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The usual study leave day began with plans to kidnap KU Vice Chancellor. Have to check the newspaper find out if someone has done it before me. Ah! The Dark Knight's releasing today after all. Change of plans.

10:30 - I'm waiting in the veranda ruing the moment I donated my umbrella to protect our priced mini project.

Rain said "What a great morning to fall. I haven't been kind to God's own Country these days."
"Hey wait a moment. I've to reach Dhanya", said I.
Rain enquired "Who's she?"

I didn't wait to answer. Half drenched, I reached the bus stop. Along came my vehicle to pick me up. Still going strong at over 10 years of service, she led me right in to the middle of town. Time was running out, so I caught an autorickshaw to theatre. I ran out of it but felt something amiss. People around me weren't having the same enthusiasm rushing inside. It didn't take much to find out the reason from my friends waiting in line. The reel hadn't reached there yet. We waited another hour for the reel to arrive. The movie rocked - pretty much the only nice thing can remember today.

After being blown away by batman and joker, we got out of the theatre and inquisitivo bid adieu. Iceman invited me to his house. While I was pondering over it, Rain decided to say "good afternoon". I said "Not this time buddy, I've got Iceman here with an umbrella and I'm off to his house". 4 hours and 100 pages# later, I was on my way back. I climbed on the first step of my travel back home, when the fact that empty wallets get thrown out struck me. I got down from the bus and called Iceman back into action. While waiting in the bus stop for Iceman to arrive, a lorry stopped by asking directions. As usual, they went away more confused after my explanation. Then came along a stranger from palakkad. He'd come to secretariat for some work. He started off a conversation with me. He seemed a perfectly alright person (about 60), but due to the fact that no one's to be trusted in today's world, i cut the conversation short when it got to personal details. Left me feeling how much self centred we are. There must have been days when chatting with strangers was natural, and he seemed to come from such a land. He also said something about writing snippets in newspapers. Hope I don't get into Page 3 tomorrow.

Iceman lend me the cash I needed for travel and went back. That's when someone decided to say "Hi" again. He fell, no one stopped him this time. He wasn't happy that I didn't introduce him to Dhanya either. I gave up. There are some days that are yours and yours alone. This is one among them.

#of Proakis - Don't know who he is? neither do I.

And if somebody's wondering what the title is, that is the number of days I've been on this planet, assuming I wasn't brought from Krypton when I was still a baby.

HOTC Ch 4: The Ragam Story

S4 was a short semester, but didn't lack any of the unpredictability that makes college life so much fun. Every semester we start off bunking class (don’t blame us, teachers wouldn't have got the timetable ready by then) to watch a movie and this sem wasn't any different. Thus began another memorable chapter in HOTC.

Let me begin with a correction to HOTC Ch 3. Bhavah actually happened in S4. It was one of the first events in that sem. Shortly after that we'd the accreditation fiasco. Dressed up as terrorists to kill the dust, we cleaned the whole department for the first time in years. The pond in the middle of dept garden (yes we have a dept garden!) could be used by the archaeological dept to study prehistoric organisms. The toil didn't go unrewarded as we were promised the forbidden fruit - sessionals. Accreditation gave birth to many clubs unheard of till then. One of them was the robotics club of which we became the unregistered members. On display were the finest of our creations - Innak and Aruk.

February breezed through and accreditors awarded us an A. That year tech fests by individual depts were discouraged. So ISTE put up their hand to organise Aavishkar '07, a technical fest conducted by the CETians, for the rest of the world (supposedly). On the day of choosing event managers, a band of Applied turned up (thanks to KK again). Our class ended up having half of the main event managers. I was in charge of Physics Paper Presentation of which I remember not. The interesting events for us were AdZap and Industrial Village. Industrial village is the story about AS coming to the rescue of a hapless 'lady' event manager. We had a flawless design but the team with a multiplex in the middle of a huge lake in an industrial village won the event. Another memory worth remembering is the romantic Bach falling in love with R's eyes during the best manager event. Iceman and AS won prize in problem solving event that day.

Even while Aavishkar was going on, preparations had begun for Ragam '07. This year, we were determined to make CET presence felt at Ragam. As 2nd years, our batch took the initiative and intensive preparations for all events started at least a week before the mega event. Our band, which already had its share of break-ups, patched up and prepared for Western Orchestra.

The journey to NITC was so much fun with all of us together in the train enjoying our off-season class tour. I can still remember Appu and me chasing the runaway train in a station we had got down at 2 am to have to have a cup of coffee. The first day was slightly disappointing personally as our band didn't qualify for the finals. That was soon overshadowed by the amazing result in dance. It was only the beginning. By the final day we'd won most prizes by any college other than NIT. The prizes were for Street Play, Mime, Eastern Orchestra and many others. I'm happy to say that again Applied played a hand in most of those events; CET spirit scored above all that. The celebrations in NIT didn't last long because tradition predicted a fight. So we made a hurried escape back to railway station. The Ragam story is a truly remarkable one - one that should be taught to future batches as inspiration for following a dream, striving to achieve it and finding pure ecstasy on reaching the summit.

Even semesters has it's share of other events too like College day, LH day, Nuit 'd Emmaus, and MH day. I remember the College day particularly 'coz I'd one more rock performance. We must not have gained much fan following that day judging by the crowd response :-). But for me every performance has been a great experience and will always be.

Lastly, a few words about the club houses that sprang up in town those days. The first one is the famed PancharaKaadu. For years, the Acacia forest in CET between LH and main entrance had been the abode of lovers seeking privacy amongst the beautiful shades of those trees. We made it our club house #1. Boring teachers didn't worry us anymore, neither did the unfortunate souls who'd cut through PK. Club house #2: Madhavan Sir's tuition class. The previous semester taught us that electronic circuits can be interesting. What made it more fun were the innumerable days when we ended up either chatting away or went our club house #3 after trying our luck at the first circuit. #3: who said Trivandrum lacks a hang out place for youth. You have it right in the middle of town, under the shade of large, sticky-red-fruit bearing tree (dunno its name). Museum sessions on that lawn were the most enjoyable for me. These club houses brought the best brains in town together to discuss world issues, college life and PDs (ParaDooshanam).

Towards the end of semester, it was time for our dear final years to bid goodbye to our campus. The demo week was really funny. When it was over, we were so gloomy that it felt like losing someone close to us forever. We still miss you..

- JFx

Coming up: Ch 5 - Step Back to Ponder

PS: Everyone is encouraged to add all else that you remember in all HOTC (can be done as separate paragraphs in the end), plz add your name tag at the end of wht u add.

More Cosmic Circuits

Some random thoughts on the first day of placements:

Mom calls the company cosmic rays
Gokul and me were standing in front of cgpu the whole day that people thought either we were placed or had the interview. Many asked about the interview and job, which we aptly replied to.
Analog v/s Digital - digital won, nobody got the job.
Rizwan's bag went missing in the evening which was discovered later in a cupboard full of files..
Appu sponsored the coffee before interview results and food after that.
Drove the car with shoes on.. thankfully no accidents though the driving was a bit edgy
Applied started the first day on a high with tea around the canteen table and one kadi to share.
Didn't hear the ipod more than an hour today for the 1st time.. mebbe i'll fall asleep to tht zzz where's the post button.? Ah! clik