Lets think about Reservations

I am not here to present a new concept or what I think. Actually, I haven't given it a thought ever. So I am here to battle out the issue in my mind. The issue is not other than 'reservations'. Please don't scold me if I write childishly, please don't say that I am a fool or something, and please don't tell me that I am contradicting my words if I say something else later. This post is completely based on the thoughts that come along 'during' the time I am typing here.

The Backward Classes (BC) have been long exploited by the upper classes. Ranta sir gives a detailed time-line about the history of reservations in India. Reservations these days have become like a pain in the lives of people of the 'general category'. Everywhere, the number of seats for the GC is slashed down by the 'reserved seats'.

When I did my AIEEE counselling, many of the NITs (National Institute of Technology) had something like 1-2 seats for 'Madhya Pradesh students'. Out of the 1-2 seats, 1 was reserved. As a result, some of the colleges didn't even have a seat for me (a GC MP student). But another issue is, does it completely hamper my career? I did get admission in another college where there were enough seats (actually 0% reservation to be precise).

What 'good' was obtained out of reserving seats for BC students? Many of the parents who were hoping that their son/daughter will get through AIEEE but couldn't make it into the high ranks could actually go in and become an engineer. Maybe in some colleges, there is a relaxed passing criterion for BC students. Finally, some company comes and recruits the students. Obviously the company will take the 'high ranking meritorious students'. As a result, the so-called 'BC software engineer' with a degree too remains unemployed. He is a little less capable, maybe. He might get a job, but that too in a smaller place where his skills are enough to do the job.

Now, in the new scenario, 49.5 % of the students will be from the BC. At this point, we should not stereotype BC = less capable. Even a BC student can be a genius and a general student can be a duffer. But the cause of the stereotyping is the fact that the GC student has no choice but to face the competition among millions of others while the BC student 'has a easier way out too'. We are told the story of a cocoon in childhood or somewhere. If the butterfly doesn't struggle and break the cocoon to come out, and someone else just helps her open it up, her muscles don't get enough strength and it doesn't achieve the capability to fly. In a similar way, this 'reservation system' is crippling the BC students by giving them perks.

The government, as you all know, has also chosen to ask the industries to create some criterion of reservation for BC graduates for recruitment in the same. As a result, 49.5% of the employees of all companies will be from BC. Though those who face the actual competition will be as good as the GC people, the 'crippled' ones will help create chaos in the companies too. Bad economy, bad productivity, higher prices and so on will be some of the consequences as I see them.

Some news channel was showing us the condition of the BC people in India (Mumbai to be precise). It says that these people continue to do the downtrodden jobs just for the sake of getting a quarter to live in. As a result, some people left other good jobs and became sweepers in the municipality. Their job hasn't changed, just that now it has become a government job from being a forced occupation. How will reservation help those kind of BC people? They will not even know what IIT or IIM is. The reservation quota will keep depriving GC students for the sake of those BC people who aren't even aware of their rights.

As discussed in the above paragraphs, I feel that a BC student needs to be given encouragement and help at the lower levels of education, when the foundations of his academic career are being grounded. After that, he should be left into the open competition, to struggle and fail or succeed, but finally at the end of the day live like a self-made eligible capable Indian citizen. So, at the end of all the thought process, I think I support 'anti-reservation' at the level of 'higher studies and employment' but I strongly support reservations, benefits and perks to all BC people at the foundation levels of education. And I also advocate a re-evaluation of the list of BC people of India. Rather than keeping it caste-wise, make it income-wise.

Hope you didn't get bored. I might change my views tomorrow, don't expect anything from me. Ciao. 

I hate “The Da Vinci Code”

The movie

Big banner, big publicity, big controversy and for me, a big failure. Yes, yesterday night I saw the much awaited, sure-shot success movie The Da Vinci Code. I hadn't read the book. Some of the parts were quite understandable and nice. But then, as time passed, it failed to generate interest to continue watching it. The whole thing boiled down to a man getting killed and passing a secret Grail to his grand-daughter. And as usual, some evil/hidden elements trying to stop her and kill her in this whole drama. Even Tom Hanks failed to infuse any life in the movie. I confess (and its not an exaggeration) that I slept (deep in sleep) for the last 30 minutes of the movie, waken up only by the roar of people getting up and leaving. Nikhil said that it is better and more understandable for those who read the book. My suggestion, either watch X Men III or read the book word by word and then only dare to see this movie.

