Pseudonormicks Fab Phone Awards 2006

-- XeoN

2006 was a roller coaster ride in the cell phone arena as we saw better cameras getting built into handsets, fashion phones walking the ramp, GPS and Wi-Fi integration becoming more essential, and advancement in mobile networks exposing us to faster downloads for content. Scouring the latest mobile devices on the Mumbai market, special attention was paid to design, features, functions, as well as value.

Camera phones pushed into the 3-megapixel space with Sony Ericsson ™ and Nokia™ both launching 3G handsets that took best-quality snaps. The K800i edged in front of N73 in terms of ease-of-use, but what I appreciate is Nokia's integration with Flickr for uploading photos.
While LG™ introduced the innovative Chocolate KG800 phone, it's the company's clever marketing strategy -- to call a handset something that's instantly recognizable -- which is being imitated by others. Arguably though, Motorola™ got there first with the iconic MOTORAZR, which continues to be popular in all the iterations we've seen this year.

Windows Mobile devices tried their best to steal some of the enterprise market from RIM, with the introduction of push e-mail, but the Blackberry maker retaliated with the 3G-capbable 8707 and the Pearl, the first consumer-oriented Blackberry that features a built-in camera, expandable memory and multimedia playback.

Following the popular adage:” There is no right no wrong.” And of course” Beauty les in the eyes of the beholder” , we thought of giving out The Pseudonormicks Fab Phone Awards (PFPA) 2006 spanning across different categories chosen and analyzed by our brand new tech contributor XeoN.


Best camera phone of 2006 – Nokia N73

The hotly anticipated Nokia N73 camera phone has nearly every bell and whistle under the sun. With the Carl Zeiss 3.2 Mega Pixel lens, the N73 snaps superb hi-resolution stills with accurate colours and precise focus, letting users who want more control tweak a range of options to get pictures just the way they want them - including colour effects and red eye removal. Also, the large, high-resolution screen not only makes a great viewfinder but works a charm for browsing or viewing pictures you've already taken, which can also be shared and printed in all thinkable and unthinkable ways. Business users will also get a good companion in the N73 since it has Symbian OS 9.1 (S60 v3) & thanks to its many quality connectivity options as well as its ability to view documents in popular Office formats, decent scheduling capabilities, bundled mp3 player & FM radio & also 3D stereo speakers. It’s priced at Rs.23k in Mumbai.

Best Music phone - Sony Ericsson W810i

With the W810i, the act of navigating music has been vastly improved as the navigational pad now lets users easily skip forwards and backwards as well as play and pause music in a one-step process. As presented through the bright and crisp 1.8-inch medium resolution screen, the Walkman interface remains one of the best in existence for music management. Picking up where the W800i left off, the Sony Ericsson W810i offers improved music navigation in tandem with the same excellent music management capabilities and decent amount of bundled memory as its predecessor. Other musical tidbits worthy of mention include the ability to activate the well-performing stereo FM radio with RDS through a dedicated play/stop button on the left side of the phone is a handy feature. W810i is the phone that came closest to being an "iPod Killer". Priced at Rs.15.5k in Mumbai.


Most Ergonomic phone of the year - LG Chocolate KG800


Straight out of a Space Odyssey, LG's new KG800 (aka Chocolate) is a black monolith of a slider with an unusually stylish exterior. Joining a crowded space, the fashionable LG KG800 slim phone has its work cut out for it. At 95 x 48 x 15.2 mm and 83 g, it's slim, lightweight and undoubtedly one of the most stylish handsets I have ever seen. In fact, its front half is completely flush; flick the handset open, and 9 touch-sensitive navigational controls are lit up in bright red. While Motorola's RAZR still manages to trigger ultra-thin fashion clones, LG has moved in a different direction with the Chocolate KG800, an understated and stylish mobile phone with a beguiling design twist. Its priced at Rs.13.5k in Mumbai.






Chic phone of the year – Nokia 7370

Trendy colours and a faux leather exterior combine with a solid, compact spinner design to render the Nokia 7370 a stylish contender with classic touches. A crisp and colourful 2-inch QVGA screen ranks as its most impressive feature, contributing to hassle-free navigation throughout Nokia's Series 40 interface courtesy of its high resolution - the latter of which joins EDGE in making WAP browsing a similarly pleasant affair. Keypad and navigation buttons are, for once, first-rate with regard to both looks and usability, proving text input needs not be sacrificed on the altar of style. A fully adequate 1.3 Megapixel camera with an intuitive interface has also taken up residence within the 7370, adjacent to 10 MB of memory. Available in Mumbai at a price of Rs.13.5k.

