Thursday, August 30, 2007

Tough to Resist!

Friday afternoons are generally very boring. Sloth prevails to its best. Sometimes it seems even time has become lazy. Boredom and laziness... OOF!!

It was a similar Friday afternoon. People were around but liveliness was missing. Their eyes didn't have the usual spark. But an element of mischief was present in everyone's eyes, after all weekend was about to start.

But Madhur was a complete exception. He was deeply immersed in the work, even on that fine Friday noon. When others were discussing their weekend plans, he got only his pc to talk with. And he actually liked it. Some people called him loser, the biggest loser! Did he mind? No, never! He knew what he had to do and every time he achieved that successfully. Friday evenings were no different for him from any other evenings, except those ones when it rained. He liked eating Garam Pakodas when it rained, he liked going out in the rain, getting drenched... that always took him into his past.. when he was a child, he with his friends used to dance a lot in the rain. They used to make small paper boats and ... they used to keep those water boats in the small water streams and used to run after them. It was great fun...he had so many friends at that time. And he was their favourite.

One among them was her, Khushbu. She lived next door, very calm, very sweet and very witty! He couldn't have asked for more when she came to his neighbourhood. Next day when their parents introduced them, he had seen into her eyes the first time and that was the first time she smiled at him. He also passed a cute smile. And then for the next few days, he kept smiling. He had felt something, he had never felt before. He was 13 and she was 10. He tried to forget that first look of hers, that depth of her eyes but the more he tried to forget, more of that persisted in his memory.

He had got no idea of what was happening to him. He wanted to talk to her, to play with her, to say her how pretty she looked when got soaked in mud. It was his 14th birthday when she came to his house first time. It was raining outside. She gave him a chocolate pack as the present. She didn't even know that he hated chocolates. While coming to his house she slipped in the way, fully soaked in the mud. Ohh.. god! she was looking so pretty! In the party, he kept wandering here and there holding that chocolate pack in both his hands, looking towards her whenever possible but never did say a word to her except a feeble "Thanks for the chocolate". The Party got over, so did that year and another and yet another...like that three years passed away. He kept smiling and waiting for the right moment but that moment never came. What came was the day when she left his neighbourhood. That day changed him a lot. He became a loner.. he forgot how to dance, how to sing, how to appreciate rain.. all he knew is how to achieve what had been told. And today after 18 years of hard work for achieving the goals set by others, he has acquired a reputed position in a reputed Multinational. One can see him busy with his pc, always and can easily observe the respect for him in other's eyes. He actually liked it, from when that he doesn't even remember.

Its again a boring Friday today, he has got the list of the new recruits. He has lots of work to do. Before that he just wants to go through the list once. And there is this name, Khushbu, in the list. The girl is exactly three years younger than him. Her picture is missing but he now has her number. He made a mistake long time back... he can't repeat the same mistake now... so he dials that number and asks for Khushbu. Answering machine says nothing except asks him to call back in the evening.

This, again, is a similar Friday noon. He should have been indifferent and busy with his work but now he is bored, frustrated and restless. He is looking towards the clock more frequently than the minute's hand is completing the rounds. After all, he has again encountered the same thing which, for him, is still tough to resist!

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Adieu

Feeling of not seeing someone or something, you have seen 24 hrs in last 4 years, is terrible. It's difficult to get over it. Going to miss you guys and love you IIT.

To my dear friends at IIT Madras:

The only thing in my mind
IIT is leaving behind
Going to miss you and this place
This is really difficult to face
Life is not going to be the same
I wish you get all glory and fame.

Adios!

Parting Ways vs Building Bridges

One needs to proceed further, always. Most of us have different dreams. In order to follow them, we need to choose different paths. But the life is not about parting ways, its about building bridges, forever.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Working Out

Something which most of the IITians don't generally prefer to do is "Working Out". Lots of us play, jog, swim and go to gym but still that's a very small percentage of population in here. I too belonged to the majority; surely, it's a different case that many a times I tried to join the fitness cautious minority but failed big time :D

Before I go into more details of the topic, I would like you to know that this is my eighth semester in IIT which is considered as the most peaceful semester in IIT-life; on an average one class a day and the B.Tech. Project. B.Tech. project is actually a bit tough but IITians do know making complex things simple :P. Hence, all B.Tech. Seniors get a lot of free time. Finally, as this is the last semester, everyone wants to get taste of a fully active IIT-life, i.e. involvement in all possible activities other than studies.

Well, continuing with the topic, now I have become a bit consistent with my work out. Thanks to all the above reasons and also to my dear friend Anshu. These days, I am waking up at 5:30 AM in the morning, believe me its true!! Actually, Anshu wakes me up everyday and then we go for a "Health-Run", an NCC lingo for morning jog, in the IIT-Stadium and from their to gym but if he doesn't wake me up, I bunk work-out of the day. With every passing day, the count is increasing, more and more people are adopting this healthy schedule. Being a victim of over optimism, I can see the day when all of us have become hansome hunks and a number of babes are fighting for us :D

Waiting for that fortunate day, signing out ... Bbye!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Cupping Comp!

Intel Pentium 4, 3 GHz, HT
865GBF Mother Board
80 Gb Hdd
512 Mb Ram

This was the Best Assembled-PC Configuration available in Chennai in July 2004. For a year, it worked really cool but after that it started showing its true color :-( Since then various components of my comp have gone for replacements - 1 hdd, 3 SMPS and 4 RAM replacements!!!

I bought it from Devraj Computers. Devraj is quite famous for its service and is really too good at that. It provides service for all the years you stay in IIT for free. But as it provides free service, almost always its technicians go for temporary solutions. Whenever I approached them, they made my comp work by replacing some component but they never bothered to find out the real problem. And now it's about one and a half years and my comp is still cupping! POOR COMP!!

Some two days before, I decided to find out the solution of the problem myself. Thanks to the DELLruba of my dear friend Amrit Vatsa. I was totally over her :D.

Anyways, continuing with the actual topic, I went to Intel's website and used their online support. I provided them with detailed correct information about my system and its problem. I was quite amazed with the type of response I got! The mails contain exactly what I needed. I wish I would have done that before. But better late than never!

My comp is not working right now, I have sent SMPS for replacement one more time ( fortunately warranty is not yet over ). This time, somehow, I am getting this feeling that the cupping days of my comp are over!

Problem Identified: Overheating of CPU and CPU over-clocking, and due to Over-clocking various other components keep failing.

Solution Provided:

Intel: Changing of CPU cooling system and if that's not possible, try to put 1/2 more fans in the cabinet and change the Grease applied between CPU chip and CPU Heat Sink for better dissipation of heat.
Problem with this solution: CPU cooling system is pretty expensive.... some 40 USD in US.

Some Comp Geeks on Internet: Reducing Clock Frequency.
Problem with this solution: I don't know how to do that. Have to figure that out, if anyone knows ... Plz share.

Enough for now, will try to keep you updated with my progress!