Advertisement Amusement Bemusement

Any form (almost any form) of media, will carry Advertisements. No matter what the purpose of the event, print, broadcast, telecast, or whatever...there is bound to be an advertisement in one form or the other.

Either they are like a promotion for an event, like a program, or a discourse in the neighbourhood, something which doesn't have to do anything with things like money, 'entry fee', buying etc... Mostly, for something good socially. Some good contacts would eventually turn up there, and something constructive might happen beyond what was planned.

The other is th commercial advertisement, which is growing in excess and largely competitive in this world ruled by corporate houses and business tycoons. Why do we have these many advertisements? Whats so new about the same old thing, just renamed 'all-new'? Why are there so many ads for the same product? Why do you have the cine stars in it, like they were the CEO of the company? Why do we need advertisements?

Let me see how I can break it down...
Every product needs a market, to grow, to thrive on, to profit from. And the market is us. Its not as much as about what the product exactly is, but more about how you are made to believe what the product is!

A, B and C may be the same thing, but if I say A is the all new stuff made in a american based lab, you are gonna buy that, atleast to see what it is... Thats the 'break' the products look for. The first touch. If you can outsmart and outrace your competitor on this, you can very well get the start you want.

When something is good, the news spreads pretty well. When something is bad, it spreads like wild fire. Thats why you see something very careful and interesting in their first advertisements of the season, and live off your enthusiasm for the next few.

The company wants to give you what you wants, or atleast make you feel you are going to get what you want. I still don't understand the fairness cream advertisements. Its an unchangeable fact that there are four or five major skin types. And even if you take a jacuzzi bath in the cream, you won't becomes 'as fair as milk'. Its because the Aryan skin is not going to turn your skin to a Russian/Scandinavian shade of skin-tone! A shade or two may be believable, because of the removal of oil and other unnecessary factors which may have gotten into our skin.

Hair gel, shampoos, soaps - the companies concentrate more on telling what formula they use to make this stuff.. Some actor or a big wig sportsperson would endorse it and retort some lines 'this was made with the all important vitamin-XYZ which does so and so' , or 'so and so thingy...which makes your hair more beautiful'... Really, do you think fierce competitors would really want to let their 'secret ingredients' out blatantly? Anyway, what DO you understand from his scientific part of the speech. Do you say, 'aaah, thats why his hair has become this', 'so thats what making her skin so soft'. If almonds and herbs were all that I need to have good skin, I would've never wanted a soap. I have a garden and own a refrigerator that hosts almonds. And if sandalwood was that good, why wasn't Veerappan that handsome? I bet he even ate sandalwood!

Toothpaste - this gets a special mention. Every toothpaste is recommended by atleast 85% of the dentists and are much better than 'ordinary toothpastes'. Baffles me. Who cares if the girl would fall for you if you brush with a particular toothpaste. You brush so early in the morning, after which you sip tea/coffee, eat breakfast and then pop in some other things before you even head out of your home and even get a chance to flirt. So, unless you brush once every to hours, before and after meals like they really want you to, you are just falling for things, you spouse will obviously not select you based on what toothpaste you use.

Cars - Cars are probably the best in the industry when it comes to making ads. From the day the company gets an idea on a new model, the engineers will work hand in hand with the HR team and the promo-branch will be sweating it out! You have to catch the eyes of potential customers and at the same time let the technical difference or advances shown in an understandable manner! Nearly all of them have been good.

The food ads - I've seen some of the best and the worst ads in this industry... I still don't realise what the Frito-Lays try to promote (the actor/cricketer, or the product), have, at times, appreciated the new comer Bingo's ads... Pepsi and Coke have been good competitors and bring out some ad or the other, while being made to cover for their once in a while pesticide stories... The Dew-Sprite duel was funny and cheap looking. One point I thought, one couldn't think about their own product, and were more afraid of the competitor, that they wanted to bring down their compatitor. Well, they were all implied-meaning ones... but Complan and Horlicks (was it horlicks or something else?) took 'competition' to the next level by directly bringing up the names of the other product in the ad. How healthy that was, I do not know, but I surely feel there were some behind the scenes to it. I've never had issues drinking any particular health drink brand, but I prefer Complan. I guess it played a role in bringing up my tall height :-P. Then we have the Pizza ads, the food-agro brand ads, which pretty much stick to their product but get the boost with the help of some stars. SRK or SRT endorsing a biscuit is much better than the ad showing a couple of kids running around trying to prove the same point!

