Where's my topup ??

Recently, I've been made a teaching assistant to Operating Systems course and since then, it has been tic-tac,tic-tac and Bam! I didn't try so many things in my time, that I can try it now, along with these 160 students. I know some of them might began cursing, after they read this, but I think I'm ready for them.  It is just like flirting with a girl, who has a very muscular man-friend. For now, lets say we, yeah! there are 5 of us, are able to avoid that man-friend, but who knows ?? 

You suppose, only thing that you need to concern is about students and what to teach them, but it is not.  Administration has their own coal mine, like that in "Gangs of Wasseypur" and they expect us to be superheroes, who can do anything at less wages. Just yesterday, I would have given my middle finger to security guard, who didn't let us take a Lab, just because there was a mismatch between Administration and him. So we made a number of calls, to our Professor, to his supervisor, to his another guard colleague, but he was like Atlas made again, here we were pricking him with the arguments, like wastage of time or responsibility or submission of our id-cards, but he won't buzz, you can see the Krishna's glorious lesson of "Karma" there.

It is remarkable, how stubbornness replaces understanding. Well anyway, somehow we stubborn-ed out the keys to lab, so when I was walking towards the lab, the thought instantly grabbed me, Who will give my top-up? This question was harsh on me at that moment, cause I had only 5 Rs in my pocket and that too is reserved for a tea. And as far as I have observed, all genuine students have a talk-time between 2-7 Rs,  and that too, so that they can give a miss. This may seem the grossness of my character, but it is true fact. I know, I'm gonna ask somebody for Top-up, shouldn't you ? And if you agree with my cause, then don't take a pause. May be, we can start a new movement....                 

A mystery girl knocks off my class

Its 14:00 hours sharp, time for my linear programming class. Its just going to be an another class, with that usual transportation shit, with no thrills, no excitement. Dude, I’m in college and I’m supposed to have a typical set of some freaking and nasty experiences, that I can proudly tell to my kids. Come on!! man, I’ve got to do something.

After listening for 10 minutes, I finally gave up and put my ear buds, and turned on the CRUX,my MP4 player. Yeah!! thats my strange habit to put up names for inanimate things, because certainly it animates me, for sure. So I was just listening to Judas Priest’s Breaking the law, just then a girl was passing by the corridor, and she began to stare me and in return to that I stared her back. I know that this is not so decent, but I really enjoy this. But now this very girl passed a smile to me, and there I did go blank.

For furthur discussions, it is well assumed that writer of this holy crap is an innocent and shy one though a little bit curious.

So, where was I, Yeah!! that girl just went away, but just something not O.K happened to me. It put me in unrest and chaos. Why a stranger girl would smile……

GOD! GOD! GOD!, I hate these girls so much, I know that in thousand years I can never understand their abstractions or notions, ’cause in simple language they are complex, tightly coupled or in fact, as defined by Harjindar Sir, girls are like a black box, making them totally mysterious and now it gives me a thunderbolt of thrill and excitement and I want to enquire more deeper.

I just realized that girls are the protagonist of the GOD’s master plan to sustain evolution, as we can never be developed unless we know everything about us, and girls are too messy buisness. In fact, they are the epitome of what we say “Beauty and the Beast” and man like us, who have less convictions can get easily deluded in this beautiful trap.

I can bet that these girls, can even bring down the most influential person alive on the earth, by saying something witty. This is the world of man, where majority considers girl as stupid and dumb, yet they fall for them. This little bit irony inpires me like hell raised to heaven and I just want to know more.

So speaking of that girl, whom I barely know, who just smiled, put me in a typical state, and here lecturer speaking and speaking and me not listening, making speculations, not about why she smiled, but about what she was thinking. I think that this work should be left for ECE probability guys, define distribution functions, apply Bayes or do anything, but just tell me what she was thinking.

Now, after this class, I’ll definitely go to her and probably ask her about the very reason of smile, but then my mind argues, should I go or not and if I do, then what exactly should I say to her. Come on!! Leave it.

You know what, that this whole girl thing put my clear conscience into fog and mist, and I’ll just go to her and return her smile by just smiling, and you know what I actually like this randomness and more than that I like to remain shy and timid, because this makes me equally mysterious, and now may be she’ll be jotting down something about man, and just wondering about why a stranger boy would smile…..

RiXoR

P.s: Thanks to mysterious girl, you made my class.

What A Wonderful World!!

