Friday, July 22, 2005

My new life starts tomorrow...

I am feeling lazy so this post is gonna be real short.

  • I am going IIT Roorkee for registration tomorrow.
  • Classes start on Monday, so I will have more than one day to get settled in my new hostel room.
  • I am not taking my computer and I hope I'll get a hostel with a computer centre inside.
  • I am busy reading reviews and forum posts to decide upon my new computer. I have 3 options:
    • Buy a new computer (something high-end) and leave my old one home.
    • Upgrade my computer and buy a new one (something basic) for home.
    • Buy a laptop (some desktop replacement model) and leave my old PC home.

That's it. Now the next post will be from an IIT Roorkee IP Address :-)

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

The Fantastic Keyboard !

Thejo found the Optimus keyboard somewhere on the Internet that keeps reminding me of the flexibility of Mr. Fantastic. Too bad, it's just an idea yet. But I am sure buying one once it is available, presuming I'll be able to pay for it by then :-)

PS: I saw Fantastic Four this Sunday, it's good. Not as good as Spiderman but still good.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Assamese beauty


Assamese beauty
Originally uploaded by chirag_gupta.

I bought this beautiful handicraft from my trip to Guwahati.
But only when I reached home, I realized the girl in the picture is made from letters of "Happy New Year"!
Cool eh...

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Exhausted, Part 2

I talked enough about Guwahati yesterday and now it’s time to talk about IIT Guwahati.
IIT is around 20 km away from the main city and the main means of transport is institute’s bus service which is good enough.

It’s just like any other IIT. Huge buildings of various departments and hostels spread over a large area. Big labs full of cool equipment, everything that a to-be-engineer needs.
The feel too, is similar to any other IIT. Everyone is cool about most of the things. The atmosphere like all IITs is - No one gives a damn to what you do with your life. It’s your life and you can bend and twist it in any way you want.

One big problem at IIT Guwahati was that it isn’t very well maintained. The building is quite new (newest among IITs) but it is already having problems. No one seems to look after the minor problems in hostels. Like, all the toilets stink and are full of various kinds of insects making your hygiene and bladder extremely low. (I am playing Sims a lot these days :-))

After the initial impressions, I and my friend (Vivek) decided that we are not going to IIT Guwahati. But we still had two days before the train back home. We spent the first day in IIT with a friend studying there. We had lots of fun IIT-style (rather engineering college style, coz now most of the good engineering college students spend there hostel life similar to IITians). This day made sure that the next two years of my life at IIT Roorkee will be an unforgettable experience.

We spent our last day at Guwahati in a hotel. The old style elevator there was ready to collapse when we entered and it actually did when we were leaving! This day was extremely bad. After having awful lunch in a restaurant, we stood in Rail Ticket cancellation queue for 4 hours to get our unconfirmed AC tickets cancelled. To my relief the day ended well with some good food and sound sleep.

The next two days belonged to my longest train journey. As if 36 hours in a Sleeper compartment in a train traveling in Assam, Bihar and UP were not enough, the train was 4 hours late. I don’t even want to remember how I was stinking badly and trying to kill time in the train.

Well, I am glad I am back and I still have some days before I join IIT Roorkee to enjoy. And in the same breath as I say this, I wish this was my last such trip.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Exhausted, Part 1

I thought I will stay relaxed for a month when I got admission to IIT Roorkee.
Seems I was wrong. This has been one of the most exhaustive weeks of my life.

The fate of my trip to IIT Guwahati was almost pre-decided. I went there for two reasons. First, I wanted to make sure that my decision (choosing IIT Roorkee over IIT Guwahati) was right, so that I do not repent later. And second, I was in a no-harm-possible situation :-)

The trip started as planned except that Indian Airlines’ food was worse than expected and the plane was half an hour late. No serious issues though.

In Guwahati the first thing that struck me was the extremely high humidity and harsh sunrays. I expected it to be cooler than Delhi as temperature was 5-10 degree lower but the humidity made the atmosphere intolerable. Also, I have a gut feeling that lesser pollution in Guwahati makes the atmosphere thinner hence increasing the intensity of sunrays and number of visible stars in sky.

One thing good about Guwahati is that it is very close to nature. You turn any side and you will either see a mountain or River Brahmaputra (which is majestic). I loved this aspect of this city after spending all my years in flatlands around Delhi.

Another thing about Guwahati, as my friend Vivek quoted was, “It’s a sleeping city.” It really is. It was a Sunday afternoon and streets were empty and shops closed. Three days at Guwahati were enough to prove the sleeping nature of the city. Maybe it is the climate and beautiful surroundings that compel them to sleep all the time.

I’m far from sleeping city but I’m a tired and feeling sleepy. I’ll continue this post tomorrow.