Myriad other classifications, some I'm not able to remember at this instance, some being pretty similar to the ones above (mobile service providers, Electronics brands etc).

But aren't they getting a little overboard? India loves cricket, I know. But of late, the games have become advertising palaces. A single match would have a fleet of ads on TV, radio ( we all know how the radio ads are, in affecting the radio commentary). And then came the age of T20s, when advertising literally entered the field, every a-b-c was sponsored... I guess soon, every injury, dot ball, appeal, drinks, short ball, yorker, lemon cut will get a sponsor. This is just overdose. I don't care about the mobile that props up in the middle of an over giving me less than zero info about it. Too many cooks spoil the broth! Yes, the same thing over and over again has actually started irritating! The NBA or the EPL could pull of mass advertisement without such irritation or eye-sore frequency of appearance.

Another thing I noticed in the Indian advertisements is, most ads put in women as 'objects', with the ads delivered only for 'men' though some products are not just for men. One, the advertiser is demeaning the women, in this manner, and secondly, do not appreciate targetting women customers, which means, its pretty much like they do not respect women. Things gotta change in that place for sure.

The freebie promotion concept adopted is fine, marketing wise, but the customers should think about what they want to but. If there is a Rs 50 stuff 'A' and you get Rs 5 stuff 'B' along with it, you don't HAVE to buy A to get the B... If you want B, just buy B... You are actually wasting Rs 45 on something that you think was an attractive offer. If you want an icecream, order and icecream, not a four course meal!

I would love to see the quality of advertisements improve (I still love the Siyaram and Raymond Suitings ads, classics...). Some meaning into the ad please (Why would I want to buy a pair of shoes if I wanted "beautiful legs and butts"???). Some more beauty in some places, some less beauty in other places. And prompt people for some ads...(not a 65-70 yr old guy for an ad for chocolates!!!).

Some things may change the way you look at the products, its not about enjoying the ad, but its about knowing about the product, which you would want to use in some manner. Reach out to the one that IS the best, more than what reaches out the best.

Well, I just wrote something waaaaayyyy off my usual thinking zone, but I really had these opinions and this was one easy space to post them.

What do you have to say?
Comments? Suggestions? Discussions? Always welcome...

Keep them coming.

Also visit my sister-blog for some action from the field of sports, including my attempt at doing ball by ball commentary for one whole match (like the ones you see in cricinfo). Your reviews on that too will be welcome, I'm chasing a dream in that field.

Bagrat/Bharathram

PS: those who know Hindi, watch the movie, Corporate. An English movie, 'What women want' universally... You people may have better examples.

HYUSR%^$&!^%T&YU!TS^!R%^

Thats whats going on in my mind!

I'm unable to view my blog...and the comments... :-(

All I can do is post, and 'preview', but not directly view the blog myself... Some stupid broken-link error keeps me off it, when I access it from the data card enabled network... Waiting to get back to home and view it myself!

So, in case you have any comments on any blog, pls comment there, and also mail it to me...

sorry for the extra bit of trouble.

Will be back, hopefully in some time.
(if anyone has a remedy to it, please... I'm in need of it)

Bubbyeee!

Thinking whether the weather withered...

Its mid-May when you enter the supposed-to-be-hot-and-humid metropolitan congested city of Chennai (I prefer to call it Madras), and you expect it to be like that. For a bloke escaping from the soaring heat of Trichy, any happiness of the thoughts of Madras being a fraction cooler is erased by the fact that Madras is more than a factor humid as compared to the central TN city of Trichy (Tiruchhirapalli/Trichinopoly). So, I am set to make an interim short term comeback to Madras, for an unsure length of time, before I head to an unsure location pretty soon, hopefully, pretty soon.

An early morning arrival at Madras, constantly checking all my available sources to check the time, because I haven't seen the sun up and bright so early in months (read as 5:45 am) was interesting entry into the city. And that day, a Sunday, was such a hot day... Such a hot humid day! I had to travel too, and boy, was I tired! That afternoon, I slept off like a baby! Tired for two reasons - the travel the previous day, and for this energy sapping day. Aaah well, wasn't this all that Madras is about? Like I mentiones, hot, humid?

