Koing out with friends

It was long since I went for a movie. Maybe I think one or two months. The exams were also over and we decided to go for the much awaited Ko, that had one of our own Assistant Professors from our college writing two songs for the movie. The initial plan was for Thursday but due to some technical difficulties the plan was shifted to Friday. I had asked a few of my friends, Sudarsanan, AV, and Raj, and booked the tickets the previous night. When i opened Satyam’s official website for booking, it had three options like Elite, Premium and Economy. It was sad that I had only economy class was left. How ever it was not one the “economical” classes literally. The prices were Elite-120, Premium-115 and Economy-110 and booking charge Rs.10. So we had booked the 5th or 6th row from the screen, but at the rate of the last seat in a balcony. And i was thinking what could I do with that economically saved 10 rupees of the four of us, and found that the smallest popcorn pack cost Rs.50. These are already-known facts, nothing much to stress on it. Coming to the film, Ko was not one of those normal tamil films, it had everything from comedy to political issues to social messages to some good photography, but for the fact that it had a few unnecessary songs. Many, not all tamil films would be so good without a few songs. The show started at 3:00 PM and ended at 6:10 PM.

This was the time the adventure began, my friend AV had already booked tickets for “Limitless”, an English film at the PVR cinemas. Since he did not know the exact route, I had to take him there before the movie’s time 7:30 PM. We started running out of the theatre as soon as the film got over. As usual Sudarsanan and so raj were walking slowly behind. Saying a bye to them, we started moving faster outside the theatre, AV was asking me directions and I was just pointing to a side and he ran there within a few seconds and I had a hard time following him until we reached the thousand lights bus stand in almost less than 3 minutes, alongside the tempting Hotel Saravana Bhavan. We had two choices of buses, on bus stand was at where we were standing and the other was some 100 metres away after walking some distance straight, and then taking a left and walking more 50 metres. There was a bus heading towards us. Expecting it to stop, me and Av were eagerly waiting for it, until the bus cheated us and kept on moving forward, Oh! Darn, the next stop after a hundred metres was its actual bus stop. As I was before Av I started running towards the bus thinking that he was following me, but I was wrong, he had already overtook me when I was thinking this. I tried very hard to catch up with him I could not. The I started jogging, waving hands to my friend saying Bye man you leave,  but it was my luck that the bus was standing and people still boarding until I jogged till the bus, and finally got some space to stand in the footboard and for some fresh air atleast. Then we took tickets to Valluvar Kottam, but the bus did not have a stop there. So, we were waiting in the footboard and thank god the bus stopped in the signal at Valluvar Kottam. Getting down in the signal and running across the roads when there was just 7 seconds left for the green signal, and finally we reached the bus stand, where we got a sight of few share autos that reach my home via Skywalk, so that it would benefit both of us. We got into the share auto completely sweating,exhausted,wanting for some liquids, and in not more than half an hour we reached Ampa Skywalk. Me too decided to get in as there was almost 40 minutes for his show to start. Then we went to McDonalds and had some coke to compensate the running race we had in Mount road. But AV’s run was awesome covering almost some 50 metres in 2-3 seconds and the whole road watching him. Then, we had dinner, and I left home and AV went to the movie with Sriraam and Sunil.

Advice to AV’s friends: Next time when you go out with him and when you’re late for a movie, you might need a bike to cope up with him.

Last Exams of College Life

It was the day before the first exam of the last semester of my college life at the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University. A widely popular subject in the recent times it was, most of my friends who were pursuing to do Masters had this as their area of interest ticked in their Masters applications, none other than the Artificial Intelligence, popularly known as AI among us. Whatever be the case, for a semester examination I used to start studying, at least one day before the examination. But what am I doing now. These were the thoughts running in my mind when I was just sitting with the AI half-taken notes in hand that hardly went more than fifteen pages, on the evening of 14th April 2011, watching Aayirathil Oruvan through the half-open door of my bedroom. I had the notes of Vijay R Kumar, popularly known as the ‘notes-taker’ of our renowned CSE H Batch, but only for the first unit. However I successfully managed to complete it in atmost an hour. How did I forget or rather Where was I when my friends were taking photocopies of his notes of the remaining lessons. It was a sin, not taking the copies and I had to suffer the consequences. As I opened the text book to go through the second unit, it was just I realised, the first 80 pages of the chapter containing the contents of the second unit in syllabus were misplaced by some other junk pages. It was a hell-of-a-day as I went online I found a few powerpoint presentations of various chapters covered under this book in my mailbox sent by Sriraam A S, but in vain. There were missing ppts for a few chapters, one of them exactly being the missing pages in my textbook. All were going against me as I decided to call Someshwaran E(Enga College Guru). He told he was almost finished with the syllabus and I asked him to come to college as early as possible the next day. Sudarsanan K and me reached the college at 8:30 AM for the 2:00 PM examination and we were eagerly waiting for Somesh to come and save our ass. Looking into the roads finally we found a very lean and quite tall figure walking towards us, cheeeze it Somesh. He was well prepared with all the units and summarized each and every part of every unit at a pace that we were comfortable in learning with and we almost finished the entire AI by 1:00 PM. From then, we had already decided that for all exams, Somesh is the key. From then we had principles of programming languages and User Interface Design, both taught to us by Somesh. The only sad part was Some was not in our elective called Soft Computing and there was noone to teach the full thing although it was very small. However we managed to complete that exam too. Starting from 6th semester I guess, from the assessments to semesters, almost 50 percent of what I learn is from Somesh, and this time it was almost like he taught the full things. He was also the one used to submit assignment/projects first before anyone and was being used like a test set in those case. (For instance, submitting your thesis even before anyone finished it fully and getting mokka that the color of the cover should not be white and it must be pink, rebinding and resubmitting it thereby making it easier for others). And also not to forget Vijay R Kumar for his notes. The first time was in the 3rd semester algorithms when I failed badly in the first internals did I start taking copies of his notes and from then found no other text book as simple as that and continued to use it for all subjects and managing to get good grades. A part of my B.E. degree belongs to you guys Somesh and Vijay R. No, not only me, but almost half of our class depended on you for their exams. Good luck guys for your forthcoming days. (PS: And Somesh try being lesser pandu in office atleast)

