CHENNAI!!!!

Chennai!! All my friends in college say Trichy is a bad place to be in. They like Chennai and feel its very good. Even i did entertain this thought once in a while, thinking Chennai may actually be better because of all the facilities available there. Now here i am, in Chennai and will be for another month. Its been just 4 days since i came here, but i sure can say i don't like the place. May be, it will be like it for people who have never been in such places. But then, i never felt anything like it when i was in Pune or Bangalore. As a matter of fact, i just loved Pune and am craving to go there again.

The first thing which i felt the very minute i started being in Chennai is the crowd. Anywhere, anytime its so very crowded, with no space to move around. Getting crushed where ever i went was a real bad experience. A person like me, who has always been in calm places, who does not even go to crowded shop and never step out of the house during festival seasons, this crowd was really horrible. Never felt like getting out at all, leave alone going in the buses. I am so used to riding a vehicle that i find it difficult to go even in buses where there are only four people apart from the driver.And here!! I stand on just one leg half my traveling time.

The next problem, that i faced was "WATER". Me, being so used to drinking cauvery water which is boiled and filtered at home, this was another big problem. Generally people here use packaged drinking water. But that does seem great in any way. Added to that its raining on and off. I've a got sour throat which hurts pretty badly when i speak. I sound so hoarse. Not to forget all this is in just 2 days.

Coming back to the rains, anywhere you turn you are bound to see stagnated water. May be there are much better places in Chennai, but the places where i have been till now are bad(which is quite many and are supposedly the heart of Chennai) Even in the bus stops, where i see at least 200 people every morning, there is a small pond forming in. One can not even walk there and boarding the bus, with people running madly without minding the water, is a feat in itself.

Not only this, the worst of the problems is the stinking smell that follows you anywhere you go. The amount of mosquitoes and other insects breeding here, once you see this you just cant accept this is a city!! This place is so polluted. Even with masks around your face all the time, you may not be able to prevent yourself from being affected.

With all this, the very thought of staying in Chennai for a month has become irksome. With every passing day, i am becoming more fidgety and i really want to go back home. Even after 2 months of staying in Pune, i never felt so restless. Moreover i felt very sad about leaving Pune and wanted to stay more. But here, just in about four days...! Chennai!!!!

Why the Difference??

I'm doing 3rd year of engineering in NIT Trichy. This is one of the best in India and the best of around 20 NITs. Anyone, say more than 15 yrs old, who wants to do engineering in a good college will know how to get in here.AIEEE. Out of nearly seven lakh students who take this exam, only around 500 students get into each institution (which includes people entering through a lot of other criteria) When you try to analyze this more you realize the wide variation in the rank of students who enter in. For instance, the person with the all India rank(air) of 127 , belonging to Andra Pradesh, gets computer science in NIT Trichy whereas a person from Karnataka who had a rank of 21367 could get the same. This is because like IIT people don't get in here with the AIR but with the state ranks. Someone in Tamilnadu can get into NIT T much more easily than one from Andra Pradesh though his rank may be 20 times more. This is the case for so many other states like Rajasthan, UP and Delhi where people have much better ranks but still cant get branches of their choice and sometimes cant even get into NITs.

Well.. this is not exactly what i wanted to talk about, though the title seems pretty appropriate even for this.What i wanted to say was about how guys change once they enter the college. They struggle so much. Many give a break of a year and prepare just for this entrance exam and finally they land here. What comes over them after they come here is so outlandish. If you take a look at all those people, from these states, who struggled so much, gave a break of one and even two years, who slogged to get here, not even ten percent of them are toppers in college. Everything goes upside down in a span of months and in the second year they are so far away from it. These same people who were way ahead of us, who were so hard working, to whom it mattered so much, are so casual and careless. You hardly see them attending any classes, they hardly work. Here i should appreciate them for the fact that though they don't study all that much they still muster up something good in the exam.

