8 Dec From 10-11-12

I didn't feel good staying alone in the silence of the room. It was a little while after 7 in the morning. I knocked on the door of Srikanth's room. Good for me he got up. I started talking to him, which eased me out a little. After a while I left his room, took bath and came out to see off few people before I left. Krishnakanth left the night before, with his cousin. I got to know that only in the morning when I met other gults. Missed meeting the apache boy before I left. Mech wing people left to Mangalore. They were taking a bus to Bangalore from there. I bid them a farewell at the blocks and then went and met members of the Baja team. There after I met few people individually and before I returned back to block I met Varshini to say good bye as she was leaving with Kavya to Mangalore and by the time they would come back I would have left. My bus was in the afternoon. When I left the wing with luggage my juniors also came with my batch Gults to give a send off. Madaka dropped VT at the Surathkal station and reached my bus stop in time. I had met almost everyone amongst Gults, Raaj, Anthill, Basava, Yoyo, Bams, G1, DarkKnight, Babu, Chicha, Rummy, Dady, Kadiam, Mastaru. We all missed Naag, Sagar, Shyam and Deeps who couldn't make it to the convocation. There were others also who couldn't make it due to various reasons. I couldn't meet Achyuth or Mahesh with whom I had spent some of the best times of my college life, playing Carroms in 5D wing. I wanted to meet Mandi (Deeps) later before taking my return flight from Hyderabad but it didn't happen as it was a weekday and so he was in office. Most of the Gult gang came to the bus stop. It is at times like these when we feel good even when the bus gets delayed due to some passenger who comes late. But ultimately the passenger came and the bus started. It felt like I was leaving one home to go to another. Nothing in the journey bothered me. There were thoughts running in my mind all the time. Random thoughts... about our lives... our pasts... how we all came together... possibilities of coming together in future... and I fell asleep. I at Buns Sambar, which I couldn't eat while in campus, when the bus halted in the evening for a snack. After that I only got down in Hyderabad. During this bus travel I probably covered up for all my sleep lost in the last three days. From Hyd I accidentally took a bus which travels a longer route. I somehow reached home by afternoon. As expected Mom was surprised; Dad had gone back to office after lunch. Mom made me call him and inform about my coming. Dad came back home for a while and I told them briefly about all random things. I also gave them the watches I had bought for them. Dad was excited. Mom was happy. The next two days went by very smoothly. I kept talking about things from job and convocation, and they gave me updates of family and functions. I started sometime around 11 in the morning from home on Wednesday and reached home in Gurgaon at about 11 in the night.

My induction training has got over. After considering my choice, I have been put in Manual Transmission Department of Engineering Business Vertical (R&D) where I am undergoing on-job training now. The time is about half past two in the night of 7 Dec. Exactly one month before now I was in a train sleeping happily, probably with a broad smile on my face. I had met my friends and I was going to college with them.

