Road Trip to Wayanad

Planning phase:

When software professionals get 3 consecutive long weekends, what do they do? Some workaholics go to office even on weekends, some go to their native places and the rest surrender themselves to the God of sleep. But there are a few restless species of this breed who hate to spend their weekends passively. Two species of this breed, Prat and Kaps decide to spend one of these 3 long weekends doing something adventurous since the other 2 weekends are already packed with some other plans. This long weekend falls on 26, 27, 28^th Sept 2009, 28^th Sept being Dussehra. So, starts the most hectic part - planning phase. Prat and Kaps being the initiators, have to take the responsibility of this stupendous task. Since almost all from Kaps’ friend circle have already planned to go their respective native places, Prat is left with the task of gathering a group of people from his friend circle. After a series of mail chains and phone calls, he succeeds in gathering a group of 6-7 people. Some people are going to join from Chennai and Hyderabad. Let’s see how people from this group relate to each other. Kaps is an outlier. Prat is connected to Prad and Prad is connected to the rest of the group. The next task is to decide the place to visit. After a lot of googleing and discussing with various people, Kaps pitches in for Wayanad. It being a 3 day weekend, he assumes that this is the best deal. Prat also agrees for this place enthusiastically. Prat proposes a weird idea of going on bikes. Being a risky idea, everybody rejects it straight away. So the search of cab, hotels, etc takes its course. In the meanwhile, an issue pops up. One of the persons from this group, who’s supposed to join the rest of the group from Hyderabad, had visited the place earlier and didn’t find it worth visiting. This starts kind of a debate over the place to visit. In the midst of all these debates and discussions, on the night of 24^th, Prat has an intensive verbal altercation with Prad (the reason for which is still not known to Kaps). In the morning of 25^th, Prat tells Kaps that he has broken the only link with the rest of the group and the other group is planning for a separate tour to some other place. Now what would the leftovers, Prat and Kaps do? Spend the whole weekend like normal software professionals? No way !!!! In the evening of 25^th, Prat proposes his older idea of bike trip to Wayanad. Kaps is a bit hesitant about this idea, his bike being bought quite recently and is supposed to follow the speed limit. But he has to accept this idea, the only other option being spending the whole weekend like normal software professionals which his mind wouldn’t approve of. Kaps is also hesitant since there’s no plan in place, but Prat manages to convince Kaps that not much planning is required. Prat and Kaps go through a few blogs about Wayanad tour and it is decided that they should leave early morning on 26^th, reach Wayanad in the evening, spend the next day in Wayanad and start the return journey in the morning of 26^th to avoid riding in the evenings. It is decided that packing of the bags, taking printouts of the blogs will be done on the same day before going to sleep so that they can leave very early in the morning. Both of them are dead tired after a hectic office day and both hit the beds without packing and printouts, promising each other to get up at 5am the next day. Quite expected!

General info about Wayanad:

Wayanad is not a town or a city. It is the name of a large district with more than half a dozen towns. In all probability you would be heading to one of its three major towns, Sulthan Bathery, Kalpetta or Mananthavadi. There are three routes to reach Wayanad from Bangalore. In any case, one has to reach Mysore and from then onwards, the routes differ.

Route A : Bangalore - Mysore - Hunsur- Nagarhole - Kutta - Mananthavadi (Wayanad)

Route B: Bangalore - Mysore - HD Kote - Bavali - Mananthavadi ( Wayanad)

Route C: Bangalore - Mysore - Gundulpet - Munthanga - Sulthan Battery ( Wayanad)

From Kaps and Prat’s experience, one should never take route A and B, the road conditions being pathetic for almost half of the whole journey. Route C is the best deal. If one wants to bypass Mysore city (to avoid traffic), there is a bypass road that appears on your right after Srerangapatina town. This is the road you need to take to reach KRS (Brindavan Gardens) and Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary located near Mysore. Take the road towards Gundulpet, in other words National Highway 212. One can also get to NH 212 from the city centre (palace area).

