A weekend of Joy, despair and Hope

It was a late start to weekend with a very late Saturday night meeting that I had to attend with US team. I got back home early morning Saturday and had a late rise at around 9 am. Weekend looked nice and moderate in terms of tasks and activities, with some social meetings, commitments to kid and few other events. Talking of the 1st major feeling, which is Joy, this is how that unfolded. I had a commitment to attend a Walkathon to support awareness of the issues that differently-abled people are facing. A NGO called Samarthanam arranged for this and venue was Rani Chennamma stadium in Jayanagar 3rd Block. eBay was supporting the cause. Given the cause and it had a physical activity to walk for 3 KM, I was excited to join this event.  This is where I had the choice to drive my car for 18+ KM and drive back. 

I decided to try my luck with BMTC and have a chauffeur-ride instead of laboring this myself. I guess the weekend factor worked for me, I was able to have such a wonderful ride through the Bangalore roads, on a Saturday evening. It is not that I don't take a BMTC ride but most times, they are short rides. Today, I had to ride of 20+ KM changing buses. Trust me, we all in Bangalore should start trying this, once in a while. I bought a day-pass and had the freedom to get into wrong routes etc., and take any which way to get to my destination. This was the part around "JOY" that I experienced during this weekend and encourage you to consider the JOYride, once in a while.



Second is the part around despair. I got to the stadium around 2:40 pm and was a little surprised that majority of folks were busy having lunch. Per the communication, we had the Walkathon to start at 3 pm. Seemed like, I didn't see the schedule properly or something else  was not right. Slowly people started settling down in front of the main stage. I could see a very disconnected set of two MCs talking into the PA system. GENPACT was one of the main sponsor and there were some Japaneese (??) execs from that company, who made it onto the stage at 3 pm sharp. But the MCs kept telling that the VIPs are going to arrive any moment etc., I am sure, we had 500+ volunteers, 500+ school students and another 1000+ differently-able kids/adults waiting for the VIPs. 




Best of the worst, the MP from the local constituency arrives at 3:30 pm or so. From there on, we had few more VIPs crawling in slowly until 3:50 pm or so. This is when, I could see more insensible behavior from the crowds. There were some performances from folk dancers, tribal dances etc., right in-front of the VIP stage, as if this was all for VIPs. All the perfectly-abled people started walking from their seats to get a good view of the performances. Most disabled children and adults were stuck to their chairs, not able to figure what was happening in-front of the stage. (See the Pic above) With so much senseless behavior from VIPs and audience, what was to follow was even more strange. The VIPs got hold of the mikes and started speaking on what they have done, doing and will do for the differently-abled. It was well past 4:40 pm and there was no sign or hope of the walkathon. I just had some commitments at home and had to take my JOY-RIDE back home on BMTC, with a sense of despair.

Lastly, the much talked and seen performance of AAP in Delhi elections, is what leaves me with hope. This is a wonderful ending to the weekend and warm welcome to the week ahead. AAP doing so well is a personal point of joy and happiness for me. I was a volunteer and donor for the party. But more than anything, how people in Delhi and the whole country believed in AAP and trust they showed on fellow voters, is so much to talk about HOPE.          

Alliance	Leads	Results	Change	Total
BJP+	0	32	+9	32
AAP	0	28	+28	28
Cong	0	8	-35	8
Others	0	2	-2	2
Awaited				0

It was easy for the average Delhi voter to write these people off, dip oneself in a feeling of "one another poor try" etc., But that is not what the average Delhi voter has done. They believed in themselves, Power of Aam Admi and voted. Some self-proclaimed stalwarts are grounded,  equations changed and new topics of fighting a election have arrived. We are in for a change. Good change.

Visit to the Land of Precious stones and girl charmers Part II

Date: 6th Oct 2013

Continuing from where I left off, wanted to share the rest of the evening (night ?) and the trip wrap-up form REC.

It was decision time and we had to decide between east, west and local. Some people preferred local choices but better wisdom descended upon us and decided to go back to Trichy town to stand by the directive principles of BEST policy. With some Samsumg smartphone help (This was an ongoing marketing through the trip by one vested interest :) ), it was found that Hotel Sangam near Central bus stand was a ideal place. Inspecting all the newly built highways around Trichy, Racchu took some smart "laessa straight cuts" and reached Sangam safely. 


