Crossroads

"Now you have to cross the road and turn right"
"But there is a vehicle coming...", i replied.
"then it will wait for you to cross", replied my driving class instructor.

Driving always adds that extra-bit of thadi-ness. Bound to that two-wheeler habit of turning the vehicle without disturbing the pedestrians...it takes some time to make a way by blowing horns just as lord krishna did through the flooded river ganga. But then time teaches. Today I am no more a fledgling.

One cannot resist imagining oneself as the king of the road especially when, one brings the car to a halt on a busy square. The car and of course the novice driver suffer severe denigration from the traffic. The panicky driver shuffles through the gears, but the instructor is as cool as buffalo on a road. He advises to start the car and raise it slowly. This exemplifies the quality of keeping cool in tense situations.
Such a thing happened with me too.....I was like....tell me now what to do??!!....the car isn't starting...!!, the traffic police is looking at me!!!....the behind-cars are blowing incessant horns!!!....what to do!! ...
But at the same time, my instructor the coolest fellow on earth said....arey don't worry,main hoon na!

It has been a great experience for me with my driving class..... especially the early morning driving sessions. I certainly dreaded the afternoon traffic sessions, but then they come as part and parcel of driving :) .

My instructor has the peculiar quality of pricking me with his sarcastic comments.

"Haan...this is not our car. This means that we do not have to put brakes before a speed breaker".
From this I had to interpret that I am traveling at a high speed from over the speed breakers.

"Haan....I will put on the indicator every time...you don't worry".
He meant.....put on the indicator dude!

But then the next time I turn or the next time I confront a speed-breaker, I always remember these comments.

Cash Couple!

The biggest wedding of this year ... the most eligible bachelor weds the most beautiful woman. The Abhiaish couple has been the cynosure of media tamasha over the past few weeks. Jalsa and Prateeksha were converted to impenetrable fortresses. Paradoxically, the "highly private" marriage was talked about by almost every Indian. Even, I wasn't an exception....n why not? It is India's one of the most glamorous pairs.

What makes one wonder is where this pair would head for their honeymoon!.... (these are not my words...all news channels say this :) ).....n i would say they surely have landed up in a dilemma.

A special report "Aish saying -- Sajna Chalo!" said that the pair has been receiving endless offers from companies for sponsoring their honeymoon......sponsoring what--honeymoon??

man! had heard of sponsoring education...but sponsoring honeymoon! wow!!
they do not have to spend even on their honeymoon? can it get better than this?

its like....getting the best returns out of your mutual fund investments...like... harvesting a cash-crop!
But I am very much certain that this couple would not succumb to any of these competitive offers and epitomize their own brands!

chakravyuh

People who follow indian mythology would be well aware of chakravyuh...during which a noble child pitted himself against mighty warriors.
well... what do i have to do with a chakravyuh? for that you have to read this blog.

recently, i had an interview for a scholarship..it is given by a foundation for higher studies abroad....here is the metaphor - me in a chakravyuh!
very much like abhimanyu's chakravyuh, you know how to enter an interview room but do not know how to come out of it...it depends on the interviewers and of course your performance!

after waiting for 2 long hours the moment popped up..(during the 2 hours, i resisted every attempt made to make me eat samosas, pastries...)... it was like feeding a goat before taking it to a butcher!..well, the interviewers proved no less than butchers....
i have faced several interviews till date but this one was unique.

i entered the den replete with confidence and enthusiasm. warm, wicked and plastic smiles floated all over (even on my face)...

the first question shot ->
interviewer: anurag .....?? ...
me: ambekar..
interviewer: hmm, ambekar....why ambekar?
me: may be my forefathers were mango traders ("ambe" means mangoes)
interviewer: hmm....could it be related to goddess amba?
me: yes, even thats possible!
interviewer: you seem to say yes to everything...
me: i am just accepting a possibility.
no response!

we used to do this during our school days...tear apart the names & surnames, badger the cynosure and gloat with that vicious laugh! you never know when life can exhibit analogies!

for one hour i was captivated by rapacious scholars hungry of information. i was defending myself from all the 10 directions...n the worst part was neither did i have a sword nor a shield!

how will you solve the ICICI credit card fraud (here i was assumed to solve a problem worth crores in few mins) , what can you deduce if you know that on fridays diapers and beer are sold together (the expected answer was customers are IT-professionals!!), you have answered why you need not use clustering .. can you tell me why you should not use clustering (highly inscrutable answer).

while applying, in the abstract i had written..i prepared for rigorous interviews...
so the question arrived what are these rigorous interviews?....i expatiated on NTSE, MTSE, SSB interviews..the subjects i had to study, the preparations i had to undergo....contributions of my friends/relatives for the interview questions, googling net for the interview tips....
i had to even quote some of the interview tips (and comments came for the same)...
1) keep smiling ---- hmm thts why you are smiling
2)answer confidently ---- hmm so that you can answer blunder?
no sir, so that you would know that atleast some part of that blunder is correct
3)hide your indifference --- isn't that what you are doing?

i did get a chance to talk about the scholarship foundation history...and to my surprise all the information was novel for the interviewers! i feel here...they tried to hide their ignorance and the agape expressions....its amusing to watch the interviewers baffle :)

these were just the highlights and so you could never ever imagine my torment.
it was a great experience overall and it seldom happens that you suffer knowlingly!

results aren't out yet and its always good to say that with such a great experience it doesn't matter whether you get the scholarship or not...but the fact remains -- jo jeeta wohi sikandar!

