Musings about MIT

Happy birthday Sat

2009-03-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sathiyamoorthy, Sathiya, Sat, Moonu Seetu, Praveen, Mit Romeo, Pulsar.Bike, Sat Wins, Sat feelings - So many identities. One person.

Keyboard. Japanese. Dancing. Biking. Metal Embossing. Electronics. Engineering. Marketing and most importantly Figure-correcting :) - So many talents. One person.

Of the many things that he has done over the years, the one thing that touches me even today is how he opted out of L&T during the campus interview. Only the top 5 were allowed to take the exam and Dinu was at No 6 that time. Knowing this was Dinu's best shot at getting a job and relying on his core skills to get placed in Sanmar/Honeywell, Sat didn't appear and the rest is history!

Here's wishing you many many more happy returns of the day machi! Have fun and have a blast! I know these are tough times but i'm sure success will follow wherever you go!

Cheers -

Andha Naal Gnabagam... #3

2009-03-03T09:13:00.000-08:00

"Who said stars are uncountable?" - was the caption on the photo in the T Shirt that the 11 of us specially ordered to be made for the Goa trip. I think the idea was Sat's, not sure though, the photo was digitally pieced together on Photoshop by Vijayakumar I guess and the caption was Perry's suggestion. Mr Moonu Seetu along with someone else made the final orders with a shop called "Jus' Kidding" in Spencer Plaza and we were ready to rock the tour with our cult clothing!

This pic was clicked at Vagator Fort / Beach, Goa - yeah, the Dil Chahta Hai location!

I know it's easy, but still - Can you try listing down the people in the photo from L-R?

Massive metamorphoses

2008-05-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

It's Memorial Day weekend here and almost everyone is out of town. I am on-call this week and my work demands that I spend these 3 days at home. Almost saturated with boredom, I decided to come up with this funny piece. I am sure you'll love it. With my limited cut-copy-paste skills and with no good software, I have put up the below pictures from my archives. It's just a collection of 3 of our class guys' photos - taken way back during our 2002 Cochin tour and some pictures taken pretty recently.. After looking at the pics, I am sure you would approve of the title of this post.

Dinu in March 2002                        Dinu in September 2006

Kichoos in March 2002                         Kichoos in July 2007
I was lucky to get the below 2 pics in which Mr Mariappar has almost given the same pose.

Mari in March 2002                        Mari in April 2008

Eppadi irundha ivanga.. Ipdi aytaangale!!!!!! Depending on my degree of boredom in the coming days, more will follow.. Cheers!!!

Flashback Video

2007-12-31T07:39:00.000-08:00

Karimes has created yet another wonderful video. This time he has pulled some of the photos that were taken during our 4 year long college life and synched it up to the title song of the movie Dil Chahta Hai.. Now then, i seriously doubt whether Karimes is the brain behind these stuff :-) ! Anyways, Karimes - you rock mate!! Enjoy the video..

Andha Naal Gnabagam... #2

2007-08-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

Continuing the series with this picture from Intecho 2004.

It was taken on Jan 11, 2004 - the last of two days of our department's annual technical symposium "INTECHO". We had these random photo sessions after the valedictory function got over at Rajam hall and after everyone else left. This one was taken at the CP Ramasamy OAT. It was all IT 53 with a handful of juniors around. I, like many of our class guys, will always cherish those moments as if it were a rare treasure. We were shouting, dancing, hitting each other and behaving as madly as we could and as if there was no tomorrow. Any topic on Intecho 04 would be incomplete without the following:
1) Rao Restaurant stall - Man, i can never forget it.
2) The so-called DJ party arranged by Jeeth and his - "Machan! Last Intecho da machan!!" dialogue.
3) The movie Kovil to which we went that night at Tambaram Vidya theatre
4) At the last moment, Stanley (51st IT) was made judge for one of the technical presentations due to non-availability of staff!
5) Salman's and Gokul's speech at the function. Salman with his - "Intecho Two thousand four is a grand success!" and Gokul almost forgetting Pk's name!! Gosh!
6) Gokul and Vijayakumar architecting the stage backdrop and Arvind not allowing them to take a photo with it!