To our shock, surprise and dejection the Bar was called "Soma Bar". While that itself was upsetting, we could not find place in the bar to accommodate all of us. One Graceful Trichian vacated the table to took a smaller one and we managed to settle inside the Soma bar.  (Real picture to be shared by Racchu, Sampu ?)

It was a fantastic session of 3+ hours reliving the decade and half with less inhibitions. Raaga indulged only for social compulsions (as explained by him) and others by choice. Few central themes that came out open were 

• Who was BEST king from Batch of 98 (Confirmed to be Mahendran from one and all)
• Sampu's difficulty in numbers and math, came out in public. He was found to be repeatedly confused between 8 and 6. He also was caught not being able to add 8 and 6, where the whole group agreed the addition output to be 16 and Sampu only getting the total to 14
• CAS's practical guide to chemistry, in the form of which two spirits mix well Vs which don't
• The Generous Bartenders giving away of lot of snacks on the house and Raghu almost considered the option of visiting Trichy for his BEST sessions
• CAS, Balaji and Ramki going out for frequent fresh air sessions

A small minority had good time watching the fun unfold. Racchu was found finishing full bottles, through the sessions. He almost emptied 3 bottles during the 3 hours. When the ending was coming closer, few people started behaving up. Balaji stopped socializing, Tiju got too noisy and making faces at the rest of the gang. Akkur telling all those sweet old stories from 1996/97 and Sampu still struggling with Maths. The session finally ended with Balaji closely inspecting the rest rooms of Sangam, Sampu delegating me the task of taking care of Balaji. 

All is well that ends well. We all headed to Paalpannai at around 11pm to find some native food to eat. Tiju got more noisy and somewhat under control. Tiju was insisting on eating Dosa and Cobra chutney. 

We all got into a hotel near paalpannai and ordered some food. Tiju stuck to his choice and Ordered a Dosa with Cobra chutney. The food was served quickly but after two mouthfuls, Tiju figured the need for fresh air and rushed out. This is where apparently Tiju made Racchu run around like a White Bolt :)  (Pls get the details from Racchu, not sure how much I can say here)

This is when the 2nd car joined us and with CAS coming in and ordering all the exotic stuff and day's special from the hotel. This is obviously when passion beats logic. All the icing of fun on the evening cake was getting made.  Good fun and finally made it to Guest house in REC with no "breathe blow tests" etc., Few of us stayed around to talk and could hear the aftermaths and effects of spirits unfairly mixed with Dosa, for the rest of the night. We called of the day around 1:30 am and hit the bed.

Being an early morning guy, I got-up around 5:30 am and started knocking the doors with a "kaphee saar" cry. I am not sure, how many fell for it, but we had the whole gang, up and ready to walk in the cool trichy morning by 6:40 am. We took a long walk towards the hostels and MEGAmess with anticipation of Dosas, Fried onions and omelettes. We had a nice view of Shopping complex, SBI, Juicy, College Hospital (Super renovated) and greenery of the campus. The campus looked much greener, probably due to the incessant rains, this year.  We took a few pictures in SC, in front of Dept and PG hostel. Like described by few others already, every hostel has security in-front and getting access to boys hostel was also difficult. (Indication of gender equality ??  in the area of access controls..)

Finally with so much help from Samsung Maps/Boys, we managed to get to MM-1, where to our utter disappointment, we only got raw bread slices and some very well-built Aloo Paratas. Seems like Food in general has gone from OK to worst with students ending up paying a lot more for nothing substantial. There were not even options like south Indian and north Indian food. It seems like student numbers went up and with steep labor problems, the food making and distribution is privatized and sore point for most students. It  was a bit of disappointment and sorry state.

After grabbing something to fill the stomachs, we went to see Aqua Marine Hostel, where the MCAs are staying. Most of these are on the far end of the Campus (straight line to guest house but far end) and getting around places seems to be a bit of a problem. It seems like most students have cycles (in comparison to only elite boys like Manoj from '98 and Satheesh from '99) and they don't need to borrow the cycles from girls, like a decade back. Few boys have bikes and also.

After this long walk, we dragged our feet and made it back to Guest house. Tamil selvam from my batch joined us at the guest house. (Remember the Tamil --> Muthamil typecasting that happened the previous day :) )

It was wrap-up time for us to get back to Bangalore/Chennai on-time. Few folks had quick game of shuttle, inside the guest house and got all set to head home. The patchy ATMs in REC gave a little hard time to settle few accounts with Dept but was worked around quickly. We all bade a bye to few folks who came to Shopping complex. 

