I am back..for now

After a long time off the blogging circle. I am now returning to the blog-sphere. 

House is not addicted to Vicodin...House is Vicodin

    Let me be frank, the general population of the world has a IQ below 135, hence we mostly need shows for people who don't like it to be complicated. They don't care about the nuances, the dramatisation; they just want to know if Ross and Rachel marry!!

    But then once in a while they make a show that everyone can like, ones with IQ<=151(people with higher IQs remain inside the labs). House M.D. is one such show. Hugh Laurie fits perfectly into the role of a maverick doctor who is constantly in pain. Have you ever seen his previous work...he has been on FRIENDS, he is Stuart Little's father, he is the Wooster in the Jeeves-Wooster duo, a bumbling royal in Blackadder...more or less a fulltime comedian!!

    Dr. Gregory House is addicted...but more so (which is also the goddamn point of my blog) addictive. Recently I introduced House to my friend Nicchu aka Nishanth aka SoC Gilli aka "Fuck, I forgot something in the canteen, I forget what". House M.D. took him by surprise. To the extent that when he doesn't have episodes to watch, he thinks about the previous episodes. In his own words,

Nishanth: lol

  i finished all episodes u gave

  i am addicted

  dont give anymore

me: ya take more

 Nishanth: i said dont give

 me: macha enjoy

 Nishanth: boohoo

 me: dont worry

  when busy, i wont give

 Nishanth: all i do is

  watch house

  eat sleep

 

    Am I enjoying this, maybe I am!! Moving forward, as of Monday, Nishanth has vowed not to watch house for a week. Have you seen him lately? His hands shiver, he scorns contact with people...he can't sleep...in short I just created a druggie..... Hence the conclusion, House is Vicodin.

 

P.S. If you have not seen House MD. Gimme a buzz!! I can make the pain go away.....

RAMayana (CS2106 style)

LAN, LAN ago, in the SYSTEM of I/O-dhya, there ruled a PROCESSOR named DOS-rat.

Once he EXECUTED a great sacrifice PROGRAM after which his queens gave an OUTPUT of four SUNs - RAM, LSIman, BUG-rat and SED-rughana.


RAM the eldest was a MICROCHIP with excellent MEMORY. His brothers,
however, were only PERIPHERAL ICs.

Once when RAM was only 16MB, he married princess C ta.

12 years passed and DOS-rat decided to INSTALL RAM as his
successor.However, Queen CIE/CAE(Kayegayee), who was once offered a boon by DOS-rat for a lifesaving HELP COMMAND, took this opportunity at the instigation of her BIOSed maid and insisted that her son Bug-rat be INSTALLED and that RAM be CUT-N-PASTED to the forest for 14 years. At this cruel and unexpected demand, a SURGE passed through DOS-rat and he CRASHED like unstable version of AI MSN does in intel.

RAM agreed to LOG INTO forest and C ta insisted to LOGIN with him.
LSI-man also resolved on LOGGING IN with his brother.

The forest was the dwelling of SPARCnakha, the TRAN-SISTOR of RAW-van,
PROCESSOR of LAN-ka. Attracted by RAM, she proposed that he should marry her. RAM, politely declined, perceiving C ta to be his SOURCE CODE.

She hastened to kill her but LSI-man cut her inportant PERIPHERALS.
Weeping, SPARC-nakha fled to LAN-ka, where RAW-van, moved by TRAN-SIS TOR s plight, approached his uncle MAR-icha. MAR-icha REPROGRAMED himself to form a golden stag and drew RAM deep into the forest. Finally, RAM shot the deer, which, with his last breath, cried out for LSI-man in voice of RAM s SOUND CARD. Fooled by this VIRTUAL RAM SOUND, C ta urged LSI-man to his brother s aid.

Catching the opportunity, RAW-van DELINKED C ta from her LIBRARY and
changed her ROOT DIRECTORY to LAN-ka.

------------------INTERVAL ----------------

RAM and LSI-man started SEARCHING for the missing C ta all over the
forest. They made friendship with the forest SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR SU-greev and his powerful co-processor Ha-NEUMAN, who agreed to help RAM. SU-greev ordered his PROGRAMMERS to use powerful SEARCH techniques learnt in CS1102 to FIND the missing C ta.

His PROGRAMMERS SEARCHED allaround the INTER-NETworked forests. Many tried to EXCITE the birds and animals not to forget the WEBCRAWLERS (Insects) and tried to INFOSEEK something about C ta.