Cheers
Aditya

30 Nov 10-11-12

I was not the first one to get up. Shanthi's mother and Kavya were already awake. I freshened up and sat on the side lower berth looking outside the window. I watched with amusement as familiar scenes went by. First came Mangalore Junction and then came Mangalore Central. We got know that the train would go even to Surathkal station. But then it would have started from Central only after half an hour so we decided to go by road. I saw Meenal's bargaining abilities when we booked a taxi to college. I got down at the junction near GB and walked towards boys hostels, passing in front of Main Building. I started getting calls from juniors and batch-mates. The excitement rushed in again. I went to my juniors'  wing which was the wing opposite to one in which I was staying in my final year. They were staying in the same rooms. Unlike us they were allowed to continue in the same rooms.They came out yelling hellos. The greetings, the slang, the lingo. I was loving it. Gult batch-mates called up and asked me to come to Food Court. We met up there, hugs and high fives. Mechwing gang from the train had left to Ocean Pearl (in Mangalore) for breakfast from the railway station itself where few others from the Mechwing were joining. They came to campus later. Meanwhile Supreeth got down from Pune. We met before he left to Mangalore to buy a formal shirt for the function. The remainder of the day was mostly spent partying. I went to Suraj for lunch with gults - few batch-mates, few juniors - and found that most, if not the whole, of Suraj International was occupied  by NITKians. Meenal Varshini and Kavya were also there. I promised them a treat which couldn't happen then because everyone was busy with everyone else :P . There were lot of other people I met while I was in Suraj and after that we came back to campus. We registered that we had arrived and would be receiving our degrees the next day on stage. Sometime after that, me and Supreeth went and met Gangadharan Sir in SOLVE Lab, and from there while walking back to the hostel I met Shruthi. As always we walked while we talked and after about two rounds in front of the main building she left with others and I came back to the hostels. Most of the gults had gone to beach and they probably had dinner at GNPD after Vidyun came (I'll leave his adventurous bike ride for him ;) to write in his blog ) I went to Sadanand for dinner with Supreeth and Vaishali where I also found Yaswanth and Saketh with their fathers. By the time they all left I was joined by my juniors. We all came back, I don't remember when, I had no track of time, and after a long talk about a lot of things, where mostly only I was talking, I went to sleep.
The next morning as I got up and got ready, the familiar running around for paste, bucket, slippers etc brought back a little nostalgia. I left with Supreeth, went to Amul, took a snack and came to SJA where others were having the so called Hi-Tea.We joined them. Exchanged greetings, asked each other about jobs and job locations.Then when moved into the auditorium. Shanthi managed to continue her legacy, though this was totally unintentional, actually it is never intentional :P . The arrangement and everything else for the occasion seemed just perfect. Everything went on smoothly. We had our moments of fun with random applause. Our chief guest was a Dean from Kumamoto University, Japan. There must be something between me and Japan, I will probably figure out someday. DBZ, Naruto, FairyTail, MarutiSuzuki and now the Chief Guest for convocation :-) . Anyways. After the National Anthem, we all moved out and clicked photographs with our degrees and then people dispersed. Few went out. I came to our very Mega Mess to have lunch with many other graduands. Convocation was over. Things slowed down. My evening had more of thought than excitement. I got a little emotional after getting a lovely graduation gift along with a sweet letter from this sweet sister Vaishali. Later I spent some time at the NITK Beach. I had my dinner with Shanthi's and Saketh's families at Sadanand and I came back to college where people had started leaving. Supreeth, Vishwas, Shruthi and Meenal left that night. I felt bad for not giving a send off to Shruthi; while in college I always used to stay at the pick up point till her bus left. I could meet Shanthi and Varshini for a few minutes before they went back to GB. Thereafter I went to Red Rock where there was a gult party going on and finally came back to hostels with Saketh and few others, and after a sensible yet random chat over phone with Madhu the day came to a close. I slept off very soon probably because I was tired due to all that running around during the day. Next morning I was woken up by Saketh. We went to Surathkal where Shanthi was going with her family to Sringeri. I was going to leave that afternoon and so wanted to meet her once. After they left me and Saketh came back to hostel. Then Saketh left with his father to the hotel room. I got out of the lift on the fourth floor and while I walked towards the wing I felt a chill. I felt all alone. It dawned on me that everyone would be getting separated again, that I would be back to Gurgaon. I realised how much I missed my college days. I started wondering about the possibilities of us being together again and I got lost in the flow of emotions and the thoughts about our future.

Cheers
Aditya

28 Nov To 10-11-12

I started with the thought that the Beginning and the End of this post are probably gonna be one of the toughest ones for me to write, as it is difficult to express extreme emotions especially by me who does not have a good pool of words to chose from. But then it is also very difficult for an expressive like me to describe few of the most memorable days of my life in such small posts. So I decided to do this in parts. Since I have to begin somewhere, I'll start with my ticket booking for convocation. The whole excitement began when the dates for convocation were announced. It was scheduled for the first Saturday of November and I started counting the number of days left to meet my buddies and juniors, gults and mechwing, pclub and baja. Slowly began the discussions with friends about how they are going to travel and who all are going to travel together. Finally my travel plan was set. I was going to take a flight from Delhi on Thursday to Bangalore, train from there to Mangalore with friends, attend convocation on Saturday, and Sunday was return flight from Mangalore to Delhi, with a change point at Mumbai. Few people probably wished that the convocation be held the next week so that Diwali holidays could be used well and God heard them. The convocation got postponed by a week, rumored reasons were the unavailability of the chief guest, about whom, I am sure, no one was bothered. 3 flight tickets cancelled 3.6k cancellation charges. Planning started again. I checked my training schedule and my intuition told me that the Sunday after my convocation would be declared working and the following Monday would be declared a holiday as there were three holidays following, on the occasion of Diwali. There were discussions again but my plan didn't change much. I was still taking the flight to Bangalore and then train to college. But I wasn't coming back to Delhi from college.I decided to give a surprise at home and so got a ticket booked for a bus to Hyderabad.