Super slim phone - Samsung D900

Samsung released the Black Carbon with the claim that it is the world's thinnest slider, and I couldn’t find anything thinner than the D900's half-inch (12.9mm). The phone has a glossy, fingerprint prone front with rubberized sides and backing. As a stylish slider, the Samsung SGH-D900 "Black Carbon" is worth a look, if you can overlook some imperfections. The menu system is very convenient, and the interface in general was a pleasure to work with. The 3-megapixel camera puts the phone ahead of the mass of camera equipped handsets, but the slow interface resulted in many failed shots, and the lack of good software on the PC means this camera phone is not for novices. This may make a great companion for those who want a sidekick to their larger digital SLRs, but don't toss your mid-range digital for this phone.D900 is available in Mumbai at Rs. 20k


Best smart phone for executives – Palm Treo 700p

The Palm Treo 700p Smartphone delivers everything you need without compromise. The Smartphone combines a smarter phone with broadband-like speeds and rich-media capabilities, all in one. This Treo phone brings Palm's world-class ease of use to the Palm OS Mobile platform. Connect with people in multiple ways: voice, e-mail, SMS, or MMS3. Your contacts are always reachable from any application on the 700p. Palm sees the Treo 700p as a phone first, and it shows in their tweaks. The Today Screen has a speed dial plugin with shortcuts similar to the Treo 650, and there's even a photo dialer (thumbnails of any contacts you wish) on the home screen. Simply tap the photo to dial that person. As with the Treo 650, you can also assign any letter on the QWERTY thumb keyboard to a contact for speed dial. Its available in Mumbai markets at a price of around Rs. 28k.



Best phone for e-mail – Nokia E61

The E61 does what Nokia does best: connects people. Its all-encompassing connectivity setup is exploited in full by a broad line-up of quality messaging, office and browsing applications which run in tandem with a superb screen and more than decent thumb board. HSCSD, GPRS and EDGE bring up the rear for data across quad-band GSM support on the go, while Wi-Fi 802.11b/g takes care of high-speed local connectivity. Add Bluetooth for use as a modem, synchronization, connecting headsets and printing; USB for synchronization and data transfers. Also with good handy utilities, good battery life and a compact form factor, and you end up with a very solid business phone contender indeed. Its available in Mumbai at a price of Rs. 19k.



Best Touchscreen phone – Sony Ericsson M600i
A number of factors combine to render the M600i an ideal device for enterprise e-mail, the most prominent of which is the unusual yet surprisingly well-working thumbboard - complete with a near 90-degree learning curve. Hot on its heels follows Exchange ActiveSync support, which can be configured either for true push e-mail or scheduled retrievals, while a scroll wheel and the brilliant screen chime in for terrific, thumb-driven e-mail triage. Reading e-mail attachments is a breeze with the built-in viewers for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat documents, and particularly so when the screen's landscape view is enabled. 3G and Bluetooth serve as a springboard for getting ones laptop online. It also delivers a solid impression in every other department, with the near-sole disappointment being its lack of a bundled USB cable and USB charging support. Add good battery life and nice touches such as a scroll wheel, stereo Bluetooth audio and a clever, agenda-style standby screen. Its priced at Rs.18.6k in Mumbai.


Most anticipated phone for 2007 – Nokia N95
While it was hard to stick to Nokia’s mantra that their new N-Series are not phones (they're "multimedia computers”), we can't argue with the raw power of the N95.The size of a small slider phone, the screen on the N95 is bright and clear, perfect for the incredibly smooth interface. GPS features are striking, especially the 3-D mapping. Based on the rendering of the 3-D map, the N95 looks to have some graphical prowess -- at last, a phone that seems capable of true 3-D. Movies are bright and clear on the QVGA (320x240) screen, though a wide-screen ratio would have prevented the letterbox bars on movies that made them look small. The N95 sports a 5-megapixel camera and a video recorder capable of VGA (640x480) recording, all of which can be stored on microSD cards, as well as a TV-out port and speedy HSDPA data support. Set for release in Indian markets in 1st quarter of 2007,the pricing is yet to be announced.

* Prices quoted are approximate, verification of the same is highly recommended.
** The views and opionions quoted are solely the author's and are subjective.
copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks.

Glimpse of Modd Indigo '06

If you are a fest enthusiast and you walk into day 2 @ MI then there’s very little you can do on the participating front as most of the elims happen on day 1. But if you got there just to maaro lukkha then there’s more than just one thing to do.

MI just keeps on getting bigger and better every year and this year it brings to us the Indian Raaga. I heard of them bagging a huge sum in sponsorship and it got clarified on the face the moment I entered the main gate @ IITB. Everything at IIT seems to have a worth be it the trees, the lampposts, the walls , the main gate and even the urinals (see pic) as each of these flaunted at least one big commercial banner on their chest (Mr. Buffet,guess I have a tip for you)

The most brand draped venue is the Convo Hall where most of the informals happen .The comic strip exhibition by Shreyas was simply kickass and so was the rangoli exhibhition (see Sarkar rangoli pic) .

Makrand Deshpande’s play Sa Hi Besura was almost a house full at least at the beginning, but don’t know what happened after I walked out within five minutes . A Shabhaas India kinda stunt was seen where this man pulled a Tata Indica with his teeth.A gallery full of XBOXes was available for the junta to juggle with the joysticks.

