Level of endurance

These past days I have been doubtful of my contribution towards the nation. Questions like 'Why do I make profit for some other country?', 'What can I do to contribute to the well being of Indians?' sprang up my mind. All because of the tragedy that happened in Mumbai. A bunch of armed a**holes entered places where people resided and engaged in acts of violence and brutality. It took 48+ hours to finish them off. The scenes shown in the television were shocking and I could not even imagine the situation of the hostages who were inside the Taj, Oberoi or the Nariman House.

'Patriotism' is a feeling that came to me very scarcely. But the retaliation that was shown by the armed forces, the army, the NSG and the ATS made me proud of my country. The brave martyrs showed their true colors by not succumbing to the tremendous pressure and fighting each of the f**ked up bastards with courage and valour. It was also great to see the people of Mumbai rushing towards the commandos, shaking hands and congratulating them and applauding them after the operation success. The sound of slogans 'Jai Hind' and 'Vande Mataram' sent a chill through my spine as it did for many Indians.

There were people who tried to take the situation to their advantage, like the politician who gave out a dramatic speech during the terror. But the people became smart enough to understand this and intelligent enough to express their discontent and anger towards such petty publicity stunts. They wanted results. They were paying their taxes and trying to make ends meet. The least the government could do is to provide them with a terror free atmosphere to live.

It is a fact that the forces arrived too late. It is a fact that even after getting sufficient hints of the attack, the forces were unable to avoid the situation. But every mistake is a lesson learned. Its by time we took the security measures up a notch. How would a bunch of people come via the sea route with a s**t load of ammunition to a place closely guarded by the patrol ? Corruption may be your answer. Inefficiency might be one. Inefficiency can be treated but corruption must be eradicated.

It also made me think about the countries where military service is compulsory. A year or two. It is a good idea to equip most of the citizens with self defense techniques so that a terror situation could be handled with a cool and calm head. The forces could also use all the help they can.

I was watching the movie 'Letters from Iwo Jima' yesterday and was deeply moved by the portrayal of Japanese soldiers who were willing to give their life for their country and emperor even though they had no ammunition and no eatables. Would writing or talking about it make a difference ?

Nostalgia Creeps

This weekend was supposed to be a quiet and boring one but ended up being a one which had a nostalgic value. On Saturday Gitesh wanted to get his Admittance Form for the CAT and he had to go to a school to get it. I joined him as I had nothing to do. He went on and stood in a queue and it reminded me of the first time I stepped into the National Institute of Technology campus in Calicut. I never gave attention to attire generally. The day i went to give the test (thanks to Franki I came to know about the test) I went pretty much with an old pair of pants, a T-shirt, a pair of slippers and an umbrella that I got when I was doing my 8th.

Those menacing, but wonderful, seniors where all around trying to sniff the young blood that came to the campus. There were many guys and gals for the exam including Franki, Shanker, Linto, Teddy, Sony, Riji, Rakhy, Shiji and Ranjna. I went into the room for the test and attempted only questions I knew as there were negative points involved. After the test I got a glimpse of a paper of a guy who was extremely well dressed and seems very organized. He had attempted the whole paper. That's when I thought about the chances I had with the institute. I had no hope that I was going to get through. Even thought I had wasted the money in applying.

Ranjna then called me up after the results came and told me I had go through with a 12th rank. I did not believe her the first time but was astonished when I saw the results myself. To tell the truth, I was proud of myself and happy that I made my parents proud. Hey I even overtook Franki who I believe is the best in technology and learning.

A different step

Its been about a week since I have been helping the guys out with some PHP. I thought to do so so that I could also get a hang of the language and the usages. But I'll say it came natural to me. The project was one which was partly developed and was currently being extended. The code written was awesome. Complex but Awesome.

The previous time I did PHP was in the college and I feel pity at what I did. No MVC at all. Just write all the crap in one php and render it. Pretty Lame and Bad. The code here was carefully split into Model-View-Controller and all the URL rewrites were also written. WAMP is the server and all the rewrites written into the .htaccess file. PEAR classes were used for database interaction and the Models were created using written code which generates the php.ini file. The view was programmed to render after the controller had done its job of initializing and assigning variables.