Some of them even shouted YAA-HOO but they all ended up with NO FOUND MESSAGES Google, Lycos nothing was left untouched.

Ha-NEUMAN then devised a RISCy TECHNOLOGY and used it to cross the seas at an astonishing CLOCK SPEED.

Soon Ha-NEUMAN DOWNLOADED himself into LAN-ka. Ha-NEUMAN
found C ta under a brown - green (as Brahma will call it) TREE STRUCTURE Ha-NEUMAN used the LOGIN ID (ring) to identify himself to C ta.

After DECRYPTING THE KEY, C ta asked him to send STATUS_OK MESSAGE to RAM.

Meanwhile all raakshasa BUGS around C ta captured Ha-NEUMAN to DELETE him using everything including Ctrl-Alt-Del.

But Ha-NEUMAN spread chaos by spreading VIRUS Fire . Ha-NEUMAN pressed ESCAPE from LAN-kaand & conveyed all the STATUS MESSAGES to RAM and SU-greev. RAW-wan decided to take RAM head-on. One of the RAW-wan s SUN almost DELETED LSI-man with a Brahma -astra.

But Ha-NEUMAN resorted to some ACTIVE-Xgradients and REFORMATTED LSI-man. RAM used the SOURCE CODE secrets of RAW-wan and wiped out RAW-wan s presence on earth.

Later, RAM got INSTALLED in I/O-dhya and spreaded his USER FRIENDLY PROGRAMS to all USERS and everyone lived happily ever after, playing & enjoying AOE.


(PS:- thanks to rajan anna...)

NUH Ward 56 Bed 7 (Part 1)

It all started on that fateful day, I don’t remember the date... so it’s just THAT day akin to the initial second of Genesis...from whence we get the concept of time zero...and the subject for the greatest debate between scientists and them religious people. But wait that topic is too passé, my story has nothing to do with God or Science (note my political correctness: capital S for Science as opposed to a capital G for God).
Now that I have appositely shown that chronology is for authors who are too stiff, and that I cannot remember dates; it is time the story moved ahead. It all started on...wait done already... well in any case I suddenly found that I was having an odd pain in my back (it wasn’t all the way back...but kind of somewhere in the middle, just for your info). I thought it was JUST a backache, so I thought ill of the canteen dude (for giving me gas or something) and decided to just to sleep on it, (now that I think about it, I think the gel for aches was still in the bag that I had not opened yet so I was just too indolent...so I decided to wait for the pain to subside). But around 12 am, the pain started to bother me to the extent that I could not sleep, or lie in one position. I don’t like to advertise, but I have seen more than my share of physical pain in my life but this was nothing like anything I had experienced before, I knew almost immediately that something new was afoot.
The timing could not have been worse, my hostel (PGPR) was in a state of vacation and all my friends were on break, save a few. So I called the first name that popped up when I opened my contact list. My good friend Arti, the humanitarian, the dog lover and the self proclaimed lesbian (attracted to long-legged Russian waitresses). So I called her up expeditiously, wondering what state of mood she would be in, the conversation we had was brief and to the point.
I said, “Hello”. Arti (most unimaginative) answered, “Hello, Hello”.
“Nice weather this”, I said (I am a good conversationalist and know that all good chinwags start with the weather...but Arti unfortunately knew nothing of manners). “It’s too damn hot”, she replied curtly. Taken aback by the shortness of the reply I decided that my next line... ‘I hope the weather remains this way’ would be a waste of my breath, so I delved in to the subject directly.
I put it as succinctly as possible, “I am having a pain in my back which is not letting me sleep and is moving down to the front of my body; I think I should go to the hospital. Would you please accompany there?”
“Sure, Foyer in 10 minutes.”, she replied.
For the next 7 minutes I realised 2 things, lesbians are nice people actually (though they nag a lot about the weather) and that I was still the master conversationalist...the key was the question about the weather...that is what set the ball rolling, I feel for the lesser masses (sigh!).
In any case, we caught a cab to NUH A&E (Accident and Emergency). I relayed my situation to the lady at the front desk. She nodded all the way and asked me to pee in a bottle. So I went to the nearest male lavatory and peed in the bottle. Then I looked at the bottle, I was expecting a shade of yellow, instead the contents of the bottle had a reddish coloration. I let out a shriek of anguish. Hiding the bottle from general public (you try showing off your bloody pee to the public...it isn’t funny ... stop laughing!!) I gave it to the lady, who gave me a couple of ticks of her tongue, a disappointed nod and a waiting ticket (reminding me of my class 2 teacher when giving me my test results). So after the standard 3 hour wait, I was given an appointment with a urologist, some digestive sachet thingamajigs and the company of a friend who had to go to work the next day, who couldn’t complain for the sake of her friend’s (that would be ME) feelings (know this Arti I pitied you...intermittently...whenever I took my eyes of the television and had nothing else to do!!).
All said and done, we took a cab back to the PGPR. I went directly to my room. For the next few days I suffered watching my pee gush out with an abnormal reddish hue. The pain in a few days became spasmodic and bearable but still I wasn’t feeling good. My appetite suffered (this is the part that really hurt... I love good food and my lack of an appetite was killing me inside. Sob sob sob!! )
Then the day of the appointment with the urologist arrived with a roll of thunder...the rain gods were a displeased lot...a heavy shower ensued as soon as I left my room. Cursing everything that caught my angry gaze I made my way to NUH. After the standard 3 hour wait I met my doctor.
In all fairness she was an excellent doctor and she helped me out, but the things that happened inside that room are going to haunt me till I am in my coffin or till I get my next kidney stone, whichever one is earlier.
I am bereft of shame and tact; I will lay down my facts as ‘barely’ as possible. Firstly, we discussed my condition, i.e. what a renal stone was and what are the treatments. After that she told me to lie down on the bed, I obediently obliged. She used that scanning machine thing (you know the one that shows the kid inside the mother’s womb) to see my kidneys,
“They are slightly enlarged, I am pretty sure you have a stone”, she said. “Oh!” , I replied (my voice barely audible to myself).
Her next few words put me off a bit.
“Take of your pants please Siva”. My heart jumped a beat, I mean...its...its...its...weird..no...awkward...you know...you are a guy...and well...but....you get it right.


