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.

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!

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!

Freedom vs Restrictions

Guys and girls being found in offensive condition has become very common in our surroundings. This is happening everywhere - be it a beach, a park, a college compound or a temple. The situation is becoming even more embarrassing with increasing nudity and inclusion of sexual activities.

In most of the cases the concern people's identities are kept secret. But still news spreads. It still has its effects.

The most surprising fact is that guys and girls not only involve in such activities but they capture pictures and videos of their own involved in those. Poor creatures, they can't realize what mistake are they commiting. These things provide evidences and proofs, and results into police cases and sometimes national issues.

I am concern about this issue b'coz these types of activities always raise the issue of the extent of freedom provided to us. Parents stop some of us from going out for late night parties. Dress codes are fixed in the colleges especially for girls. Entry of girls are prohibited in boys' hostels and vice versa. Some times we are being restricted to return to the hostel rooms before some fixed time, say 11:00 PM.

So my point is: Is this really necessary to bind us with rules? We all are grown up guys and I think we can take care of ourselves by identifying our good and bad (don't forget exceptions are always there but the major concern is/should be the Majority). In IIM's girls and boys share same hostel but nobody of us has ever read anything offensive going on there in any newspaper. So why are there so much restrictions in IITs?

These restrictions do not affect me ( and I think most of us ) at all b'coz of my self-controlled and somewhat disciplined life-style, but still I raise this issue just for the sake of someone else who (may be) needs some more freedom and which I think in principle he should get.

While writing this mail I recalled a poem which I liked very much in my childhood which conveys the message behind this blog to its best.

Hum panchi unmukt gagan ke,
Pinjad bandh na gaa paayenge,
Kanak teeliyon se takrakar,
Pulkit pankh toot jaayenge

Hum behta jal peene waale,
Mar jaayenge bhooke pyaase,
Kahin bhali hai katuk nimbori,
Kanak katori ki maida se

Svarn Shrinkhla ke bandhan mein,
Apni gati udaan sab bhoole,
Bas sapno mein dekh rahe hain,
Taru ki phungi, par ke jhoole

Aise the armaan ki udte,
Neel gagan ki seema paane,
Laal kiran si chonch khol,
Chugte taarak, anaar ke daane

Hoti seema heen shitij se,
In pankho ki hoda hodi,
Ya to shitij milan ban jaata,
Ya tanti saanso ki dori

Need na do, chaahe tehni ka,
Aashray chhinn-bhhinn kar daalo,
lekin pankh diye hain to,
Aakul udaan mein vighn na daalo

by Sumitra Nandan Pant

Time Never Passes Alone

Time has a peculiar property, it never stops for anyone. And why should it stop?? . But do we really want time to stop for us and wait till we catch hold of it? Or is it the opportunity that we are concern of?? Those opportunities which are passing with time, that ones we are afraid of never getting back again.

Opportunities are something very strange and the one who has a good foresight can only view them as opportunities, all others will try to run away from them by considering them as burden. I can now see how many times I did the same. I can say that every chance of getting involved in something that isn't bad at all is an opportunity to make that thing good and in near future that generally results in something good for us too.

If we are not grabbing opportunities, what are we losing??? May be grabbing opportunities ( indulging in new stuff) would have given us a good exposure to something which is new to us and in long run that would have helped us to find out our real interests and following those interests would have resulted in some creative stuff. Isn't this the thing everyone always dream of,i.e. to be known by something which belongs to him and only him??? Doesn't this gives a lot of satisfaction???

Satisfaction is a very simple thing but the ways of satisfying ourselves are very complex. If we are not satisfied we can't be happy and if we are satisfied we just can't progress. A serious contradiction!!! Is it?? No its not. Everything is very correctly stated but may be not fully explained, it can be better said - " If we are not satisfied with whatever we are doing, we can't be happy but if we are satisfied with whatever we had done, we just can't progress." So one should always have a feeling of satisfaction but he should not be satisfied with whatever he has done, if he really wants to progress.

Time never passes alone; opportunities, creativity , satisfaction also pass with it. And these are the things which we are really concerned of. We can't stop time but we can try to walk with it. Its difficult to identify disguised opportunities but we can try to be optimistic about the way we use to take new things because an opportunity is always new to us. This exposure to various new things can help us in identifying our interests and as we know that everyone is creative, his creativity can be shown the right direction. And satisfaction!! That depends on all other things, it can't be achieved alone. If we will be able to walk with the changing times, we will surely posses everything including satisfaction.