Well, people, not for long!

The next day was a calm one, clouds gathered up, and by tuesday afternoon, the clouds changed to a nice shade of black... People in India like to look up and see the black coloured cotton like clouds, especially if its in the month of May... As I left my home to walk around the place, to a temple and also for some purpose mentioned in my previous post, the clouds drizzled pleasantly... Just at the pace which didn't need me to take that umbrella off my carry-bag, and with a cool breeze to eliminate any 'humid' feeling out of you. You can sometimes feel the rains to be very humid too, just stand inside a room with no fans/AC on (Indian power supply will make sure you experience it more than once in your life during rains :-P ) and you'll sweat profusely. Not here, not today, there was this breeze. Nice, cool breeze, and complementary drizzle to close the evening :-) . The 'smell of the mud', warm, and wonderful...I love it. 'Mann-vaasanai' as its called in Tamil is so nice that once your nose gets a bit this intoxicating smell into you, your eyes would close, your head would lift up and eyes would open looking for the dark clouds...automatically! A lot of times in Trichy, I my eyes would spot some black clouds alright, but they would just go pas without raining :-( .

So, was this too a passing cloud? Maybe... I don't know. For a couple of days, I've benn home alone and too lazy to read through all the pages in the newspaper. Come on! The weather report would've been my last destination in any newspaper! (and it wasn't until today that I browsed through a news channel, to check on a plane crash...again, not waiting for weather reports)

Next day, is when it started pouring! The rain clouds didn't disappoint, and they poured so hard that one may have mistaken the place to be enjoying monsoon! And along with it, came all other monsoon like characteristics - the power cuts, the distorted satellite TV signals, insects, flooded roads... The last in the list is which worries me a lot every year. There is exactly one (one and a half maybe) routes to access my apartment. And there are trucks plying on it all day, that whatever 'metalled road' the govt puts up, it always remains in a bad shape. 'Bad' is a complement to the road, because it gets much worse and ugly during monsoons... Gooey, muddy, slushy, yucky! One can't set foot on it. All those people who like to play in the puddle, I can assure you they aren't from here! So, once again, on this day, this road was a bit 'off-colour'. Thats what I heard, my neighbour told me. I rarely travel, rarely set foot outside.

And that night is when I found out that all this was because of Laila, who wanted to perform near the coasts of the TN and Andhra. Laila... aaaah... She is no beauty queen,  dot dot dot, which was what I thought when people said 'Laila. She is bringing all the rain'. Thats the name that was given to this hurricane/storm - Laila. Was wondering if this was cheap publicity for something... But for what? Rubbish! But, why this wonderful name to a hurricane? I don't know. They actually take the painst to name all the hurricanes. For eg, every year the hurricanes across the Atlantic & Pacific ocean are named before hand, in alphabetical order (none starting with Q, X, Y and Z in Atlantic...Pacific, the more stormy of the two, has none with Q alone) . And they have the list ready till the year 2025. Now, thats called preparation. (the list may change, because World Met Dept may choose to 'retire' a name if they wished to). So, there is a world beyon just Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Andrew, just check if your own name is on the list :-) .

So much to enjoy about a hurricane/storm :-) . It has died down a bit here now, as its shifting more towards the north, towards Andhra... But, cloudy nevertheless. Wish its the same for a while. Agni Natchatra, if gone by, it'll be officially and spiritually and traditionally the end of Summer... Summer Solistice, will mark the end of it on the calendar, and then on, the Sun heads down south. Things will be 'cool'er finally :-) .

PS: I want to talk a bit about the idiom 'Sweat like a pig' here. (I had to talk about sweating in my blog above, hence the extra couple of mins of your time, sorry ). Sweat like a pig... hmmm... Working hard, sweating profusely is the meaning you try to bring out of this. But, did you know? Pigs can't sweat! They don't have sweat glands!!! So, sweat like something else :-P

From me,  enjoying, a yet to be sunny Madrasi summer, its time to sign off.

Bubbyeee, folks!

More from me sooner or later.