What gets me wondering is how good they will be if they study a bit. We will all be nowhere near them if they get back all the enthusiasm and the drive they had when they were preparing for aieee. So, what happened to them? Where did it all vanish is such a short duration!! There are these problems which crop up once they enter college and are so far away from any serious control.They get into a lot of habits. But that is not what i want to talk about either. This is different.

When i talk to so many of these smart friends of mine, they give me many astonishing answers. One of the very common answers being that they studied so hard to get in here and once they enter they want to relax, slow down. The reason being whatever their scores are they are sure to get a job and of course they have very decent grades, and once they get a job they will have to work again. This is the time they want to enjoy, after all they do not know if they will get anything like this again. After 20 years when they look back, they want to have loads of lighter moments to remember not books all the time. They want to have had all the fun. They feel this is the reward they get for their hard work, this job security. This may be reason enough but don't they realize even with a bit of work they will be achieving great heights, a better job with a better pay and a lot more to enjoy.

Another of the answers which you hear is the difference in what is expected out of us. In aieee we had to solve 100 odd problems in 3 hours in varied subjects and levels of difficulty. We had to be really smart, had to be sure of the concepts, had to keep track of the time and above all we should have practiced a lot. But what is required of us in college is to cram a lot of theory. We must be able to memorize a lot and reproduce them, sometimes verbatim. Very few subjects need understanding and problem solving skills. Even then the problems are so expected and does not involve any thinking, just refer the standard books and you are sure to know nine out of ten problems which will be in the question paper. Getting to think about it even now my friends know the concepts, they just don't want to memorize or they are just not used to it. Whereas people here had to memorize loads to clear the school and board exams and so tend to score in college.

Now, i don't have a conclusion for this. Do i say the criteria for entering NITs should be changed, or should it be that the system of education in the colleges should be changed. I've no idea. But the fact remains that guys who gave dazzling results and performed remarkable feat before entering this college have come down to be mediocre students here.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Messenger!!! Not very long ago i was a freak who was badly addicted to this. There was never a day when i dint log in. Too many times i was found in here for really long hours actually talking to someone on every arbit stuff ranging from statistics to the latest movie. Well.. there was never anything important to talk. Of course how can there be any if you chat for something like 3 hrs everyday. This was at its heights during my final yrs of schooling when i ought to have been concentrating on my studies, worrying about my future, preparing for my college entrance exams and every other thing that was going to change my life forever. But i just could not get out of this. It all started early in life, at least i consider it early, when i was around 13 yrs old. Thanks to cousin who got me into this!! Yes, i mean it. I am actually very thankful to him. Though this took off a lot of time i cant deny this got me some of my best friends, who stay by me no matter what. Those friends of mine who i share almost everything with, those whose presence does not make me uncomfortable, those who like every bit of me. There is never a moment when i am shy to tell them something, never when i hesitated to share so many of the "not so happy" incidents of my life. When i started talking i never realized the friendship was to last, but it did, and here i am saying they are the best i have got.

Now i see that i am not very much interested in using messenger much, at least not as much as i used. It has reduced to around once in 3 or 4 days, that too hardly for an hr or so, unless there is someone specific that i want to talk to, unless there is something to talk about. I don't think this is because i have had enough of it but because i have too many good friends to want one more. I think i am very lucky since i never got into any mess doing this. I was not all that grown up when i started it but still i never ended up getting into trouble and ruining everything. Friends living in so many places of the world, who care to check in every once in a while, who are very interested in my well being, people who are my mentors both in my personal and professional life, i am really lucky!!
Messenger has been a great in so many other ways too. I have got quite many friends, those whom i see every now and then, and more unbelievably, some of my classmates whom i meet everyday, who hardly talk to me in person, just enjoy chatting with me in yahoo. I still cant make out why it is so but may be its because they cant bring themselves to reveal so many things that seems very much easier when you type it out. It does happen with me so many times. Typing seems to be an easier option than actually having got to tell it straight on the face. Whatever the reason be, i really like doing it, i enjoy every moment of it and it makes me really happy.

