There’s a major problem with the way Engineering is taught in this country. And the problem is that, at the end of the 4 years, they expect you to create some Software Project to prove that you learnt something and didn’t waste your time. And this was a big problem for me. Luckily, there’s one loophole that I can exploit: The Project can be done by a “team” of 2 people. So, all I had to do was to find a victim teammate who could do the project and from whom I could steal credit.

Enter Dyothi. Dyohti is very smart, very good with computers, but most importantly, has a good image of me. So, just as the project is around the corner, I try to make my move on her. This is surprisingly easy, and she immediately agrees to be my Project Partner. And soon enough, we have our first discussion around what project we should be doing.

Dyothi: “I think we should do a server-side project”
Me: “Sure, sure. Why not, why not!”
Dyothi: “How about writing an IMAP server?”
Me: “Sure, sure. Why not, why not!”
Dyothi: “Yeah, and then we can use a commercial client like Outlook to talk to it. That should impress the examiners.”
Me: “Sure, sure. Why not, why not!”

And soon, we’ve agreed on our project topic. We’ve also agreed on our work distribution. Dyothi has gotten to write the IMAP server, and I’ve gotten the job of not interfering with her work. We start with our respective tasks, and soon we discover a very good synergy. Less than half-way through the semester, Dyothi has almost finished creating the project, and I’ve finished almost 12 levels in the Need For Speed Video Game.

The rest of the semester also goes by very quickly, and soon it’s time for the dreaded project demo. It’s the morning of the exam, and we’re about to enter the Lab.

Me: “So, our project is titled ‘A IMAP 4.0 Complaint Server”?
Dyothi: “OUR project?”
Me: “Yeah, it says so right here on the project report. “By Aditya Kulkarni and Dyothi”"

Unfortunately for Dyothi, author’s names had to be listed out alphabetically, and that meant her name came second. I couldn’t stop laughing at this ironic twist of fate.

So we get into the exam lab. It has been my plan to let Dyothi handle the whole thing, because frankly, I have only a very vague idea of what this project is supposed to do. But the Examiner has probably sensed that I’ve not done any work on the project, so he explicitly asks me to demo the program.

And so, we begin. This is going to be risky.

Me: “…and when I click this button, a new email window will open”

I click the button. Nothing Happens.

I glace over at Dyothi, and she’s furiously shaking her head. I’m probably doing it wrong.
Me: “…a new email window will open if we’re not running the server, but we are, so nothing will happen. This is expected behavior!”

The examiner looks at me weirdly.
Me: “…And moving right along. So if we click ’send email’ now, it will send an email to your account! Fantastic, isn’t it? I love this whole email thing. Once, I sent a email to my Dog, and…’

I suddenly realize that we’re in the middle of the exam, and it would be very inappropriate to tell a joke at this point. Dyothi has a shocked look on her face. She’s pretty sure we’ve already flunked.

The examiner takes over the Computer, and asks where the email is.
Me: “Email? What email?”
Examiner: “But didn’t you just send it?”
Me: “Ah, yes. That email. I’m sure it’s on it’s way. Just give it a few more seconds…”

We’re all sitting there silently. I figure it is appropriate to make conversation at this point.

Me: “The internet is a little slow today. Must be from all the rain yesterday…”
Dyothi looks like she’s going to faint, and I realize that my last statement didn’t make any sense. Fortunately for me, that happens a lot, so I’m used to it.

But the email has arrived on the Computer and the Examiner gets distracted. He looks at it, and seems satisfied. He marks something in his notebook, and sends us off.

The next few weeks until the results are declared must have been like hell for Dyothi. She was probably in the constant fear that I had managed to flunk us, and she had wrecked her career by choosing me as a project partner.

But fortunately for us, we passed and everything was OK again. Dyothi graduated and has been involved in several startups, and now works at reviewgist.com.

• 12 Comments

Hi Everyone,

A few people pinged me and let me know that PointlessWanderings has again been blocked in their offices. Now, I’m assuming that your company has done this to stop you from wasting time on this blog, which is a great compliment. But anyway, even if the site is blocked, you still have 2 other options to get PointlessWanderings

1) Subscribe to the feed.
The feed for this blog is here. You can subscribe to this and get past all the blockages. To subscribe to this feed, go to http://www.google.com/reader , sign in with your Gmail ID (or Google ID), and then click ‘Add Subscription’ and then add this address (http://blog.pointlesswanderings.com). That’s it. You’re set. You can read Pointless Wanderings by signing into Google Reader.

2) The second option is to subscribe to the blog via email.
Just enter your email address in the sidebar, and you’ll receive the day’s blog post bright and early in the morning, right in your inbox! Isn’t that Cool? And oh, no spam, I promise!