Day 1:

In the morning of 25^th, after a lot of alarm snoozing, Prat and Kaps wake up at 6 am. They hurriedly pack the bags, take the printouts and withdraw some cash from ATMs. They finally manage to leave the place by 7:15 am. Kaps is on his new Pulsar 180 and Prat is on his Apache RTR 160. Both of them set their respective trip meters to synchronize with each other (thanks to the digital speedometers both the bikes have). The engines start roaring and the not-so-planned journey begins. They start from Forum towards City Market to reach Mysore road. They take a wrong route near Corporation Circle and then after a couple of gyrations around corporation circle, they finally manage to touch the Mysore road. They decide to ride the bikes within the visible distance from each other, but the traffic on the Mysore road (it being the Dussehra season, and Mysore being famous for Dussehra celebrations) sets them in and they keep losing the track of each other and have to constantly make phone calls to each other about their whereabouts. They decide to visit near WonderLa and there they decide to ride independently and meet each other every 25 kms (this is where the trip functionality in digital speedometers come handy). They spot a deadly combo on the Mysore Highways: A Petrol pump and a McD.

They refill the empty petrol tanks and equally empty stomachs. Getting energized with that refreshment, they cruise towards Mysore. On the outskirts of Mysore, after asking a couple of local folks (which confuses them even more), they take the road inside the city. The drama of losing the correct route and asking the local folks continues and finally the duo manages to get on the correct way towards Nanajangud i.e. NH212. Mysore city to Nanjangud is about 23 km and Nanjangud to Gundlupet is about 35 km. The road is in a decent shape. It takes around 5 hours for the Bangalore - Myosre - Gundulpet stretch, including a couple of breaks in between. It’s well past the usual lunch time and the duo is dead hungry. At Gundulpet, they decide to take lunch at Hotel Pathan’s International. The restaurant is a decent one at reasonable rates. As they exit the town, the highway makes a right turn. The road at this junction goes toward Ooty. But to head towards Wayanad, one has to take the right turn. The duo had to ask the local folks since there was no direction-board at this junction. By this route, the duo will be entering Wayanad through Suthan Bathery. Gundulpet to Sultan Bathery distance is about 50km, mostly through the forest. Just before entering the forest, they spot a small Tourist Centre on the left side of the road. There they meet a person, Tipu, who hands them over a detailed map of Wayanad, suggests them a rough plan according to their schedule and also gives them contact numbers of various hotels in Wayanad. In about 15 minutes after leaving this place, the duo is about to experience what Kaps called an awesome ride of his lifetime. Imagine a dense teak forest with a curvaceous road laid out in the most improbable locations offering breathtaking sights and bird calls. The Bamboo shoots are rubbing each other and whining. It takes anything up to an hour till one crosses the forest. One should watch out for wildlife crossing the road. Inside the forest there are some rules

- No parking, no Picnic, No horn etc. A small river and a short bridge across it mark the Karnataka-Kerala border in the middle of the forest. There’s also a battery of check posts as they cross the forest. They also spot lots of typical Kerala style tea shops along the way. The whole ride through the forest on a well-laid road is unforgettable.

Somewhere at the end of the forest, they see an entrance to the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. But they decide to head to Sulthan Bathery right away. As soon as they reach Sulthan Bathery, they make calls to various hotels that Tipu had suggested and guess what! All the hotels are fully occupied. This is the last thing one expects when one rides all the way from Bangalore to Wayanad in a single day. After a lot of searching here and there, they finally manage to get a roomat Hotel Mint Flower. They check into the room, freshen up and grab a bite as they take some time to savour the fact that they rode continuously from Bangalore to Wayanad. They discuss with the receptionist about the places to visit. There they come to know that most of the tourist spots in Wayanad get closed by 5 pm and open only at 9 am. Since it’s already 4 pm, they are advised to visit Edakkal caves which is the nearest place from their place of stay. They have to rush since they need to get to the place before it closes.

