Is my cell phone Hydrophilic?

I haven't been able to pen down anything substantial for the past 10 days or so. Arey kuch khaas nahi hai yaar. Pichle mahine ki telephone bill kuch zyada aaya to maine socha toda blogging kam karte hain... I haven't done anything constructive in these 10 days, apart from watching some real good movies...

Okies... enough of this blah blah... This post is all about my cell phone saga. It has been a real daunting experience with my cell phone. I am sure you will agree with me as u finish reading this post. Read on...

All this dates back to my visit to Nitte, for the VTU Uth Fest (9th Nov 2006). After the events on the 2nd day were over, we went to the kapu beach, near Nitte. All of us had some awesome time getting to the top of the light house over there. We then came down to take a nice little dip in to the sea and enjoy the site of a beautiful sunset. The excitement was so much that I almost forgot that I still carried my cell phone in the pocket. I got in to the sea along side many of my friends, and that’s when this whole episode began.

We made a nice little hurdle, and enjoyed the spattering sound of rhythmic sea waves kissing us at short intervals. Amidst all this masti, my cell phone also took a holy dip in to the Arabian Sea. With the sun taking leave off the horizon, my cell phone also took leave of its duties. Yep! My cell phone was damaged to the core! Damn it. Its bloody saline water folks! It will corrode the whole board if left unattended. To add to all this, was the incident that shifted the centre of gravity and every one’s attention away from my cell. Our cultural secretary was stung badly by a star fish (I don’t really know if it true).The sting was so bad that he was rendered unconscious. He was hurried to a local clinic. The moments of tension soon came to an end, when we were told that it was just a trivial issue, and he would recover soon. But my mind was still deluged with zillion doubts about the fate of my cell phone. It seemed as though I would have to lose my 'darling' once and for all... Two days in succession, my cell phone was left gasping for some serious ‘medication’, or in clear terms... it demanded some real good servicing.

I returned from Nitte after 2 days and the first thing on my to-do-list, was to get my cell phone repaired. I knew that I couldn't claim the service for free from Nokia care, bcoz I was pretty much aware of this particular clause in the user guide that came along with my handset. One such situation when the manufacturer's limited warranty coverage is void is, "If the product has been exposed to moisture, to dampness or to extreme thermal or environmental conditions or to rapid changes in such conditions, to corrosion, to oxidation, to spillage of food or liquid or influence from chemical products". So here I was, with a cell phone that truly was exposed to all such possible damaging environments, and which fully met the 'requirements' that could very well render a guarantee void!!!

It was then that I decided to turn to a service guy, who wasn't from Nokia care!!! I did get my cell repaired after 15 days of hassling! Thankfully it was working :) But the display was still flickering... The guy who got my cell repaired told me that, I should consider myself lucky if that display ever got stable. He asked me to use my cell phone as frequently as I could, so that the chances of my display getting stable increased. God knows, what the underlying theory behind it was? All I cared was about my cell getting back to normalcy! I followed his piece of advice and used my cell phone as frequently as I could.

I got serendipitous, when one fine morning I got up to find that my cell phone’s display had miraculously got stable. It was simply a spectacular sight to see it working the same way as before. Hurray!! I jumped all over the place and shared this happy news with all my friends. The guy’s theory had finally paid off!!

Lagta hai ki saaala maine kuch zyada hi masti karli!!! My cell is back to its early days after servicing. Its display is flickering again. After 4 months of faithful service after recovery, its fallen sick again. Damn it!!! It's so annoying to have your cell phone's display, play hide and seek with you. A few days back the entire display went off with everything else working fine. Now that isn't any fun u know. I used to get message alerts and all I could do was just try switching no/off my cell phone continuously, with an anticipation that it might show something remotely visible! My levels of frustration were at its zenith. I was being driven nuts! All I could do was to place or receive calls. I would have to attend a call without knowing who the caller was until I spoke to him/her. What was more agonizing, were some calls from Hutch's customer care (automated) that spoke about some promotional offers! You know, I used to get these calls in the middle of a class. When I used to receive them, all I could hear was some fucking female voice that would blabber some shit!!!

Having been traumatized by this whole episode, I was forced to talk to the same guy who had serviced my cell phone earlier. He had a good look at my cell phone and after a little ‘surgery’, told me that the cell phone had a problem with the charging line. It was trivial and could be fixed. He also gave me some free advice to sell my cell phone, once I get this problem fixed! Now his words of advice made me think a lot. I am wondering if it s time for me to get rid of my cell. The amount that he offered to buy that cell from me was quite reasonable. I am in utter dilemma, bcoz this whole flickering display stuff is taking a toll of my patience. I wanna get it fixed at the earliest, and also if possible wanna sell my cell phone off to him. To summarize my current state in one word, I am discombobulated!!! Somebody help me…

I forgot to jot down another incident when my cell phone was exposed to a few droplets of water in the bathroom! Hmmm…Thank god, the water wasn’t saline and neither was it too much in content to render my cell phone sick! I fixed the issue by exposing my ‘dissected’ cell phone to sunlight. I dunno if it seriously lacked a bit of Vitamin D. It somehow managed to get back in to action!!!

