The sword dangling on top of my neck....

Oh Goddamnit! I just cannot believe the examination is so near. 20th of November it is- the doomesday- the psychological Armageddon, where you have to desperately attack the white papers staring at your face with that mightiest of all weapon-THE PEN...The pressure is mounting at every single movement of the second's hand! Sleep has gone haywire, smile has ceased to exist, partying it seems is postponed till eternity, waking up in the morning only tells you that that you have "wasted" that many hours of study (= the no. of hours u were blissfully napping)....
The course is HUGE- the exams back to back, and believe me, there are 10 of them. WOE IS ME...
But then,i m an experienced campaigner...i'll tide against these seeming difficulties with elan once again....after all, as they say, it's just a matter of time. GOD BE WITH ME (I NEED YOU)..:-)

Reading Vs Studying....

What are the fundamental things that form the basis of the distinguishing factor between "reading" and "studying"? I'll tell you what i think. They are the inexorable pressure, then the environmentally cutivated need to excel in your STUDies and a relentless pursuit to reach the pinnacle of the oft-used elusive word- "success". Another thing is the base level interest derived from both. Reading is something ones does purely out of self derived intrinsic pleasure- something that doesn't quite find it ally in it's close cousin- STUDIES . When you study, you do it invariably because you are forced to- because you are caught in that straighjacket of examination and competition from where it is well-nigh impossible to come out... When you study, you do it over and over again for that stuff to get etched in your mind till the time it needs to be blurted out in the white papers given in the examinations! You study and study till you get frazzled and then you give a self satisfied momentary smug grin when you get your marks. And then you derive the much needed fillip to study again and get into that vicious circle YET again. On the contrary, when you read,you do it because you want to, because it relaxes your mind, takes it away from the humdrum existence and gives you a sense of euphoria. It is as if you are in Shanri-la, wherein you are idylically happy with your life and get everything you want on a platter. When you read and you like reading, you look forward to the time you can go back to your books and start from where you have last left! You re-read your favorite books not out of compulsion, but out of sheer pleasure - the desire to go back to that state of blissful idyll...
I know that this comparison serves no purpose, really..For, as long as i am alive and kicking, i need to study..and study hard, for that matter. But then, the best part about my daily existence is when i go back to my favorite books and read them for some time, albeit they may be as small as 10 mins...Reading is fun, it really is..
This whole topic of reading makes me go into a state of deep nostalgic retrospection- back to those school days when i first started this habit- when i devoured those hardy boys, famous fives and the likes like anything...The choice has undergone a drastic change for sure, but then, i would always be thankful to my Dad who always encouraged me to read and the wonderful school library which provided me with an avalanche of books...They have given me the best gift of this life...:-)

Don- A movie par excellence

Don't get befuddled by the title of this post: Before anything else, one should know that the new Don has been named as "Don- the (bloody) chase begins again". So, it is very obvious that i am referring to the old classic Big B's Don here! Farhan Akhtar's Don-the chase.... is abysmally worse and doesn't even ask for a comparision with the old one! But then, i guess, to be fair to King Khan, one should not compare him with the legend. While ShahRukh Khan is a pastmaster at pulling off great romantic scenes he isn't quite the best in either comic roles or in don-type roles. Look at the second half of the movie- he doesn't look 1% the part of a ganga-kinare "chora", what with his still-polished appearance and forced accent(tries real hard to get the desi-accent right, but comes a cropper big time!)
When Amitabh said those stuning one-liners they were etched in dialogue books, when Shahrukh Khan says the same thing, it is relinquished to the recycle bin! I would hate to be harsh on ShahRukh ,particularly because he is my favorite contemporary actor, but then, try as you might not to compare the two movies, it is just inevitable, and you cannot help realizing and appreciating the sheer billiance of the great actor (Amitabh).
Actually Shah Rukh Khan was woefully undone by a pathetic second half amateurish script drafted by Farhan- he got too innovative, too inventive, too creative and in the end, the cocktail resulted in an unwanted hotchpotch of inexperienced and unrelated scenes. When Don was resurrected (literally), the movie lost basically everything....
I was really disaapointed with the movie as a whole....However,for a person who has never seen the old Don, and for the others if they can manage to undo the old don scenes firmly screened in their mind, i guess the new Don would be very watchable. After all, Shah Rukh Khan comes everywhere with his own package of charm....