After half-an-hour of hilly road riding and awesome scenery, they reach a place where onwards personal vehicles aren’t allowed. One has to rent an official Jeep of do a trek. It’s already 4:30pm and the Jeeps have stopped going up since it’s nearly the closing time at the caves. After a series of unsuccessful requests, the duo has to go back to the hotel and retire for the day. Not at all a good way to end a dead tiring day!

Day 1 journey: Bangalore-Mysore-Gundulpet-Sultan Bathery (Wayanad)+some more inside Wayanad (Edakkal caves)~300kms for the day

Day 2:

The plan for the rest of the days is as follows: Visit Meenmutty falls, then Edakkal caves, come back to hotel around 3 pm, freshen up, check out of the hotel, grab a bite, head towards Pulapally, get some hotel there and spend the night, visit Kuruva Island early next morning and head back to Bangalore as early as possible by route A. The event # 1 for the day is Meenmutty falls. Leave the hotel at 8 am after shower, breakfast. Head off for the Meenmutty falls. Tea gardens galore! Coffee plantations aplenty! Rolling hills covered with tea and coffee, interspersed with rubber trunks.

Enter Tamil Nadu after crossing a toll gate! Ghat road with small cottages and log cabins in isolation shows up and leads them into another, and now forgotten fantasy. Wrong Road !!! Go back a few kilometres and take the right diversion to a muddy dirt track. Reach a spot where bikes cannot go any further. A trail of unexpected events follows. One has to hire a Jeep to cross this 1.5 km of hell of a road. One can’t even imagine taking a bike on this road. Mud, potholes (much bigger than those on Bangalore roads), incline, boulders. Reach a place whereon one has to pay Rs. 300 for a guide for a group of upto 10 people to get through a 2 km of terrain trek. The duo is certainly disappointed since nobody had furnished them this info before. Keeping all the disappointment aside, they decide to go for the trek with the brand new clothes and shoes. The trails start and after a while the cursing about the terrain also starts. A muddy, slippery, rocky descent amidst a dense forest. Thank God, they have a guide to lead them. A few slips here and there and they can hear the sound of Meenmutty water falls in the distance. As they get closer and closer to the falls, the terrain gets dirtier. After immense toil, human will triumphs and they emerge to a most intoxicating sight called the Meenmutty falls. Voila! A rainbow at the bottom of the falls. That’s heck of a view. Water streams falling all over you, Kabani River falling in full force with a deafening sound, water gushing down the hilly rocks and you are at the bottom of the falls. All the efforts throughout the trip, totally worth it.

After spending a few golden moments at this heavenly abode, to go back is a worse torture than ever imagined. Breaks are taken every now and then. It takes more than double the time to go back than the onward trek. Amidst all this torture, they get a view of Chembra peak on their way. They had heard that Chembra peak is the highest peak in Wayanad and trekking to the Chembra peak is one of the risky tourist endeavours. Kaps decides to surpass this endeavour some day. Finally the destination is visible. Water is consumed in large quantities. Take a jeep back on the hell of a road again. Spent almost 3 hrs on Meenmutty falls. Take the bikes and cruise towards the next destination. Edakkal caves. The same spot that gave them a miss the other day. Reach the bottom of the caves whereon one has to hire a Jeep to reach the top. Reach the top and see so much rush out there. The gates are closed to avoid any unfortunate event due to an unexpectedly large crowd. The crowd is thicker than the one in Forum on weekends. Prat almost gives up and pleads Kaps to give this place a miss. But Kaps wouldn’t budge and finally manages to get the tickets amidst the filthy crowd a la Mumbai locals. The rock walls of caves contain some interesting carvings, which represent human and animal figures and objects of human use and symbols. The very next day’s TOI has this news.

