College Chronicles - Semester Six

What can I say about Semester Six? Well, it began like any other one, where we thought "Oh goody this sem's gonna be more free than the one that just went." Right before the university decided it'd be better if we wasted another day at college each week rather than waste our Saturdays at home. All we could do was fume. Above you'll find the obligatory "This was my odometer reading on Day 1" picture.

A signboard pointed us in the direction of our department (yes it's always been there but I'd never photographed it).

Barely a few days had passed since reopening before the incessant 'Placement preparations' began. The effect it had on us was profound with people scrambling left right and center to get their resumes (it's pronounced Ray-soo-may oh Plebeians) ready, what with our seniors butchering the same with comments all over.

Mock interviews saw some of us, including yours truly, spend an eternity being asked questions that would determine who won the prize money of a million dollars :P whereas others were pushed off quick by the ones who had the power of mock! (you won't get this one unless you visit a very specific website).  Mr. Vigneswaran and me took off on a short sojourn to Coimbatore where we won a paper presentation contest at CIT (Yes, we did present our own paper, not something stolen off the net). Unfortunately, most of our professors were none too keen on giving us attendance even if we missed classes for such an event.

Back at college, our Faculty adviser and class representatives had been hard at work arranging an Industrial visit to Nokia's Special Economic Zone at Sriperumbudur. The sprawling SEZ had Nokia's own factory for Volume phones (ones that sold en masse) alongside several others like Foxconn (yeah, the suicide company), Jabil and Laird that supply Nokia's OEM components. During the pre-floor visit presentation, one of our company of 60 had the bright idea to spout out loud "No one wants" in response to "Who here wants to work for Nokia?". The ex-Navy man HR Manager wasn't taking any crap and he promptly threatened to stop the visit right then and there lest the "coward [sic] had the guts to own up". After some cajoling from our FA, the trip proceeded with all of us attired like we were going into a biological hot-zone.

On the way back another genius threw a bottle out the window of the bus. Said bottle hit a car's windscreen square center and the driver found the Vice Chancellor's number and reported the class. This later resulted in a Industrial visit ban for the remainder of the semester. Not like we really had the time anyway.

The image on the left spells out MITAFEST, that's our college festival. Apparently it looks the same when read from top or bottom. MITAFEST festivities were in full swing. Didn't quite bother helping out with writing the web page stuff this time around because the previous MITAFEST they conveniently forgot yours truly when it came to certificates.

The show got on the road. Literally.

This here would be our college bus. The one whose driver was condemned to drive us around for our industrial visits. I do NOT envy him his job. :D












My friends got me a cake and loads of other stuff and celebrated my birthday in a grand way. My thanks to them. The photo below shows the cake - after it had been savagely ripped into (no, not by me).

While the rest of the world is in pursuit of cleaner, safer, bio-degradable containers, our Rubber and Plastics Department seems confused!

Meanwhile, the "I shall study and never to the fruit thereof" crowd had their first taste of the joy that movies can bring:

The next photo is Chief Guest Pest Viggy during the prize-giving ceremony for... ohwaitaminute.. that's Anupama's birthday. :)

My odometer reading as the end semester exams approached.

Soon enough all the placement classes had been replaced by the oh-so-familiar feeling of "The exams are upon us, our doom is coming". Last minute preparation really gets the adrenaline flowing. And Mr. Cactus gave me company helping to make the late night study a less solitary affair.














 I, however, ended up stretched across the couch with my book on my head in a pose similar to this guy here:

Towards the conclusion of the exams, I received a notice saying I'd been chosen under Dr. David Koilpillai, Professor, EE Department, IIT Madras for IIT's Summer Fellowship Program. Something that I'd been eagerly awaiting. As is evident from the rest of my blog, the Zombie (that's how I looked after 2 weeks of late nights thanks to the tests) took off on a trip to Egypt. Another part of the holidays I'd awaited with ardor.

Check out the navigation links on the left side of the page or throw me a comment if you want a look at photos from that journey.

Found this on the door of the Professor's room when I went over a bit too early. I expected him to come glare at me, but Dr. David is seriously awesome! You'd never think he was the professor and you the student the way he's so friendly with you despite his repertoire of knowledge and vast experience in the area communication.

Discovered this piece of heaven above in Egypt, and brought back quite a few on the way home.

The Fellowship at IIT Madras is indeed an experience that can vary widely according to the professor you're chosen to intern under. For me, it's been a wonderful time, actually doing meaningful research and contributing in a small way under someone as erudite yet down-to earth as Dr. David.

Below you'll find photos of some of the places I worked in - IIT's Central Electronic Centre, the DSP Lab in the EE Building, and the Intel Wireless Lab to name a few - and some bits and pieces of circuits I worked on.

So yeah, I didn't have much in the way of a vacation. Though this is one place where I've thoroughly enjoyed working the whole day. And having a Cafe Coffee Day within the campus made it all the more worthwhile :) .


A week or so before college reopens for the 6th sem, I find a notification from the IEEE saying that a paper I had submitted for an international conference has been accepted. Didn't quite sleep the whole day after seeing the mail, I was that agog! Only in my dreams had I imagined that any paper of mine would be published on IEEE Xplore and in an international IEEE and IET conference's proceedings. Indeed, there's someone up there in the wide blue yonder looking out for me.