• 2 Comments

Driving in India is so much different than driving in the US. I’ve written about the various traffic similarities earlier, but today I wanted to focus on the differences.

1) If you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere.
Driving in India is like playing a video game - You have to dodge other cars, autoricshaws, stray dogs, buffaloes and aliens to go to the next level - the next signal. The challenges get harder at every new level. You also get a few weapons to help you play the video-game: The right to use profanities and various gestures with the hand that can be used against different villains. If you brush your car against another, then you have to get out of the car and the game turns into Street Fighter! If you’re really good, you can practice some Mortal Kombat style fatalities and provide entertainment to the other players in the video game.

The Corollary is also partially true - If you can drive only in the US, then you can’t drive anywhere else. You’ll be so used to rules and lanes and driving mundanely that the excitement of playing this real life, multiplayer video game called ‘Exxxtreme Driving Bangalore!” will probably cause you a heart attack.

2) You don’t have to worry about pedestrians in India.
I’ve always believed that Pedestrians are a necessary evil of society. Sort of like the Calorie and Fat information on chocolates. They are completely ignored all the time, but for some reason, need to exist on every Chocolate bar. So, imagine my shock when I found out that Pedestrians have the right-of-way in the US! I mean come on! That’s just stupid on so many levels. Firstly, Footpaths are for Pedestrians, and they should not be allowed on the roads, even Zebra Crossings. After all, the don’t let cars drive on the footpath, do they? And secondly, Pedestrians are the evil mutants from another planet who are spying on us earthlings. Have you noticed how these spying pedestrians constantly look at you when you’re driving towards them. Their stare gets even more glaring when you increase how fast you are going towards them.

That’s the reason I like driving in India is because the pedestrians have the last-right-of-way. The official order is: (by importance)
1) Autos
2) Killer Trucks & Buses
3) Cars
4) Cows
5) Stray Dogs
6) Mice
7) Dirt, Dust and Garbage
Pedestrians.

3) Driving in India is a very spiritual experience
Driving in India will really restore your faith in God. You’ll constantly be praying and hoping that you’ve not used up your quota of Luck when you cheated in your exam and didn’t get caught. I’ve been in this worrisome situation many times, and I’ve always wondered which God to pray to. We have millions and millions of them in our tradition, and there is no clear distinction as to whose domain ‘Traffic Problems‘ falls into.

Which brings me nicely to the need to create a new God for Traffic. I propose that we derive inspiration from Spider-Man, who, if you’ve noticed, despite living in a crowded city, never seems to have any traffic problems. Our “Traffic Hero”’s name will be ‘Udta Hua Macchar‘. He’ll be like Spider-Man, but instead of being bitten my a spider, our Hero will have been bitten by a giant Mosquito, and will have acquired all the super powers of a Mosquito - Namely to appear out of nowhere and be present everywhere.

If you’re stuck in Traffic, all you have to do is pray to our “Traffic Hero” (The prayer, incidentally, goes like this - Goooooiiiiiiiiii, Gooooiiiiiiiiii - That’s “Help Me!, Help Me!” in Mosquitoeese) and he will swoop in from the sky on to your car/bike and carry you safely with the help of his powerful wings to your destination. And in return for this help, you have to let him drink your blood, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid traffic.

• 11 Comments

1) I’ve once managed to set my computer on fire. Like literally. With smoke and all.

2) I can’t listen to music. If I have music on for more than 15 minutes, the voices in my head start singing along (with a really bad voice too), and that gives me a terrible headache. I wear noise-canceling headphones at work, but have nothing playing to keep the noise out.

3) A stray dog once bit me and THE DOG died the next day of rabies. Nothing happened to me.

4) I can’t swim. I took swimming lessons, but I still can’t swim.

5) I’m very bad with spellings. I couldn’t survive without a spell checker. A 4th Standard kid could probably beat me at a spelling test.

6) I once managed to convince a friend to lend me money to buy HIS birthday gift which I BORROWED from him the same day. I’ve not returned the gift back to him. And neither the money. Yet.

7) I’m very scared of Cows and Buffaloes.

I used to be a member of Mensa (The club for so-called “High IQ” people). They kicked me out because I refused to pay the Rs 25 annual membership fee.

9) My greatest ambition is to write a Bollywood Movie someday.

10) And YES, it’s true - I once wrote a program that automatically generated poems. I was trying to impress the GF with my “artistic” skills at that point.

• 15 Comments

I maintain a secret hit list of people that I hate. My plan is to trick them into inhaling laughing gas and then telling them really really bad jokes. Their mind will explode thinking about why they can’t stop laughing at absolutely stupid jokes. Oh, the ideal form of torture!