..........To Be Continued

The First War of Tutorials

DISCLAIMER: Mutual funds are subject to market risk, so please read the offer document carefully before investing. All characters and events in this story—even those based on real (not reel) people—are entirely fictional. The following story contains coarse language and due to its content should not be read by anyone. So f*** u...and don't blame me...


Tutor: Well the public and private scoping of functions is a complex thing to understanding....Prof Martin would u like to elaborate...
(Prof Martin raises his head...casts a piercing glance at the tutor.{who faints at the spot and starts foaming at the mouth...but who cares....we'll just get another tutor}....walks to the board..and teaches..... at the very end of his explanation...)
Prof Martin: If a function is not defined as public...it becomes a private by default...any questions (with a satisfied tone of having accomplished something...worth accomplishing)???
Aaditya Bhasin: (raises his confident and well practiced hand)....When u don’t declare a function as public it becomes private by default right Professor....
(the Professor nods his head in agreement.....basking in the glory of actually being able to teach something to us blockheads....) BUT WHAT IF??...(the tension in the room goes up a notch....everyone expects this student to question the unquestionable....and shake the very foundations of modern Java Programming...akin to the Hurricane that destroyed the dinosaurs even when they were at the height of their Jurassic glory {damn it ... I don’t believe in the stupid meteor theory....so f*** u!!!} )
(Acknowledging the mob's interest....our protagonist raises his hand again to silence the mobs...just as Anthony (of the Julius Ceaser fame) had done....except...our hero had the ears of his friends countrymen and Singaporeans..(there were unfortunately no Romans)...)
Aaditya Bhasin: WHAT IF ...I don't declare the function as private then what happens???
(We expected a hurricane that would kill a T‐Rex....but we got a ‘fart’ that wouldn't kill a new born mosquito....damn it...or so we thought.....an old bearded man once said...think it was Confucius ...but you can’t be too sure with bearded men.... “Poison to the wise, are the unwise...so go away before you kill me...and stop writing down every damn thing I say; you little bag of....(the rest of the manuscript is lost....but we got Indiana Jones to get it back....as soon as his treatment for arthritis is completed this August...)” ).
PS: (Oh yeah our CS1102S classes have been suspended till Prof Martin gets better...he met a similar fate as his faithful tutor...both lay wounded ...as casualties...of The First War of Tutorials)
PPS: Beware Profs...and Tutors...Aaditya wants more.....quoting him (i.e. he must have said it at some point in time ...) "Bring it on Bitch"...
PPPS: You might wonder how come I survived this massacre....simple...I don’t pay attention in class.... :)

Inky Pinky Ponky

Inky Pinky Ponky

Let me begin with the incident which led to my astounding theory (which I promise to dwell on at a later stage…the story is not too long!). The tale begins a year back. As is the habit of most prestigious educational institutions in the world, our school also organized various competitions where other schools are provided with a chance to show off their prowess.

