Probably Approximately Correct

Despite all my heroics in my first year, I could draw some heart (rather a lot of heart) when I looked around and found some friends who were fubar-ed ! There was a friend of mine who lost a CG, nearly, of 1.35 for his poor attendance.  There was also another one who has hit new lows in the second semester and I will be right to say he has never recovered from those loses.  Typical human mentality; isn’t ? We are happy not when we really do well but when people around you fare poorer as compared to you. Almost everything is relative in our lives.   It is all a comparative experience, isn’t?  At this point, I can recollect a small story (can’t recollect the source) —

General Eisenhower, being the man who brought the world war II to a decisive end, went to heaven. One day he said, “I want to visit hell.” God asked, “why?” He said, “I want to see what kind of suffering Adolf Hitler is in.” So they gave him a pass and he went to hell. He asked the guards there, the devils, which way to Adolf Hitler’s torture chamber. They guided him and he went to the chamber. There Eisenhower saw that Adolf Hitler was standing in a septic tank up to his neck in  shit and he was happy and said, “You deserve it, man.”  Then he noticed that Adolf Hitler was grinning. “You shameless creature, standing there in such filth, what are you grinning about?” he asked. Adolf Hitler laughed and said, “I’m standing on Mussolini’s shoulders!”. So, pleasantness and suffering is comparative, you know?

There was, however, one thing that I managed to do successfully over the summer(did I really?).  I was passed on a copy of Counter-Strike by a mate and I spent at least 3-4 hrs a day playing CS with bots. I returned to IIIT with a fond hope of dominating the CS circles at college. But alas! I came back only to find out that I will be beaten black and blue by most of the CS playing guys. Who would have expected freaks like Rahul (whose sole purpose of existence during the summers was only to play CS), the legendary Lingam and our retired gamer(RaviTeja). In spite of this realization, I continued playing for hours together thanks to the Wlan (For those who are unaware — Long long ago, so long ago; Once upon a time in history, IIIT Wlan supported networking games like Quake, CS).

After the summer break, things were pretty much similar to the first year.  Things mostly remained same except one difference in that; my old room was taken away by G.N (Never understood what was so holy about that room and GN). There was another major difference in that the pressure from the courses was also unbelievably low (when compared to the 1,2 semesters).  There was a TV which was put up right next to my room and in Bhaskara, there was a TV guide/operator right next to my room and believe me we did not miss even a single sporting event in that season.

As the 3 sem  passed, I began to hit new lows.  I did not reply to the ITWS project priority list on time. As all hope seem to have faded for attempts to find a partner as well as  a decent project (easy to code, attractive so as to gain some easy marks).  Yaso, came up to me and proposed the idea of taking up RoboCup Rescue as an ITWS project. At that point, probably lack of enthusiasm to find more options and lack of interest (latter one was a dominant factor). I, also, felt more the members in the project the better it is as I have already decided to not put it a lot of effort and hence, by the efforts of other people at least I can get a decent grade. We found a third fella in the form of Praveen.

The first mid sems approached; I gave them a damn and hence the result was also a damn. If I am not wrong I think I was a chart buster (from the bottom, of course) in the discrete maths mid sems. Things reached such a deplorable state that my friends even started to refused to do (group)assignments with me! I was basically looked as a burden to carry around. At this point, I have decided — Ok, enough is enough; lets not feed off others any more. Lets do an assignment. There was apparently an Operating Systems assignment floating around which said — You have to write a system call and compile it into the kernel. I started googling to find out that I should first install Linux on my PC to do anything. But alas! I never understood what linux was, leave alone the installation and other details etc.  So, I caught hold of Naveen(I year neighbor) who helped/taught me the basics of installation and kernel compilation. But, the system call integration was a long shot even after the expert tut of Naveen. I sat for a day and went deep into the night. I was wandering some company to discuss and get some clarity about the process when I ran into Ravi Teja. We finished the assignment and I returned to my original wayword ways. But, in the entire process I found a great friend in Ravi. From that day till the end of the third year we never dined in IIIT mess. There was not a place we left untouched! We used to travel by bus to places like Nan king, Paradise, Ohri’s. We used to leave for dinner around 7:00 and return to college only after 11:00 to join the CS servers/watch some telecast. The habit of going out for a dinner broke only in the 4 year when we got busy with our individual priorities.

