[Travel]:Mid-March (Rishikesh/Mussoorie/Haridwar)

[Travel]:THE WEEKEND THAT WAS ...

Palolem,Goa

17 June, 2007

[Life]:
Tonight you can Dream boy...

As I had guessed it , Goa offers relief ! , especially when you are a BITSian and attending your PS-I , you cant get a better chance to be a tourist as well as a student doing his internship ! All confusions whether to move out of the campus or stay in are over finally! , Schedules reaching a monotonous high!
Till 5 , you can make yourself believe that you can be really really lazy and sleep around in some good industries and wonder how do these machines (the employees actually!.. ) are so happy workingwhen they cant even provide a solid 1 month job to its trainees! Why do they expect us to work hard for them? ..when we are actually paying them ..!!

''Basketball in the evenings'' is back! ..and whoa! I am doing all so bad! , long time , need to get some rhythm back! , but its always a good feeling escaping your PS and wait for your good friends to join in , maybe for some gossip , or some baskets!!

++++
Goan people are actually fun! The shopkeepers here would close there shops when they are done with their expected business even if its 11 in the morning , and people like me keep on wondering why are restaurants closed at lunch time closed over here at Vasco! ..Bargaining is in again! ..like every tourist place , you can bargain a lot! ...Churches are really nice! but you need to get used to their customs and the place , otherwise you can get stuck at a silver jubilee ceremony of 50 yr old couple in a church , when all the people in the church are the invited relatives and you ..well..are tourist ..you have wide eyes staring at you! ..But I loved it anyways! It was fun!

Beaches ..well ..salty waters! , you wont even realise why NaCl content in your body has reached an alltime high in last few minutes! ... and then you wonder why a 18 second motor boat ride costs you 100 bucks! ... but its all part of the Big plan .....that is ..to lose money!

Despite being a nonveggie! , I have convinced myself that I wont be eating those sea-animals! even if they are special Goan cuisines ...I am suffice with my chickens! ...I cant even hold those crabs..seldom eat them! ..

And friends!! Seems like all the world's aspirations of having a gala circle of friends at just the right place had just been heard! .. I long for those lawn sessions with friends or the one in front of the BITS,Pilani-Goa Dome! (Is that what they say over here!??..) ..The nice time just keeps on gettinf nicer , and at this time , when I am writing this all , I feel tonight I can Dream!

[Life]:'How Genesis Of A Story Works..."

gen·e·sis (jn-ss)n. pl. gen·e·ses (-sz) 1. The coming into being of something; the origin.

Not all of us are really sure what path we are following , but most of us are happy that we are going someway . This can be in case of decisions , interests , selfishness and to some extent whats 'standard'. Consider the same in case of technology . Even speaking 'Technology' doesnt make you feel 'technical' , its like 'Technology' like 'Science' is as broad as the latter. Now being an Engineering Student , I am not sure of my path , but I certainly know that If I do what is told to me ( maybe by the professors , elders and other old people who think they have a bit more grey matter than us....(students)..) .. I would certainly yield a fruitful result , that would give me a comfortable lifestyle , 'standard' lifestyle and a bit more than I require ...

But...its not always that simple , passing out of a good institute with the 'degree' you got through your entrance examination , wont make you an expert in that field , even if you end up doing a PhD. in that field . It doesn't end here , guys like 'Mani Shankar' , a chemical engineer from BITS ending up as a movie producer ...who knew?? ... So you might be one of those who might end in a completely different scenario/field as of now , so whats best is follow the well known "Wait and Watch" strategy..

Last week , I came from Delhi where I went as part of the BITS team for St.Stephen's , Delhi Science Fest . Many of the Science Talks and Summits were really penetrating , going by what one of the Genetics gentleman spoke "A Stephenie who will be giving a noble lecture in some topic he never studied at St.Stephens ....it wasn't even his branch" ... presented in front me a perfect example of a guy who passed out with a degree from one of the best science colleges of the country , started gaining interest in something he didn't even remotely study in his science college.