I wanted to buy something for mom n dad from my salary. After considering lot of options and taking a lot of suggestions I finally went on with the standard "mummy pappa ke liye Ghadi" and bought watches for both of them. I bought sweets for pals whom I was going to meet at college, finished up work at the office, informed that I would be on leave for next four days and packed everything on Wednesday night. The flight departure on Thursday morning was delayed by about 40 minutes for reasons I didn't know. I reached Bangalore at about 2, met Shanthi and along with her parents and elder sister we went to her office. We had lunch at the colorful cafeteria on the ground floor of her office building. We kept talking about all different things, from IT buildings in Bangalore to the malls here in Gurgaon. From there we went to the magnificent ISKCON temple. We spent some time there, then came back to hotel, vacated their room and headed to the railway station where Saketh's father was waiting for us. It seems Shanthi had a record of reaching at the nick of time. We let the legacy continue. For me it was fun to go out of the station with her to get something packed for dinner, all the while teasing her that I will make her miss the train. Her phone kept ringing. People were calling to find out what she was doing when the train was about to come. We did come back in time. I met Varshini, Meenal, Aparna and Santosh. I found Das and Rao were in the same train. Abhinav Kartikeya and a lot of other tricalites were also in the same train. It was only after I got into the train that I realised that the train was full of NITKians. Sarvesh Gabbar Kamath Vijay SrikanthNayak and so many others. I had no control over my voice box. My excitement was at peaks. Only I know how much I enjoyed the journey that night. The Idli Dosa Sambar CurdRice. Moving between S10 and S4. Frustrated TTs. Mysore railway station. Conversations about new times with old friends and old times with new friends. I dozed off, cherishing the memories of those times and thinking about the times to come, at some unknown time after 2 in the night.

Cheers

Aditya

30 Oct And thus it began...

After nearly three months of vacation, which was spent mostly at home, I started off towards the national capital on the night of 25th July to begin my so called corporate life. Yes I came to Delhi, Gurgaon actually, to join my job at Maruti Suzuki India Limited. As they say there is always a first time, this was my first time for travelling in Rajdhani Express and also first time for staying in a star hotel ( country inn and suites ) and yeah first time for a bath tub too :P ( paying double the rate than what the distance is worth was never new to me )

My joining was on august first but I had to go to the company for some paperwork. I submitted my medical report at the health centre. After reading a few numbers from a booklet, which apparently prove that I am not colorblind, I was given a certificate signed by chief medical officer that I am fit to join the company.

Then I went too "MEZZANINE"-1 where the paperwork was being carried out. As soon as I entered the hall Mr.SS asked me if I had my lunch. I hadn't. He handed me coupons and asked me to come after lunch. I walked out of the room and went to canteen-1. I used one of the given coupons and had lunch which wad okay for me as I got a good amount of curd :D . I came back to 'mez-1', took a set of docs which were to be filled up, filled'em up and waited for my turn, while getting to know few other new joinees.I had a little tough time in convincing Mr.SS that there is no conversion rule in my college and 8.5 cgpa is not exactly same as 85%. When he said that I will be the one at loss, I thought let it be. I filled up all the remaining blanks which I had not filled before (because I didn't know what to fill) and submitted. Then I went to the other end of the room where Vodafone, ICICI and HDFC had kept their mini stalls. I took an ICICI bank account and a Vodafone sim card (both of which did cause me a lot of trouble later on). Then I went to the uniform store and collected uniforms. I was always okay with uniform as it made my mornings simple. I don't have to think about what to wear for office. I came back to the hotel, changed and waited for Anup's call.

One of my dad's friends had mentioned about someone from NIT Surat joining MSIL and it was Anup. I met this brilliant multi-talented personality on fb. He told me later that he added me as friend when he saw that I, like him, was the only one from my college joining MSIL. Anup called to tell that he met few people from Osmania University and they had seen a few houses. I went to their hotel ( 1589 City Mark ) and met them. From there we all went to the house that they had almost finalised. I had a look and I quite liked it. We talked about things like rent electricity and water supply. Managed to convince the house owners to get us an inverter (We also asked for a fridge which we got after about 2 months). We roamed around for a while outside and I came back to my hotel and dozed off, thinking about the days to come, waiting for 1st August... The day I would move into the house and more importantly my day one in the company as an employee.