After having seen the caves and their awe and terror inspiring geography, the duo heads back for the hotel. They manage to check out of the hotel within the stipulated time. The next destination for the day is Pulapally. No sooner had they covered 2-3 km from Sulthan bathery towards Pulapally than it started raining quite heavily. They take shelter in a dilapidated hut for some time and when rain appears to have lessened, they start their cautious ride to Pulapally, it being a forest area. It also turns out to be an awesome ride among the lovely woods, sweet bird chirps, nicely laid curvaceous roads and a tree house!

It has almost fallen dark when they reach Pulapally. They start searching for the hotels right away. It turns out to be a very small town wherein people hardly know foreign languages. As an evidence of how Indian travel industry is growing, there is apparently no hotel room available even in this small town. After a lot of hunting and a small debate, the duo decide to take a shelter in a yatri nivas, the conditions wherein are far from all the comforts. When they go for dinner at a hotel, people look at this foreign duo quite curiously. It took them all the skills of dumb charades to explain to the waiter to get some rice-sambar. Prat is a bit uncomfortable and not at all happy with the luxurious yatri niwas and the curious looks that people bore. Never mind, hit the bed and go to sleep.

Day 3:

Get up early in the morning at 7 am and cruise towards Kuruva Island. Take a right turn from the highway and a muddy, filthy 3 km road welcomes them. Praying all the time to God not to get the bike tyres punctured, reach the destination at 8:30 am only to come to know that the place will open at 9:30 am. Cross the river on a bamboo raft to reach the island, 950 acres of ever green forest on the tributaries of east flowing river Kabani. Far away from the disturbances of city life lies this heavenly place amidst a dense forest, rare species of birds and herbs. “From rush to lush” –Prat.

Spend approx an hour at this heavenly place and start the return journey. Once again pass the 3 km patchy road. What a nightmare! Keep asking local folks about the directions to Mysore. Have a breakfast at a bakery and ride on. Oops, that’s route B. Go back a few km, take the route to Kutta. The road condition is pathetic. Reach Kutta after a lot of cursing and ask for the route to Nagarhole. Holy shit! Two wheelers are not allowed to enter this route. Can you imagine the feeling of riding back on that holy crap called a road? The feeling literally shudders the duo. Then comes the rescuer. A good-hearted human being tells them an alternate route to reach Mysore. The route is of course longer than the planned one, but the duo is ready to take any route except the one just travelled. Ride on a not-so-good road and finally reach a highway. Conclusion: Never take route A and B. Guess what! The duo is in some part of Coorg. Thank God, the road condition is good. Cruise towards Mysore on this lovely road among woods. The duo has almost forgotten about the hunger, thirst. The only aim is to reach Bangalore before dusk. After riding on horrific roads, these highways seem like a piece of cake. Cruise at 110 kmph. Take a stop at Mysore, grab a couple of chocolates and some water, take a bypass around Mysore city. See the crowd going towards Vrindavan gardens, it being the Dussehra day. Cruise on the Mysore-Bangalore highway. Start imaginary races with other bikers. Take a few breaks here and there and finally reach Bangalore. The body is sore after such a hectic day. Take shower, grab some food and surrender to the God of sleep.

Day 3 journey: Kuruva Island – Kutta - Mysore – Bangalore including lost ways ~ 320km.

                                                        The Duo that rocked Wayanad!

Twenty years hence if I wonder if I lived my life to the max, this trip will be on the list for sure.

Signing off,

Kaps

GATE to the Heaven

After getting a very good rank in GATE'06, I've got various queries from a lot of GATE aspirants. After giving the same set of answers to all of them for the last 3 years, my brain was looking for an easier way to convey my thoughts to a wide audience. And Eureka !!! Here's the blog post, the epitome of my experiences with GATE.

When I got into an engineering college, it didn't take much time for me to realize that I'd need something in addition to a bachelor's degree. The hot favorite options at that time were MS from abroad and CAT. I opted for the third option which very few of my colleagues opted for: GATE. The major reason behind opting for this not-so-popular option was "Revenge". Yes, you read it right. It was revenge against all the IITs which denied me admission by a very small margin in JEE. I had to get into it or something better. So, I knocked on the GATE to take the revenge.

