WTC

The Bahrain World Trade Center is a mammoth twin tower structure, which has won awards for groundbreaking design concepts and green impact, is the first of its kind. The two towers are connected by three bridges and mounted on these bridges are windmill turbines that are expected to provide for 15-16% of the power consumed by this skyscraper. The façade of the building is designed such that even oblique winds are accelerated and directed between the buildings and at the turbines. The various challenges faced in designing and constructing a hitherto unseen technological innovation of merging two ordinary pieces of engineering design – windmill turbines and bridges - have been extremely well documented in an episode of Mega Build aired on NGC.



While viewing this show it occurred to me (at the risk of sounding clichéd) that it was innovative yet ecologically beneficial feats such as these that inspired me to take up and pursue engineering. However mindless mugging machines, unsympathetic faculty, morbid coursework and the usage of tests and exams as instruments of vengeance have conspired to stymie its infinite possibilities and transformed it into a dreary quagmire of grades, assignments and attendance requirements.

Here's hoping that we don't lose sight.

Hiatus

It’s been a long time since I contributed constructively, or in any manner as such, to this blog (Funny how more or less every post begins with something to this effect).

As the exams near, anything, however minute and insignificant, becomes a great temptation and source of diversion from studies. All of a sudden I feel like writing something for the blog, spend some time on the terrace enjoying the breeze, go for a walk round the campus and find the place deep inside staff quarters which has that magnificent view of MRPL.

Jobless that I am, this time it’s going to be a triple post. The last one being an article that will, subject to approval, feature in Vitruvian - our college magazine.

The Matrix

Isn’t it amazing how most of our lives here are governed by the very machines that were created to serve us? Our daily schedule revolves around the latest episode of whatever-the-hell, some movie, last slot in a DoTA game and countless other things that stem from the very necessary evil that are our computers.

This cannot be put off as just a ‘hostel-phenomenon’. At other places the idiot box promptly takes up this responsibility. I have seen countless families whose breakfast, lunch, dinner, work, cooking, kids playtime, evening walks, you-name-it are arranged so as to fit into the little gaps between the mind-numbingly dull and drawn-out monstrosities that are called serials. The only advantage of such an arrangement being the time-tables are fixed for a good 4-5 years thanks to the absurd lengths of series these days!

The only solution I can think of (note that I don’t dare say implement!) is to revert to the habit (assuming we had it in the first place) of reading books, solving a crossword with a dictionary by your side, tackling sudokus, kakuros and the like instead of reaching out for the remote or the mouse. For all we know, you might be The One.

Desolation

The huge concrete structure loomed before him…

It looked duller and more morose than it usually did in the dim twilight. Crows were raucously flying about, heralding the end of the day and settling themselves on the trees that lined the path. The setting sun coloured the sky in myriad hues. Some people saw a wonderful blend of all shades of red and orange. All he saw was the fading yellow glow and the melancholic blue of the evening sky mixing with one another - almost a dirty brown, if you will. The heat of the day clung on to the earth as if in a lover’s embrace, reluctant to let go.

He wearily turned his back to the building in front of him. It was one of those whose exact shape was indiscernible unless from far-off. Dragging his feet through the entrance, he began to absorb the sights and sounds of his surroundings. People moved about – some slowly, some hurriedly, a few others harriedly - each one bearing his own burden, immersed in it and not caring about anyone else’s. Amazing, he thought, how even though crammed together in this hellhole these people manage to live all alone in their private worlds.
He walked further and reached a fork. A decision was to be made. Left. Right. Straight ahead. Or the stairs. He weighed his options carefully. Go left you reach the drain. Take the right and you still reach the drain – a different one but a drain all the same. Move on ahead and you go straight into a downright mess. Take the stairs and you’ll go straight up. Such is life. What you may end up as is independent of what you chose, but there is always have a choice. Always.

He trudged his way up the dimly lit stairs. People still walked by him, uncaring and unresponsive to his presence. He began to get used to it. A steel grilled door restricted the inmates from using large open space just beyond it. The flimsy little chain and the rusty lock that held it in place seemed to mock at the will (or lack of it) of the people who walked by it every single day and yet did nothing about it.

As he walked along the corridor he saw the cells from up close for the first time, after a long time. Long rows of the cells - each one an exact and drearily accurate replica of each other. He was sure that the cells were overcrowded as in any prison. Overcrowded to the point of suffocation. The air hung heavy and hot within the building stifling his breath and making him uncomfortable. A bead of sweat began to break on his brow, followed by several others. The disjointed bits of conversation from the cells seemed to be getting louder than the thoughts in his mind. I am getting tired, he thought.

Braving the putrid stench he reached the single tap at the end of the corridor and turned it. The squeak-squeak of the tap drowned the other noises of the corridor and silenced the voices of discontent in his mind. Precisely two drops of water fell down on the muddy linoleum. The rest of the corridor was drowned the sound of air rushing out through the tap sounded like an ominous death-rattle.