All this while, Racchu's Innova was behaving ok, not embarrassing us in college. It was time for Racchu to get  behind the wheel again. We whizzed past the towns and villages and got to Salem for Lunch. We had lunch at Salem and had a small break on the NH, to educate ourselves on fixing a Tubeless Tyre. 

The rest of the journey was event-less except for getting to meet Durga after 14 yrs in Blr, for me. 

All said and done, I feel this is a humble beginning to reconnect with our alma mater and give something back, in our current capacities. few things that were discussed, that I will re-state below.

• Make sure, you get to talk to your company HR/TA and have NIIT-MCAs be allowed to attempt during campus placements, wherever you are working
• Help with 6 month or 2 month internships, if possible
• Keep visiting college once in 4 to 6 months, without causing as much overhead as we might have caused  (Our's was due to 1st time factor, May be)
• Help/Fund version (should be small sums of money only, less than 4K), as students are not allowed to go to companies for sponsorship
• The tech savy folks can do guest lectures, at least once in a semester or year. This is a very important help we can do, given the exposure and perspective, that we can present to students. If we can do this, we will implicitly make a visit to college anyway

Hope my write-up made you re-live the time and made you smile/laugh heartily. Lastly, let us not stop there but have our ears, eyes and minds open to help our Alma Mater, in our own small little way.

Ranadheer Velamuri

MAA9612

Visit to the Land of Precious stones and girl charmers Part I

It all started with a mail from Akkur with impressive list of Batch of 98 planning to visit the College. While it was a bit disappointing to see the lack of gender diversity in that list, I was quite enthused at the possibility of playing Volleyball (Cricket as a stretch aspiration). As expected, Naresh from my batch showed enthusiasm to join and Ramki also was interested. I was sure that, I am not the only odd-man-out in the trip with Naresh and Ramki keeping company from our batch.

This was followed by regular updates from Akkur and others on logistics, calling few others also to join etc., I was all excited, almost feeling like going home after a long time.  To my pleasant surprise, Soma from batch of 98 called me one evening (after a gap of 5+ yrs ??) and was all excited to go to college and play cricket. We had a nice "mutual leg pulling exercise",  which is THE normal way we always talked to each other. Hearing the excitement and long chat, I was very sure, Soma is not going to join the trip :) 

Over to the next stage, we had some unfortunate last minute drop outs like Naresh and Paalai, who were working over-hard to maximize the shareholder value for their respective companies :)
20th Friday was day of logistics and figuring, who will meet whom and how we would drive down to college etc., With last minute drop outs etc., it was 7 folks from Bangalore and 3 or 4 from Chennai. Tamil from our batch was to join the Chennai batch in the last minute and this was communicated to CAS and Sampu (Or was it really ?). We all got together on 21st morning by 3:30 am (Yes, 3:30 am IST) and started to driving with an aim to get to college by 10:30 am. It was Racchu, Raaga, Akkur, Raghu (Batch of 97), Ramki, Tiju and self, who anchored off the coast of Bannerghatta Road at around 4 am, that morning. Calling Chennai gang, we found something funny. They got confused between Tamil (Batch99) to Muthamil (Batch 98) by waking up the later at 4 am and asking him, if he was ready. I will let the readers imagine the conversation ..

The Ride itself was quite so much fun starting with Ramki asking for a break hardly 60 minutes into the journey. We got to see what Ramki ate that morning. Adding more spice to the journey, Racchu's Innova refused to start after that break. We all had to show our fitness by pushing the vehicle a good 3 to 4 times to have it started. It was clear that the journey will test our physical endurance. I am sure, we had to repeat this skill at least 4 to 5 more times, what with Racchu switching off the engine, every time we had to stop with the assurance that, he never needed to push the vehicle. 

With constant pestering by me and Raaga, Racchu stayed under 120km/hour. We safely landed in REC, at around 11 am. Not to our surprise, the Chennai gang landed much ahead of us, with brief stop over at Theppakulam, with some photo session etc., (Just to re-state., CAS/Sampu seems ot have taken maximum photos with Zero published till date).  It was utter disappointing to see CAS in bland black t-shirt and shorts. The Innova gang was all super sure that, we will see CAS in some three-forth in Orange color and green dots etc., (Proves that CAS calmed down in life ??). It was an nice quick session of hugs and shake-hands, having met and seen people each other after a decade or so. CAS, Sampu, Balaji seem to have not changed one bit. 