Well, there are others too. I have just written the ones that came off the top of my head. Include your memories in the comments section. Cheers!!

MIGHTY IT ZINDABAD!!

Wayanad tour video

2007-08-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

Gokul has put together this cracker of a video from our recent Wayanad trip photos and video clippings. Enjoy!!

College Hostel.. A second home...

2007-07-06T23:10:00.000-07:00

Kalluri Viduthi - Maru veedu

Kaalai ettu manikku vizhithu
Pal theika marandhu
Avasaramaai mugathai kazhuvi
Nanbanin arayil irundhu kidaikira thuniyai eduthu uduthi
Oru note-u pusthagam, oru pena - thedi kandupidithu
Mess-uku sendru
Pongal-ai seendamal, irandu vadaigalai matum saapitu mudithu
Kodhikira mess tea-yai gada gadavena kudithu vitu
Kalluri saalai-yil nanbargaludan pesi kondu
Vagupparai-yai vandhu adaindhu
Kadaisi bench-il utkarndhu
Andha arpudhamana naal-ai thuvanguvom...

Poriyial patta padippu (kalluri vaazhkai) naangu aandugal matume nadakka vendum endra vidhiyai veithavan - En janma virodhi!!

Happy birthday "No Nickname"

2007-05-01T06:05:00.001-07:00

It's time to wish happy birthday to Sampath, ArAvind (minus the A). Rated the most immature person in our class, this cool dude (okay, just to please him) is one merry go round person with a brilliant brain and not so matching looks. In a notorious class like ours, its hard to think that he did not have a steady nickname all through the four years of college. I have this habit of carrying over nicknames of old friends and attaching them to new ones. There was one Venkatesh in school, and he was nicknamed Venkayam. In college, that nickname was attributed to another Venkatesh. Similarly there was one Aravind in school and he was nicknamed Half-Sperm (literal translation of the Tamil words Arai and Vindhu). Somehow this nickname didn't go along well with our subject of discussion. Balli (Lizard) was another futile attempt to nickname himself. But that too went down the drain without making much impact. I am almost sure that he does not possess one even now - in the corporate world. If there is anything that you know, please enlighten me. Arvind, hope you have a blasting birthday in the land of milk and honey.

Virginia Tech pakkam poyidatha; magane pottu thallida poraanga.. Aprum death day aydum..

Thalapathy, Endhan thalapathy!

2007-01-27T03:38:00.000-08:00

This is from one of the mails that i circulated within the Infy junta when we were undergoing our training at Mysore. Enjoy...

"Ithu Kichoos, en nanban... en Dalapathy , enakkaga ethuvum seivaan......"

"Yen...."

"yen naa , Mokkai en nanban ...."

"yemma enna thooki yerunchutta ...... yaarum illatha pothu
Mokkai thaan enakku irunthaan... avana vittuttu eppadi varamudiyum... neenga arjun oda irukkanum , naan Mokkai kooda irukkanum athuthaan niyayam. "

Andha Naal Gnabagam... #1

2006-08-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

I am planning to post photographs taken during our 4 years of college life in this series. It will be a random series - not a weekly or a fortnightly post. I choose to begin with this group photo taken during March 2002 at Hotel Avenue Regent in Cochin - the place of our first class tour (or was it an industrial visit?!) Our class' golden boy Anand Jeeth had arranged for a buffet dinner at this posh 4 star hotel and booked the entire hall for close to 3 hrs that night. After dinner and birthday gift give-aways, we danced to the tunes of Supamma Supamma and the likes for close to 2 hrs - full of pure, unadulterated fun!!

This day, That year..