He lips moved to form a sardonic smile (which was strange for that was no smiling matter) and chuckling he said aloud “Well what did I expect? They call this Block Seven after all…”

The semester thus far

On the outlook, IV semester promises to be boring because of the cancellation of events of all clubs, ‘tech’ or otherwise, due to their apparent getting-in-the-way of the students ‘academics’ which leaves only Engineer and Incident as the mentionable events to look forward to.

Classes - It has been two weeks and my resolution to not sleep in class and take down notes has been severely tested. The classroom seems to have a soporific aura all around it. And every time I enter it, the sparse mess lunch seems all too heavier, eyelids begin to droop (more than usual!), and voices of other students seem distant as I slip away from reality. By the time I get in, frown at the shameless nerds cramming 5 or 6 of themselves into benches of 4 and take my usual last bench seat (not that I have a choice!) the teacher has already entered and it is time to begin the epic struggle against the oncoming waves of sleep. With the subject under ‘discussion’ (I must say monologue) and the drone of the lecturers not even slightly helping my cause, I rely on sheer determination to pull through the rest of the class and though I’ve stuck to the resolution so far, the future seems uncertain.

Music - I’ve been listening to more of stoner metal bands like Orange Goblin, Grand Magus, and Spiritual Beggars characterised by their heavy Black Sabbath inspired riff, gruff and haunting vocals, dark, gloomy and satanic lyrics.

Anime – Recently watched a series called Blade of the Immortal. A slash-and splash anime like Ninja Scroll and Basilisk, which explores the concept of immortality while trying to prove the finality of death, involving rogue samurais, forbidden techniques, the works. Nice time pass.

Up next (probably): “On birthdays”

A Brief Respite

Back home after an extremely hectic month and a half at Surathkal. Utterly insignificant yet overhyped club recruitments, a couple of IEEE events, truckloads of quizzes and pots, classes and extra classes, labs and extra labs, records, assignments, quiz tests and the assorted academic torture devices kept me pretty busy. Midsems went moderately well, except quite obviously EMW, handled by the Wigged Wonder.

The visit to Bangalore was preceded by an offer I couldn’t refuse- unlimited pizza and garlic bread for just 140 bucks at Pizza Hut and the ‘icing’ on the cake: ice creams at Pabba’s after nearly 2 medium pizzas.

Other things of note:

• Revived my habit of reading comics Some of which- Brian Azzarello’s take on Batman, The Punisher, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Transmetropolitian, were particularly good and captured my interest. Thanks to LiverDamage for suggesting these.

• Was forced to read Brisingr on an e-book E-books seem to have become a necessary evil with actual books being ridiculously expensive or hard-to-get (maybe I’m too lazy) or simply not worth the wait (maybe I’m too impatient). Racing in parts and unbearably slow in others, Paolini shows that he still has much to learn in the art of writing. However, overall it was a good read and Brisingr certainly lays down the foundation of the fourth (and hopefully final) book of the Inheritance series.

• Managed to get my hands on and finish watching Code Geass and Gundam 00 in HD quality thanks to Mr. Pengu. Hard to get such quality anime in NITK especially with painfully sluggish download speeds.

• Expansion in music tastes continues Have moved on from purely Metallica and Maiden to Black Sabbath, Megadeth, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimi Hendrix, more of Floyd, GnR, even instrumentalists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Yanni and many many more.

• Could not watch as many movies as I wanted to I had to satisfy myself with a few Westerns; couple of oldies like Hitchcock, 12 Angry Men, To Kill a Mocking Bird etc; Goodfellas, A Few Good Men, Shooter. Among recent movies I saw Dark Knight (great acting by Ledger as The Joker and well worth the visit to Adlabs), Wanted (Rajnikanth inspires Hollywood); and a few more.

• Series How I Met Your Mother 4th season sucks so far (How could they do that to Barney?) Heroes season 3 is looking good after slightly slow and boring first two episodes.

All in All:

It was a well deserved break mostly spent sleeping and eating, apart from the visit to BMS and BIT for ‘Engi Publicity’. At this point of time with nothing to expect from this sem except Crrescendo and the endsems, I leave to Surathkal tomorrow night hoping to finish off third semester very soon and gear myself to survive another!

In Retrospect

July 6, 2008

Finally it is almost time for the long and boring holidays to end and the third semester to begin. It makes me look back and reflect upon how I’ve used, nah! spent, my first year in NITK…

I SEMESTER

I arrived, of course, wide-eyed and wondering how hostel life might suit me but turned it out just fine. The fact that most of my friends populated (infested is more like it) the place made it extremely easy for me to feel quite at home in the hostels, though I must say the I Block mess and its dedicated(?) staff made extraordinary efforts to make me feel quite the opposite.