Missing IIIT

I am missing my college like anything. In the first year when I arrived, it was like I left my school, oh my great school. The college was some alien place which I thought I could never belong to. But, after these 3 years of living there, am really attached to the place, and all my friends and other people there. Every morning I come to office and see that Hyderabad is cooler than New Delhi. This makes me more and more tempted to go there. Hope that day comes soon.

Grades

Amazingly my grades have been nice in the past couple of semesters. Most subjects like PR, DIP, Networks, MoMM, Compilers and so on have shown nice results and I am very happy about it. Hope I get good grades in the projects which I took in those semesters. I am returning to Indore on 1st July by Intercity Express. I'll be reaching Hyderabad on 5th evening.

GRE fever

I badly want to prepare for GRE but I am not getting the mood and the time to do so. The available dates for GRE are 22nd, 23rd and 25th of August and all days from Monday to Thursday in the month of September. My mid-semester examination will also be beginning on 28th of August. I am really confused about which date to choose. I also need to find out whether I can give it once or twice. After October, the course of GRE is being changed. As a result, I need to attempt it before that. Lets see what happens. Anyone knows if we attempt it twice, do we get the score as the maximum of the two or the average of the two? A lot of decisions depend on the answer to this question.

At present, I am working in the company. I have a presentation on 2nd June. Hopefully I'll finish work by then. Wish me luck. Have a nice day!

Ciao.

Noida and me

Actually there is nothing to write today and as some people mentioned, you shouldn't write when you have nothing to write about. But then, its all your fault, yes, YOUR fault. Today, the hit count dropped to 50 and I got worried, lol. Finally, I've decided to write this post, which contains almost no content. Read it if you still care to.

Noida

Now that I am writing about nothing, let begin with Noida. How does Noida look like, what is the whole thing about, how are the people, etc. Well, I haven't roamed a lot in this place, but still. Noida is basically a city very close to Delhi. You just need to cross Yamuna river (and change of state from Delhi to UP), and you are in Noida. Its about 40 mins by bus from Hazrat Nizamuddin station and about 100 mins from Connought place. The whole place is like a big developed city with clean broad roads and loads of traffic, offices, company buildings, malls, gardens, and I heard there is a stadium too.

Every colony in this place is called a sector and each one is not very big. I mean, sectors change at each crossing, so basically you can say every small part of the city is one sector. Generally people travel by 'Cycle Rickshaws' to go across sectors and use the bus for going to Delhi. I personally feel Rickshaws are a great help to the environment friendlyness and give employment to a huge bunch of people who ride these rickshaws to earn their livelihood.

Thieves and safety

As people said that Delhi is a place where you can get looted, at least I was told this. Its not so, or maybe I haven't been looted yet. People here are the same like other places and not all are looking out to rob you. Some places like Palika bazar need great bargaining skills but thats about it. No one will actually pull out money from your pockets if you are not willing to.

No, its not that safe, and more so for females. The other day Nikhil saw some men on a bike snatch away a female's bag and run. She also got hurt badly as she got dragged along with the bike. But then, such incidents don't happen much.

Power problems

As you people must have read in the newspapers and seen on television, Delhi is facing major power problems these days. Noida is no different and every office/home has a generator or inverter to cope with the challenge. The powercuts are random and unannounced, and range from 1 hour to 4 hours. I guess this is the worst part of being in Noida. I really miss the uninterrupted power supply at my college.

Spending a lot

Well, Noida is a costly place, but its more of the options that one gets. Mc Donalds, Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner, Dominos, Waves theatre, Barista, … you name it and its there. Generally eating here costs a lot if you don't have a permanent tiffin system or something. There is a place called Logix Park, which is basically for employees of a set of companies, but generally almost all employees have some of their meals there. Its really cheap and provides good, hygenic and sometimes delicious food. Rest of the spending is all about roaming in the rickshaws which requires good enough bargaining skills.

Accomodation

As most of the major companies are here, accomodation is really costly here. Most PG rooms cost around 2500 per head per month and don't provide any food either. It has been a really tough job to actually get a room here, and for kind of cheaper rates. Thank god.

Conclusion

All in all, today I described how Noida is and how am I living here. The company is good, but I don't like the strict time constraints. Can't help it though, I guess these will be there in any company I join. I have to learn to live with it.

Last night

Last night, I came to the office to check mail and talk to friends or something. Nikhil had some coding job. I didn't realize that all people except us have left the office. We called up some employees to get keys so that we can lock the place and leave. But, it was too late for anyone to come. Finally, we had to sleep on the sofa in the office till it was morning and some other people arrived. It wasn't bad though, sleeping in the AC, but then my room is my room, the free-minded-ness and the comfort, hehe.