Banking State – How to create an account at the State Bank of India

I had got this news that we needed an sbi account for the refund of the caution deposit in our college. I have been trying to create one for almost the past two months finding no time in college. And, finally decided to visit a branch near my home, as it would be easy even after the college gets over.

State Bank of India (Mogappair Branch) – Day 1

I had got this “Account Opening Form” already from an sbi in my college and filled it up, also having the so-called proof documents for opening an account, I entered inside the bank. People people everywhere. Even in the temples where we get sakkara pongal for free, we can find lesser people. I went in and asked a guy Where should I submit the documents for creating a new account? He pointed to a small cabin where I could see a 40-50 year old nerdy guy. That guy sent me back home saying, the timings are over. I went in by 12 o clock, and I was like What the f**k? What are the timings? He told the timings for opening an account is separate and is from 9 to 11 only(Damn sure, its only for this branch). Ok, it was not my day. I came back home and carried on with my routine work.

State Bank of India (Mogappair Branch) – Day 2

I made up my mind, Whatever happens I’m opening my account today. I reached the bank after  a five minute walk and entered the cabin of the nerdy guy(it was 10’o clock by then). He was like, Why are you so late? I told you the timings are 9 to 11. I told Yeah, thats what I’ve come at 10. He argued more like it was the sin of my lifetime to have come at 10’o clock and he stressed that I could’ve come at 9’o clock. I was standing like a criminal accused of doing some illegal act for the next five minutes beside him. And after working on the request of the other customers, he finally took the form from my hand and started checking the proofs. After checking the proof acting highly indifferent, he gave it back with a verified signature and forwarded me to a peon for punching a seal. The peon was like Naanga illana indha bank ellam iyanguma. He made me wait for some 10 to 15 mins, digging into all of his pockets getting some 20 bucks, asking his ’assistant’ to get tea or coffee for him, and when I interfered he told Enna avasaram konjam porumaya irunga, then his so-called assistant came back empty handed and he got back the twenty and kept it in his secret pocket in his pant digging it even more deeper, and then came into the mood of taking the seal and punching it on my  account opening form. Now I had to get all the particulars verified by another lady, which took some 10 more minutes. The one thing she did was like she wrote 1000 rupees in a column where the amount i was to pay initially must be filled, without even asking me. I had only 500 :( And before visiting the next person for the formalities I had to go outside and take another 500 from my Canara Bank account using the sbi atm :P , Finally I had to goto a single window operator counter who entered all my details into her computer peeking into the monitor. Then she sent me to the first nerdy guy telling me to show the form to him. He saw my form looked into his computer, clicked some random buttons and copied some random numbers into my form. It was when I thought that was my account number, but I was wrong. He sent me back the counter and then she clicked some random buttons and used that big random number and now again sent me back to the same nerdy guy. I was like Ennaya enna pandhu maari thooki potu velayadureenga. But, thank god that was the last throw in the registration phase, the guy clicked some buttons to get a number and he told me this was my account number and wrote it on the form and sent back the counter, where she got back the form and told me to put money in the account. Oh man! I had one more form to fill. Then finally after depositing money in the account, she took a new passbook, printed the details, printed the first transaction, gave me a register to sign, then asked me to stick a photo at the last page of the passbook (It was in the first page in most of the banks) and get it attested by another lady who I had to visit now. She was busy putting seals and attestations over a few cheques and I had to wait for sometime before getting attested. And after that finally , I have created my sbi account. I had come in at 10’o clock and it was more than 12 when i stepped out of the office. Never thought this would consume so much time, unlike the Canara bank account that i created during the joining of college in less than 10 mins. Whateva!! I decided from now on, I’m never gonna close any of these bank accounts hereafter, may anything happen…..

My first Kavidhai

அதிகாலையில் எழுந்து அலுவலகம் சென்று
மாலை வரை மாடுபோல் உழைத்து
மாதா மாதம் ஊதியம் பெற்றாலும்
சாலையில் கிடக்கும் ரூபாய் நோட்டு
சிரித்து கொண்டே வா வா என்கிறது!!!!