Forgive and forget?

So a couple of days back I overheard a conversation between two men about the Godhra riots. One of them said that the victims of the riots should forget what happened and move on now. No point in whining about it. As it is their departed loved ones are not going to come back. Anyway its going to take ages with all the court cases. They should rather celebrate the fact that Gujarat has seen such astonishing development economy and infrastructure wise. The CM has done so much for the state and blah blah blah. (I stopped listening after "state")

Apparently, its not just some middle-aged men, but many of whom I know (mostly students of my age) have the same opinion. I usually avoid arguing with them. There's no particular reason but just that I'm too lazy to prove them wrong by coming up with a spontaneous witty comeback. But not enough lazy to write a blog post.

Whoever thinks the victims of the Godhra riots should forget about the justice seeking affair(Justice? LOL) and join the "All hail the holy Gujjuland development" bandwagon, I just have one thing to say. Let me snatch away your blackberrys and iphones, smash them into pieces in front of your eyes. Buy you a dinner and ask you to forget about it since the damage is irreparable anyway. Let me see if you'd love to forgive me and forget about your phone.

Sketch: Led Zeppelin

Sketch: The Beatles!

I wanted to add a description to the picture but then I thought, the picture doesn't need any. :)

You and I

You: So, what's happening in...
I: Life? Well, its treating me well these days. What about you?
You: Everything's okay. But I'm still confused about.....
I: Career? Relationships? Life, in general?
You: That. And a lot more.
I: I'm hungry.
You: What do you want to eat?
I: Garlic bread. Remember our first date?
You: uumm, yea.
I: We went to that Pizza place. I ordered....
You: I remember, you ordered one portion of Garlic bread.
I: I want to tell you sooo much stuff.
You: Yes please.
I: That day in college......
You: About placement? I read your post.
I: You still.....
You: Read your blogs? Yes I do.
I: Do you want to go out for a walk?
You: Sure. I'd love to.
I: But you never liked walking.
You: I do now. I now totally understand why you love walks.
You: Whatever happened between the two of us has definitely...
I: Changed us? For the better I suppose.
I: Its okay, you know. Relationships don't always have to.....
You: Work out? Yes. No regretting the time we spent...
I: The memories we shared. I'll always....
You: Cherish the good times? Yes, me too.
You: I'm really sorry for everything. I was confused then. Didn't know how to.....
I: Deal with it? Its okay. I had problems too.
I: We should meet more often and....
You: And?
I: Just talk.

CATing the Bell

Because I blogged about the placement day too.

Being drastically under-prepared, 29th october seemed like a fairly normal day. Dad kept asking me to prepare as hard as I can for CAT. I said I was having problems certain kind of questions in quant section. On insisting, I showed some to dad for he was always an ace at math. He came, he saw, he tried and then said "theek hai, jitna hota hai utna solve karke aana."

I thought I was possibly the most unprepared CAT aspirant, until Nitin called. We both agreed on "strong beer peekar sabhi sections strong ho jaate hai." The test center was located at possibly the most interior corner of Ahmedabad. Suddenly, I felt good about the location of my college. A minute or two past the reporting time, we were split according to our respective exam center codes. What happened next was a series of secutrity checks, just one less than me saying "aunty, please stop groping me". We were then escorted to our respective computers by a bunch of not-so-pretty looking invigilators. I understand the prometric ID card, but what was up with the horrendous waist coat like jackets? Most of them spoke english in a made up accent. I looked at the system clock there was another one hour to kill before we could start the test. And azeetees, we were having difficulties logging into the system. The invigilator (ohbtw, there were around 10 of them in our room) tried multiple times but wouldn't happen. I looked to my left and saw a guy who was kind of staring at my computer screen. On striking up a conversation, I came to know that the guy was also an engineering student who got placed in the same company as I was. Normally, you'd go 'OMGWTF' at the chances of something like this happening. But then, 80% of the CAT aspirants are either engineers or engineering students and TCS recruits fuck loads of people. (if you're a true CAT aspirant, you'd be thinking about the actualy the probability of the event right now) But still, for a moment I OMG'd. To kill time, we talked and talked and talked a little more. Till one of the invigilator politely asked us to keep quiet. I'm pretty sure in her mind she'd be going "Shut the fuck up, bitches!". I observed some students in the room and wondered if they were as unprepared as me. I saw a guy who was constantly yawning. Didn't care to think why. A girl who was sleeping on the keyboard. After which I thought I should stop. Panic set in when I realised my phone is with dad. I almost imagined him going through my inbox which to be honest made me slightly uncomfortable. But then he's Dad! He wouldn't even care. Test started. We were first shown a 15 min test tutorial. A somewhat intense moment for me and as always a foolish song got stuck in my head. This time it was 'ooh la la ooh la la' from The Dirty Picture and just when I was about to click "start test" I went in my mind "Dude, vidya balan is actually busty!". test started. test ended before I could know it. All in all, I was pretty happy with the performance I'd put up. (no pun)
I waved Avanit a goodbye and saw my Dad waiting for me. Normal exchange of words happened. While returning back home, I kept thinking about the replies I was going to give to my relatives who'd ask "Beta, CAT kaisa raha?"
I haz a sad because a cat picture on a CAT blogpost is so fucking obvious.

Faking News: Questions on Ra.One included in CAT-2011

Since everyone on the internet has their own views on the movie and a blogpost dedicated exclusively to the expressions(or the lack of it) of Arjun Rampal, I thought the obligatory Ra.One blogpost is obligatory.Also, I've been wanting to do a FakingNews for quite some time now. So why not!