A new event that’s come in is “The Reality Show” which asks the participants to organize an event on the final day of Mood Indigo. The folks, who get short listed by a 100 word synopsis of their event idea, have to stay on campus for all 4 days . Winners will be bagging Xboxes, iPods, Goa trips “and of course some cash’- as they put it. Overheard a few guys talking:” Yaar yeh to puri Roadies khila rahein hain , bus XBOX mil jaaye yaar”

JAM this year had an exhibition showing of the best JAMmers (IIT alumni) who like sticking to the campus every year.” We like hanging around IIT and we always ask them (MI organizers)to allow us in (JAM). So this year they decided to have a JAM exhibition finally”, said Zuzhe ,an alumus.

The ballroom dance finals @ LT was packed to the core! Couldn’t even get a glimpse of the dancers but the crowd said it all: I missed something great.

The queue outside the SAC kept on growing as the Popular Nite came close and so did KK’s performance.The crowd management wasn’t all that smooth , but the show made for it. It began with the hindi band finals “Mantra” which showcased a band from Delhi “Zingaro” (strangely they sung a track on their band name Zingaroo-o-o-o-o-o Zingaro –o-o-o-o-o the folks behind me went ‘ho ho ho’) and a few bands from Mumbai too. ‘Mukti’s fab vocalist became a cult figure thanks to his versatile voice spanning over tracks by Kailash Kher, KK and Atif.

Just before KK arrived, the crowd was exposed to an eccentric light show customized for Mood Indigo 05 & 06.
Then came the man himself and the OAT with approximately over 12K junta gave an uproar and the stage literally was set ablaze. It had a couple of goblets of fire and outlets for firecrackers and which shot rockets and confetti as the man rocked the junta to the core.

KK performed songs like Aap ki dua, Hum dum, Dus Bahane, Tu hai aasmaan mein , etc. But the crowd went crazy when he came with his version of Summer of 69 :”…Me and some guys fromVersova….. Nobody Quit and evone got married….. Those were the best days…” .
But when he came onto Pyaar ke Pal, the OAT was quite a scene. It went all dark with over 10K cell phones swaying with karaoke under the moonlight.

Sriram Emani, the very hospitable Overall Coordinator of MI ’06 was extremely glad when we expressed how much fun we had , after all it’s blissful when your efforts pay off well.Kudos!



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Tryst with Paper Dance

Microprocessor and Microcontrollers(MP) is just three days away, and yet I go to this alumni reunion of my school, well I had to just because I’m onto its OC. So what’s the big deal with Mp? Umm.. nothing much, just that its a core electronics subject which had more than 30 chips (not wafer chips...those computer processing chips my friend) and expects the student to know them in and out for him to build up an intelligent device. An intelligent device is one that performs its stipulated function and responds to any external interrupts that are high on priority. I started pretty late for the event with my guilt eating half of me and the other half being eaten by my apprehension over the crowd turnout. Well, both my halves were eaten up successfully as the guilt peaked looking at the mediocre crowd turnout. To top it all, the a/cs went out for some reason and folks started cribbing. Most of them preferred staying out of the banquet as it was cooler. The guilto meter(GM) alarm blew.

One of the OCs intervened the "Even-I'm -the-bollywood-badshah" DJ ,who dint have the courtesy to accept the crowd's response while turning the tables, and announce the start of the most sought after game on the party: "PAPER DANCE".

All the wannabe kids let out a roar (believe me none of these roaring 'lions' came down to play).
This cousin of a close friend of mine came up and dragged "cute-looking" Sid who was chatting with me. Some time later she came back and tried to drag me for a friend of hers... but hey girlie me ain't as light as your partner. I went away as my guilt-o-meter had reached almost fsd (full scale deflection) and on top of it I was supposedly the organizer: naah I cant really play eh.

Finally she managed to convince me and to my WXYZ-ment the girl knew me already (guess I was popular in school). So here begins the plot:

We are supposed to dance on a piece of a broadsheet daily which folds every time the music stops and yeah its my first time on the game.

Partner(P): You know to dance na?
BL: (to himself:) WTF.... (to her:) Well I don’t think you need to dance in this game, do you?
P: (giggles)
BL: So what do you do?
P: Me? A li'll bit of salsa...
BL: err, I meant in life...in general?
P: Oh! I’m in the third year and I’m preparing for my MBA. What about you?
BL: Well I’m doing my engineering in Electronics.
P: Engineering! I thought so.
BL: Great (Wonders what made her think like that...to his rescue the music begins)
P: Hey make sure you are on the paper .. I don’t want to lose the game.

The music stops and its time for the first fold:
The situation is manageable. BL is not concentrating on the game thanks to status of GM. Suddenly something strikes: Man, I dint ask the girl if she was comfy dancing with me!(like I do every time)=> GM almost at FSD.