Take care, ciao.

My Nerd Score

Wow! I am just 90% nerdy, not very high na? And to tell you more, 10% people are more nerdy than me, and 90% are less nerdy than me. I wonder whether they counted me or not? How can the sum come up to 100? Where is my fraction?

PS: Took the test from http://marutiborker.wordpress.com/

PS2: Read the article on Ankit Fadia on his blog. Its really nice.

First time

Tension mat le mamu, life mein bahut see cheezen first time hoti hai ..!!

Well, as you people know, its 20th May, Alvy aka Snopy aka Dodo's birthday. You might not expect this, but we met for the first time in this life ever 'Today'. She asked me to meet her at PVR Priyas (a place in Delhi) where she had decided to meet some of her friends to kind of celebrate her birthday. I hadn't gone to a pub or a disc ever in my life. She also knew that, and very proudly announced to the rest of her friends. Her friends were all switched off kinda, maybe not interested in me (me as in such a boring seedha sa person). Anyways, Alvy was nice and friendly and made me feel comfortable.

She took us to some pub/restaurant called TJI Fridays. The ambience was nice there. Very nice and comfortable place as she had told me. I wasn't too hungry and also not willing to have any alcohol. So, I just had some kind of juice she chose for me. I gave her the greeting card and a small humble gift which I had got for her and she was more than delighted, I guess. After that she took us to a 'disc' called RPM. Wow, RPM is my favorite word, lol. Anyways, the disc was all crowded and stuffed up to the brim. There was smoke all around, and besides that, I am a really bad dancer, actually I am not a dancer at all. Anyways, I tried to keep pace with Alvy's moves. She kept talking a little bit in that noisy place, though it was difficult. After some time, she left the place. We wandered there for a while gasping for free air.

The evening has been nice here. It began to rain as we reached here. By the time we reached our room, we were completely soaked. We quickly changed and had dinner. Now, I am sitting in the office, writing this blog. I might work on my project, or just check mail and return. All in all, the day was pretty nice, and it was great to meet Alvy. And I must admit, I actually wanted to stay in the disc for a little more time.

Have a nice Sunday. Ciao. 

Learnt a lesson

Learn a lesson today. Well, it was a kind of free day and I hadn’t got much work. So, I thought of going for a movie during office hours. I had heard other people plan movies in the office and so I thought maybe its okay if we do it for a day. Anyways, finally I was called back to the office and had to cancel the tickets. This didn’t anger me though, infact I learnt the lesson of discipline and puntuality through this. Will remember it for a long time.

Heard people are protesting very fiercely against the reservation thing. Some doctors are on hunger strike since 96 hours and 94 of them have ‘collapsed’. Anyways, I can’t do much but still am with the ‘antireservation movement thing’. Going out now, my code is kind of working. Will meet Alvy tomorrow and have to finish work on Monday. Have a nice evening.

Ciao.

My mood swings and some techno crap

Human brain is an amazingly complicated thing. It can create virtual scenarios out of thin air, it can come up with thoughts which have no meaning at all and still depress you, it can come up with imaginations and ideas which no one ever thought about (using their brains, lol), it can make you feel romantic or excited or what ever in the world’s most gloomy and dirty places, it can make you imagine that something is great or beautiful or wonderful or amazing, though it might not be so, the brain can …. eh.. it can do what ever your brain can think of.

Last few days, I have been kind of irritated and/or depressed about being in Noida. Well, if you judge materialistically, everything was fine. An office with AC/PC/net, freedom to do anything in the evening, two new cities, Noida and Delhi. But then, it got a little monotonic,

• come out of office
• go to the Centre Stage Mall
• eat or see a movie and return
• sleep early and wake up early.

Maybe that wasn’t that exciting, but then, it wasn’t like I should decide to return to IIIT. Actually, the problem is, I was feeling bad that I couldn’t work on the BTP, which Jawahar sir was eager about. Mixed with some other feelings, last Sunday I had decided to quit the job at Kritikal. But then, I stayed on. Its feeling a little better today, lets see.