Generally quizzing is considered a competition for the meek, brainy and contemplative. It is too! But it is a different picture at school quizzes, where the students growl at their oppositions, punch the air with such vigour as was last seen at Madison Square Garden when Mohammad Ali took down his opponents.

At one of these quizzes I and my good friend Soumya were left out and we decided to sit in the crowd and watch our rather illustrious school team having a bad day and being kicked out of their own quiz. In any case there was a particular round during that quiz where you were given 3 clues about some person, if you guessed who that person was with only one clue you made a large number of points (40 if I am not wrong), you would get 20 points for getting it on the second clue and 10 on the third clue, if you can’t get the answer after 3 clues sadly you are awarded no points.

In any case there was this question: “In World War 1, this person invented some sort of gun with the help of which you could shoot from planes without shooting your own rotary blades in the front of the aircraft.”

For some odd reason I whispered to Soumya, “I think it is Roland Garros”. Even after the third question the team couldn’t guess what the answer was, though the third question gave it away (you have a tennis stadium named after this person…the team, I remember said Rod Laver…sheesh!).

Soumya was pretty darned startled after which he congratulated me on a good answer, but he didn’t give it a second thought….nor did I; until now.

All my pals with whom I gave my entrance exam mock tests were always pretty unhappy with me because I had the uncanny habit to nearly always guess correctly, my success rate is about 60%, which is a high percentage considering the mathematical probability being 25% and the statistical probability being 17.89%.

My friends inquired into my methods, though I never could come up with a satisfactory answer, I think I have found the core concept which guides one to the correct answer in multiple answer questions.

I wish to christen my hypothesis, “Ha Ha Gotcha!” A weird name but to many smart readers it might have already shown where my thoughts lead me.

Let us discuss in detail,

1. Why is one asked a question?

Ans: Simple. To see if one knows the answer.

When one gets a very easy sum in physics at IITJEE, one that requires no concept, just solving of an equation, look closer, you are missing something for sure. Why would IIT give you something so simple, they are supposed to be merciless, why this act of compassion? Look at the answer, which of the answers is the weirdest; in a tough exam like IITJEE I am willing to bet that it is the answer.

Remember this does not work well for AIEEE, but certainly for IITJEE, ISI, NTU and so on.

Next point; remember every quiz master wants applause (since his quizzing days are over anyway!), similarly every paper setter wants appreciation, wants you to know that his concepts are clearer than yours. Every time you get a theory question, look closely it is bound to be a well known exception to a common rule, again you should look at the answers for guidance.

Just remember these two things, combine these two facts with your knowledge (though incomplete, as the case may be) you are well on your way to guessing glory.

P.S. you can differentiate the options…not worth integrating!!!

IITJEE COUNSELLING

IITJEE COUNSELLING (2007)…an essay by a five thousand something

I am mailing this to you, because I think you might find this rather weird procedure…well…rather intriguing.

As you might have guessed IIT has its own way of counseling…what did you expect that IIT would stoop to standards set by the “other” universities…no way! IIT has its own unique (patented I think!) way of counseling students. To explain better I will compare this procedure with other established school of thoughts.

The so called “doosra” colleges use an entrance exam to select suitable candidates with enough merit so as to not be a dark blotch on the name of the institution. Then they cordially invite the chosen candidates with one parent/guardian to accompany them to a centre. They are told to bring a ‘nominal’ percentage of the fees as a pledge of goodwill and other documents that prove that you are you and that you studied in your school and that you by some fluke as inexplicable as the very cosmos managed to pass with the requisite minimum marks.

Then you are called to the desk of the “counselor” in increasing order of rank and you talk with the counselor and you discuss the weather, where your school is, how you make the journey from your residence to the school and even the course you might want to study at the college. As soon as you are granted a seat in some course immediately a seat is reduced in that course and a projector shows on a large screen what are the courses left and how many seats are left in that course.