The first few months

passed by rather uneventfully, most of the time card games like uno, bluff sufficient for our entertainment along with an assortment of sweets and snacks from our homes. Room no.65 (humble abode of yours truly) was soon christened ‘Party Room’ and ‘Recreation Hall’ among other things because it was the meeting spot of our friends where we sat, teased each other, talked and in general killed time.

T20 World Cup

arrived and my mild interest in cricket was aroused with all the shouting in the TV room, Yuvraj’s six sixes in an over and the Indo-Pak final. Oh! By the way our midsems were held around the same time I think…

Crrescendo ’07

(Yes there is an extra ‘r’) arrived with a jhatang yellow shirt that seemed to poke the eye with a thousand needles at the same time. It was a pretty lowkey event its only highlight being the fact that we (Rotti, Srini and me) qualified to the Quiz finals but only managed to gape at the questions and finish last.

Then came November and with it came the exams (damnit!) but it was over in a week and I was finally able to say goodbye to Chemistry (yuck!) and EG.

II SEMESTER

II semester was soon here and so were the computers. Our room was robbed of its ‘party room’ status (I’m not complaining) and anyone with a computer was soon bombarded with requests for borrowing them, even from people you didn’t know! (do minute orkut check karloonga, de yaar)

Movies, series, sitcoms old and new were watched by large groups huddling together around one screen. Movies I had always wanted to see, movies I hadn’t even heard of, Friends, HIMYM, anime- I saw them all. God bless DC++!! The arrival of many more computers meant Age of Empires II on LAN. The ubiquitous war-game assumed a new status with inter and intra block matches- Vanquishing the armies and buildings of another human with those of your own gave us all a thrill and joy that is difficult to express in words.

Engineer ’08,

the NITK techfest happened in February. It didn’t seem like a crowd-puller (or maybe I expected too much) but some events like robotics competitions and laser shows were extremely interesting. I participated in a robotics workshop and Rotti and I won an event called Breakdown.

Incident ’08,

the NITK cultural fest followed but I bunked it, preferring to stay at home. I received a mixed reaction about it- some, who attended a few events and played MAFIA all night told me it was awesome while others, who stayed in their rooms and immersed themselves in AOE said that I had missed nothing. All in all, it was a good February- almost completely devoid of classes, fests, more movies, AOE and of course home.

IEEE Techaholic

(Get Addicted), a fest held by, and largely for, the first-years was held in March, the last thing to happen before the exams. Now a newly enrolled member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) NITK Chapter, I organised Ctrl+Alt+Del- a coding event with Rohan and co-organised the Quiz with Adi and Anirudh. Both events went on well despite the malfunctioning LAN and internet and received good feedback from the seniors. It felt good to successfully pull off two events though the late reimbursement of cash left me with quite a hangover!

The endsem exams

were done and dealt with, accompanied as usual by the last-minute rushes and the frantic confirming of portions, searches for books etc etc. The rooms for second year were allotted and chosen along with a great amount of galata with most of us Bangies occupying the second floor. Then came the pack-your-stuff-check-recheck routine and finally after having left my mattress and buckets in the locker room, it was time to say goodbye. The dreaded Surathkal summer was beginning to get to its peak and I made a timely exit arriving at home on April 20^th.

Holidays

were spent mostly at home with DoTA, Prisonbreak, sleep and good food, along with the occasional chatting with friends, movie at PVR, functions and collecting quiz questions.

I am looking forward to going back to Surathkal now, to 24×7 access to movies and series, to the company of friends, to all the quizzing, gaming and football-under-lights. In a nutshell, to a good life!!!

Water Water Everywhere, not a drop to drink!!!

July 21, 2008

NITK Surathkal, situated between Mangalore and Udupi, just off the Western Ghats and right next to the sea, a place where it rains half the year... You wouldn’t think there’d be water shortages here that too in the monsoon, would you?

We had been told that being residents of the notorious VII block, allotted to the II years (Yay! I’m a senior now!) we would get more than our fair share of water shortages or ‘water-cuts’ (along the same lines as ‘power-cuts’!). These unannounced and timed-to-near-perfection water-cuts mean that the unfortunate student might be stuck with a faceful of soap, half-shaved moustache or in places that are not mentionable here!!! This coupled with malfunctioning water-coolers mean that drinking water is a long and boring walk to the neighbouring blocks all the way from the second floor. Talk about high and dry!!!

It certainly is disheartening to see the rain pouring outside the window while the tap miserly lets out water drop by drop or to see the vast Arabic Sea stretch far into the horizon and feel your throat parched as though you are living in the Sahara. The ‘concerned authorities’ of course are surely doing ‘everything in their hands’ to save us from our plight.

Net Result: -

“Why is this happening to me? I can’t find any albatross tied to my neck!!!”