Kingsun DKU-5 USB to serial cable

Well, as Nikhil has this cable, I wanted to make it work on FC2 which I am using. I googled again with some success. I found out that ‘cypress’ driver which is a loadable module in the kernel supports this cable. But for that we need to patch cypress_m8.c and cypress.m8.h in KERNEL_SOURCE/drivers/usb/serial directory. The patch wasn’t compatible with the kernel source I had got. So, I read the patch file and manually patched the two files. Finally the kernel compilation failed when it reached the patched files due to some errors. Frustrated and tired, I finally gave up. Here is the link to the patch (nokia ca-42) (http://gnome.dnsalias.net/patches/). Though it mentions that it works for the CA-42 cable, it might work for DKU-5 (http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdev.php?id=3565).

Bon Echo alpha 2

A new alpha version of Firefox 2 has been released called Bon Echo Alpha 2. I downloaded and installed it. It has prebuilt session saving crash recovery, a suggestion system for ‘google search’ (like intellisense), and is much like the good-old firefox. Most extensions say that they are incompatible with it, but that’ll change soon I think. Due to lack of extensions and themes compatibility, I am back to Firefox 1.5.0 for the time being.

Conclusion

Rest of life is fine. Its Alvy’s birthday on 20th. I’ve to get a gift for her, lets see. My code isn’t working well, so rest of the day is just hard work!

Ciao.

Today

Wow! Nice day it has been today. No work all day! I finally shifted to the new place which was quite an unpleasant experience. Maybe thats how life is. I mean, it reminds me of the SBI card advertisement. Jo dikhta hai, vahee milta hai. We were told that the room is generally cool all the time and there is power supply all the time. There is a TV and two beds, and we can go in and out anytime. There are a lot of bathrooms and toilets, and generally there wont be any issues about them.

When we shifted, the problems began immediately. The fan was throwing hot air blows and there were no windows either. We didn't pay much attention to all that and quickly got ready to go out for dinner, as it was already very late. At 12, we didn't find any shop where we could have dinner. Finally, we managed to get inside a restaurant called 'second floor' or something. The restaurant was actually on the 'second floor'. When we saw the menu, we remembered the latest Amir Khan ad of Coca Cola where he has become Chinese and demands 'Thanda Samosa'. Everything in the menu was above 170 and at least beyond what we could afford to afford. Finally, we decided to have some Chicken Biryani (Rs. 200). Still not satisfied, we consumed a cup of chocolate icrecream each and finally reached the room. Oops! No water! There was actually no water! After walking for about 1.5 kms, I was very thirsty. But, we had to sleep without water.

We increased the TV volume a little, and as we were not told that there were 'neighbours' who wouldn't let us see TV in the night, we had the third blow to our faith in the room facilities. In the night at about 3-4 AM, the power supply went out. As a result, we had to sleep in dark without any fans and even without any window! Even after so much, I woke up at 9:30 AM, thanks to my cell phone whose alarm was on 'Silent'.

We got ready somehow and rushed to the company where I had the first drops of water since the 'second floor' episode. Rest of the day was kind of fine. I went out for a few hours in the middle of work to the Centre Stage mall with a friend. In the evening, amazingly Snopy aka Alvy came online after a zillion centuries. She was amazed to find out that I was in Noida. We exchanged our cell numbers, and she invited me to, or rather asked me to join her on her birthday. Its quite far actually, I mean the date. Lets see, we'll talk and fix up some timing. She is quite excited to actually see me 'aamne saamne'. She'll be disappointed though, because I'm generally calm and quiet in person, almost opposite to what I am online. And besides that, these problematic facilities have made me all the more irritated and sad. Lets see whats in store.

I've to work hard this evening because I didn't work in the afternoon. I guess I'll be here till late. Lets see what happens. You take care.

Ciao. 

Past one month

I've been 'offline' on my blog since long now. Almost a complete month it has been. Most of the month has been nice, happy, exciting, some days were like in the dreamland. A few of the days have been depressing, sad, irritating too, not many though. Where should I begin from?

I kept longing to write a good entry many times in the past one month. Most of those ideas/memories/events have become blurred in my memory now.

I reached Bhopal on 14th evening by Dakshin Express after a kind of long and tiring journey. I was happy that I had got the upper berth in the train. Suddenly some middle-aged man asked me to vacate it as it was his seat. I told him that it was mine, and in confirmation told him my seat number, and correspondingly the number printed beside my berth. Ooops… amazingly the sequence was a little wrong, and my seat number was printed beside the middle berth. I, reluctantly moved down. It was only after two hours that I realized that my seat number was actually printed beside the upper berth, but was occluded from view, damn!