Cheers

Aditya

2 Oct This is not what you are thinking it is

It has been three quarters since I made my last regular entry on Darling. The special one entry in the mid of May came out when I left college (:-/) at the end of which I mentioned that I won't be blogging for a while. I just noticed that it got the highest view count amongst my blog articles. I am wondering if the reason was the content of the blog or the postscript at the end of it :P

A lot of things which happened in these three quarters... fun, masti, yaari, dosti, break-up, new job, new places, new faces, new cultures, first salary, my birthday (which brought along sweet surprises)... are not the topic of my article today. Nor is Mr.Gandhi. My today's entry is a copy work. Dosth ke blog se copy maara :D. You will enjoy reading his other articles on myrandomtihs-viddydusa.blogspot.com . This one I wanted to keep a copy on my blog too.. NITKians would love it.. Others may not understand the whole pun, but you would still like it... so here it goes

the brief history of engineering ..

picture this: god said let there be light ......(fastforwarding) ...eve eats apple .....(4x speed) ...adam needs to protect his family from the rains and the sun (play mode) ..this is where our story starts ..adam gathers some leaves and branches and starts 'building' a shack ..tadaah!! ..the beginning of civil engineering ..

a few hundred years later ..adam's family expanded ..they needed more 'shacks' (can now be considered as houses) to live in ..now life is no AOE game - click of a button and houses appear ..they had to get materials to build ..in the beginning they had no preferences ..then through experience they found better materials but 'transporting' them to the building site was difficult ..even donkeys have 'yield points' ..so they needed 'something' to bring the material ..one guy saw a round stone tumbling down the slope ..ding bolke uska dimag ki batti jala ..he designed a wheel ..mechanical engineers are here ..then came a crisis - the stone resources were getting used up (and again like in AOE, 'rock on' doesn't get you stone) ..

another guy out of joblessness started digging ..he found some different looking rocks (there is a doubt here though - with what is he digging?? - let us assume that its a hard & sharp rock for time being) ..this rock had some shine on it ..as they already know what fire is (this is a general discovery - you don't need an engineer to create fire - anyone can do it) this jobless guy started heating the rocks ..he must've been really tired after all the digging ..so decided to have a 'short' nap and when he woke up he found a hard shining substance (named it 'metal' later) ..unknowingly this jobless guy created job oppurtunities for many people ..these people called themselves - 'mining and metallurgy engineers' ..the population began to increase 'exponentially'  to fill up the houses built by the civil engineers ..this led to the increase of unemployement eventually ..so the 4 heads of 'The Engineers Gang' ..TEG for short (ISTE IEEE IE & CSI started when these 4 heads had a rift recently and split ..the heads are now being called 'convenors') ..the heads came to a conclusion that the branch 'mining and metallurgy' be split into 2 branches - 'mining engineering' and metallury engineering' ..

mechanical engineers meanwhile with their innovation created new machines ..there was too many innovative ideas and the demand for mech engineers increased ..soon the supply matched the demand (in the recent years the supply exceeded the demand ..it was difficult to manage them ..so they divided them into M1 and M2) ..in the midst of all this there were people who wanted to be engineers but didn't know which branch to join ..these people created an exclusive branch for themselves called 'the chemical engineers' (some of these people were quoted saying that they are still clueless of what they do) ..a mathematician (also a chem engg fan) once described chemical engineering as the set of all possible engineering branches excluding civil mechanical mining and metallurgy (circuit based branches were still a generation away at that time) ..another mathematician claims that he can prove that the set is a null set (citation required) ..

coming to the newest arrivals ..the 'circuit' based branches ..E&E E&C ..computers were made by these engineers and soon a situation came where a seperate branch had to be created to handle the expansion ..computer engineers came into existence (now called computer science engineer) ..as always there were some jobless people left who (as usual) wanted to be engineers but did not want to join any group ..they named their group as 'information technology' (they wanted a technically sophisticated sounding name to demarkate themselves from the chemical engineers) ..no one knows why they don't have the 'engineers' tag in their group's name (or do we??) ..

this my dear fellow engineers and humans (by humans i mean humans who aren't engineers not something else) is the truth of how we engineers came into existence ..


NOTE:
# if i have hurt anyone's sentiments i have only one thing to say - truth is bitter but you have to digest it eventually ..

# joblessness is definitely the mother of creativity :P

@Vidyun Dusa ... Jahaapanaa tussi great ho.. but no tohfa :P .. many happy returns of the day.. wish you a very happy birthday :-) 

 

---------

Aditya

14 May 2012 One Last Entry

I never thought it would be so difficult to leave college. Rewind my life by two months and there was this Aditya who used to think too much about every other thing happening around him, worried about his pending works, disappointed about his X-girl friend and sad that he would probably leave college and no one would remember him. He always carried a feeling that he couldn't make good friends in college. But then it all changed with the "chhoti chhoti khushiyaan" that the college gave him. Month of March got over with works from the aftermath of Baja, major project in SOLVE and a little running around for a few other things like department website, robotic arm etc. It all started with the initiative to celebrate Ugadi and Rama Navami like how we did two years ago. People came together and though there were a few disappointing things that happened, we pulled out a huge event on the occasion of Ugadi. Credits to all gults ... Special Credits to the Lord Rama and Lord Hanuman (read Manideep and Saketh).