For some untimely, vaguely looking, boring-to-many, hard core sports posts from me, check out the sports exclusive blog of mine, click here at your own risk :-)

Kitchen was bored, so was I

I came home from college, five days ago... With more bags than fingers on a hand to carry, I somehow tucked them into my home and lied flat on my back on the sub-six-footer sofa in the living room, quickly trying to disperse all the old thoughts and prepare myself for the new today and tomorrow. After a quick bath, I was off to my uncle's place for lunch and in the night, my neighbour had my dinner ready. So, food was never a problem, though mom was holidaying at my dad in the middle east for the summer.

A couple of days went by, and my neighbour gave me some delicious food. But, I was just wondering...if I could just do something myself... I mean, the kitchen has almost everything I needed to start cooking, and I was quite bored myself... So, cooking ain't a bad option to while off time. hmmm... So, out I go out one evening, get some vegetables (if tomato, onion and potato can count as vegetables) and am back and spread them on the table and talk to them, "I'm gonna make dhaal tomorrow".

Next morning, like all mornings, had an early wake up call from the NBA, had horlicks, courtesy my neighbour (I prefer complan, people, and you see the effect :-P lol) and then took bath. Set up the rice cooker, this time with some dhaal along with the rice to be cooked. After a while i found out the rice cooker is aptly named. It cooks rice, nothing else. Not satisfied with the half cooked dhaal, i put it back into the rice cooker... result - better, but not the best. Anyway, its only me who is going to eat it, so why worry... It was soft enough for me to chew. So, lets start with it.

The vegetable cutting... Tomato and onions... If you can cut through the tomatoes without messing it up and squishing it to a liquid state (ridged knife please), and if you can cut though the onions fast enough without weeping, then things did go on well with this stage! So much to discuss about cutting vegetables with enthusiasm??? Hmmm.. Pros prefer to use a grater, mechanically/electrically operated one... one funny noise 'wwhhwmmmmmmmmmwhmwhwmwmwhwmhwwwhwhwmmmmmmmm' and then all your vegetables are neatly chopped and grated and whatever. It robs all the fun.. When you have time, chop it yourself, atleast you can write about it in a blog :-P .

Well so, then I came to the kitchen, bent down to select a tawa, after some inky-pinky-ponky and some technical thinking and elimination rounds, I selected one big pan, and put it up on the stove. 'green oil' as I call it, hosted an unsure amount of jeera and then onions and tomatos and a few pieces of chilly, plus turmeric powder! And the lovely sound of frying vegetables humming in the air, as I stirred them around, till the onions turned into their traditional world famous 'golden brown' colour and then I poured in the supposed-to-be-well-cooked dhaal into it. A few unsure amounts of salt into it, and me tasting the preparation just to make sure things don't go beyond limits. Then I reached the perfect level..or maybe I got bored of adding more salt and assumed I liked the taste... Shut the flame and added coriander leaves on top of it (garnish)...

Tadaaaaa! Dhaal!

And then I had it for lunch. It tasted fine (phew! it did) :-) . Had dhaal chawal, used it as side dish for dahi chawal, and made it again (better this time, lesser shunts to the salt department :-P ) and gave half of it to my neighbour (no complaints thus far) . So, success :-).

Next day, its time for Alu sabji.

Peeling alu was not fun, I've been doing this many times, but this time, it was for me :-). So, it was peeled, and then cut into small pieces, needed patience, as pieces had to be small. and cutting small pieces wasn't easy.. Either I cut them too big (later cut them smaller) or too small...well, who cares, its just me.

Then, took out a smaller tawa, a non stick one and dug out a non-stick spoon to not damage it... oil and sesame seeds and some onion pieces and the same sound, the same wait and then the addition of alu (err..if you are wondering what alu is - potato). the little pan was too little, so I dug up another big tawa and transfered the contents from 'this' to 'that'.

Now, some chilly powder, less, I didn't wanna screw this up, so, less, safely. Then salt and then regular stirring and stirring inbetween chat sessions on the comp with some college pals who had reviews about my previous blog post... So, after all that, when my alu sabji was seemingly done, when atleast 85% of them were brown in colour, and soft and tasty, I turned off the flame. and now, again, had it with lunch :-) . It was Nice :-)

Enjoyed cooking...enjoyed eating better :-)

More posts will come up if I can successfully cook something and enjoy eating them.

