Me - A Coffee Ulysses!?

COFFEE!!! The very word energizes me. Am sure there's nothing to beat a steaming hot cup of coffee, even right in the middle of a hot summer day. However, in Bombay, it's quite a task to find the best coffee in town. Coz, not surprisingly, there aren't many ;(

Let me confess that I've never been an ardent coffee fan all my life. Till the time I reached Class VI/VII, I used to dread coffee, seriously, you see! I was very fond of Nutramul and Bournvita and used to think that I would never switch to coffee anyday. I still remember the day when I was forcefully served coffee at a wedding and I had to vomit it out very soon, thanks to my anti-coffee instincts back in 1993. And from there, here I am pining for the good old filter kapi today!

On the contrary, I do not recall when I started liking coffee. Most Tamil households start their day with the quintessential coffee and The Hindu. Tea is often considered a luxury and a north-y drink! As a matter of fact, when I hear my South-y friends and cousins remark that they drink tea to stay awake late to prepare for an exam, I'm quite surprised. It's always been coffeee for
me, right from Class X.

However, my job at Adobe, Bangalore spoilt my taste for coffee with the cafetaria boasting of an overwhelming range of tea flavours including masala, ginger, ordinary, green and Darjeeling tea - quite an assortment. I started enjoying tea as well. Perhaps it was the result of the lack of good coffee around. Still, whenever we went out on weekends to Krishna Cafe/Adyar Ananda Bhavan/even Adigas next door, a final coffee after the meal was the norm. Even a movie at PVR would be incomplete without that Rs. 45 da cold coffee at the interval.

Unfortunately, the coffee at IIM-B sucks big time! It's nothing more than a super-saturated sugar solution of Bru and hot water. How disappointed was I! It takes a huge effort to go out of campus on the look out for my kapi. And now, here I am at Bombay. I know that an authentic filter coffee is too much to ask for, in a place like Bombay when chai rules. However, restaurants should have the courtesy to say that they don't serve filter coffee when I ask them if they do. In their being hyper-officious, I end up disgruntled when I realize that it's not filter kapi after all. However, I've discovered Matunga's humble restaurant Mani's serves home-made sooper filter kapi with that extra dash of sugar, just as I like it!

People like their coffee their own way. For instance, there's this cousin who wants to his coffee to be just hot, you know, just hot, not more, not less. His mom has mastered this art of makin 'just hot' coffee but most others have failed till date. An uncle of mine wants his coffee served in the davaraa only! I, for one, like my coffee, hot or cold, but surely thick and in a big ever-silver tumbler.. :D

The thought of returning to IIM B for my second year, after this internship here, is not that inviting, given that we would be compelled to hit our books and cases after a gap. However, Lo and Behold!!! There's this newly opened MTR joint in the campus and MTR serves the best filter coffee in Bangalore. So here I am, waiting to board the Bangalore Mail early June!

Summer of 2009 - is here!

Do you see the roads lined with multi-multi-storeyed apartments built by erstwhile co-operative societies?

Do you have to pay 5000-6000 bucks a month for sharing a teeny-weeny room with 3 other people?

Do you see cockroaches running on cement fake-looking non-tar roads?

Everytime you dry your clothes outside, are they covered with some pigeon shit? Actually, you might feel pigeons from all over India flew in to this place. Such is their sheer population in this city!

Are you always pleasantly surprised to find friendly taxi-drivers ready to take you very safely to your home (or rather your sleeping place) at 3.30 am at almost normal rates?

Do normal simple idlies and dosas suddenly seem to cost almost twice they cost you elsewhere in India?

And finally, has it been extremely difficult for you to get a new prepaid mobile connection while getting a postpaid connection is much simpler and hassle-free?
Of course, you must be in Bombay (or Mumbai, though I dont like that) And thats where I am till the end of May basking (euphemism for 'getting burnt') in the summer of 2009!

People at Anna Univ - CEG

When I've made a list of people from my school, I think it's fair to do the same for my Under-Graduation at CEG as well: So here it goes! Though this post may be of little interest to non-CEGians, I think it's important to record my memories of these people here. Unfortunately, I can't recall some of my lecturers' names. If any of you CEGian readers can, pl. let me know.