Music stops again. BL wonders how to manage on a quarter of the broadsheet.
Suddenly it strikes: Hey it was she who wanted to dance with me... so she might be comfy.
Guilt reduces. GM pointer turns to the left. Confidence is back. GM pointer reduces again.

BL :Ill stand on the paper you keep you right foot between mine and the left foot on my foot.
P: Does some movements.
BL: Nah your right foot between mine not your left.
P: Hey that’s my right foot only.
BL: Holy Christ! This is your left foot.
P: Does engineering does this to you. THIS IS MY RIGHT FOOT!
BL: Umm.. err.. yeah actually. so dumb of me. that’s your foot to MY RIGHT ..hehe (BL feels like a moron...GM reading rises.)

The round goes amazing and BL is on a high. Now its half of the quarter! Only BL can stand barely fitting on the paper.
BL: Well, what do we do?
P: Lets stand each on one foot and hold your partners other leg to balance.

BL tries and succeeds in failing. Looks at Sid who had his partner in his arms several feet above the ground. Looks at P. Thinks. Thinks again. Chucks the idea due to his sprained biceps.
P insists on her idea but then BL doesn’t like failing again and moreover that style put BL in an awkward position.

BL gets innovative and asks P to get on his back (Vikram Betaal style) but sadly BL finds that the dimensions of his feet are such that they dont fit on the paper.
BL and P walk out patting each other :"Hey it was a nice game!"

Now that I have The guilt-o-meter (GM) At Null deflection I have written about it calm and cool.
Scrolling up I feel guilty again for writing so much for you to read (Gm pointer moving to the right....BL clicks "publish" before FSD)

The New Year Prank

KK came down from Bangalore and so did KaKhe from Pune for Diwali, so it was ideal to meet all high school buddies and other IIT prep class buddies in the form of a new year outing.

KaKhe and me joined KK,Nik, Tanveer and Archak at Toss n Grill and on our way to Carter’s CCD the chirpy Hitesh joined us. The scene was pretty cool as Hitesh started of taking Nik’s case joined in by Archak and KK. Nik bragged about his hardware know how and the keedas that he could do with his cell a Nokia 6630 as we discussed life in the open air seating . the best thing about CCD Carter’s is it’s open air seating arrangement that gives a cool view of the promenade and the happening lane next to CCD .

KK and Hitesh were constantly checking out the chicks around us and rating each of them as I tried to block the rays from the setting Sun trying to figure out what Nik was bragging about to Archak . AceNik (his BT name) was transferring loads of .cis files (software) to Archak via Bluetooth as I cribbed to him about the inability of my phone to execute .cis files as it’s a MOTOSLVR that runs on a JAVA environment. BLUETOOTH the divine platform showed a few gals online to AceNIk which lit a bulb first in his brain and then in mine. He jumped up with excitement with an idea to chat with them over BT without revealing his identity and I was struck with an idea to change my nik to “Pretty Angel” and continue what Hitesh had started: Tke Nik’s case … Royally!

“Hey look at this , this one is surely a gal : Pretty Angel others have Niks which can be that of guys, lets chat with her!”, said AceNik to Archak who just nodded.

But I realized that MOTOSLVR doesn’t have the ability to send/receive .txt files over BT , so I switched over to MOBILUK a BT chat software that has around 20 ready to use templates that get customized with the reciever’s nick nameand custom messages can be typed also.

“Toothing? “ , I sent

Nik got fully excited “Hey ive got a message, this gal wants to chat with me!”

“ Hi AceNik, why don’t we meet up together and talk.”

Nik did not expect this, he looked around for the source saw me fiddling with my cell and doubted, but I calmly made up in the guise of sms-ing my girlfriend.

“No Im not interested.” Nik replied (this was the first and last message of Nik’s that I accepted the others were simply rejected as I knew what they were)

“Listen dude don’t act funny or I’ll ruin that Cream shirt of yours with my Mochachillo!”

Nik did not buy this . He knew it certainly is a guy but was concerned as this person was able to see him. NIk changed his seat and sat next to Archak and tried to spot this BT person but to no avail.

Now I knew that my job was to convince him that it’s a gal so I typed:

“Ok dude at times I get a bit wild, but I find u vry cute and so jus wanna tlk to u pls don’t say no.”

That’s it, he bought in! But now he was puzzled, he did not know what to do. There was an element of fear as this person could see Nik while he couldn’t .

SO I used the next template:” Free ur mind Ace Nik”

He was startled to know that Pink Angel Knows he is scared!

“The Matrix has you.” Was the next template msg sent to Nik.

He laughed at this one and replied a lighter msg.

The last message and the arrival of the Balaji Telefilms gang behind us got Nik back some confidence. I had to curb this level of confidence. Suddenly Hitesh looked over and figured out that it was me, but then Hitesh was the most appropriate one to know about this prank as he helped me remove Nik’s confidence. Sooner KaKhe also became a part of the prank. But I deliberately kept Archak out of it to retain an element of authenticity.