The stuff that attracted me was the Cookie usage. The stuff like filtering results and sorting was stored in Cookies with respect to each page. This had the advantage (disadvantage to some) that the page seems to maintain its state through out the life of the application (so long as the cookie is not deleted). Classes were written for each Cookie kind (say a cookie for search had a class Search) and initializers were set so that the value could be accessed via PHP. Great Idea !!!

I would probably do something of this kind if I get a chance in Ruby On Rails. Let me see if I could get something of this kind !!!

Extreme Entertainment

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. ~Hilaire Belloc

We started on friday at 1 in the night. Off to Shivpuri in Rishikesh. We were late by an hour and half but me and Ankur made the better out of it y eating some Egg Burji and plain Parathas. 17 in total we got into the bus and started our onward journey. The bus was great and the group was awesome. Pure entertainment from Don, Pappi and all the others. Puke fest was on from me and an 'unknown' personality. Then a grand sleep only to be hindered by the steer of the bus when it went through those hair pin turns uphill.

The place was serene and the camp side was breath taking. Tents were setup by our co-coordinator Vinod and 2 other helpers. They were adjacent to a narrow stream which lead to the main Ganges flow. They advised us not to go to the main stream but goto the adjacent one. The water was cold and the first thing we did was to go in an refresh ourselves. Breakfast followed and then started the volley ball matches. The sun was intense but we still managed to hang on. After the matches I was dragged by Abhilash and Ankur to have a quick bath which I thought I would have after the sweat had dried. Lunch followed and then we were told that we would be starting the rafting at 3.

All the guys were worn out. Rohan's eyes were bright red and some of them even had a quick nap. But all were ready at 3 to set off for the extreme rafting. We put our life jackets, wore our helmets and took a paddle each and went onwards towards the raft. The raft weighed 80 kgs approx. It was specially built so that water never stayed inside the boat for long. The 'rapids' were for amateurs and we were given strict instructions what to do. Vinod and his team excelled in training us for the rapids. There were 6 rapids and the 3rd one was the most fierce. I managed to secure a position on the 3rd row and sat on the right. Water flushed in but we did not budge. We stood strong and fended the fierce waters until reached our destination. We were allowed to jump into the water after a certain point as the water was harmless and we had our life protectors. The water was pretty cold and Aditya and Srinath who were in the water for a long time shivered all the way after they got of the river.

There was also a place were people were allowed to jump off a high cliff. It must have been about 50 meters high. I did not take the jump and Shveta kept on teasing me after she had made hers. I give no reasons for not doing the jump. I felt it better to stand and watch rather that do it myself. People may call me a scary cat but I never felt the need to jump. Dont know why. But it was awesome seeing all those splashes going wrong. Ankur displacing atleast 10 buckets of water after his jump, Shveta doing a titanic and getting a rescuer to jump into the water, Surbhi falling chest first which definitely must have hurt her, Saumitri being pushed off guard by the instructor, Aditya taking a running plunge into the water.

By the time we reached the camp we were all tired. I was finding it tough to keep my eyes open. After having a tea we are all up again. The camp fire was lit and we started having drinks and food. Many of them retreated into their tents and by 12 all were dead asleep.

The next day Abhilash and Amit woke me up by carrying me and dropping me on the sand. After that episode we started playing Volley Ball. Puneet wished to go for trekking but had only very little supporters. I tried to convince everyone but failed miserably. I now understand that I am just a follower and not a leader. I have always felt that a trip is always as good as the company you are in. Having to go trekking with just 5-6 people did not excite me.

After a dip in the water and beer we started off to Rishikesh. We saw Laxman Jhula and ate from Choti Walah. Then Surbhi left with her cousin and we onward home. Don entertained us with his wits and stories and many of us laughed our brains out. We reached Noida by 12 in the night and after taking the remains of the colas, namkeens, pulpy oranges Srinath and I went to the flat.