Semester 1:
Maths 1 - Dr.K.C.Sivakumar (now in IIT M)
English - Dr. Chellamal (she's not there in CEG now, however I dont know where she is now)
Chemistry - Dr.Karunanidhi (he was such a terror!)
Physics - Aruna Ma'am
Engg. Mechanics - Mr.Senthil Kumar (I just recalled his name!)
Computer Practice
Workshop

Semester 2:
Maths 2 - Dr. Radha (now in IIT M)
English - Dr. Chellamal again.
Programming and Data Structures (Theory and Lab) - Mrs. Vetriselvi
Discrete Mathematics - Dr. Shanmugam
Semiconductor Physics - Dr. N. Victor Jaya(I almost forgot his name)
Engineering Graphics

Semester 3:
Analysis of Algorithms - Dr. Sridhar (How can I forget him :))
Electrical Engg and Control Systems - Mr.Ramesh/Senthil Kumar(I dont remember his name)
Maths 3 - Dr. Ekambavanan (What a wonderful prof!)
DBMS - Mrs. Vijayalakshmi
System Software - Dr. Manjula
Digital Systems - Shantha ma'am

Semester 4:
Computer Architecture 1 - Dr. A.P. Shanthi
Electronic circuits - Mr. Kulothungan (:))
Computer Graphics - Shantha ma'am
Artificial Intelligence - Dr. Sridhar
OOPS - Dr. Valli
Probability and Queueing Theory - Dr. G. Sharada

Semester 5:
DSP - Dr. K.Vani
Graph Theory - Mrs. TKS LakshmiPriya
Mircroprocessors - Mr. Kulothungan
Analog Digital and Data Communication - Dr. K.Vijaya
Theory of Computation - Mr. Dhanasekaran (how we dreaded this course!)
Operating Systems - Dr. Valli

Semester 6:
Software Engineering - Dr. Arul Siromoney
Compilers - Dr. Uma Maheswari
UNIX - Mrs. Mary Anita Rajan
Engineering Economics and Financial Accounting -
Computer Networks - Dr. A.Kannan
Computer Architecture 2 - Dr. A.P.Shanthi
Networks Lab - Mr. Yogesh
Compilers Lab - Mrs. TKS Lakshmi Priya, Mr. Sridhar

Semester 7:
Principles of Management - Mrs. Thiruchelvi
Total Quality Management - Mrs. Bama
Mobile Computing - Dr. P.Narayanasamy
Principles of Programming Language - Mrs. Prema Rajeswari (she's no more now )
Network Processors - Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathy (at last I got to do one course under her!)
OOAD - Dr. T.V.Gopal (haha)
Web Technology - Mrs. Vijayalakshmi
Software Systems Development Lab - Mr.Raghuveera

Semester 8:
Sofware Testing - Mrs. Saswati Mukherjee
Network Principles, Management - Mr. Thangaraj
Project Guide - Dr. P.Narayanasamy
EVS - Mr. Bhaskar
Engineering Ethics - Mr. Raghuveera
Comprehension - Dr. Arul Siromoney, Dr. Uma Maheswari

Yamini 2009

For the past one month, the SpicMacay team at IIM B has been working hard to make Yamini 2009 a grand success. Being in the first year, this festival is my baby and I would be immensely pleased if everything went well! Right from the beginning, it has been a great struggle to organize Yamini this year. However, this is what has made the process equally interesting as well. Every company dreaded the word 'sponsorship' this year, thanks to the in-progress recession. From that kind of a start, we have truly come a long way today, with the event scheduled tomorrow evening. The festival goes on the floors tomorrow, 25th Jan, 2009 and the place to be is the beautiful OAT at IIM Bangalore. Yamini 2009 will feature the following artistes in the order given below:

Ranjani and Gayatri - Carnatic Vocal (5:30 pm)





Mysore Brothers - Violin Duet (8 pm)


Urmila Sathyanarayana - Bharatnatyam (10:30 pm)




Pt. Ronu Mazumdar - Flute recital (1 am)




If you're put up anywhere at Bangalore and have even a remote taste for classical music and dance, you'd regret missing this one. So, be there!
And the best part is,
Entry is free for all on display of passes, which can be procured from HDFC branches at Bangalore or downloaded from www.iimb-yamini.com

I pray for a huge turnout and a successful Yamini and seek everyone's blessings and wishes for the same! Let's welcome our Republic Day with soulful music!