So...it goes on .. think ... we are all at the mercy of a degree , 'not-so-obedient' puppets in the hands of 'not-so-authoritative' intellectuals ... But it goes without saying that to feel the truth ,
you have to seek inside yourself . So thats what I did ...

I felt a slowly developing interest in basic Sciences while preparing for IIT examination , maybe the company of a roommate (who is now at IITK ) catalyzed it. But it was always an internal interest I never let out in public , because I knew engineering was the way , and above all , I never found handling technical things or dealing with mathematical paradigms difficult, but always a bit more interesting than fundamental Sciences. But then the path I chose , always had two directions , one which I would end up with , and one end which would travel with me . It was difficult but then God has his (with respect to all females..) own ways . I am now pursuing a dual degree , one in basic sciences and one in engineering . Consider it anything you want , but this came naturally somehow from somewhere , uncalled for , unasked for ...just given away..

So , when I went to the Fest at Delhi , I presented a paper on my all time favorite topic of 'Gravitational Wave Theory' (..sorry for the coughs you got..) which I have been studying on my own , even without knowing much about Einstein's GR paper of 1915, I was doing something he presented in his paper . The satisfaction on presenting such a paper was far too enticing , the story doesn't end here , God has flown in for more adventures,more pains and not too forget far more surprises which I will cease to mention over here , but there's a 'sweet' story in the making ...

"This is how things work , each one of us have a "Genesis" of our own "

[Technology]:
ORBITSKUT
Note: The proxy is no more working.I have deleted the URL due to some personal reasons.

This thing came to my mind this very morning , I thought that I have been supplying orkut proxies daily to numerous people , why dont I do such a thing , which would reduce my workload and allow others to surf without wandering around in search of proxies.Ofcourse the URL can be accessed in other institutes too , but titling it "Just for BITSians" made it more penetrating in the minds of people.Some information on how it works:

• There are circumventors on the net which believe in internet freedom of each individual surfer and thus supply proxies to let people surf whatever they intend to, these proxies somehow reach us in the hostels (at BITS) , and the IPC people block it , then we are in wait for more proxies ....
• So what I did was , take one primaryURL , which redirects your browser to another secondary URL which is a proxy the circumventor supplies.Now as the circumventor provides new proxies , I manually get them and redirect to them through the primary URL which is "currently" www.orbitskut.coz.in
• Now , IPC people may just block this primary URL of mine too , but I have taken precautions , as in inserted the word "bits" in it ..I guess you get why I did that ...

Problems that may happen : Circumventor may stop working , the URL may get blocked somehow , delay in next proxy supply by the Circumventor...

I guess thats it , but I am in the process of making it more foolproof as of now , till then enjoy the meat...

-Bandan

Reservation Issue Back in News

This morning's TOI diverted a good amount of attention , especially , when it had something to do with BITS,Pilani .

"In a major setback to the antiquota campaign , private unaided institutes like BITS Pilani , Manipal and Symbiosis on Thursday unanimously agreed to implement the 27% reservation for OBC's "

-Times Of India

This is what I got from http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=41203 .. :

"A group of deemed universities including some prestigious ones today backed HRD Minister Arjun Singh's move for reservation in unaided institutes but BITS, Pilani, strongly opposed it................However, opposing the move, BITS said they were not part of the meeting convened by the HRD Ministry....................................According to BITS, merit must be the only criteria for admissions, he said adding so as to ensure homogenous input into the higher education system. "

Well , the above few extracts do present the true picture as compared to the TOI one . Talking to many of my friends , this news has come as a shock to us , thus violating the age-old BITS tradition of admission strictly on merit-basis . The reservation implementation will take some time before it is fully part of the admission process as several factors like the fee structure have to be taken into account.

I could have been the guy on TV burning Arjun Singh's mannequin , but only for these tests and quizzes , I must confess I can do nothing except write about it...