PS: I'm not elaborating on my maggi meals and my superior bread toasting skills here... some secrets are not to be disclosed :-)

Hope you enjoyed yet another more-than imaginable long post of mine. Thanks for putting up with me and my post.

Comments and recipes welcome. I will treat you all only when I perfect my skills, so, don't ask for the above mentioned stuffs immediately :-P

College, those were the best days of my life

I've got forty mins in my hands now, a blank screen in front of my face, and four years of roller-coaster experience just past me. After all possible delays in me putting up this post, I've finally decided to start with this... Atleast draft once.

College, a place where we were given the freedom, but bound to crave for yet another success(es), would remember it for good for all the friends I made, for all the experience that stuck to me every day, for all the moments that would stay in my amnesia laden mind...

Here it goes...let me see what I remember.

First year. I, was like a school kid, high powered spectacles, innocent looking, calm, get-along with him person, who thought college was just another formality in the long procession of education. With subjects like English, math, physics, chemistry and computer science again featuring in the curriculum, I felt I was in XIII std. How boring! Studying about properties of water, working of prism, generation of biomass energy, definition of structure and class, phonetics... Is this college? I would wanna spend another yr in school instead, I would get the same, but I wouldn't have had to expect any better!

Well, I didn't have to wait for change. It came pretty much immediately. Put in a single word, representing all of them - friends! They walked into my life and left a permanent mark on me. my roommates, who were all pieces of gem (atleast, back then). New people, different background, one single place - NITT. This is the place where each of us had a thread in our hand and stitched together the jersey of friendship. The after-hour games... First it was cricket.. Saw a whole lot of people there... Enjoyed those tiring evening, where the tall lanky bowler in me would get the haplessly beaten old ball with zero shine and bowl with enthusiasm and reap some success with that round thing. I was proud of my own slower balls which irritated the batsmen... It was a pleasure to irritate them, I wasn't their servant, I was my own master. Somehow, I would just love to go there, to the poorly maintained ground, mat-pitch, hard floor, pathetic grass and a patch of long-jump sand..and enjoy sending down a few balls and field in some deep position... occasionally watching the football game on the eastern side of the huge open space. These days were mixed with the ones I spent inside the 'sports center' where I would play badminton. Though not greatly skilled at it, it is a nice game, and energy sapping too! My 6 foot something figure allowed me to reach out to almost anything, but I had my own flaws, and my silent nature had its own disadvantages in a college like this. So, goodbye, badminton... And, hello Basketball :-) . Love and passion for basketball always there, but playing it with really athletic people was real good! No one dunked here either, though :-( . I was as good as Oden, if you like, jump shot was out of my book... Rebounder, blocker at max, I would just enjoy running end to end, trying to collect rebound and dishing them to my pals. At 6'3", its a joke to basketball's memory that I played center! I feared none, but one when in the court :-P .

The routine first year was something which we fell in love with... get up early, go to mess (good food then), tea at Bru, go for classes... lunch... some tv... afternoon classes...some games...mess... tv...friends... sleep.

Having a birthday on a weekday was very inauspicious to the individual. 12 midnight would spell disaster for the b'day baby. Concoctions, beatings and what nots... When the fellow goes to class next day, he prefers to stand during the class hours ;-)

Coming from a school and moving around under the banner of the school name was such a pathetic thing to do. Well, I'm in a college, I'm no more a school guy, so, thank you for nothing, people, I'm out of this crap! Made new friends, unraveled the new me...the real ME... It was when the butterfly really came out of the cocoon. My stern nature completely ignored a few blokes and I was chasing my own dreams...

At this point, it was very coincidental for the football season to catch some heat and the cricket matches to happen more often. For someone who is almost always there in the TV room (early for kiwi test, stay up for WI matches), I made many a new friends... A special three of whom, are the most closest to me, who have become just better and better friends over the years! Thank you, sports!

A couple of semesters in the first year drains away...nothing much happened in the second sem except for a ten day long NSS camp somewhere close by...