My Voices - Mundhinam Paarthene!

This is a breezy song from Vaaranam Aayiram that all Tamils around the world must have heard of by now. This is my attempt at singing it. Click on the hyperlink below to listen to it!


Mundhinam Paarthene

Mumbai - Continues to Burn

As I type this entry, Mumbaikars are filled with trauma. This has been the nth terror strike on this city and it just doesn't seem like these attacks would stop anytime soon. Today, the fear has spread to all cities in India. Every city in the country has proven vulnerable to such attacks. I personally feel that nothing but their own realization can stop these people from these indiscriminate attacks on the lives of innocent civilians. 26th Nov. 2008 has unmistakably turned out to be another Black Wednesday for Mumbai, or should I say for humanity!.

Rainy Days

I vividly remember those days back at Vikaasa in Madurai, when I was asked to write a composition on Rainy Day. I used to be really bad at writing essays then, in Class 4 and 5. Somehow, I could not get myself to be as creative or imaginative as Mrs.Menon expected me to be. One very popular topic used to be Rainy Day. What do you do on a rainy day?...

Let me think about all those rainy days I've been through so far. At Madurai, the year we moved into our newly built house, it rained cats and dogs and the entire locality was flooded. Obviously, power cuts ruled! Nothing to do, .. it would be me, my sister and my grandpa, playing a game of cards and enjoying the deadly silence around! However, i dont think I always enjoyed the rain. Power cuts annoyed me big time and somehow, wherever I've been, the EB guys dont seem to like me. Even later in my life, when I moved to Bangalore to work, there would be floor-sensitive and house-sensitive power cuts! Really gets on my nerves at times. In this context, I'm reminded of the prose "On Running After One's Hat" which we had in Class XII. If I'm not wrong, it was an essay by G.K.Chesterton on how, looking at the positive side of things, really helps one move forward. So, rainy days could be fun as well!

After school, when it was raining and the second-trip bus hadn't come yet, we would play and get drenched in the rain at times. There used to be a two-wheeler parking lot near the entrance of the school. That is where we took shelter after the drenching ritual. The best part, however, was, when we entered the bus. All seats would be completely wet. Our school buses were dilapidated in 2001-02(literally) and as such, there were only 4 or 5 seats that were sitt-able! And as the bus eventually moved, it would become even more fun with water dripping all over.

I've already mentioned in an earlier post of mine, about the rainy times in my hostel during my first year of engineering. We used to have classes at the Ramanujan Computing Center at 8.30 am ... It was October 2002 and it had been raining non-stop for almost 2 days. We still used to go to class, all the way from hostel, knowing pretty well that class would get cancelled! All just to have fun in the rain.

After I moved to Bangalore, the rainy days in my years have increased manifold. And I simply love it! At Adobe, it used to be great fun, looking at the rain from those high-glass windows. Last winter, it rained hailstones for a short while in the afternoon! The Adobe cafetaria is where the action is, and what fun we had enjoying the rain!

And now at the IIM campus. It seems to rain even more. Last Monday, it rained almost the whole day. Luckily, the one class we had also got rescheduled. I sat to read a book, after a really long gap. After the rains, I took a long walk around the campus. It was just breath-taking. The road was filled with those december flowers ( I dint know we had those trees on campus) and it was thoroughly refreshing. It's enchanting to walk around the campus at earthly hours, sometimes I'm forced to do that at unearthly hours too. Summers had just got over at IIM B and everyone was rejoicing. But this week, we're back to our quizzes and submissions. Surprise quizzes dont surprise us anymore! We have become attuned to the worst things that can happen in our academic lives here. Or are we yet?.. I really think there's more in the offing!

Would I be able to write a better Rainy Day composition now? Guess I should write one and send it to Mrs.Menon!