Anyway, I recently updated my list with these 3 really really annoying people.:

1) Weird-Caller-Tune-Dude
Caller tunes for cell phones are the worst thing ever. They are used, abused and overused so badly that someone needs to start an anti-caller-tune movement. Case in point:

I have this friend, lets call him Dachin. So I’m trying to call Dachin this other day. I dial his number.

*Ring* *Ring*
Me: “Hello?”
Phone: “Hello? Hello?”
Me: “Hey mate, it’s me. Are you game for Tennis on Saturday?”
Phone: “Hello? Are baba… Hello!!! Hello? Hello?”
Me: “Hello? Can you hear me?”
Phone: “Kuch bolte kyo nahin? Hello? Hello?”
Me: “Hello!?? Hello?”
Phone: “Hello? Hello? Kuch sunaiyee nahin de raha”
Me: “Hello!?? GOD DAMN IT! I CAN HEAR YOU!!! Hello?”

At this point, there is a click and Dachin answers his phone, and I realize that I’ve been talking to Dachin’s Caller Tune! Over the next several days, despite knowing about his stupid caller tune, I end up chatting with it several times.

2) Auto with Audi symbol at the back
Autorickshaws have attitude. They probably have a secret club where they meet every Wednesday nights to discuss strategies on how to annoy regular people on roads. The other day, I saw an Autorickshaw with the 4-circle ‘Audi’ symbol at the back. I was like ‘Puh-leasee’. And even worse, it had a snazzy sticker with ‘2500 cc turbo charged inter cooled engine‘ written on it.

2500 cc?!? I don’t think the entire autorichshaw has that much volume, let alone the engine. And they move at a top speed of 12.5 kmph. And, to complete the ‘race-car’ look, this auto had an array of stickers on the side ranging from ‘GReddy’ to ‘NOx’ and ‘Ferrari’. The Auto couldn’t beat a Ferrari even if the Ferrari was going in reverse, but that doesn’t stop the autos from proudly proclaiming their brotherhood with Ferrari.

3) Socrates the philosopher
Socrates is on this list because he’s committed an offense so hedious that the rest of humanity has been suffering ever since. His crime is almost unspeakable - HE MADE PEOPLE THINK! I mean, come on. What did we do to him that he ruined our life so much ?!?

Just think about what all we could do if we didn’t have to think - Want to drive around all day in your big car? Oh, we can’t do that now, because we have to think about the environment. Steal ice cream from a small kid? We can’t do that either, because we have to think about what is right and wrong (It’d be so easy - Small kids are so helpless and can only cry.) Bunk college and play video games all day? I’m sorry, you can’t do that because YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE!

Pah! I’m so fed up of thinking. I’m going to make it illegal to think in Adityaism. That’ll be so cool, no? Think of the possibilities!

Anyway, that’s my hitlist. Do you people also have hitlists? Am I on it?

• 8 Comments

Back in School, our teachers had this weird mission of “All Round Development” of the students. They used to abuse and torture kids to various “activities” under this pretext. Did you guys have the S.U.P.W subject? - Socially Useful Productive Work, officially, but we used to call it “Some Useful Period Wasted“. This was the class where they made us paint pots and carve birds out of bars of soap.

Anyway, so this one year, our teachers decided that we should put on a “Talent Show” for the Annual School Day. It was going to be a platform for all students to showcase their “special talents“. When I first heard this thing, I had a big knot in my stomach. Talent? What Talent? I had absolutely no Talents. I went to the teacher to discuss this dilemma.

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t want to take part in this Talent Show“
Teacher: “But dear, you must put on a show. Show your special talents!“
Me: “I don’t have any special talents!“
Teacher: “Don’t be silly. Everyone has special talents. Do you sing?“
Me: “No“
Teacher: “Do mimicry?“
Me: “No“
Teacher: “Do you collect stamps? Coins?“
Me: “I have lots of Comic Books. Tintin, Spiderman, Batman…“
Teacher: “How about drawing? Can you draw?“
Me: “Only Green-eyed-Aliens“
Teacher: “Public Speaking?“
Me: “I can tell jokes about frogs and chicken.“
Teacher: “Hmmm……We might have a problem“

The Teachers got together to discuss the situation, and I was “volunteered” to be a part of a group dance. Being hidden behind a crowd of other dancers, they reasoned, would limit the amount of damage I would do to the school and its reputation. Ha!

And so, we began “dance practice” in earnest. It turned out to be a folk song, whose lyrics were in a language that I’m sure no one understood, and the dance steps were a cross between Michael Jackson’s moves and some sub-saharan tribal rain-dance. It involved wildly swinging your arms while simultaneously twirling your head and body until you were dizzy.

After a few weeks of this uncoordinated clumsiness, the teachers were satisfied that we were ready for the big day.

