The Mokkai group's Official whatever..

The Official T-Shirt
Design 1

Front Side

Back..


Design 2

Front

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Some pics...

PS: Bit busy to give a narrative :) Probably living in a place where most don't read tamil has its own advantages.

Calvin & Hobbes

Life @ IITK Part -III

For the past 2 days, CS dept conducted test and interview for admissions for M.Tech and Ph.D for the academic year 2007-08 and I volunteered for some invigilating and evaluation work. The entire process reminded me of my test and interview couple of years ago. There were around 200 candidates who wrote the test, out of which 40 were shortlisted for interview and 20 were given the admission. The persons who went before me for the interview mostly said Algorithms or Theory of computation as their area of interest and each one of them were interviewed for at least 45+ minutes. I too had prepared algo for the interview and when I went in, the room (its actually a classroom) was filled with all profs of the dept and may be, on seeing all great CS researchers of India ready to butcher me, I said mathematics as my area of interest instinctively when asked. I distinctly remember the surprise on most profs' face and I knew that if I don't mess it up, I'll make it. They asked just three simple puzzles out of which I answered 2 and was almost through the third one. I was asked to leave soon and the whole interview lasted for a maximum of around 10-12 minutes. The third puzzle which I didn't answer completely is this.

"Given a set of n two dimensional points, find a method to draw a line such that there are exactly n/2 points on either side of the line?"

Things have changed drastically in the next couple of years. The test has become more mathematics oriented with emphasis on discrete mathematics and one ought to mention whether he is a systems guy or a theory guy and he'll be interviewed accordingly. The GATE score for direct admissions is kept as 700 this year which means that your GATE AIR should be less than 65 to secure a direct admission without going through the hassle of test and interview. Even not being in a metro and with the pollution levels in the city (but the campus is a paradise!!) its good to see people who come here leaving offers from iisc and iitb (the two institutes which are on par with iitk for CS and are in metros).

Indian Bureaucracy - What the???

A friend of mine from iitd had sent me a couple of HDDs of capacity 820 GB through a well reputed courier agency in the south some 2 weeks back. When I enquired a week back, came to know that it was seized by the Sales tax team as it didn't have a document saying it's for personal use and not for commercial purpose and I was supposed to pay some 5000 bugs as sales tax. Doing some search on the net found that all we needed was a sound proof to claim its genuinely for personal use and we got the proof ready in no time. The particular person in charge(Call him X or whatever) of the seize gave us all possible hints to bribe him some 2000 bugs and get it done. Not falling for that made me and my friend roam the city for 2 days in the hot sun and we got it done after a lot of paper work (really a lot by any standards!!) and it also meant that no productive work for 2 days. But the look on X's face when he issued the drives said it all and we felt relieved, just relieved. Probably its difficult to identify such people who corrupt the system and we weren't too happy to let him off.

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." - Martin Luther King Jr.

PS: btw, my system's total HDD capacity is now 900 GB :) Don't ask what I am going to do with it.

Just in Mood!!

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth

Refreshingly Original!!

Been a long time since I've seen a city based tamil film being creative and original. May be it had an overdose of cricket but someone has to cash in on CWC 07 if not the Indian cricket team. Portrays gully cricket at its best and I believe many would be able to connect with the movie in someway or the other.

It reminds me of my 11th and 12th at DAV when Susi, Kand (more on him later!!) and myself would go to princi's room atleast once per day to request him to cancel our class and allow us to play cricket. we always had(or made) some reason and it helps a lot if your class strength is just eight. I also remember breaking a guy's head while playing cricket when I was in 8th and the blood gushing out of his head as he was carried to the hospital. My brother scared the hell out of me when he asked me to prepare myself to spend the rest of my life in prison lest something happens to the poor soul. To say the least, I had a really long night and thank god, the injury wasn't that bad.

Can't help myself from thinking of Boys when I see this one. For some reason, I think that title could have been more apt for this movie. Anyway, enjoyable movie. Give it a shot. Adios!!

Katril Varum