Often, I wonder about a part of my dream, to travel all around the world, to meet people known and unknown, and to eat veg in all scenarios. But now I think, how I'm going to do it, 'cause honestly I'm no Bill Bryson or James Cameroon, who can afford to go from space to deepest trenches. I'm no GHAC enthusiast, so there is a very little outing for me. But still, I figure, I have to do something about it, and so I thought why not have an exploratory excursion  in the campus of IIIT-H. Yesterday was Sunday, I just had listened to Badri Badariya, Coke Studio song, and I was in festive mood.

With that music in my veins, I set out and took my bag and went to one of old faculty quarter, and there I found myself on the rooftop, and there I saw all kind of birds, who were busy in performing a wonderful orchestra, with combination of solo, duet and quartet of cuckoo and sparrow, followed by slow whistling trees. Normally, I'm restless and enthusiastic, but here I thought I can attend the siddhi of yoga gurus. Charisma was oozing out of the place, so I began to click some shots, and while clicking shots, I thought that nobody would have come here, as it was all so barren. Then I came across this
        

Hey!! What do we have here

 At this juncture, I remembered a line from one of my T-shirts, "The joke's on you", and I laughed. My search did get to me somewhere, where I never have been. I think the true wisdom that I get from these kind of exploratory drives is that we ought to increase our breadths and depths about this world, and hence Our universe is expanding. There is never epic conclusion to exploration, discovery and research, there is always more and it should have been this way.

I guess, I will discover the world as I said, and maybe can bring something that wasn't seen as  often :D

Aasha Kiran goes Dublin!

Well, if you don't know what I'm blabbing about, I'm talking about my dear friend, Arora Piyush, who is going to dip his nose in the research at Dublin, Ireland. It sounds awesome, doesn't it ??, well prospect of inspecting an another place always brings the goosebumps to the bone. And here, we have Arora, always trying to get what's out there, and may be figuring out, how to make it fun for everybody.
Surely,  there are still things to figure out, like how he is able to eat only vegetables or curries, without any rotis. It somehow, gives the perception of commitment he has in mind. Well, whatever the case, my heartiest congrats will be with you, so you have my seal. You know what it implies, right ? So, go and unleash hell in the research world and whatever mother social stuff you have in mind.

You have been my school-mate, batch-mate, wing-mate and we are also bond  by the word "Dullas".  So surprise me, as you always have.... :P    

Who is Anna Hazare?

The country has been trended by #IAmAnnaHazare #AntiCorruption #HonestIndia tags, which brings light  to the movement that Mr. Hazare is leading, in order to remove the corrupts from power and bring justice to the people. They have grasped the attention of typical Indian masses, even a lax and cozy guy like me. Their methods are of non-violence, silent protests, and hunger strikes. It is the same way, that Gandhi first followed, and it takes a lot of guts to follow this path. It is the path that needs self-preservation, and unknown depths of belief. 
In fact, my uncle is one of the prominent activist of this movement at my hometown, Bhilwara.  He sends bulk sms, trading the facts about movement and the corrupt government. He organizes plays, bhajan nights, peaceful processions and art galleries, and I don't know what he knows, or what drives him. It is just amazing that I have a that kind of guy, I can relate to. But more amazing is the Anna, What is Anna bringing in us ? Why do we want to listen to him?

I'm no thinker or an activist, I'm more of a doodler, but I absolutely want to have a struggle on the question, "Who is Anna Hazare?" . Because I believe, by asking questions and fighting within ourselves to get to the answer, is the key.
Lets start with systems, every system that was ever designed, had its pros and cons, like Hindu marriage system, which gave birth to dowry, female foeticide, and burning brides, but it also gave us a way to get to know another kind of love, which was build up on customs and involvement of two families. It is a social thing. Similarly, when God supposedly created man, he gave him vices and virtues as well. It is just natural that we succumb to a few of them. And now this country has democracy, to the people, by the people and for the people. But the notion has been modelled to from the people, of the people, in front of people. A democracy lives or die, by the people it has, and mindset they carry. It is not corrupt  government , it is us, that have corrupt souls. We are so engrossed in ourselves in terms of our own self-interest, that we would take any way to get to the end result. I have always known corrupt people, who gave bribes, took bribes and I know, it was necessary in that context, otherwise world won't let them slip.
So If we think, the world is gonna go better when Lokpal Bill comes into action, think again. Still there is a man, Hazare and his attempt is not to bring down corrupt government, but to bring corrupt mentalities of ours. With his movement, many memes are on the Facebook, people are supporting Hazare's campaign, which indirectly supports the poor people who has been selling the caps, banners etc. I actually came into contact with many people of different regimes, and I just enjoy what they tell about them. In fact, the whole purpose of corruption, is to alienate oneself from society. But there is a society out there, which can grow by the mutual help of people. And our strive should be that we should help each other. Even if Anna's Lokpal Bill fails, we must reckon what Anna represents.
The notion that government is responsible for every wrong action in democratic framework, implies that people have not got what democracy is about. Government is just there to support your endeavours, rest you do things, raise buisness guilds, make NGOs and fight poverty etc and if they do something wrong,you fight them, challenge them,and overcome them.