We were backstage on the big day, and we were all ready to get into our “traditional costumes“. That meant dressing up like a clown and wearing this massive turban on your head. Now we were in 5th or 6th Standard, and the dude who was dressing us up put full sized turbans on our heads. My turban covered my head, my forehead and 66% of my eyes as well. I could see only the lower third of everything. The teachers ignored all my protests and shoved us all off onto stage.

The stage was brightly lit up and there were thousands of people in the audience - All parents and relatives and friends turned up to watch their young children “show their cultural achievements“. I regret not knowing any of the choice explicitives that a college education teaches you. I had real use for them that day. Anyway, the music started up and everyone started moving their hands and legs. The heavy weight of the large turban was too much to bear for most of us, and we were wildly off-balance, behaving like drunks, constantly bumping and bouncing off each other. Now, I was standing way back in the third row just doing my thing when the dude in front of me lost balance and stepped back one step.

At that exact same time, I did a “twirling move” with my arms out stretched.

*THWACK*

My hand had accidentally slapped the dude in front of me, who, already off balance, now completely lost it and fell onto the guy in the first row. Turban first. The enormous turban generated enough momentum to completely knock him off and he hit the ground. Turban first. The other two guys in the front row also tripped on the fallen kid’s turban and hit the deck. Turban first.

The audience gasped at the pile of kids on stage. Someone stopped the music, and a bunch of teachers rushed in to rescue this disaster and drag us all out backstage. I think a few of the kids also needed some first aid.

All said and done, I think the moral of this story should have been: “Shouldn’t have taken me in the talent show! I Told You So!”. I think the teachers got it though. I was never asked to a Talent Show again.

• 12 Comments

Chitradeep Chetty has lived a very colorful life, and we can all benefit significantly by studying his style. I have been doing it myself for the last few years. One of the many things Chitradeep excels at is knowing exactly what women want. And so, Chitradeep returns today to share his enormous wisdom with us:

——————————–

Knowing what women want is a very tricky thing, but there are some secrets to it that are gauranteed to make you score with the women! Today, I will teach you the 3 most important tricks that you can use to impress them.

1) Make them ask you questions.

This is probably the most important, since it opens communication with them and gets them interested in you. The Trick is to get them to ask question, but you have to guide the conversation.

Example:

Chitradeep: “What deo do you use?”
Girl: “EXCUSE ME?” (First question)
Chitradeep: “I use Narsingh Deo!”
Girl: “What?” (Second question. We’re making good progress!)
Chitradeep: “Haha…That’s the author of our ‘Graph Theory’ textbook. Haha… Did you get it? Hahaha…”
Girl: “Are you always this weird or only around pretty girls?” (Third Question in a row! SCORE!!!)

2) Showcase all your knowledge and achievements.

This is the trick to making yourself appear cool. The more you know, the more smarter you are, obviously. Show them how much you know about everything and impress them thoroughly. Never miss an opportunity to display your enormous textbook-knowledge.

Example:

Chitradeep: “Do you want to go and get some Coffee?”
Girl: “Sure!”
(Start walking towards the Coffee Shop. Here’s an oppurtunity to make conversation…)
Chitradeep: “So, did you know that a cup of Coffee has 350 calories? That’s the same as 100g of PURE FAT!”
Girl: “Eewww…..”
Chitradeep: “Yeah! But accumulating fat is good! It comes in handy if you are starving to death.”
Girl: “Why would I be starving to death?”
Chitradeep: “Well, after the Nuclear war, only Cockroaches will survive. But eating mutated killer monster cockroaches might be difficult. That’s when I’m going to use all MY FAT!“
Girl: “Oh! I just remembered something. I have to pick up my cat from the airport. Gotta go! Tata!”
Chitradeep: “Sure! We’ll have coffee some other time!”

I showed off how much I knew about Coffee and Cockroaches, and didn’t even have to spend money on Coffee! SCORE!!!!

3) Treat women with respect and dignity

The 21st century women doesn’t need to be patronized. It is important that you treat them with respect and love and dignity. Show them that you believe in equal opportunity for women.

Example:

Take her out to a nice Dinner, and when the bill arrives:

Chitradeep: “I insist you pay half the amount. I believe in equality for everyone!”
Girl: “Hmmmm…..Well, OK”
Chitradeep: “Yeah. Besides, you ate more than me. It’s only fair. I completely believe in fairness!”
The Girl has a surprised look on her face at this point, but that is normal. She’s surprised by what a nice guy you are.
Chitradeep: “Also, Can you take an auto back home? I’d drop you, but my house is in the other direction, and I don’t want to waste petrol and damage the environment”
Girl: “Bye bye!”
Chitradeep: “I’ll call you!”

SCORE!!!

• 8 Comments