Planning well ahead of the time really helps, believe me. In the second year of my engineering studies, I had made up my mind to bang the GATE. With the availability of application forms of GATE'05 in the third year of my engg, the revenge resurrected in my mind. I hurriedly went to the bank, bought the application form, filled it up, sent it right away and went to sleep only to get up a week before the actual GATE exam. Since I had invested some money in the application procedure, I thought that it was my moral responsibility to prepare a bit for the exam. I went through the the GATE syllabus and was astonished to see that more than 80% of the GATE syllabus wasn't covered in my engg curriculum so far. That acted as a catalyst to my laziness and I gave up the thought of any preparation. But there was some ray of hope. Mathematics...my THE most favorite topic. The weightage of this topic was around 15% and most of the syllabus in this section was covered so far. So, I revised all the formulae in the span of 3-4 days. On that much preparation, I wrote GATE'05 and got a decent 88 percentile. I wasn't bothered about this result given the amount of preparation. Now, time for some gyaan.

Gyaan Session 1: All the GATE aspirants who are still in college, decide early. Go through the syllabus and mark the topics in textbooks at the start of each semester and give special attention to these topics during your semester studies. This will save a lot of your time while revising these topics for GATE preparation. Also, do attempt the GATE in your 3rd year. This will familiarize you with the exam pattern and will give you the feel of the actual exam day to say the least.

Gyaan Session 2: My way of preparing for a mathematical subject is jotting down in brief the formulae which I am not confident of recalling till the exam day on a sheet of paper. A quick glance at this sheet a few minutes before the exam takes you totally in that subject mode.

Ok, back to my life. All this while, my life was changing a lot. At the end of the third year, placement season started. I got the offers from the very first two companies. In the final year, with a couple of jobs in hand and in the company of jigri hostel friends, I was having a rollicking time. Those were the best days of my life :) Life was interrupted when the availability of application forms of GATE'06 was announced. I did all the formalities of the application procedure and then got busy with the 7th sem exams. Life took a real turn when after the 7th sem exam got over (this was in Dec 05), due to some family reasons and a bit of revenge process running in the background of mind, I decided to stay back in the hostel for the vacation. I had almost two months of time at my hand. I prepared for 4-5 hours daily.

Gyaan Session 3: Preparing from the same textbooks that you used for your semester studies saves a lot of precious time. I didn't join any coaching class or test series. But got to hear from a few people that most of them are junk, especially the study material they provide. Frankly speaking, I didn't solve a single objective question during the preparation. But solving those does help to some extent. Try to get hold of old GATE papers.

I took GATE on the exam day. I don't remember to have a very good feeling at the end of the exam. Following the divine advice 'karm karo, fal ki chinta mat karo', I totally forgot about the GATE and enjoyed the final days of my engg life. In the midst of my confusion on which one of the two companies to join, the most dramatic day of my life dawned. 15th March, 2006. GATE results were to be declared on that day. But more than the results, I was excited about the holi celebrations which happened to be on the same day. Hostel holi is a divine experience in itself. Hardly had I got up in the morning that day and come out of my room, when I was fully drenched with colored water and the gulal all over my body to the extent of not recognizing myself. I joined the gang right away. After playing color and dancing (Ganpati dance, in particular) for a couple of hours, I went to a friend's room (Chandu's den, our adda) and casually opened the gate result site which wouldn't respond to my repetitive requests. After attempting for 10-15 mins, I gave up as Juhu beach was eagerly awaiting us. We went to Juhu beach and had the time of our lives, this being our last holi at the hostel. After returning to the hostel, all of us gathered at the adda. I tried the results site which after a number of unsuccessful attempts, did open with the following message: NOT QUALIFIED. To be very frank, I wasn't very much disappointed. I never had expectations from this result, so I was ready for anything. But my friends, jigri's as they are, were very much disappointed. I tried to cheer their mood up but they kept asking me to search for the admit card and cross-check the registration number. I saw no point in that because I distinctly remembered the number. But to keep their heart, I tried searching that piece of paper in my room, a final year engg student's hostel room. You can imagine what the probability of finding that piece of paper would be. After unearthing all the existing pieces of papers in the room, I finally got hold of the admit card. And guess what, the number I remembered was CORRECT. But the only difference was that I remembered the application no. and one was supposed to enter the registration number in the results site. I again went to our adda, where the mehfil was still lingering on. I entered the NEW number and hit the return key. The browser was fetching the info from an IIT server and a dozen pairs of eyes were eagerly awaiting that info. I was lost in some deep thought and was brought back to the reality by a loud shriek of the whole mehfil. I glanced at the computer monitor and I couldn't believe that HTML page. That Godly browser had fetched the lottery of my destiny...All India Rank 7. The GATE had opened, the revenge was taken. We submerged ourselves in the celebrations. Without much confusion, I took admission in my dream college, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. I've finished my studies at IISc and now I am working with a multinational company. A lot of today's work is pending and I'm totally lost in those sweet memories. Nostalgia at its best!