“dont try to locate me .its a waste but talking isn’t” I typed and a gal walked upto NIk (his friend) and started a short conversation. What an opportunist Hitesh was, he tried to convince Nik that she is Pink Angel, where as KaKhe and me did not allow him to rule out the possibility of the hot gal sitting behind us in the pink halter top.

“Walk up to de promenade and we shall talk there and do nothing else”

“Why should I come ther, u come up to my table if u can see me”, replied Nik.

“Lisen, I find u cute and want to talk 2 u n don’t lk ur friends who hv bn giving me those stares.” This added a bottle full of authenticity to the plot as most of us were staring .

Some how we pumped up courage into Nik to walk upto CCD’s gate where we hypothetically spotted many gals in pink and I sent him this message:

“I see u AceNik do u see me?”

He was fully convinced that this was true and the fact that we pointed out to him a few gals that he wouldn’t like missing out on was enough reason for him to cross the road to the promenade.

Now good ‘ol Nik walked up and down in search of Pink Angel as we sat by.

After five minute of search I sent him the curtain raiser

“ luvarien here! Had fun?” and we all could virtually see the Bakra cap on his head as Nik gave a sigh of relief. Archak was told why he was kept out.

Nik tried to defend himself but then we all know that he walked into it and fell for it.

A gr8 Beginning of the New year : For Nik atleast!!

Happy new year folks!!

Project Pure Diwali

So Diwali is here finally!!

Like every year well be doing the routine Diwali chores :

Umm some cleaning/tiding up . shopping, arranging for sweets and dry fruits ,some decoration, calling ppl, sms-ing, bursting crackers

Aha there it comes. BURSTING CRACKERS.

Well why do we Burst crackers??? Any idea??

I know one story, which says that Lord Rama came back after winning over Ravana after 14 years of exile. To welcome him his subjects celebrated Diwali by lighting up the kingdom and bursting crackers.

So Diwali, since then , has been celebrated for the homecoming of Rama (attributed by a myriad of +ve characteristics and Lakshmi) as the festival of lights.

So where does sound and smoke come from??

Its from our minds primarily!

What began with paying a tribute to the Lord has now taken many faces like showing of your gut to burn money in the form of a huge ‘ladi’ or look fwd to Diwali to burst crackers in the name of some shagun…and the list goes on

We all we all know what happens when we do it: sometimes we don’t realize and at other times we forget.

So I thought of taking a little step to revamp this awareness and remind those who have forgotten:

What I’ve done is simple- made a set of greetings (unconventional) that u cud copy from here and fwd to your kith n kin in the form of sms, Orkut scraps, offline messages, IM messages, emails etc

Or may be get innovative and have your MSN ncks , Orkut nicks et all to say something like this.

Yeah the smses would cost a few bucks to fwd, but then you’ll be doing it for a cause isn’t it?

So here are some of the messages:(in sms lingo)

Dis tm I wont trble Mom Nature on the homecoming of Father Rama. What abt u? may u hv a pure n xhiliratin xprience dis Dwali.

Fr a chnge lets burn pollution dis tm cause brsting crkrs is out!May u hv a pure n xhiliratin xprience dis Dwali.

Sound and smoke swell in a discotheque but stink in Diwali. Lets rev upto smthng innovative dis tm. Wishing u a prosperous Diwali.

I don’t need de fire to have a blast on Diwali, do u ? Let there be just lights.

May u hv a blissful xprience on Diwali.

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Dengue, malaria n cholera hv spread already. Lets nt spread pollution!

Just light up and enjoy! Wishing u a healthy n happy Diwali.

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ACKREDATION

[You need some time in peace to get this one right]
That is how the term accreditation has been conveniently phrased by the junta on my campus. The term was on everybody’s tongue-tip and was used as blatantly as possible. It spiced many a conversations and salted a few fights, sparked many a rebels and hopefully should give many of us a chance to wish the college admin.: “HAPPY REALIZATON !”

Well, when the branch in charge walked in to announce the dates of the accreditation committee’s ( hereafter referred to as Ac-Comm) visit to the college the students were more than just elated, but sooner did we realize that this was just a façade. Three days before the Ac-Comm’s visit, the college suddenly seemed to beat the rate of change in the computing industry as every minute something totally new came up in the 5-storey building. I wonder what Gordon Moore would have said on that!:

MOORE”S LAW BEATEN DOWN:

Split a/cs, direction signboards , boards boasting about the college vision and mission, departmental details outside labs, charts and time tables within labs, new aquaguard installed in the canteen and other aquaguards being connected to the respective coolers, a building being painted in record 2 days, the quadrangle floor being leveled overnight, some lecture rooms and labs being painted from within, journals being corrected instead of being signed, assignments and test being given and done for the heck of it, power peons and bais beginning to smile exhibhiting courtesy, colorful curtains started flying on the lab windows to save the students from heat, the ‘neelkamal’ types plastic chairs being swapped by the plush red springy-spongy movable chairs for the lecturers (err sorry, profs), new equipment being imported fast and how into the labs , the student council being shown and explained the college accounts, student representative committees being formed and trained to present before the Ac-Comm., certificates being collected from students to boast about a branch (sigh , lemme breath a bit.) .