Rangoli & Illumination- part 2

It was all go in the wonderful lush campus of IIT,Kharagpur the day before yesterday(21st Oct)as people from all over the little town and the adjoining places (as far as Kolkata) came in thier full glory to watch one of the brilliant "diya displays" in the town...
The campus was marvelously and magnificently resplendent in a fantabulous diplay of lighted diyas arranged in wonderful forms.... The pain that the students endured and the mastermind that worked behind the breathtaking views and the mind boggling "rangolis" came to the surface as people thronged in huge numbers and vied with one another to have a look the great shapes made by the lighted diyas arranged in the form of different gods and goddesses....
I must admit this was one of the most mesmerizing moments of my life....kudos to all the guys who makes this event a success year after year...

Rangoli and Illumination @ IIT,Kharagpur

IIT Kharagpur is a place to behold during the festival of lights:Diwali- The whole week leading to the build up of the great day sees a flurry of activities across all hostels, in every nook and corner of the gorgeous campus, ultimately culminating in a breath taking display of lights and reverberating with the sound of multitudes of crackers....
The camaraderie between the students become visibly distinct as they vie with the rest of the hostels and gear up to provide the most outstanding display of lighted "diyas" for "thier" hostels.. The sense of competition is there, no doubt, but what takes the cake away is the ultimate fun in being a part of a "mega" event of sorts...It is actually reminiscent of the "unity in diversity" aspect of India as a whole- what with its confluence of people from different places,cutting across different societies,working together towards a common purpose...
Although i must admit that i did not contribute phenomenally towards the event, i had witnessed the best part of it...and this is something that i would remember for years to come.....
And the day i am writing this particular post is actually a prelude to the big day....Tomorrow(actually today,considering it is 3AM in the morning) is the day when the whole of IIT Kharagpur will be in its full glory...More updates on it very soon....

Summers @ PwC

"Joy unlimited" could have been another title for this post....For quite some time now, i had been pretty undecided about which companies to apply for summers.Reason being, i was not entirely sure where the best destination lies for me. eventually, as is my wont, i asked for divine intervention and left everything to the omniscient universe, knowing n believing that the very best shall happen to me..And so it did... I still remember that day when sitting in the comforts of an AC room in Infosys,bangalore, i was rummaging through a few articles and seeing how good VGSOM was... And when i saw that PwC came there for campus recruitment (alongwith ITC,HLL etc), i was convinced about my decision to move there... After i came here, i kept on talking about PwC and asking ppl as to when it comes for summers...I used to talk to this wonderful friend of mine-Shweta, almost everyday and tell her every now n then that PwC is YET to come...
At one point of time, i wanted to go to Patni just coz of the profile they offered. SBU,Marketing seemed a good enough profile to me...Just that the company name doesn;t quite have that punch...And hence the doubt(then) persisted....
After i came out from the interview, i was nervous- i hate admitting that, but from the deepest core of my heart, i desperately wanted to have this offer in my pocket- with lofty expectation comes the hidden fear of failures, and failures, at all times, hurts...
I again called up Shweta and told her how dearly i wanted it...i was just latching on to my hopes, with all uncertainities in the world, and told her not to keep the bloody talking machine down- i wanted to talk...The sweet creature that she is, she kept on talking to me(that was midnight) and that kinda allayed my wild apprehensions and fear to a huge extent....And then, when the news broke, i just did not know how to react....i was,well, speechless...
With this summer placement comes a "period" to all my uncertainities, fear etc etc about which company to join, what profile to look for blah blah....
Let's hope i can do something really substanial in the training and come back with a bag full of knowledge....:-). I do not want a "second infosys" here..;-)

back for the grind!!

Home was fun, exhilarating, but much more than that, rejuvenating... I met my long standing friend- Neeraj and his soon-to-be wife Pompy (they are going to tie the knots the coming January,28th) in all their glory. Spent a lot of time with my family and my(my sister's- actually) Labrador, which would soon be a year old. It has grown taller and become heftier- looking more majestic with the drooping ears, the shiny black coat and those melting eyes! Honey (it's name) slept with me all the days , and i would invariably wake up in the morning to a volley of wet kisses from the royal gentle creature...Not bad, uh, someone makes you feel wanted the first thing in the day...:-)
I even worked a bit on the excel model we had to submit on the 12th of this month...worked pretty hard at it..it paid off, eventually, what with we getting a perfect 30 on 30 in the project...decent work indeed...