Gyaan session 4: Always remember that application no. is different from registration no. :)

Life's Little Instruction Book

• Have a firm handshake.
• Look people in the eye.
• Sing in the shower.
• Own a great stereo system.
• If in a fight, hit first and hit hard.
• Keep secrets.
• Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.
• Always accept an outstretched hand.
• Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.
• Whistle.
• Avoid sarcastic remarks.
• Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 per cent of all your happiness or misery.
• Make it a habit to do nice things for people who will never find out.
• Lend only those books you never care to see again.
• Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all that they have.
• When playing games with! Children, let them win.
• Give people a second chance, but not a third.
• Be romantic.
• Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
• Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.
• Don’t allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for your convenience, not the caller's.
• Be a good loser.
• Be a good winner.
• Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.
• When someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go.
• Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born.
• Keep it simple.
• Beware of the person who has nothing to lose.
• Don’t burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river.
• Live your life so that your epitaph could read, No Regrets
• Be bold and courageous. When you look back on life, you'll regret the things you didn’t do more than the one's you did.
• Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.
• Remember no one makes it alone. Have a grateful heart and be quick to acknowledge those who helped you.
• Take charge of your attitude. Don't let someone else choose it for you.
• Visit friends and relatives when they are in hospital; you need only stay a few minutes.
• Begin each day with some of your favorite music.
• Once in a while, take the scenic route.
• Send a lot of Valentine cards. Sign them, 'Someone who thinks you’re terrific.'
• Answer the phone with enthusiasm and energy in your voice.
• Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.
• Send your loved ones flowers. Think of a reason later.
• Make someone’s day by paying the toll for the person in the car behind you.
• Become someone’s hero.
• Marry only for love.
• Count your blessings.
• Compliment the meal when you're a guest in someone's home.
• Wave at the children on a school bus.
• Remember that 80 per cent of the success in any job is based on your ability to deal with people.

IISc in News......

Just have a look at this article that appeared on the front page in a recent edition of TOI....

After IIT of excellence, IISc Age to descend on US

In geek circles in India and the west, it's the lesser known, or neglected, elder brother -- a hoary institution that appears to have been on ice for a century while its flashier half-century old sibling scaled dizzying heights of enterprise and fame.

But watch out, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is stirring and flexing its muscle -- and history. This weekend, the Bangalore-based institution founded by Jamshedji Tata in 1908 will celebrate its first global conference in the heart of Silicon Valley, stomping ground for sibling IITians for more than a decade.


Unlike the Pan-IIT meet, which will have Hillary Clinton as a keynote speaker for its July bash, the IISc global convention will not have marquee political names or heavyweight CEOs.

But it will be high-brow alright, with outgoing President Abdul Kalam inaugurating it via video feed on June 22 in what will likely be his last major address to the community to which he once belonged and to which he will return to shortly. The President, incidentally, never visited the US during his term.