So, after the no-ragging first year, it was time to taste the freedom of 2nd yr. The freedom was celebrated in the first weekend with a Night Show (Shivaji) out in the city :-) . From Agate-17 to Diamond 34, with nearly the same set of roommates...a sane one got replaced by an insane hypocrite... a nice room, from where I can see the lecture hall complex and even a couple of windows of my dept! again, TV room was quite close by and more fun was on its way... First deliberate class-bunk, to watch Ishant Sharma's devastating spell at Ponting. Thanks, Ishant (I call him Indian Idol :-) ) and thanks to Viru for the game-plan... I love test cricket, and that was the least I could safely do to enjoy it :-) .

Another great friend was made...with whom I would spend ours and hours and hours together, talking on myriad topics, then turn our watches and read the time as 4 am! Those were really good days. The famous cricket ground there also had many funny memories, some great people, some great celebrations, some serious 'home' advantage negotiations... Well, from the first floor, the sight of some blokes playing the game was always interesting, atleast for the commentator in me :-) .

The dept...ooh yes, the dept... day one in the dept, you find out two famous personalities and the lab work suddenly seems a burden. Some interesting subject, some boring ones, and some seemingly unrelated ones capped most of the second year academics.

Dept gave me new friends. It was a funny time then... had to bug the class reps to set things right many a times.. and many a times, people thought that a person who writes what people say is a genius who understood whatever was written... Well, I could understand some, but not all of it :-( . recepient of most doubt-sms, time-table related sms, exam schedule sms, exam/test portions sms... Mobile shouldn't have been invented... atleast, sms shouldn't have been!

Anyway (I hate it when people say anyways... the word doesn't exist :-( ), in the even semester, I had a very very poor physical time. There was that week long 102+ fever, which then got diagnosed as typhoid. Looking back... That was one hell-of-a-ride.. yes... I traveled from college to home on a bus for 6 hours, with just one thought ringing in my ears, the words I heard from my doc that morning 'I think your liver is damaged'. Well, I don't know how to fear much, but the pain just kept hitting at me... so, not knowing what two movies they showed in the bus, I just stared at the tv screen, sitting in funny positions, not knowing what to eat, and what not to, just gobbled up a few biscuits for energy and lots of water for survival. Home late in the night, survived a few pangs of pain and went to doc next morning. A few days of rest at home, away from college tension, enjoying India's victory in U-19 cricket world cup and @ Australia (CB tri-series) on consecutive days, and some good homely food, the time went by and I healed, fit enough to get back to the college with a long list of DOs and DON'Ts. It was a hard time for a couple of weeks, but then I was fine.

Then came that beautiful trip to a hill station, Kodaikanal... A nice trip wonderfully planned, and beautifully spoiled by some seniors. I enjoyed nature's beauty nevertheless, and made some real good friends over the trip! Wish I had another day to spend there.

A few weeks later, the eventful second yr came to an end... (other mentions - horizons, T20 WC, IPL's start, graffiti in my room, late-night scrabble, people starting to booze/smoke...)

Enter third year...

Different hostel - Garnet. Wonderful room number - 13 !

Two in a room, so, now got the sanest of all as my roommates, gem of a personality, wonderful guy, fun loving genius. The room, as we entered was full of trash and smelled of dope, i guess... some brave hours later, the room was set to face its next occupants - us... We had to travel almost a mile for our new mess... so, thats when the student-friendly staff-canteen entered into our daily schedule :-) . morning breakfast at Staff-C was something we enjoyed a lot, on our way to the classes (ok, third year was quite easy for me, and personally scored well :-) ). Made another couple of good friends... A funny wing of mine, had a mixture of colourful people, the colour of comp sci was most prominent in the mix. We had no trouble from ECE or ICE people, as there were none in our wing... they can be real dangerous during exam times, love to flood a place and show you how to study, like they were born to just do that (ECE) or forced to do that (ICE)...

Third year was when I returned to the cricket field and decided to quit to it almost immediately after knowing that the captain didn't know the game himself... Waste of time, going to that place... Occasional basketball is all that I did since then and thus, my calories started increasing and in came a small tummy :-P .

This was a year when I got very close to my group of friends. The mutual trust kept growing and there was a lot to share with. The regular dhaba trips was a part of the daily schedule that brought a few of them closer to me! The power cuts brought one close... The dept, for some reason, brought some others very close to me! Sports, as of always, brought those special ones even closer! I could feed off the whole year on the excitement of being with all these friends, who cared for me, whom I could share with, who shared with me, and cared to listen to me... love you, all of them!