It has comedy, suspense, drama, tears (both happy and sad), songs (if you have a music player on your mobile or/and you have the financial means to buy an i-Pod). In fact it has every element of a Bollywood blockbuster.

Waiting with your parent, you see that computer science seat that you longed for being taken away from you by some bespectacled youth who was experiencing sunshine for the first time this millennia (you smile at the fellow when his gaze meets yours but in your heart you cry out “kuthe kamine main tera khoon pi jaonga”), then finally realizing that computer science is really for nerds and one settles for mechanical engineering…it is in short a never before seen Karan Johar production.

You come out of the counseling session a changed man/woman. ‘You are no more a boy/girl’ reminds your father/mother/annoying relatives/neighbours/teachers/and everyone who knows you or is under the false impression that they know you. Indeed as stressed by everyone you realize that these are the first footsteps towards your career (Wow!).

Now let us see the modus operandi of the IIT counseling. You know there is one thing that just oozes out of everything that IIT does. It is their methodology, planning and strict conformity to their self written rules which they never bend, forget break. When you tried to use the IIT brochure to fill in the form you find it exact, well planned without any ambiguities and discrepancies (the West Bengal Joint Entrance Exam had only 4 mistakes in their sample form that they so considerately had in their brochure to guide us). The same is also to be said in their planning for their counseling brochure it consists of the number of seats in each branch offered by any of the IITs/IT-BHU/ISMU with the opening and closing ranks to give you a idea of what you would have a chance of getting. At the back they have three forms that you have to fill, they consist of two forms that require general information about you and your school results and the third one is a medical certificate that a general physician is to fill up. Note here that all other counseling institutions just tell you to get a medical certificate without mentioning any details; in short the doctor’s certificate may as well look like this,

To whomever it may concern,

Mr.XXXXX is in blooming health, with rosy cheeks and a twinkle in his eyes. I think he is all set to live a hundred years.

Cheers,

Dr.Bean

The IIT certificate has specific columns for your doctor to fill up which inquire not only into the general health of the candidate but also into specifics that may or may not hamper his career in Engineering.

I forgot to mention the most interesting thing, there is a fourth form. Where you are to list all the courses that you are not really offended by and are ready to pursue if need be at an IIT, these you list in decreasing order of preference (there is no cap to the number of options you want to list). Armed with other certificates to prove your identity you reach the IIT at exactly the mentioned time (In the name of God please don’t be late…) where a person checks if your forms and certificates are in order after which he punches in your choices into the computer and prints it, you sign it and leave (on the double…don’t wait for him to give you a good bye kiss or to shout ‘next’ in order to expedite your exit).

The computer which has the choices of all the candidates uses an algorithm, no doubt written by an IITian, to fill in all the places in the different courses using 2 parameters your All India Rank and your preference, the results are published 7 days letter. That is it! You are either in or not.

You feel jumpy those seven days I suppose but it is nothing in comparison to the tension you feel when you can actually see your fate mocking you on a wall magnified and projected to your peers and more shamefully to your parents.

A fellow once told me “Sometimes you feel proud when you see you are different, when you experience that you are beyond the scope of the ordinary, that you are untouchable, you get that feeling often when you are from IIT”.

“Are you an IITian?” I asked him eagerly, he replied, “No, but my elder brother is!” That is an example of how much IIT intoxicates the modern Indian youth, just to have a close relative in IIT infuses a pride into our existence, it is the pride of knowing that the blood that courses through their veins (and arteries) is very nearly the same as ours.

It is the fact that in IIT you are one out of .25 million (considering IIT has 4000 seats and we have a population of a billion) that makes you special, and it is these special youths that make IIT special.

The End…

P.S. I wrote this article because I know my rank wont give me a goodish branch at IIT so I though I might as well poke fun at them, but the more I wrote the more the ingenious nature of their counseling procedure lured me into praising the system. What I wanted to say was that they were too smart for their own good, but I ended up saying Wow! You guys are so cool! Some wise bearded man (Confucius I think, can’t be too sure with bearded men) once said “Throw not dog poop aiming to hit the stars lest the poop fall on your own face, and you stink…bad”. I don’t know about you but I second that opinion.

P.P.S. Those who think I stole the title from Chetan Bhagat; I have one thing to tell them “Kuthe kamine main tera khoon pi jaonga!”

----------------R.SIVASANKAR

Formerly of St.James’ School

Currently of nowhere.