME:

For the first time in my life i am writing about my thoughts.. or at least making an effort.
My perceptions about...

a.People i have met :

There two kind of people in the world:
1. Who are the way the world see them.
2.They have 2 persons inside them. One like the world see them and second their true self.

People belonging to the first category are really rare to find. And believe me they would be the best. In any aspect bcoz they dont have any secrets about them... so no pressure.. they are like open books.. so everybody likes them and they are easy to be judged. I wish i was a person like that. But...
I belong to the second category.. and i believe most of us are that way. To the world we people of the second category might be a very cool... funky.. fun loving person(according to which they rate us in our orkut profiles[;-)]) but inside us there is a side which we dont want to expose to anyone. The true self which does all the work in the back end..unnecessarily thinks a lot and infact make us normal human beings some times.There would be some intimate people who may know it and only to them will that side be willing to be open. To the others we try to give the maximum wrong impression about ourselves.. we wont have a clue why we are doing so.. but stil we do so.

b.Love :
As a friend told me once.. 'Being in Love is the best feeling in the world man.. but it comes with its own side-effects and sacrifices'.Very true.. Love is a feeling which neither Romeo nor Juliet.. forget them.. Even shakespear can't define with perfection. Its too complicated...So most writters prefer to leave that part of description.So let me also leave it to R.I.P... But what my perception about love is that its like 'blood'. People who are colour blind wont see it,neither will they understand what it means.But to others it is their means to survive coz it runs through them.. It hurts when you get wounded..But it will definitly heal[:)].


c.Girls :
Girls..Ha Ha!! The most interesting topic that a guys can write about. ;).. His exact opposite..!!
There is nothing else that attracts a guys attention like a pretty girl. But its only after close interactions that the poor chap realizes that there is nothing else that can give you more problems, irritations & headaches like a girl. Like a friend of mine told " dude, u can never find a diamond in a sea-shore, there can only be plenty of sea-shells that look the same"... very true, but let me tell you, you may get diamond if u r lucky enough. But only the few lucky lot gets it. And as far as the rest of the sea-shore is concerned, everything else is the same sea-shells that we find. All are the same.. What an example to describe girls na ;)...