My Experiments with B tech

Sitting in the production support cubicle on a fine Saturday morning staring at Control M schedulers searching for breaking jobs, my mind takes a ride through the past. I wont let it wander too far but just a few years back. 5 years to be precise - to a hot summer day in May 2001.

DECLERATION and INITIALIZATION
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It was supposed to be a shopping complex but didn’t look like one. It was just a dirty lifeless concrete building with the cement and dust yet to settle down.
I did not like the look on my mother's face. But i was happy. I am finally going to join an engineering college and though it was supposed to be a temporary affair with me preparing for the next year entrance and hopefully going to some "reputed" college as expected by my many "well-wishers", the thought of being relieved of the tons of multiple choice bullshits I would have gone through in an entrance crash course made me feel great.

It would have been around 10 o clock in the morning. The queue was pretty long and i was standing last.
I was disappointed at being stupid enough to back the analysis done by many of the "well-wishers".
I thought about the day when the entrance results came. Sounded more like the 'Little boy' hitting Hiroshima. ( Little boy is a nuclear bomb and Hiroshima is a japanese city. For those who thought otherwise :-) ). Along came the tremor, the smoke and dust of condolences and advices.

Using their immense knowledge and experience in these matters, my "well-wishers" came up with the prediction that there would not be many guys coming to join a college like this. After all who will take such stupid decisions with their life?. And moreover a guy with an entrance rank as yours is not supposed to join a college. You are a begger (to be pronounced in an Indo Butlorian accent with utter discontent.) left with no choice and will have to take what is offered. You have disgraced the fundamental laws of entrance oriented education. You should go to Trissur and get trained from the best. You should learn how to mark answers without thinking - at the blink of your eyes.You will find it very hard coz you dont have the brains to do it.But still you might make it. And then only you will succeeded in life. Very true indeed. I shall not waste my life. I shall go through it again and with the grace of god ,I might have the opportunity to get into a reputed college. I shall live happily ever after.

The day was getting hotter and the queue was moving at a snails pace. I looked around and found no faces I recognize. I saw many others but didn’t bother to talk. I didn’t know that the coming fours years would transform these unknown faces as my bench mates and best friends.
I remember the big guy leaning on a pillar dreaming with his sleepy eyes. He was so good at this that somebody had to
wake him up when his name was called. Later this guy was to become the integral part of the BBD(back bench dudes). The one and only Prabinettan.. :)
I remember seeing a glimpse of Adarsh.That was all. Later I learned this vanishing act from him and found it very useful in bunking classes.
I met Safdar- the first established chaaran and role model of other chaar aspirants.

Now was the chance for the only senior batch to have their say. They did it well by organizing a march and cautioning us of the disastrous plight we are about to suffer- of loosing recognition from the University. After having had a very eventful pre degree at SN college, I was happy to see the "samaram" and hoped to have more of it in future which was not to be.

And finally after waiting till 3 o clock in the evening I got called. I returned receiving loads of advices and inspirations from Nambiar sir.

College life in CETLY declared and successfully initialized!!

THE CODE BEGINS HERE
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Classes commenced on some unfortunate date of the year. I was yet to loose the hangover from my PDC experience. I have now been deprived of my freedom of choice, freedom of speech and freedom of movement. Bunking classes from the two storied college was virtually impossible. Thanks to space constraints we had only half day classes.

Environment is set. Now comes the objects.

There was this tall irritating guy who had a misconception about B-tech courses. Somebody had convinced him to fill English wherever possible in his conversations with others. Some “well-wisher” might have said. “Mone u r going to become a big engineer. So behave like one.Dont talk to people in Malayalam.“
It’s said that wise men learns from mistakes. Has to agree that this guy was pretty wise. He still hates the phrase “good name” as in “What is ur good name ? “ J
This guy was to become the BUJI in BBD. The only guy who had the privilege to go to Shreads and attend tests before 7th sem. Shimith is his name!!

I wont give such lengthy descriptions to all. To keep it short I’ll name the rest

Unni- A drop out from agricultural engineering, Unni joined CETLY a few months late. Tries hard to maintain a ruf and tuf look.
Adarsh- Cool guy unconcerned and unaware of what’s happening around.
Jijin – Helpful (especially in drawing margins and picking balls) and humble guy. Gets easily agitated when talked about Communism. Looks like a communist from outside.
Mahesh – The guy who claims to have first hand experience of almost everything. Likes to become the big brother. No “doubt” goes unresolved.
Vigil (aka Raj Kumar) – Cool guy. Again claims first hand experience in many domains.

The rest of the guys can come along during the course of the story.
Life moved on. So did the college. With money flowing in as semester fees, it prospered and scaled new heights. (Around 200 feet from sea level) .Our new campus got set up in kundoormala to the utter disappointment of the many “well-wishers”. Everyone else felt good.

The silence of the sea is deceptive. You never know when the next Tsunami will hit.
And so it came. There had been rumors about it. Some said it would never come. Many others hoped. But it did come. People ran frantically from kundoormala to Delta and
back.
God’s prayer resolution server took a major hit from the hundreds of high frequency transmitters sending loads of prayers and sorrows across. Network admins spotted the site as kundoormala. But they didn’t stand a chance. The server crashed. S1S2 results were out!!. Those who prepared day and night blamed the syllabus, the teachers and the university. Others simply agreed. Many wise men learned from this mistake. Some planned to work harder. Others thought planning was simply a waste of time.They believed in actions.
BBD was confused. They weighed their options over and over again. Working harder was a good option. But what if it didn’t bring results. They were more concerned about the amount of energy that would go waste if their option failed. Taking action requires more guts and involves more risk. So they decided to do nothing.