Yeah I was a part of one such training meet and was also among the selected students to be ‘presented ‘ in front of the Ac-Comm.. And this is where the PSEUDONORM lies:

FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH:
Acredation is as important to us as it is to you (yeah, rite who gets to hike the fee?) from your point of view you would get good employment and better companies would some on campus (haven’t you learnt a new trick?), a better brand of the college would be created in the industry(there you are). No the fee structure and acredation are 2 different aspects altogether there is no connection between them (I think we’re the first one’s this morning) Don’t worry, all these are budgeted expenditures [we are not looking for a ROI] (There you’re, chor ki dadi mein tinka. Boss if all of the above are budgeted then was your finance officer sleeping these years, or was he training in book-keeping?) . Now when you meet the committee, you have to behave and speak well about the institute ( Buddy,we’ve got ample matter to speak more than just well about the insti.). If you find that there is scope for improvement in certain areas tell them that you have approached us and the matter is being looked upon (is there an equivalence between ‘upon’ and ‘over’?).


THEY CAME THEY SANG AND WE (GOT) BANGED:

Then there was the D-day and came the Ac-Comm. full of IITians and NITians,their background was sufficient to send shivers amongst all of us. Yet , I found many of the staff members more than just confident but one of them had predicted the fate which is yet to be declared as he has seen what it is to be groomed in a college of caliber. For A change students saw their teachers giving a viva. Our princi was taken aback when asked about the existence of a sexual harassment cell (She mustn’t have thought about it as she always banks upon the ‘culture’ that the college seems to be preserving {at least on the vision statement}). A girl fainted when the committee shot a question at her, but many others answered brilliantly to the committee except this BE kids who were placed in the Digital Design Lab to show off that project work goes on and eclipse the SEs from the committee. The Ac-Com guy straight asked him what they were doing in somebody else’s lab during lecture hours, and then came their viva which was enough to squeeze out their smartness for life. The SEs in the ECAD lab tackled the questions well thanks to their foundation laid by this very amazing prof of ours, however they went dumb as the Ac-Comm guy struck them with realization on this question “Is this what you pay 54K for”, he said pointing at the chain of 4 dusty computers with non-funct mice!!

The comment was enough to strike a realization amongst the masses: that we are the true proprietors of the institute as students. The lack of this realization is the root cause why we have been living through power peons and being treated as prisoners. A student walking in late has to wait for an hour with the watchman, then he’d be pulled out of the lecture room for a lecture with the princi on time management and culture preservation. But before that, he’ll have to assure the prof in class that his train wont run late the next time ( yeah, my pop owns the railways !). Fed up with the new recruits in college who teach to gain work-ex for an MBA, the student cant go home nor can he study in the library, all he has to do is jump of some wall to get back home and study in peace- making him a robber in his own damn house! A cultural secretary who has to literally beg the admin to allow the students to have a JAM session which apparently goes against the culture add to it the justification of a cultural festival in an engg college: these were the things that the Ac-Comm were lookin for as they were smart enough to judge acads and infrastructure. I know this is not new to you if you’re a fellow student, but there is a lot more to it if you’re not.

I hope this rebellion arisen by the Ac-Comm, takes some shape ( I think the BEs are the best one’s to take initiative here) and we do something to be proud of the institute when we refer of it as our Alma Mater!!

LASS_LESS.eng

If you were taken aback when the IITians unveiled their hornier side at an event in Mood Indigo ’05 , or probably raised an eyebrow on noticing the proximity among the VJTI guys making out together (the solution of a problem () or felt like a winner seeing a group of guys from VESIT dancing alone at the back, at a DJ nite…THEN LET ME OFFICIALLY WELCOME U TO THE WORLD OF ENGINEERING, MATE.

An average engineer while coping up with natural and self developed SEM-STRESS and the other ‘wannabe-corporate’- society activities tends to miss out on the “highs” and “lows” of life and literally so, given that the ‘chick-factor’ has been sucked out of their lives by dementors. Indeed, lack of ‘gals’ (u ought to get this 1 right!) has been topping the charts of ‘ Top 10 woes’ of engineers since ages. Even the forceful reservation for women ,which is highly resented by the guys during admissions just to repent later, by the government couldn’t raise fruit. But this ain’t the scene throughout. There are some colleges who enjoy the continuous ‘streaming ‘ of galz at an amazing rate of 5 kbps or more (kbps = kissed babes per sem; a unit of ‘flirt rate’ where kissed= met/bumped into (). Some of these dreamlands are TSEC, DJ Sanghvi, RGITand KJ Somaiya. When it comes to admissions , the folks avoid the ranks and convince their parents about their proved futility somehow and try their best to get into one of these; of course there are some who think otherwise (lets name them the “otherwise kinds”). As a result the asking rate , both scores and moolah have risen drastically in these colleges.