On the whole, Yahoo! Messenger has been a very integral part of my life. It has given me many of the best friendships i have now, be it someone living in US or Finland or China or those who are right near me in my college . These are people who are there with me to stay and i am very thankful to everyone of them and for everything they have done to me.. for me. I think this post would more appropriately be a tribute to all these friends of mine.

dreamz unlimited

So many times we wish our fantasies would come true. ( of course thats what a fantasy is.. something you enjoy thinking about but unlikely to happen!! ) We earnestly wish our dreams could come true, things will happen the way we think, people will talk the way we want them to. But it never does happen that way. Never. People always say the wrong stuff, things always take an unexpected turn to the worse. It is the same every time. You go about it with high hopes but it never works out. There are times when being earnest helps. But those are not the fantasies which take over us, most of the time. It is always that something which can not happen however hard you try unless your lucky stars are shining real bright. You always end up dejected, with the vow you would never think of it again. Never again do you want to dream of it that left u sad. But again, in a matter of days you end up thinking of the same thing all over again. After all its your fantasy, its your dream, its what you wanted. We just cant take it the otherwise. What makes the difference is how we go about it. Most of us end up hurting ourselves again. We are not able to come to terms with reality. We just don't realize there is so much more around us, which are much better than what we dream of. All that we have to do is understand the importance of it and learn to enjoy it, live with it, for it is better than a dream and its right there, for us!!! We had just blocked ourselves from appreciating it. World would be a better place to live in if can sense all that is in store for us, and savor it, than worrying about the unfulfilled dreams. Man!!! its dream not life.. of course the probability of it happening in next to naught!!

life in a metro

Well.. I seem to be in this great mood today. I want to write again. I know its so arbit. 9 months of nothing and suddenly i want to do it for the 2nd time today. I don't know what to write about even. Ok.. if anything deserves a post it is my life in Pune. This is one more topic which cant end soon. so.. just the beginning of it...

The first thing i should mention before i start is i have never been out of this town long enough to know what other bigger places feel like. Yes.. I did stay in banglore for some 15 days. But that was in my aunt's place and all that i did was work and sleep. Never went out.. not even once.. ( may be i should say it again here.. with quotes in bold letters.. i was in b'lore) I have never been to a shopping mall, a multiplex and never to cafe, pizza hut, and so many other places which if i mention in my college would be deemed a villager. Ok... now u get a bit of an idea of what i must have been.. before i went to Pune. My journey to Pune starts.. my dad came with me, to settle me down and all that. You see, this was my first time out of home and i knew no one in the place. Yes, dad did have a few contacts there though not close enough for me to stay there for 2 months. Oh.. i forgot to mention why i was going to there. It was for a project and the duration was a minimum of two months. ( I am not talking about it here for even without any of it my exp in pune is going to be too long). Let me cut out all that part about searching for the best accommodation. We just finally settled down on the place after nearly 4 days of search. There was a Thambi ( my college slang for the people belonging to Tamilnadu) family staying on the ground floor and they had rented the 1st floor to 3 girls, software enginners. It was decided that i would stay with those girls for the 2 months. I think their 1st reaction would have been to put up with a little monster which would invade into their privacy for the next 2 months ( It changed quite soon.. all that would come in later) The first thing i got to know of them.. One was a Bong (Bengali), another a Punjabi and the 3rd one a Marathi. Now i just have to tell you this.. i know very little Hindi and i am horrible at conversing in the language. So the only way i had to talk with them was in English. The differences did not end here, there is so much more. This is just the start of problems too. I had to wash, clean, cook and do so many domestic chores, which i am not used to, apart from the official works and i had to cycle down to the company which was some 4 Km away.

Hmmm.. Guess this was boring enough. Let me get back to this some other time. Thanks for being so patient with all my blabber.