In the afternoons they would move to the shades and enjoy the cool breeze. They will discuss and debate on a variety of issues. These mid noon discussions made immense changes in BBD (or rather kept them from changing).

Life moved on fast but in circles. The same thread ran again and again in each semester.
The flow of assignments, series exam, sem exam was basically the same. Just the logic changed every time. Sometimes good sometimes worse. And to cope with these changing requirements wise men had to come up with ingenious solutions. While the masters used enhanced secondary storage options and innovative resource sharing protocols, the cowards stuck with the traditional multichannel visual data scan options. The marks came proportional to their eye sight. Lab exams produced codes as Xerox copies of records. Unknown files of senseless lines gave expected results. People started believing in modern day miracles.

But these things are easier said than done. Sem exams were simply Chaos. Its that time of the year when you start thinking about your future. And every time you think about it ,you feel the chill right there in you belly.

It’s a time when the following four phases come into play. I call it the Btech sem exam life cyle model. (BSELC model)

1) Resource Gathering phase:-

The time of the year when people start gathering study materials. The phase starts with the search for the sem’s syllabus. Xerox machines get unusually busy during this period printing Btech textbooks. The phase ideally begins at around 3 to 4 weeks prior to the sem exam.

2) Planning phase

The MOST critical phase of all. The phase starts once all the acquirable resources are in place.Previous years question papers are thoroughly scrutinized and a consensus is reached on the distribution of marks among modules. Based on this data , people take independent decisions on how to go ahead with their preparation. Some skip chapters, Many skip modules and the remaining who cant find any feasible approach, simply skip the exam.

2) Reading phase

It’s the time when everyone gets super active. Books get attacked from all possible sides. The most energy consuming phase of all. A time when the budding engineers prepare themselves for the inevitable. Now and then the plan gets updated. Phone calls go to and fro all the time. Everyone eager to get the latest updates.


3) The day before (Hell)

The phase is marked by symptoms like lack of apatite, sleeplessness, headache and many more uniquely disturbing feelings.
In this phase you will find yourself sitting in any of the 4 corners.

Corner 1: The plan was pretty good. You feel confident about the preparation. You think about reading discarded chapters just in case something goes wrong. You brush up learned chapters once more. This corner is rarely occupied. Its there mostly for the sake of it.

Corner 2: You have lost all hopes. The plan was a disaster. You play cricket 2005 to ease the pressure.

Corner 3: You are utterly confused. You don’t know where you are. You see unrecognizable printed lines in your sleep. You feel like you know something but you won’t recollect anything you felt you knew. You hope and pray for the exam to get postponed. You start getting philosophical. You start listening to ENIGMA to ease tension. You start respecting your elders. You seriously think about quitting smoke and drink (once the exams are over) . You start giving ten rupee notes to beggars. You feel sad for stray animals. Might even go to the extend of giving them chocolates. You feel very strange .But you always have company as this corner is always full . You will have a tough time fighting for your seat.

Corner 4:
You are hyper optimistic. You think you still have a chance. You start reading..
After reading you use blades or scissors to make tiny cut outs of what you read just in case you forget.
You sit opposite to corner 2 and will find it very disturbing seeing the cool guys from corner2 laughing at you. You will fight hard not to accept corner 2 invitations. You finally end up in corner2 or corner3 but will still be confident coz you have all the bits in place.

4) D day

Everything comes down to this. You visit temples/mosque/church early in the morning. You take care not to dislodge the sandal paste marks on you forehead. You wear your lucky shirt.
In the examination hall you feel numb. Your hands shake when you write your register number. You turn around to find if anybody stays close by for a help. You start writing. You think hard about where you placed the needed bits. You think even harder whenever the invigilator looks at you.
You wish you had an owl’s eyes. You count your marks after each question you attempt. At the end you again find yourself sitting (sometimes lying down) in any of the four corners.

Corner 1:
You feel satisfied but not happy because you did not get enough time to write everything that you wanted to. You know you will score somewhere above 70 but you might choose to look unhappy so that onlookers from other corners don’t feel bad.

Corner 2:
You feel really happy. Your calculations suggest that you could score somewhere in between 45 to 50. Even after cutting down some marks you find yourself standing on the boundary line. You feel proud.


Corner 3:
You are at the mercy of the almighty. You find it very hard to cross the margin. You start adding grace marks here and there and somehow drag yourself to 45. You never stop praying.

Corner 4:
You don’t feel anything. You stop thinking about the exam. You start enquiring when the supplementary exams begin. You desperately search for company and feel relieved to find some. You drink a lime soda near the bus stand and rush home.


And then when the sem exams are gone life would be same again. The fun would be back.It will be time to take some rest for all the hard work we did in one month.And when we wake up again it would be time for yet another battle.
But one fine day everything just ended.Btech was over just like that !
And then came the most difficult times of all. The search for a job.The "well-wishers" were all back in action.Everyone just went their own way.Once in a while they'll called each other. And someday they would just loose all contacts.
Two years down the line, I am sitting here in my air conditioned office missing those hot summer days when we trotted downhill laughing loud, sharing jokes and playing pranks on each other.
I miss those downpours when people used to get inside the other guy's umbrella even if they had one in their bags.Sitting here as a decently paid software engineer with more diverse and matured worries smoking in my head, I am finding it hard not to miss my Btech days-those nail bittings and head scratchings.
But thats so and no one can change it. I am seeing red spots here and there on my screen.Recovery is gonna call me any time now.Kundoormala and Btech has to move out.Got to let some Unix and Oracle pour in.
I dont have to worry though , coz I know for sure that those golden memories will always be with me- written deep in my heart.

Every code has to be delivered some day! ;-)