Due to some conflicts due to the above incidence, I started to loath the batch... I never got close to many of them, stayed aloof, and went into a self constructed invisible shell being open only to a few, very few trustworthy people...three, if I must number.

There was a trip that had to be planned to another hill station, but thanks to some people, genuine and irritating independently, this couldn't materialize. I'm dearly sorry to the two individuals who took the pains to make this a reality, their efforts have to be appreciated a lot. Immediately followed illness to a few friends and after some time, when everything was fne again, the third year ended.

Also to mention - CPCs eating whatever was left in a day, Jenny - our cute little pet cat.

Between the 3rd and 4th yr, I had this project work in the college premises. Myself and a couple of my batchmates were to race against time to do a project in 3 weeks, on a topic about which we had no idea. Slowly we learnt something about it (eat 5 days from the three weeks please), but again, Mr. Know-it-all was doing a similar project for three years and predicted that our project will take an year to complete. So, we were scared to death. 15 days vs 1 yr isn't that nice a target that you would like to prove your efficiency in. Nevertheless, we tried, many a coding, understanding and coding sessions later, we had our first steps on the accelerator and boy, did we take off!!! within the next ten days, our project was done and our work was then passed on to be scrutinized for presentation in an international conference!

Now, it ended, the third yr.

And started the 4th yr.

4th yr was mostly celebrating the placement of my batchmates.

7th semester was a horrible one! I had to learn man-management the hard way, was made to carry the load of five other people on two shoulders, felt how it was to be literally denied any help, tears of anger on failure and delay and mistrust, tears of joy on success (though few to come), and largely irritating courses. This sem needed some counselling, and a few good close pals were always there to help me out. The secret really helped a lot, I don't know what I might have been without it...Thanks to that friend, I am still a human with a working brain... Somehow, the semester ended. I wasn't placed, not that any company interested me, the one that did, wasn't interested in me and preferred not to listen to what I answered to their questions. Nevertheless, the new NBA season was hot after the Lakers won it last time around, so, I was forcibly keeping myself happy on that account...

The vacation had a few interesting moments... firstly, I got a surgery done on my eye, to get rid of the specs that I wore.. Secondly, our research paper was accepted for the conference which was held in december after X-Mas in IIT-KGP. That was a memorable trip, and after the conference, I had a certain identity..that I was a certain someone who HAS achieved something.

From the beginning of the last semester, I cut down ties with many a known people because of their smoking and drinking habits. I believe my ex-roommates are dead, because those $%^$%&^$**& and their horde almost pretty much killed me day in day out, every single day till those *&^&*^*&(^*(^%#@&^% left the place. I detest knowing them. I detest living as their neighbours! I do not care what it meant, I had enough fear to deal with, this was most of it.

Last semester was again, one special semester. I got placed. one fine funny day I was wondering what'd happen to me, who has forgotten almost everything he had learnt, because of one disastrous se? how'll I get placed? That evening, i got placed :-). Thanks to my CIC-rep, I was at ease after that. then on, a couple of new friends were made, a couple of separated friends were united with each other, and then there was that emotional farewell towards the end of the semester. It was after the exams ended that we had to really toil hard to complete the formalities in the college before leaving. the sight of leaving friends brought tears to my eyes every passing hour. Even now, as I type, there is that tear in the corner of my eye that I have to wipe off... Parting away from people isn't easy for me to take. Even while on the train back to home, when I was finally leaving the place, the thought of leaving my closest friends made me cry hard in that comfortable upper berth in an AC coach...

Being home alone now, with all these thoughts, it pains to think that I'm out of that place, away from quite some very great characters, my closest set of friends. I don't know when I will ever see them next. I know that we all will be good friends, no matter what the world has to throw at us! Thats friendship, built on trust, love and care!

Love you all, will miss you a lot.

With special thanks to all the faculties who have constructed an engineer out of me, I will always be indebted to your inputs.

Life in NITT seemingly came to an abrupt end...maybe so because I never wanted it to end.

I, personally, didn't want to mention anyone's name in this, thought the cues may be obvious in some cases.

Well then, Adios NITT... hoping to get back to that place for convocation.