We were informed that students were waiting at the lecture hall (EEE lecture hall, which is air-conditioned, now ??) . We quickly refreshed and went in to the hall. It was nice to meet Nicky and few other profs, who run the department now. It was interesting to see that 15 yrs has not done too much damage to folks like Nicky and SRB, while we have all clearly aged that much. We had quick intros and ACCUMEN (Intra-MCA session to hone their skills in debates, coding etc., ?) was declared open by Nicky. We were also forced to get on to the stage and introduce ourselves and offer some advice.

Some highlights from the session were:

• CAS tells the folks that he spend 16+ (or was it 20+) in a day doing projects  (God knows what projects)
• Sampu giving a nice management speech (quite a hard talker now. Not the one, I knew)
• Balaji talking on being "relevant"  and "current" (not sure, if I got the words right)
• Raghu had some simple yet effective suggestions both to students and staff
• My Self talking on diversity and other management gyan
• As expected Raaga had some sound/serious advice on being very academic etc.,

It was lunch time and we all moved to Dept new building (Pretty big and nice), where we happened to sponsor lunch for students and staff. I didn't realize the need to sponsor, until I ate the breakfast in the Mess, the next day morning. :)
It was a nice gesture from Akkur to have initiated this. We had a nice time eating and interacting with the students. I could see the students enjoying the food. (again, the reason goes back to how pathetic the food is, these days in college mess).  We had free flowing interactions where we all met students informally. I happened to meet few folks who had questions/points like 

• Why should there be quantitative aptitude in company selection criteria
• Their deep exposure to FB but never heard anything like LinkedIn etc.,
• Lots of students from Bihar/Jarkhandh having tough time to eat the food here (No North Indian mess concept now)

We went back to Dept again after lunch and Nicky shared the current syllabus and asked for suggestions from us on subjects/papers. In my opinion, the syllabus has been revamped quite a bit and seems like there are lot of electives etc., This seemed like a good affirmative step forward. Seems like the next hurdle would be have some guest lectures or Alumni offering to teach to deliver those courses well. Raghu at some point was thinking of a possibility, where we take a break from job and teach for a semester etc., 

We went back to EEE Lecture hall, where we had all 1st years introducing themselves, starting with their 10 digit roll number. For whatever reason, it seems like everyone needs to remember their 10 digit roll number. To our shock, at least 50% students are from MP where there is a Training center, which trains students very well for NIMCET (all india MCA entrance for Govt colleges ?). Diversity is the essence of RECs but seems like that got diluted a bit. There were 2 folks from TN, 2 from AP, Zero from Kerala  (Yes Zero. We would have cared least about mallu guys but Zero mallu girls) This will leave little to no chance for a Odisha guy to hopefully find a Bengali or Mallu girl and "commit". Anyway, that is only a part to the bigger problem. 

This continues to be long session where students had questions, shared some of their woes and towards the end, few folks sang for us. IMHO, we did end up scaring them on how they should prepare for campus interviews etc., anyway, all in right intent. :) 


This was followed by a quick tea session at snacky's (The tea shop close to our old dept building). Some of the us had the noble goal to play volleyball and re-live the times. We had a good session of volleyball for 1 hour or so. We joined the College team and played with them. All this while, some of the smarter visiting lot had good kadalai session with 2nd years. (Proofs included) As you would see, we got to play the game in flood lights, which itself was quite a kick. Living in Bangalore for long, I really enjoyed the nice cool evening breeze of Trichy. The true craving for water was felt by most of us, after a long while, I guess. (This feeling may not be new to Chennai folks..)

This is when the most responsible folks from the group reminded of the mandatory task that we had to complete. Guesses ???  The BEST club rituals. The folks were so much duty-bound that, they didn't let some of us wash and change from our Volleyball session. We right away headed to Sangam hotel, near Central bus stand. This is where the more fun Began... Pls await for a week to see the fun unfold..

Few tit-bits from next part:
1. Tiju makes Racchu run, all of a sudden
2. Balaji becomes Lord Buddha
3. CAS has some Paalparai delicacies 
4. The Aaloo parata's in Megha Mess

Ranadheer Velamuri
MAA9612

P.S:   Link to Ramki's photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/106906967652700975030/RECTTripSept2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCLmBx_LNx5yMRw&feat=email#5927117882300959794