Of course, modifying the paper to make it IEEE Xplore Compatible and running it through the IEEE's PDF-Express.com still remains, not to mention the insanely high registration fee (since this is an event for PhDs, researchers and post grad students, not quite for undergrads). I thank my lucky stars even as I write this little post. There is a bigger hurdle though, the conference dates are smack in the middle of my end semester exam in November. If my university is unaccommodating, it'll be a damn shame if I give a "No Show" in Shanghai, China come November.

So it is with a great deal of apprehension that I end my blog entry, as the class sets forth on a new adventure - the seventh semester.

Back to musical madness..... The latest performance

College reopened last week and I'm back on the keyboards again with our college's orchestra. Pulled together a show for a national workshop organized at college within a week (with practice sessions till 8pm each day). Followed, of course, by long drives in hellish traffic that would have my left foot numb by the time I got home.

Here follow a few videos of some songs we performed on stage at the event. One of the videos has a chunk missing because the person using the camera switched it off at the wrong moment, and the remaining songs can be found on youtube if you check under the "More from grajasekar" section on the right side of the video on youtube itself.

And I'm the main keyboardist in the maroon silk shirt by the way.



























And a professor of ours decided all of a sudden, at the end of the show, to sing a song on-stage. Had to provide some on-the-spot chords for the song he sang.

Here goes:





Gotta work on something much better for MITAFEST.

Singers are welcome to leave their names in the comments section of this article or on the comments section of the respective Youtube pages.

College Chronicles - Part 4

Its been about two weeks since my 4th sem exams came to an end. I suppose its time to look back upon the semester gone by.

This sem was supposed to be the time to relax - as a friend of mine put it - "We'd be having more free hours than classes". Boy, was he (the little guy in the middle with glasses ) wrong.
And how wrong. Things went wrong even before reopening day. Initially reopening was scheduled for December, giving us something like 4 days of vacation (why did they even call it a vacation) before college began for the 4th sem. Lo and behold it poured forth from the sky and one of our exams was postponed to a much later date, leading to a delayed opening in January. Then we had a week or so off for our department's international level conference TIMA followed by Madras Institute of Technology campus' Silver Jubilee celebration (another 4-5 days). Besides that, we had a gala time during the weeks that the government decided to declare holidays here in Tamil Nadu "in protest against the Sri Lankan Government's handling of the Tamil issue." They started calling it Ceylon jubilee, LOL.

Right before the reopening we were shit-scared of the results, cos the kinda feedback we'd given to some professor, we'd expected half the class to fail. Thankfully, most of us passed, though the grades were noticeably lower.

There was one saving grace however, in the form of MITAFEST - 2009. I was on the writing team for the event's website. Gave me a chance to write my heart out, and almost all the stuff under the Events section (among some others) is what I had written. The website is still up at www.mitafest.com. The event itself was something else!!! Celebrities were popping in and out of college (who cares!), people with faces painted, quizzers and orators, fashionistas, dancers, singers and gamers - whatever your forte, you had a stage to showcase your talent. To top it all off, highlights included the concerts by Anuradha Sriram and Karthik with renowned instrumentalists accompanying them on stage (I procured the videos via a friend). The atmosphere was saturated with excitement.


We had some fun in the Transducers Lab too, even took time out between experiments to catch some snaps.


The little guy with big brains, Mr Sundaram, kept up his routine act of writing "Today Aps Class" this semester too.






Remba padicha idhaan aagum (study too much and this is what happens) --->

You start seeing rhombuses and geometric shapes where you never thought you would before.


Once all this was over, our HOD left no stone unturned in ensuring we knew the urgency of the situation, that we were short of time. Alas our skulls were too thick for this vital piece of information to permeate, though this was on expected lines :D . So we ended up having classes even on Saturdays - and full days at that. Every free period was taken, we were so busy we didn't have the time to scratch our arses. Lab tests and assessment dates overlapped and intertwined. Projects found their way from the "We'll definitely do it" to the "trash the idea" bin. Industrial visits were canceled too.

Now the general student population had a hard time in our department this semester, but our representative was a day-scholar Jayaram a.k.a Baja. I pity the tough time he had. The professors grilled him for free periods like lions fighting for their share of the kill. No one would let go of their piece of the pie, so poor Baja was caught in the crossfire. I suppose he got depressed and did this to his hair (yeah, he's the one in the center with the strange haircut).

I'm just kidding though, he and our girls rep Karpaga did a marvellous job arranging classes and even a guest lecture in the midst of the shitstorm.




On a personal note, I hit a rather quirky odometer reading in my Accent. 34567 , refer the photo for proof ----> .

The sem dragged on, and the portions piled up after each assessment. The erstwhile rumours kept us supplied with enough gossip, especially bits of paper like this one below.











When asked to confirm above mentioned and other worthwhile rumours, most people shied away. Some said "no, nothing of that sort", others would go "oh, really!!". Still some important people like the Professor below would say "No, Comment".