People should not be afraid of government, 

the government should be afraid of its people.

-- V For Vendetta  

I know we all are tainted with some vices, and it should not be shame, but come as an essential truth. And when we will overcome this, I know society can become all better.

Broken Systems, Broken India!!

Recently, we have been witnessing too much action in India, the actions which brought us no pride, but embarrassment; the actions which nullifies the magnificence of our extensive and detailed past, and actions which we ignore like it never happened. To name a few, failure of Northern Power Grid which led to World's biggest blackout and affected about 14 states and 600M people, fire in Tamilnadu Express, which brought deaths to sleeping passengers, and Lokpal Bill, which says much and does nothing. Plus there was a name of judge or army admiral who were involved in bribes of million.

In fact, Our college's security has  "A League of its own" thing going on, they perform their strictest security checks on us, the regular students, meanwhile some "X" class people have their "X" passes. Is it X-effect, or Do security guards love playing with us, or the System is just broken ?
Which is it, I cannot say for sure, but my guess will be the permutation of these. Yeah!! damn right, it is permutation, because our faults give them some sense of duty. I can point out many inconsistencies lying in our system, but the real fault lies in system makers, thinkers or whatever term, that is used. These systems are based on selfish interests, promotion of some message, and belief that people will anyhow suck on it. Obviously, those who are in system are affected in both good and bad ways. Sometimes our security guards are pissed at us and only sometimes we are not pissed at them. They are just doing their duty, and we are just being students. We do not like to be bothered every time, some of us want to be cool, but a word "Bhaiyya, Swipe!!" bring all hot emotions on the brim of our head.

So what we can do? How can we do? Well, for above mentioned problem, I think we can co-operate with guards, making their job easy. But from Faculty's side, they should be given the power of leniency, they should be able to make certain decisions on their own, like trusting us. They may raise suspicion, but it should be friendly or kind of "नम्रता -पूर्व  व्यवहार", which we will definitely able to understand. It is a society and people can coexist.      
 As for other matters, I'm not truly an enlightened dude, so may be I cannot give you right answers now. But there are dudes like Anna Hazare, who are facing these problems, coming up with solution for years. Our first step should be to pick any system, and contact the concerned dude, and learn what he is offering and hear his views, and then we will spill our beans. This country needs thinkers, persistent workers, leaders and some hard-balls. At least, I believe that our college can make its legacy by giving rise to some of these. We want to be known by us, not by Bloody Placements and not by "Oh! not IIT".
 One cannot mend these systems by just writing blogs, because if they do, they might come in the class of a Hypocrite, which is currently my state. To put a layer on that, I heard this rock dude, Judas Priest saying

So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
Breaking the law, breaking the law

Breaking the law, breaking the law

              
And I think, I never want to be called the word, so my path is set, but where are you ?

 RiXoR

Thank God!! Westeros Got No Internet

In a general slang, we use FBme ,Google or tweet quite instinctively, and it makes an amazing turf for what you want to know.  

You express, You share, You comment, you discuss... 

It is just marvellous, and a wonder that we can do so many things, from anyplace in this world. It is like we all have power of telepathy. In fact, a long time back I read a story, where a guy from earth goes to certain planet X, and there people have power to read other people's thoughts. So this guy, basically wants to rob them, because they leave their shops open, and for the fact that all men there, are honest. So he dared and eventually got caught. He probably deserved it. 

Now consider this, if all men of that planet are not honest, some of them are corrupt officials, government agencies dedicated to their missions, psychotic oglers, and most common people with common vices. In that world, nothing is secure, I have to guard about everything that I say. Its OK, if we are meaning to say "LOL, or What's up". But world is far bigger and has its bunch of issues,  people for example, want to condemn the government, they want to share their pain, and the only platform that they think, they can be heard is these Social Networks. But all of these people are insecure in some sense, and these insecurities are well documented, even backup-ed, and many people use it in some good sense, but this is a sword without a hilt, and hence can be used to harm us, or people we love.