2006-08-06T02:09:00.000-07:00

Written on July 31, 2006
This day, three years before, marked the beginning of my journey with the name called Infosys. July 31, 2003 - The day of the campus interview by Infosys at College of Engineering, Guindy. Looking back at it, i feel as it happened just yesterday. Around 22 of our classmates appeared for the written test - 10 puzzles and one English grammar paper. Infy, at that period, was following a strange recruitment policy. All of those who clear the written test will be directly selected for placement. No further interview - technical or HR!

The test got over by almost noon. I was personally satisfied with my performance as i was confident of having solved 7 out of 10 puzzles correctly. But there was this talk of Upper cut-off mark (if you score above this cut-off, you will not be chosen) which made one doubt his chances of getting selected irrespective of having done well. After having lunch at CEG's celebrated canteen, we waited for the results to be announced in front of CUIC (Centre for University Industry Collaboration) building. After sometime, we were informed that the results will be delayed till late evening. Not knowing what to expect and not knowing how to pass time, some of our classmates went to Guindy Children's Park, which is just opposite to Anna University. With troubled minds and faked smiles, we spent around 2 hours at the park and returned to main campus at around 6.30pm. After some more hours of waiting, the list was finally announced. To our disappointment, there was not a single student from our class in the first 70-80 names that were announced. As we didn't expect more than 100 - 125 to be selected, we were on the verge of dejection. Seconds later, the bandwagon started to roll with Jyoti Solanki, Instrumentation. 13 from our class got selected out of the total 210 - an epic figure in the placement records of Anna University. It was indeed a remarkable day in my life, primarily for 2 reasons -
1) I saw Infosys as the last real chance for me to get selected in the software industry and
2) Our class' placement score shot up by almost 33 p.c to reach close to 60 percentage.

Nostalgic

2006-06-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

A defining moment in our four year history. A snap which captures the bonding, rapport and the fun that we had together.
Quoting the lines..
Oh When I look back now,
it seemed to last for ever,
given a choice, I wanna be there for ever
those were the best days of my life..

'Darkness Redefined' hits a quarter!

2006-06-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today, 06-06-06 happens to be the twenty-fifth birthday of our class' Kariya Kodiya Visha Janthu! This day will be marked in history as one of the darkest and most evil (666) days mankind has ever encountered.

Join me in wishing the crazy creature a very happy birthday! May you frighten many more souls and continue your reign of terror in the years to come!!

Let there be darkness everywhere!!! Omen.. er.. Amen!!

Kalloori Salai - MIT Road

2006-05-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

Let me take you first to MIT by adding this Pic to this blog..

Hope everyone will like this ..

Update - Vijay

This pic remembers me of the famous lines which Anand Jeeth had once sent across in a mail to our class (53rd IT) egroups..

As we trudge along the sands of time
Different ways do we part
I only wish, when years hence
Your thoughts may chance to turn to me
You think of me fondly
Without malice, without sorrow, without regret.

Kichoos ties the knot!

2006-05-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

Classmate in college, colleague and close friend Krishnakumar AC, fondly known as Kichoosie, Jacuzzi et al rang the wedding bells today with his lady love from school days, Aruna at Raja Kalyana Mandapam at Velachery. The wedding took place in a Tamil-Telugu mix style and it was real fun watching Kundu Kichoos clad in munda banian, panjakacham and the traditional golti white turban perform the homam and do the thaali kattifying & metti maatifying rituals..

I will try and upload pics in this post sometime later.

Kosu (Arun Prasath) and Visu (Viswanath) had come all the way from Bengalooru and Mysore to shower their wishes on our class' first non-bachelor!!

Here's wishing the couple eternal connubial bliss!! God bless guys!!

My alma mater

2006-02-17T22:17:00.000-08:00

Hi! I dedicate this blog to my alma mater - Madras Institute of Technology, Chromepet, Chennai! I'm planning to write things about my college as and when they come to my mind in this blogspace.

This is a rough map of the college. Our department "Instrumentation Technology" is located near the Main Gate. The right most L shaped building and the rectangle opposite to it constitute our MIGHTY IT dept !!

Photo courtesy: http://mksarav.org