The exams were soon looming over us, and all other thoughts were left behind. While some of my classmates were cooped up and performing the ancient art of "combined studies", I spent time alone in the evenings (when I was free from the arduous task of wasting time) in the below room (no that's not my room). It was once my cousin's room, and you guessed it right, he was an Aishwarya Rai oops Aishwarya Bachchan fanatic. Just click play and it will loop the slideshow. No wonder I studied so slowly this time around.......



Some people were studying really hard as evidenced by the following pictures. Our ex-rep and "project boy" Vigneshwaran takes a nap with his book still open, while the Dragon (yeah right, a.k.a Sardarji) Praveen wakes up from his reverie on a table to find the camera in his face.




















And so began the torture. From April 27th to May 11th, sleep was a scarce commodity, atleast for me. You may observe the below photograph, it shows you my best friend and saviour during this period (Gave me wings alright).














This picture on the right was one of those moments of nostalgia I had on the morning / night / midnight / unearthly hour before an exam (try guessing what subject from the picture). This little cup was something which I had used long long long ago when I was in Kindergarten. The big mug you see in the background is full of another of my saviours - coffee. Coffee and Red Bull kept me awake the whole night sometimes. With not an ounce of sleep in my body. Surprisingly, I wrote my exams pretty well even with the abject lack of sleep, neither did it affect my drive to college each day before the test. Rather brash on my part you say? Brash??? No, no, no, not at all. "Suicidal" would have been the right word. :D

In the midst of these god-forsaken exams, my house was full of relatives too, what with there being a close relative's marriage in Chennai. Had a nice time, though I ended up studying only right before each exam day cos of the above mentioned marriage.

Thus passed the wonderful, glorious, god-given opportunity to prove my mettle (yeah, everyone's a critic) and now beyond me stands a month's worth of holidays.

This sem there was a personal milestone for me - I turned 20 this March, now no longer a teenager, so took a trip down to Le Royal Meridien to celebrate. Here's a snap of the cake (this was one AWESOME cake).


A few upgrades to the PC, plenty of sleep, a number of IPL matches, and a cheesecake later, here I am concluding this long long article, reminiscing upon the sem just past.



<---- A well earned (says me) break at the Taj, Mount Road after the exams.












Yours Truly,
The Lone Wolf

MITAFEST 2009 Photos

MITAFEST 2009

Here's a little slide show of the pictures from MITAFEST 2009

MITAFEST 2009 - an article from THE HINDU NXG

Memories to cherish

EVENT MIT’s MITAFEST ‘09 was a star-studded event with some sizzling performances. -MONISH BAAL

“Where were you, MIT, all these years?”; “Thanks for making my college life very memorable; Still in the eyes.” These were a few of the scraps received on MITAFEST09 profile in Orkut. I got goose bumps again while reading all these comments.

Rocking and rolling

But the first time was when Karthik and his high voltage rock band pulled a string in their electric guitar. Well, I was almost electrocuted. Karthik’s Indian Rock show on February 20 was the highlight of Mitafest. Did you ever think numbers like Aasai Nooruvagai, Orumaalai, Pettai Rap could be rendered the rock ‘n’ roll way? We thought Tamil lyrics could never merge with rock ‘n’ roll but Karthik showed us how. Chairs were immaterial, as there wasn’t a soul offstage whose feet weren’t in action. I tried to stay away from it, being an organiser, but couldn’t hold up; after just two songs I jumped into the crowd. I really need to thank Karthik and his band for making my final year in college a cherished memory.The other celebs at MITAFEST sparkled brightly.

Actor Vedhika melted the dudes while director Vishnu Vardhan and stunt master Kanal Kannan brought the house down with their wit. With workshops at every college cultural, MITAFEST had its share too; but only the best. Director Mysskin shared his passion for filmmaking in the filmmakers workshop while SS Music sweethearts Paloma and Gibran showed us their ingredients for charm in the VJ workshop. Other major events were the bike show, Chennai City-wide Treasure Hunt, Dindigul I. Leoni’s side splitting Tamil Pattrimandam and a romantic concert by Anuradha Sriram. The event rolled to an end with a Fashion show judged by with ace designer Vivek Karunakaran judging SRM the winners and actress Shruthika as Ms. Levi’s. In a nutshell, “Great celebrities, awesome concerts and earth shattering dances”; that was MITAFEST 09.

Monish is a Final Year student of Aeronautical Engineering at MIT.

MITAFEST 2009 - A job well done

The highlight of the entire event would surely be those awesome concerts by Karthik and Anuradha Sriram. While Anuradha Sriram wowed us all with her voice, every single person was up on their feet dancing to rock renderings of popular Tamil and Hindi songs.






Four days of fun, frolic and excitement. Kudos to the organisers for the jolly good show put up at MITAFEST 2009.

Personally, I had a nice time writing a lot of the stuff on the MITAFEST website. Hope MITAFEST only get's bigger and better from now....

FOR ANYONE LOOKING FOR VIDEOS OF MITAFEST 2009, those will be going up soon (within a month or so) on youtube or any other suitable video-sharing service. Once they're up I'll embed them in a post on this blog too..... Yes, I'm waiting for them as eagerly as you guys are.