Another concern that I have, is about the notion of my individuality. Hey! I openly  assert that I  want to privy my thoughts. But there are these data-miners and statisticians, that generates model, to what I like, how I feel, and even where I poop. As a human, the notion of being  a sample point of their monstrous data sets, and being averaged to some mixed individual, is quite disturbing. Though they are giving us favourable services in return, but when they say that, they can predict my behaviour, they make me obnoxious and unhealthy.

It is just a thought, and may be I'm over thinking, but the notion that I live in a free country, and can have any free thoughts, doesn't exist anymore. I'm being monitored, analyzed and probably they have already plans for how to tackle me.
Hey!! Watchers, don't bother doing that, I won't pull up any fiasco :P. I have no intention to give you pain. And data miners and statisticians, if you are analyzing me then give me something really good.  

Say, surprise me!!

  

I'm a free soul, a wildling at heart, and  will seek the notion of freedom in these times.

RiXoR 

P.s: All Mr Statisticians and Data-miners, don't take me bad, you are averaging me, and so did I, but if we meet, then say just "Hi"  and not some #tags

A Computer Engineer's Symphony!!

#Geeky #tweaky #freaky
that is my way, O Brother!!
Yo!! I'm an engineer to BOOT
Entered Research in my blackBlue Suit!!

I got nothn, but hey!!
What's up, What's up
 like a while(1) endless loop.

Ooooh!! a hot chick, a ht chik

words fail, like crumbles of BREAD

So I go and say

#me #you #a hot date

And only warmth I felt,

when she slapped my just face

I just mulled over, with copious of code

Hey!! What do u know,

I think I made something rash,

That slap just gave me pockets full of cash!

Life goes, ON and ON

Still I got my three tags

#Geeky, #tweaky, #freaky

RiXoR

Where three roads meet!!

Its been 5 years 11 days, since I first came to IIIT Hyderabad, and now I'm almost done with my journey here, and a new journey awaits for me, although what it is, I have got no clue. I'm interested in pursuing Research via enrollment in PHD program,  get involved in some idea which might become next Google. Or a developer, where salary is good, work range is diverse, from system deployment to operations management, from front end developer to low level optimization. Plus you have weekends all to yourself, go read, trek, or play Casanova. My point is whenever these three roads meet, we must give a moment to ourselves and think.

I'm at this juncture, and although there are three roads, but there is always proxy road. For eg. you can do IAS, MBA or join some business venture. But for now, lets talk about development, say you join some company, you commit yourself to its goals, and get involved in various stages like testing, tool-making or interface development. The product gets released, and you enjoy it over Snacks and Booze with colleagues. In fact, every Friday you have #TGIF moment. However your product is actually out there, helping someone directly or indirectly. For example, today I found a startup named Soluto, and it offers a solution from which you can manage and repair the PC's located at your home, or your uncle's home. It is useful utility that one might want to have if your parents are not geek themselves. On the other hand, I have many bleak examples of people, whose contribution never saw the light of the day, or saw but were unable to survive. Another thing that I find amusing about the development, is that sometimes you keep developing stuff, that is already out there, like cloud storage service, which Dropbox first offered, is now offered by Microsoft, Amazon too. And even when you are done with development, other party has already gained some momentum in market. There is a little fun in that, at least to me. I'm also well aware about the history of big punks like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook etc, and what I can gather is that all of them came up with one original product, which were all awesome, and then they kept exploiting their product to extend in the ways, that lead to development of Google+(Facebook), GoogleDrive(Dropbox)  and much more.
And I think most of the people have grown into this practice, and our Software Engineering science has grown into managing these kind of things.

And now let's talk about "research", the word is cool in itself, to find things that we were unable to see till now, although they were there. And when I talk about research, I mean to put invention, discovery and adventure all in the same context. It is what I thought the research was, when I first joined, but gradually I learned that Research is more like years of Jazz and Blues with one night of Rock or Karaoke night. You don't always get expected results, you need to pick right problem at right time. In research your valuation depends on what you deliver, and what you deliver has nothing to give to present generation, than you must become Professor or something, because world moves most part of Research, and at some point of time you might wanna ride on it. But there are guys, who rides their passion like a Dothraki stallion, and their research might shake the world. In research, you must have a clear notion of what satisfies you, you may get satisfied if you are making tools that make it easier for people to work in certain domains. There can be thousand things that you can expect from research, for example Richard Feynman used to teach when he was not working on some problem, and we all know that he was one of the greatest teacher. Same goes for David Hilbert, he used to do research and touch the boundaries of his subjects and when he got enough hang of that subject, he would  shift his focus on another subject and pursue it like a newbie, and finishes it like a master, by giving something valuable to the subject.And as for Paul Erdos, it was always to meet new minds at new places, and collaborating with almost everyone who has a good problem in his hands.

