IIT Roorkee rocks!

If somebody had asked me a few days ago how is IIT Roorkee, my reply would've been, "Well it's good but not as good as I expected an IIT to be. The place is kinda old and boring."

Ask me now, and I will say, "IIT Roorkee rocks!"

And what caused the drastic perception makeover? Well, the answer is Internet.

When I came here I had almost no source of accessing Internet except the labs which I feel sick of visiting. Add to it the repetitive courses (similar to my UG curricula) made life hell boring. I began wondering whether the the courses were boring or the professors were bad. At a time I was so sick, I was wondering whether I made the right decision choosing M.Tech (CSE) at IIT R over my job at Infosys.

But now, ever since I have Internet access through WiFi on my new laptop (Compaq M2201TU) all my woes have vanished. Suddenly, I am lacking time to do stuff. It took me 2 days before I got time to write this.
I found IIT Roorkee Intranet website, which is simply amazing. We have local mirrors of all the common software required and, like it should be at any respectable place, most of them are open source.
Also, I found an online notice board with all the notices about last year placements. In short, they rock!
Last thing I saw today was faculty profiles. Well, all the professors I was cribbing about have over 50 research papers published in International journals! I am kinda feeling guilty.

Apart from the Internet-revealed stuff, this place is really cool to live. Ofcourse, Roorkee is no Delhi but I never got so much freedom in my life before I came here. For one instance, today I went to SnackPoint (near Century Gate, IIT Roorkee) to have my dinner (after I skipped the mess dinner) at 11 PM. And when I was returning, IIT hostel canteens were literally flooded with students. All canteens here open till 2 or 3 at night. Maybe mine is a special case but I never imagined such a thing in my UG institute.

It's hard to stop writing since I am so happy, but I think you have got the essence of the post, IIT Roorkee rocks...

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 :-)

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.

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...

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.

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.

Finally in IIT.

I got into IIT Roorkee for M.Tech Computer Science.

Now I can go to IIT Guwahati just for fun ;-)

Hiring is Obsolete

I just read a remarkable essay from Paul Graham about startups.

Read it full, if you are really serious about your dreams.

Phew!

Last week was quite bad and exhaustive.
I went to Mumbai for KReSIT admission test and got rejected. Adding to my miseries, the return train ticket didn't get confirmed and I had to spend hours running around in search of a seat in some train. Which, I didn't manage to get and had to board a plane back home.

So now I have only 3 options open. M.Tech (CSE) in IIT Guwahati or IIT Roorkee or my job at Infosys. I am not sure which is better but I'll certainly try my best to get a seat in IIT Guwahati or Roorkee. To join or to quit will be decided later.

Seems like I have more busy time ahead.

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