By the time, end sems were around the corner. I gave up my hopes on discrete maths. The day before that exam, I reached our very own Yaso to teach me so that I can avoid a ‘F’. What can he do when he himself was fighting to avoid an F. To our duo, we found another mate in Praveen Pothana. Let me tell you after looking at this fella, me and Yaso had a sigh of relief ! We figured out that we need atleast 15 marks in the end sem to avoid an F. By the time I reached the exam hall and had a look at the question paper. I understood onething– Unless I take some help from an external source, I cannot the 15 required marks. So, I started looking for sources. What safer source than Prof. V himself. So, I called him and asked him if he can help me understand the various Greek symbols on the paper and what do they mean. In an usual rhetoric tone, he replies back — “No.” Then, I looked around to find that the Praveen was seated behind me and no one else (I knew)! Look at my fate, when I have decided enough is enough, lets use the external advice, no body was around.  As a last retort, I started to ask everyone around and found a couple of seniors (NTR, pillu) and started bugging them. After sometime, they were kind enough to assist me and I escaped the axe. I scored 16 marks in the end sem, yo ! Coming back to the ITWS project, do not ask me how but all the three of us ended up not coding a single line and also somehow escaped from the axe. It was a sort of a mystic adventure and more so, a miracle that we escaped unharmed! By his grace, I somehow stuck to my CG of 8.27

As I moved into the 4 sem, I faced another daunting task — to pick up an elective. Given my poor experiences with OS in the last sem, I wanted to avoid coding and hence, graphics. I found old mates in form of Bhaskara, Sudha joining the hunt for such a course. We met Prosenjit and he gracefully allowed us to take the computational geometry course.

Life, though, was full of inactivity and non-sense. There was only a single schedule — wake up 15 mins before the earliest class;  watch cricket/BC for the time till dinner and by 7:00 leave for a restaurant and back to college by 11:00 and sleep if there wasn’t any sporting event on air.

Lifestyle was pretty much the same except that I knew where I should be just before the day of exam! Sandeep’s Room. Believe me, this guy is such a wonderful teacher before the exams that you can bet with certainty of not finding a place in his room before the exams. He was a savior for many of us. I still remember the Algo’s tut  he gave before the end-sem. The knowledge transfer was so high that I (by sheer luck) went on to get the highest marks in the end sem. I would be lying to deny that even I was not surprised by that given that my midsem performances were utterly disgusting and poor. The association with Sandeep has only began, more of him in the sequels.

Towards the end of 4 sem, it not uncommon  to join some center for a honors/summer project (has  become a ritualistic process ?).  I was no different. There were different advices floating around — CVIT (because of some legendary/celebrity and the hype around them), CDE(for the ease of completion and chances abroad) and ACT (It was relatively new, but I heard the guys who were with this center and  the great placement season they had). Not surprisingly, I chose ACT (now CSTAR) for obvious reasons. I was of the opinion that once you join a center or sign for a professor; he will take you places ! I assumed that once you are there with him, he will teach you all the things necessary to get a decent job, if not skills for life. I was so confident that once a prof. signs the summer project sign for you; your job is done. I expected the prof to ping me, explain/clarify things, brief about what is to be done as well as be nice. Nice as in talk to us more as a friend and be open to our views and suggesting us about our future. How was wrong was I to imagine so. As you would know shortly, it took me nearly another year to realize that if at all there is one prof. who is so, then the whole world would be Utopian.  What I realized was something like this — It is up to to you to prioritize things and choose a prof. who would match your interests. Also, you are in major part responsible for the success/progress of any project that you have taken up.

As the sem ended, the grades started emerging — my CG crawled, though at snail’s pace, to 8.4. The summers in the college (literally) gave me a torrid time. There was no progress, whatsoever,  by any yardstick of measure. Rather, things became worse when I was informed that I had to go to Germany for Robocup competition. The proposed trip was a period of 8 days and I would be traveling along Yaso. Why did things go worse when, at the outset,  it appears to be a possible golden chance to chill out? Is something  inherently wrong with me? Why did I want to avoid the trip? Do I hate free lunches? Am I a holy cow, having a strict moral code of conduct and strong ethics? Or was I trying to show-off ? To know more about them — wait till the next post.

Up next 5,6 sems –  which have totally changed my life.

ps: The events/situations may appear quite dramatic, but let me tell you that this is how events spawned out! There is nothing imaginative being added. Let me reserve my imaginative skills for some other posts :-)