So now there are two possibilities : a) You get into a dreamland b)You are the otherwise kinds.

Case (a): A dream-lander finds himself oscillating between a fixed bandwidth, that varies with different colleges, with a continuously varying ‘flirt rate’ until he bumps into the ‘chosen one’ from whereon he attains saturation i.e. his ‘flirt rate’ exponentially decays to 0kbps. Many fall into saturation within 4 years of education , but those left out fly away for an MS. The majority here often exhibits an inclination towards management studies as they’ve managed a contrasting variety of things in life. Another characteristic feature of these dreamland colleges is an upbeat cultural fest. which has no relevance at all to their course.


Case (b) : The otherwise kinds who fall prey to the rankings and give into the luring institute brand value don’t have much to oscillate between as the bandwidths in these regions is pretty low. Some do saturate and most fly out. The interesting aspect about these, who form the majority, is the evolution of a varied species and a plethora of theories on topics like gals, relationships, virginity, life et all. The absence of gals in their lives gives rise to poets, painters, cartoonists, bloggers n writers (like me). The theories vary from mere classification (see box) to “words of weirdom” and from ace concepts like “a drink a day keeps the shrink away” to “fantasy in education” (Eg Rati AgNO3). Apart from getting into poetry n writing, there are other ways of getting rid of the lacklass ,like say organizing a fest and inviting non-engg colleges, busting into non-engg fests – especially the pronites where they could bump into gals just to exchange numbers n email ids. Most of them fly out or hunt in for an MS/MBA/Mtech and have a blast of a ball later.
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An IIT classification of gals / babes :

AA = Awesome n Amazing (imaginary/fictitious)
BB = Beauty n Brains (rare !)
CC = Cute Chick (the best bet)
DD = Damsel in Distress (avoid!)
EE = Exotic Eve (avoid if possible)

PS : AA to EE are grades in IIT
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All said and done, the next time u plan a visit to a non-dreamland engg. college or bump into an engineer at a pronite, plz remember ur ‘flirt rate’ and of course a fake email id !!

MOOD HIGH

“We IITians have been known for excellence in whatever we’ve done .”, righteously said Prof. Ashok Mishra ,Director IIT Bombay at the inauguration of the biggest cult fest in the country -MOOD INDIGO which arrived with the spirit of water, a cool bubbly blue mascot “SPLASH”, and a budget of around Rs 45 lks to rock the folks royally with its “AQUA” theme.

With around 30 events per day, divided into categories like LA, FA, Music and dance, dramatics, informals, talks+workshops and proshows , the fest seemed to put the average participant in quite a dilemma and left the spectators totally puzzled- which way to go.

Mood I manifested a myriad of effective workshops conducted by industry pros, some creamy ones being the Tango wrkshp by Anand Majumdar and the Grooming wrkshp by Raymond. ”Festivals like these give us great amount of exposure and let us learn a great deal of new things”, said the bubbly Prerna Narang from Cummins College,Pune.

The informals were a blast for the ‘window-shoppers’ ,who took away much more than their expectations –thanks to the benevolent sponsors. The food stalls , which comprised of a good range of branded and desi khaana , were strategically placed near the informals venue to ensure business and it did work out. Halla bol –street play and Hurricane-street dance ,the most popular PA events witnessed some ground-breaking performances .
The OC lived up to their word as a few of the major events were seen during the day this year. Hysteria: The battle of DJs saw some cool mixes being played which dragged the crowd on the floor right under the SUN !! Livewire elims also ran during the day much to the surprise of many a wannabe headbangers. Mantra-the Hindi band contest ,also a day event, just seemed to show the rising momentum in the Hindi/desi rock scenario.

Proshows by Shuffle Deamons (Canada),Indian Ocean, Shaan, Sceptre, Vayu, HFC had the crowd up there till late10 pm, the deadline being followed strictly. However, it was surprising to see a more than decent crowd turn over for the classical nite. The IISc attack had led to a tightened security on the last day forcing many to spend hours in the queue cursing the organizers (‘orgies’ as they call themselves () who took hours just to frisk people into the half empty OAT. As a result, many missed the Livewire finals which saw great performances by bands like ‘Access Denied’ and ‘Bhayanak Maut’ (the winners).Access Denied’s Ashish (IIT B) won the best guitarist prize: A Kramer worth 18K from Furtados.