It all started here......

It all started here...the indiranagar double road princeton review center always used to catch my attention..good lord...save me!! so many ppl going to US (as the princeton review ad suggested)....i too had to catch the train.....n the hardships began!!
die-hard srk fan as i am..."zindagi mein pyaar sirf ek baar hota hai...aur shaadi bhi ek hi baar---aur apping bhi ek hi baar"!!
<- yahoo ps-ii



bitstomsphd--the egroup started by bitsian seniors was of key importance now....i was starting from the a for alpha...

ps-ii weekends in yahoo! were exploited for univ selection, gre, toefl...plethora of stupid questions were flooding the sent-folder.


it looked so simple- write gre, toefl, get decent scores, apply to univs and get the admits!! credit card was a necessary condition...till then..i dint have a credit card ..in fact there was no need...wht was i going to do with a credit card at a place like pilani...swiping it at skylab or vk reidi?..finally credit card ka jugaad hua n gre, toefl was booked.

gre with its non-vernacular vocab occupied all of us...ricky,akhil,cp,kallu,dallu,me....anonymous sms and orkut scraps were replete with gre words...dogmatic,bacchanalian were used freely to adorn others.....i recall one such sms for which the reply was "one who msges such things himself is a dog"...we realized the fellow doesnt know the word-dogmatic.....n there was a laughter-burst....adding to the sms rivalry...akhil wrote "bow-bow" !!...n thus was born a new word "sh****fied"

kallu who got enthused with vocab..started barrons wordlists with letter 'a'.....but his horrific ps-manager, intel validation runs over the year have restricted him to wordlist no 3. i wish somewhere down the line he would surely exhaust barrons.

now it started to look like a herculean task...the ghotted words didnt last for more than 2 days.....memory cards were a fiasco....novels came as my saviors. numerous novels...those from dan brown to dr. kalam occupied the weekend tabs.....slowly n steadily i was atleast on the right path....par delli abhi dur thi......

internship ended n i vowed to pick-up gears during the 12-days vacation....in nagpur it was me and the books....i didnt bother to get down from second floor for days.....in those 12 days...i super-read shantaram 100 pages per day...n boy.. gregory david roberts is simply superb!

i joined intel on 3rd july 2006. ..the ginger hotel which intel had provided for accomodation was spotless clean. this was my first corporate stay..n i exploited it fully!! the ac, plasma tv, fridge, meticulously put up cosy bed....the only regret was... i was alone in the room ;)....
it was high soccer time with the FIFA world cup...it was ginger where italy dusted others to claim the title....a week later ibm thinkpad arrived....my first and the only one laptop till date.
those fifteen days were the most luxurious days of my life.

the day we left ginger....our to-be house owner dinged us and we were literally on road!! somehow we managed to find another house the next day....
how paradoxical life can be....previous day i comforted in a tata brand...the next day i was a vagrant!

finally the last month of gre preps began @385 ST Bed. sats n sundays were spent at SRR intel. the pin drop silence and seamless internet were the main features....
atlast the d-day came....prayers,best wishes came all over n gre happened.
750+620...wasnt very exciting result but then wasn't bad either......

its really frustrating when 3000 odd words rattle you day n night....i was so saturated that i could feel myself breathing gre-words rather than air!
the sleepless night on the gre eve made me realize that it was the first exam after 4 years for which i had really studied the complete syllabus and revised it....in bits pilani knowing what the syllabus is, itself was an arduous task leave alone revising it.

Day: 26th Aug 2006, Place: Hyd, my Toefl center.
i still feel, i managed to gulp some of the Felix Felicis potion.
my Toefl exam was about to start at 7 pm and at 6 pm a short-circuit at the begumpet center routed all the PCs. lucky potion played its trick here and i got a seat at the much better banjara hills center. i cant help wondering-- what if the test was postponed by a week or so??

i enjoyed the test throughout. each word you speak has a value (toefl test costed me $150 ;) )

next few months i was occupied with reporting the GRE/TOEFL scores to each university, shaping my SOP, resume...all the application materials were dispatched much much ahead of their respective deadlines and i heaved a sigh of relief!

meanwhile, i joined Infosys SETLabs in the Data Mining Research Group.

dec 11 2006, bangalore:my desk
to my astonishment, one day suddenly an email popped up in my inbox! Graduate School decision has been made, please access this link to see your decision.
Trembling hands clicked the linked. heartbeat was at its peak..apprehensive eyes read the first word "Congratulations"!! ...and i knew it! my first admit!!....the deadline for the fall 2007 admissions was dec 15 2006..n i had got an admit before the deadline!