All these are very crude examples, cause I'm just a simpleton, yet the process to research is that tad simple. I hope I've made a quite distinction between these two roads, and it might help me to sort out some of the hidden notions involved.

Ronak  

#Wednesday

My morning started early, and I don't  know why, but I was moody. May be it was weather, or the thought of having Biryani at lunch, or may be the sudden appearance of our wing Ninja, Akhil. There is an upcoming marathon in Hyderabad, so I thought why not jog, but as I stepped out of bed, I felt a twitch near my ankle. So there goes my grand dream of winning "Half-Marathon".

Yet, it was damn Wednesday, so I thought why not give research a #Wednesday start. So I went, and saw lab all to myself. In the lone galley, I thought I could do some nasty things, so I configured a ssh tunnel, which linked all of PCs in my lab, such that I could use their speakers at a time. And when it was done, I played "Duaa" of Shanghai, and as awesome it was, it did some more wonders to my mood.

By the time, I finished reading my mails, I began to patch few papers into my thesis material. As easy it sounds, it takes a lot of time to figure out what to pick and what not to. And today is official release of Shounen manga, so I'll have fun reading manga and mangaspoilers.

It is still early, so I cannot account for what goes next on this F***ing fine day, although one thing is sure, Pulkit will come nagging, no matter what day. I think that is constant thing in my life, these days, and I don't know why I'm saying this, but it gives the sense of life, with things moving and unmoving.

To conclude, I would say "Jaag Jao!!, this is #Wednesday"
        

My Thoughts on Biographies!!

We all aspire to be somebody, somebody we have respect for, somebody we love, and somebody we cannot be without. This is how we progress from our childhood to adulthood. That being said, I want to share a few thoughts about biographies.
   
Well, these days, almost all legends, be it musicians, be it scientists or Steve Jobs, have biographies apart from their awesome work, as their legacy. I, myself did read a few biographies, like that of Paul Erdos, Richard P. Feynman and Hitler, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading those. I mean they were all awesome people, some genius and some really bad-ass and if nothing, I like knowing what kind of friends they had.

Then again, one of my friend prefers to meet people rather than reading about people, he thinks that it is not worth his time. He also raises a fair issue, why to peek into others life, when we have our life to make. It may seem as kind of conservative statement, but it also has a sense of freedom which tells us to be a man like none before.
 
Sometimes, when I'm reading about some famous guy, and I find that few of his habits matches few of mine, and here I began thinking, I can also be that guy. And based on the proposition that, I can be that guy, I began to build a new world based on that. Later, of course, I realize that such world is not real and I come back to being Ronak Kogta. I know most of time, imagining such worlds are futile, but there might be a world, that can raise adrenaline in your blood, and you feel so exhilarated, that make you feel like DON!!  I'm not kidding, this happened to me, in summer of 2010, I was bored by the research perspective of IIIT-H, and I went home and read about Paul Erdos, "The Man Who Loved  Only Numbers", and again this heat of research began building up in me. I then decided that I want to become a researcher like Paul Erdos. I wanted to have his attitude, and luckily I got a chance to volunteer at ICM 2010 (International Congress Of Mathematicians), which was luckily happening in India for first time at Hyderabad. I originally volunteered because money and incentives were good, but what I didn't know was the scale of this conference. In this conference, I talked to many professors, and I shared my ambition with some of them, and I made one professor my uncle. I got a tiny role in documentary, in which I was discussing about Gauss with Cédric Villani, the Fields Medallist. And I got an interview in E-Nadu, a telugu newspaper. But these were flashy parts, really when I attended talks, I couldn't understand a thing they were saying, I tried to understand but it was beyond my limits. I was happy, but I also realized that this was not like Paul Erdos's life.
I think, the thing I got after reading the book, was that Mathematics is cool, but really it takes something else from "cool" to understand what really mathematics is. After this, I stopped reading biographies, because they really make a little sense in our lives. We can read about person, but I think we can never really understand what a person is like, what kind of friends he had from reading biographies.                  
Although reading those was not futile, as I finally decided to hang up on research, though it is not at all like Paul Erdos's method of research, it lead me to a certain way of thinking, and that is what I look for when I read.
Different people have different opinions, and different way of doing things, some may seem to touch you, while others will lame you out. And that is what interesting, and I think every man's biography can be interesting, it is just that we prefer to read only about people that influence us.

P.S: Sorry, for being so philosophical, but I love being philosophical :D