“Pride is more important to me as money can be made up any time in ur life”, answered Rahul Dash(IITB) to a judge, minutes before he was declared MR. MOOD I –at the most sadistic event in the fest!! ”Hey if pride were more important to u, then what the hell are u doin here ?” , rightly asked the anchor Garry. The event was more of a puppet show , the crowd being controlled by totally by ex Mr Mood I :Swami Thakkar ,who’ll remind u of King Kong. He typed on the screen and commanded, the audience obeyed and paid respect. The fate of the candidates (who couldn’t see the screen) was in his hands. Well, this was seriously the wrong place if you were a non-IITian or a gal as the desperate IITians showered their vulgar side on both. Constant shrieks of ”Are u free tonite?” haunted the audi and the screen too; what more even the ex Mr Mood Is (all IITans) asked the hostess or the female judges the same damn thing when called upon (is it lack of vocab or a proof of their heavy-hornier sides?) The sweet li’ll Ateeya Khan, crowned Ms mood I had an experience that generally most cute gals face when a Virar fast halts by at the platform. ”Who cares a damn about his virginity!”, exclaimed Shweta Krishnan from Rochester university, after listening to a clichéd answer from Arvind Iyyer (IITB) the runner up. Krishnan, like many other non-IITians seemed to be pissed off with this ‘cheap’ attitude evolving out of the “cream students” in the nation..

Catharsis- the play adopted from PAF (performing art festival) dealt with a sensitive story of drug addicts and their rehab process, but failed miserably even after some excellent performances by Victor and Manav the protagonists and Prabhav the comedian thanks to the monotonous direction.

Hats off to the OC, who did one helluva job in making the fest :right from getting the Mega sponsors to managing the junta from over 300 colleges inclusive of their lodging. Apart from a good chunk of the 600acres land at their disposal, the key factors driving these chaps into success is their spirit full of confidence as quoted by their director and the mutual cooperation cum exclusive independence by the staff for the students which lacks big time in other colleges making their festivals look like more of a sham with poking profs and a shrieking staff. They roped in the industry biggies to sponsor them and I bet none of them would think twice to sponsor the event again. The marketing ,publicity and scheduling of the event was spot on as usual and that’s probably why folks from as far as Delhi ,Bangalore and Chennai turned up. The overall trophy was taken away by IITB followed by Rajhans college Delhi and KMC Delhi.

Certainly coming out of this eventful fest one would not deny exclaiming: MOOD HIGH !!

OF NEW YEARS AND MORE

Come 31st of December and it’s a boom time in the economy as the junta is all geared up to rock their way into the new year .The streets are full of banners speaking more about the coming parties than the new IPO or the sale at Shopper’s Stop. Every one has plans to make up or speak up and “What’s on the 31st?” is the talk of the town. Whatever be the logic or let there be none, its simply a PARTY TIME !!
So lets chk out some more popular kinds of parties on the New years eve:

1)The crowd racker party (CRP)
This is the most popular one among the typical folks who want their stuff on the platter. From 5-star hotels to the gully pubs everyone wants a year-end bonus so each one of them has something in store for you. Belly dancers from Yugoslavia ,a hot gal DJ, cuties doing flair at the bar you name it and they have it for you. They’ll charge you prices proportional to their brand values and you pay just to get into an over-crowded neon lit place short of food but overflowing with vodka!! And here is where the people booze their way into the new year.

2)The private house party (PHP):
This one is more often done by the folks who prefer having a ball and holding it too :) . They book a bungalow by the beach or have it at their place if its big enough. Only close friends/family invited. Make sure to be there as these parties always treat you big without burning a hole down your pockets (unless off course if you’re hosting it). In certain places friends go dutch to host such parties and customize every aspect of it.

3)The lukha party (LP)
Don’t feel like getting into the crowd? No invites for PHP either? Hey get your bike out on the road (but make sure only after 11pm) and vroom your way through .
These parties are the ones that add to the chaos on New years eve with increasing traffic every year. Well its usually full of stags and some cozy couples in search of that privacy.

4)The spiritual party (SP):
These ones comprised of those grown up above boozing and more into the new year. These types of parties are meant for ppl who believe that a new year is a new beginning. They enter the new year meditating/singing bhajans/chanting hymns et all.

Now that we’ve talked about the new year parties lets get in to the numerous new years that we celebrate. Surprised!! Hey Im not talking crap but its just a fact that in a single year (according to any calendar) we do celebrate more than one NEW YEAR.

1)The English New YEAR:
Celebrated universally on the 1st JANUARY. This year the new year arrived a second late (GOOD LORD !!))

2) Your Birthday:
Many treat their birthdays as a new beginning and so this is like a new year again. People make resolutions just to put them away (you’ll know why later).

3)The Regional New Year:
Various religions/castes have their own traditional new year. For Eg: The Guddi Padwa for the Maharashtrians, Cheti Chand for the Sindhis, Baisakhi for the Sikhs et all.

4)The Diwali New Year:
Popular among the Indians, this New year is marked a day or two after Diwali , which is celebrated by one and all in India and also by some folks abroad.

To sum it up there are four major NEW YEARS in a year with four different popular ways to party it out. So if you’re weak enough in math you’ll find a minimum of 16 reasons to party out . Another peculiar point is that on an average, a new year arrives in 1-4 months time . So, if one makes a new year resolution one has to compulsorily break it to make a new one for the next new year and that’s why the adage goes ”Resolutions are made to be broken up”

Hmm if you’ve observed carefully, I’ve answered an important question asked by many across the globe. So what say ? Feel free to name the award that comes to your mind.