Also among the speakers at the three-day meet is James Morgan, chairman of the board of directors of Applied Materials, Robert Birgeneau, Chancellor of UC Berkeley, and R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor.

IISc alumni in the US are only about 4000, unlike IITians, who numbers in the tens of thousands. But then, IISc is also more rarefied - producing only 33,000 graduates in a century and earning a ranking as the top school in South Asia in a recent ''Academic ranking of world universities'' study conducted by the SJTU, China. It also boasts of something IIT has yet to achieve - India's first Nobel laureate in science, Sir C.V.Raman, who was also its first Indian Director.

Just how old is the IISc saga? The story goes that Tata was inspired to start IISc after a chance meeting with Swami Vivekananda aboard a ship taking them from Japan to the U.S in 1893. The IISc proposal was first examined by Lord Curzon in 1898 and it was approved by Lord Minto in 1909.

Although JN Tata did not visit California (he was scouting steel mills in Ohio and Pennsylvania), the heirs of his vision in Bangalore have now decided that they need to be heard in fecund Bay Area, where the buzz is all about IIT.

"IISc has not been known for its branding," says Vas Srinivasan, vice-president for marketing at Sonasoft and IISc alumnus tasked with building the institute's brand. ''When people here think of Indian engineering and scientific talent, they think of IIT not IISc.''

Srinivasan says IISc's pedigree is not in doubt. The institute boasts of some of the top scientific minds in India, and cutting edge research and collaborations with some 150 multinationals, including Boeing, IBM and other US giants. More recently, Indian firms such as Infosys and Airtel also tying into IISc.

Life moves on

One thing I'll have to admit is that blogging is not my cup of tea. But still, this is a sincere attempt to keep this blog alive. I'd like to blog regularly in future. Well, i hope this doesn't turn out to b a "political" promise. I'll try my best to keep it. Coming to the point, almost 3 months of time has gone past since my last post on this blog. So, I'd try to briefly sum up the things that happened in my life in this period of time.

The year 2006 came to an end with a nice gift of 1st sem final exams for me. Frankly speaking, i had to work very hard to keep pace with my classmates. It's all relative grading system in IISc. So, even if a single guy studies, the others have no other option left. I don't know why the other people study so much & so make a poor guy like me also study at par. (Khud bhi aaram se jiyo aur doosron ko bhi jeene do :)) Anyways, that's my point of view. So, somehow managed to get past the exams. For the first time in life, wrote two papers(each one of 3hrs) on the same day, 9-12am & 2-5pm. Need i tell anymore? Was an amazing experience. On 14th of Jan, got the divine freedom(obviously temporary) from IISc. I finished up a few formalities & boarded the train to Nagpur on 15th. This was the longest(continuous) period for which i was away from home(4 1/2 months to be specific). Had a wonderful vacation of 15 days in the hometown. But like all other good things, it also came to an end. Wasn't feeling like coming back here. N while i was packing my luggage, struck a terrible news.....Reults of 1st sem were out. Well, this was the last thing i was expecting to happen in this wonderful sojourn. But the news wasn't that bad as much i expected it to b. Managed to get a decent 6.4/8.0 GPA(Grade point Avg). Anything above 6 was going to b a God-gift for me. Hard Work really pays off, to say the least.

With the beginning of new year, came a fresh 2nd sem. N till now, it's been a far better sem than its previous counterpart. Or rather i should say, experience, which is said to b the best teacher, has taught me how to survive here. Till now, it's only been Movies, food n a number of rounds to MG road this sem. But now the bloody assignments have started pouring in. N i can sniff even bloodier mid term tests coming by. So, this was all about the happenings in my life so far...

On the leaving note, i wud like to share my views on a very different topic. The very much awaited Cauvery river dispute(mainly between Karnataka n Tamilnadu) verdict was declared a few days ago, followed by some violence in Karnataka, coz the verdict was not in Karnataka's favor somewhat. The only reason that i mentioned this thing here is because somebody had said " The next World War will b over water". How true !!!!!