It was nice in Bhopal. If only I didn't have the SE assignment to submit in the evening, it would have been better. I had to rush to a cyber cafe to submit, and so, it was too late to go out anywhere, except for dinner. People (especially my Mami) were 'excited' to see me in a moustache. I didn't like it at all, I just grew it because mami asked me to. The very next morning I left for Dewas.

It was wedding time at Piyush's place. Pinky di was getting married. Almost all day I spent at his place, helping in doing some stuff, and just enjoying most of the time. There were some really nice girls too there. But I didn't know who all were his sisters and who all were friends, so …. hehe. Anyways, on 18th, I went to Indore, met Tapan and taught Tanu about some HTML and Java. She kept on sounding scared and confused till late in the night. I returned around midnight.

On 20th, Pinky di got married. To confess, am actually confused about the name of the bridegroom, Sameer, I guess. Anyways, it was fun there, got a little shouting from mom for overusing our car in the marriage. She doesn't understand much about the 'friendship' kind of relations. Her 'domain' in just 'family and family and family'. I realized that its not possible to change her outlook however much I argue, protest, give example and counter arguments.

I was reading about this too, I mean the opinion clash between the parents and children. I read that in these growing years, the child is making a new personality of his own. At that time, he/she needs a lot of freedom and privacy. Obviously his is going to be a new personality. Though the child is supposed to be 'derived' from the parents, he/she is a new individual, and the opinions, ideas, ways of doing things, the morals and ideals are bound to differ. The parent doesn't understand that their child is a 'different individual' and the child doesn't understand that the parent is 'already made' personality and it wont be possible to mould him now. I guess some flexibility from both sides is the solution. The parent should try to accomodate the 'new person' in their framework and the child should try to blend well with the 'already made' framework.

Coming back, I got an offer to do an internship in KrikalSolutions around 22 April. I hadn't planned for an internship in summers. I was 'obediently' going to persue my BTP in the summer. But then, the craze to go to a new city, to work in a new environment, to work on something other than my BTP, to get an internship listed in my resume, to live alone and independent, to see Delhi and Noida was strong enough to motivate me to want this internship. There wasn't much that I could do in order to get it. Somehow, by gods grace, my prayers, Nikhil's 'sifarish', and the goodwill of people at Kritikal, I got into this thing.

The next big target was the pending 'Vision assignment' and a 'permission from Jawahar sir' to go ahead with the internship. I still remember the confidence and certainty he told the professors in the BTP viva meeting that I'd be working on the BTP in the summer and will complete it then and there. Those words kept ringing in my head for long. It was not that I was not eager to fulfil what he had said, but it was a question of choosing one of the them, both being great opportunities. I kept mailing Jawahar sir about every progess in the internship issue. Finally, when I got the internship, Jawahar sir replied saying to go ahead with the internship if I was interested. I was more than delighted that very moment. Seriously, I have to confess, Nikhil's communication skills, at least with Jawahar sir, are zero.

Finally, with much fuss and hassle, a zillion lines of instructions from all elders, a lot of chits about places, paths, phone numbers and other minute details, I landed in Delhi. The company KritikalSolutions is a nice place to be. Just like our CVIT lab. I haven't been here since too long, but it feels great. The project I'm working on is also kind of interesting. Hopefully, I'll be able to contribute in a positive way here and also gain in some positive way from here, its a give and take thing you see.

Delhi and Noida are nice places. I was telling Nikhil and Sumeet that we'd settle in Noida after graduation. Though it has been a little hot these days, and a lot of power cuts too, a lightweight earthquake yesterday and long tiring walks to distant places, it has been fun too. The nice roads, the huge flyways, the metro, the Mc Ds, the Centre Stage Mall, Waves theatre, the gals around, wow!

The best part about the company is the great mess inside. Coke, Mirinda, Maggi, Milk, this, that, anytime! Nikhil keeps hogging something or the other all day. And well, the powercuts haven't left this place untouched either. We were enjoying in the company guest house since a few days, but today we vacated the place. Shifted to a rented room with two beds, a fan, a plug-point and a TV. My god, the other bad thing about Nikhil is TV. I mean, this guy is always pressing some button or the other on the remote. So many movies did I miss just because he couldn't bear the 2 minutes ads, grrr.

Rest is all fine. Just realized that I've to finish the Robotics term paper in two hours, which bears about 40% of weightage of the entire robotics course. God help me. Anyways, for the next two months or so, am in Delhi, enjoying and cribbing, both. I might blog once in a while.

Ciao.