Enter the One Last Month at NITK. Most of it was spent by people (final years) doing minor works in major projects, the major part was always kept for the end (there were exceptions though, not me of course). But even in the midst of that entire busy people spent time going for treats and treks with their buddies for four years. Writing testimonials was also one thing people spent most of their time on, at least till the site was closed. Then came club and branch farewells (mechies didn't get fresh and so they don't fare well I guess :P). Carroms in 5D wing with Atkins boy (now LSI) along with others in the last month was one of the best times I had at college.

I didn't know that my casual work on a particular website would influence my life so much. I would always be grateful to Ravi Teja (Gundu) for he was the one for whom I did it. Sometimes I felt I should have listened to him and joined PClub but then may be the things wouldn't have been the same if I had done that. It surprises me sometimes how a handful of people can change your life and bring you back from your own lost world. I found these few friends towards the end of days at college. I found those people to whom I can go back to, to share my joy and sorrow. They were with me from the day one in college; the only difference is I now know what difference they make. I have no regrets about anything in college. More or less everything was fun. There were a few disappointing things but then without anything bad how will you realise the importance of good. In the last week I met a few faculties who taught me and said a good-bye. 

Eyes filled with tears, tears rolling down cheeks, lips shivering with sobs, with an exchange of gifts and tokens of affection, with messages coming not just from a mobile but from the heart and soul of friends, I spent my last week at NITK sending off people. My Last Day at college was a little sad in the beginning because of the previous day's hang over (I just learnt the feeling of missing people). I went to a movie with a few friends, had an awesome dinner at food courts and was given a send off by all the remaining friends. After an extra-ordinary chase, which was successful thanks to the Dark Knight who pulled the chain to stop the train, we all started our journey back to our homes saying good-bye to Mangalore for the last time as students of NITK. At some point between all this (when even I was feeling sad and depressed) it occurred to me that this separation is nothing to be sad about. It shows us how much we love our friends. It tells us how much we want to be with them. Thank you guys for all these awesome days in college. A part of what I am today is because of you. Will definitely stay in touch ( read as "will kill you if you don't keep in touch"). I am already looking forward to the time we are going to meet next. Till then Have Fun. Take Care

Cheers 

Aditya

P.S. Last entry for the time being on Darling.

31 Dec Good Bye

Man!!! I really am a moody fellow... Didn't feel like writing till today. Didn't get the mood to write amidst those loads of work. I had actually been quite busy unknowingly during the last two months with my major project review, end semester exams, SOLVE review after exams and of course BAJA. End result; I stayed back at college during my winter vacation. . Picked up quite a few things from here and there while working. The stay was pleasant except for the expenses :P. In a way it was fine, this is my last semester in the college, not that I have any nostalgic feelings about it.

@ Wing-mates : sorry guys couldn't come to party with you. not in the mood.
They just left after trying hard to persuade me to come and not staying alone at 12 O'clock. Thanks for your concern guys. But its fine with me this way for this day, may be I should say this year. The first day of the year does have a lot of importance. Doesn't it? But its just like another day. There will be 11 other firsts, 51,more or less, other Sundays and there are 30 other days in the month But no, nothing feels more special than 01.01. Celebrating it is our way of saying good-bye to the year that has passed by and saying welcome to the upcoming year. Saying thanks to the passing year for the joy it gave and trying to forget the grief it caused. Wishing that the coming year will bring us all prosperity and happiness and praying that the supernatural will prevent any sorrow from entering our peaceful lives.

This year made a huge difference in a lot of ways; taught me more about myself than any earlier years as I grew twenty, it made me think about things which I never used to think earlier. It became like a bridge between being a child and being a man with me in the center. It allowed me to think and choose whether I should remain ignorant and be a child or whether I should prepare myself to take up responsibilities and be a man. It sure told me that there are times to get serious and there are times when you should just let go. It made me think about my future, so many many times. It also gave me a taste of hatred so that I know how it feels like. It made me frightened. It made me feel useless at times. But every time it gave me someone to hang on to, someone to take support from, some one to come back for. I will stay with them and I wish for their health and happiness.  
 
Though little sad for what happened at the end, 
little nervous for what might happen at the next bend, 

I smile as I see the year leaving with a cheer,
Giving the warmth of hope as It whispers in my ear 
"Good-Bye Oh Dear ".

Wishing You all a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2012.

Aditya