Ministry Of Human resources and Development has confirmed that Shah Rukh Khan has convinced them to include the questions based on Ra.One as a part of their marketing strategy.

On contacting Shah Rukh Khan, he stated that his strategy behing getting questions on Ra.One was to market the movie to the IIT/NIT nerds preparing for CAT relentlessly for months. "Hey R.S. Agarwal, Who's your daddy now?", a proud dimple faced Shah rukh khan.

"Kya aap paanchvi pass se tez hain? Oops, wrong question."



Stutdents leaving the exam hall looked not only surprised but also half-amused. "Instead of Reading Comprehension, we had a video of Ra.One trailer, I played the video thrice to see if Arindam Chaudhari videobombed"- a -taking-CAT-only-for-the-heck-of-it-student.

Some disappointed students' reaction was not so welcoming "Firstly, I happen to be a Salman Khan fan. Watching Shah Rukh Khan humping cars was disturbing. They left us completely baffled at questions on Akon. I mean, asking us the lyrics of the song Chammak Challo was a little too much. Seriously! And they seriously lost me when a question in the quantitative section included LIC G.One suraksha plan. "- NIT student, Jigar Sharma.

One of the questions asked in the exam was "Calculate the average number of Reality Shows per day in which Shah Rukh Khan has made an appearance. On considering the advertisements too, what is the percentage change?"

Overall, it was noticed that most of the students made their way to the nearest tea stall and were heard yelling expletives at the paper setter which was not so different from any other year. The rest of them took to facebook and twitter to post "FFUUUUU SRK!!!!111111"

Seven-Ten-Eleven

The other day when I was just about to hit the bed, I stopped to look at the balcony of my house brightly lit in soothing moonlight. It was 1.45 am. I stood in there for a while, recalling the events of 7th october, 2011.
Not sure about myself, but hundreds of students at my college were kind of waiting for that day to come. TCS campus placement day. While everyone else was busy preparing the aptitude test questions and polishing their technical concepts the day before, I made sure my resume and application form were printed and hair don't look the usual frizzy they do. 'Must start with something, dude', I thought. Went through the basics, check. Solve the sample papers, check. Tweet while doing above things, double check.

Nevertheless, I and Vaibhavi were one of the first people to reach the college that day. It didn't look that bad at 8.30 am I must say. Apart from clearing the tests and all, I was also concerned about managing my dupatta since it kept sliding off my shoulders. Irritating. About three hours later, after getting done with the aptitude test, I felt kinda low. Didn't attempt as many questions as I hoped to. Didn't know how many of them were correct. A tiny voice inside me said, well most of them should be correct anyway. But still. Same with Ishani. Results came in quick. Just when they were about to announce the results, I wanted to crawl up a dark hole and stay there for the rest of the day. But just 10 seconds later, I heard my name being called. And I went from "Fuck, I'm screwed" to "woah! really?!". Just then, Ishani's name got called to. I could see similar expressions on her face too. Just when they finished with annuoncing the names of those who qualified, I was told that I would be the first person to go for the next set of interviews. Need to prep up, I said. As I walked towards the lab, I tried to recall stuff about Java, Data Structures and Software Engineering. What is hash table? How is polymorphism implemented? Software testing metrics. DAMN! I couldn't remember any of those then. Must. Calm. Down. It always happens with that whenever I'm in an extremely intense situation, a very stupid song gets stuck in my head. This time it was 'No touching no touching, only seeing only seeing' from Damadam. Damn you Himesh! Contrary to what I had expected, the first interview went pretty well. Had to now wait for the second one. A rather long wait it turned out to be, but no complains. Meanwhile, we talked. And talked. And talked a little more. About interviews. HR stuff. and hundred other things. All I wanted to do was tweet all of it. But phone internet turned out to be a jerk. At around 5 pm in the evening, they called me in for the HR round. While I was waiting outside the lab, the teacher who was co-ordinating all of it said "next aapka turn hai". I was calm, but more like sleepy and a little exhausted. The interview was hardly anything I expected it to be. I blame my memory for not remembering the full name of college. Although, I was glad it ended. But post interview, I felt my chances of getting selected dropping to almost zero. We all were then asked to wait in one of the labs. Again, everyone else was chatting. taking pictures which were soon to become their facebook DPs. I went for a little walk. Sunset time yay! The college garden was peaceful. Till I saw Vaibhavi, Aashka and Parul. They narrated about their HR round. About half an hour later, they said that they were ready to announce the results. I stood next to Ishani and said "Dude, mera nai hoga yaar". She said the same. They started calling out names of the students who made it. Just when I lost all hopes (yet again) I heard my name being called. The OMGWTF! expression was soon replaced by a smile. And then again, Ishani's name was called out too. Yet again, same reaction. She kept on confirming with me whether they really said her name or not. As they were leaving the lab post announcement, I saw everyone breaking into hugs, some into tears and most into joy. As I and Ishani walked out towards the entrance, we kept hugging each other and recalling how hopeless we were then. I was happy since most of my friends got in too. Hug exchange kept happening (nothing controversial). I saw my mum and dad who were waiting for me and remembered how disastrous the beginning of the semester had been. But then I looked at them smiling at me and thought, life is good. :)

Cheers to my fellow classmates namely Ishani, Vaibhavi, Priti, Meera, Priyanka, Mittal, Parul, Bhoomi, Sanah, Mansi, Jinal, Utsav, Parth, Kushal and Jatin for making it as well. Good job.