PS: I dunno if it’s some kinda senti stuff. I am very much attached to my cell phone. It's been my darling all these days (both good and bad). After 2 such episodes where it displayed strong affinity to water, I was just kinda wondering, is my cell phone really hydrophilic?

~IT's My Life

Time just flies!!!

It was roughly an year ago, that MindTree had been to Davangere to recruit students of 2007 batch. They had come over to UBDT college of engineering, which happens to be affiliated to Kuvempu University. It is one amongst the 3 engineering colleges in Davanagere. The memories of getting placed in to my dream company are still fresh and green in my mind, when the people from MindTree visited our campus today (BIET) to hire students from 2008 batch.

The ppt began at around 9:00 am. I had internals in the 1st hour, so couldn't listen to their ppt from the begining. I made it to the ISE seminar hall, where the ppt had already begun by around 9:15 am. It was pretty impressive to see the video of a MindTree Mind of 2006 batch, sharing his training experience (he got in to R&D), at the end of his training session. This video, to a large extent spoke volumes of their methodology to train or speaking in their own words, make the MindTree minds 'learn' the required skill set, under the mentoring from some of the finest minds in the industry.

This time MindTree had set it's eligibility criteria based on the scores in ULKAT, an entrance test taken by our juniors at the university level. The students were awarded marks based on their performance. The cutoff marks in ULKAT set by MindTree was 56, along with an aggregate percentage of 65% in engineering and no current back logs. But there was a little bit of a problem with few of my juniors, who happened to have a very good percentage, but hadn't managed to fare well in the ULKAT exam. It was simply because they took them pretty lightly. So MindTree people were kind enough to give them a separate exam, which was held on saturday. It was given on their behalf by people from PAC (professional aptitude council). So the final list of eligible students after both these results were announced, was 60. So the GDs began, with 8 students in each batch. There were 3 panels who were monitoring these GD sessions. The GD sessions were extremely good and our juniors had no problems with it what so ever. After the GDs were over, they shortlisted around 38 students. The interview sessions began at around 12:20 pm, and we broke for lunch with them, at around 2:20 pm. By that time, they had done with around 9 candidates. The post luch session was really geared up, and the entire interview process was over by around 6:30 pm.

The post interview period reminded me of my own experience of getting in to this very company, approximately an year back (on 16th May 2006). The corridors of ISE block, where the recruitment process had just culminated, was now more like a place full of anxious faces and pouding hearts. Almost everyone of my junior who had taken up the interview was eager to know the result. I enquired about the probable time of announcement of results. I was told that it would be around 7:15 pm. So I requested all my junior friends to assemble in a room near the interview hall, where the panel from MindTree would be announcing the results.

I was eager as well. One more thing that kept me curious about the result was the total number of students who would finally make it in to the 'MindTree Family' as we call it. I was anxious to know about the fate of a few names in particular, while I was confident of a few others. I must tell you all that most of these people were really good, and they weren't fortunate enough to get in to TCS, which happened to visit our campus before MindTree was here. So I could sense their levels of anxiety rise every moment, as and when the :D moment was closing in.

Finally it did arrive. I was with the panel, when they were getting the print out of the final list of students. As expected they had hired around 19 students (9 from E&C), of the 38 shorlisted students. They officially announced the results by around 7:24 pm. It was just an awesome atmosphere out there. Lots of cheers and taalias!!! But as usual some weren't lucky enough to make it to the final list. They finished with their formalities in about 15 minutes. In the mean while we had a snap of ours taken along with the panel from MindTree. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life.

I could see the happiness in those same eyes, in which I had seen sorrow day ago, and tons of anxiety a short while ago. It just reminded me of my :D day. Officially 19 of my juniors are now a part of our MindTree family, and it just leaves me so elated!!!

The biggest reason why I was so happy was, 9 out of 19 recuited were from E&C, and I was extremelyhapy to see them all placed in a single company, and that too in MindTree.

For all those who missed out today, don't get disheartened folks. It's just the begining, you got lots of companies visiting our campus. I am sure all of those who are eligible will surely get placed. As they say, 'Failure is just a bend on the road, not the end of your journey'. So have faith in yourself folks, I am sure you will find your dreams come true shortly!

PS: I got another internal tomorrow (OFC) and I haven't read a single line. I am simply not prepared for it. I took a chance of volunteering at this recuitment process, even though I knew I had my internals tomorrow, and I was utterly unprepared. Boy! It was really a chance worth taken. At least I could see a lot of my juniors getting placed in to MindTree. The atmosphere with all the jazz was just priceless!!!

I still can't believe that all this had happened to me almost an year back!!!

~IT's My Life

NBcup = MARCH 2007

This post was due for quite a long time now. I finally managed to put a few snaps of one of the major events organized by EC Forum in this even semester. NB Cup is an inter deptartment, cricket tournament organized every year in remembrance of our lecturer, late Neelamma Belagavi... Special thanks to Harish for uploading them on my Blog:)

Bande Nawaz (8th Sem, Mech) receiving the man of the series award.

Sharath (8th Sem, CSE) receiving the Best Bowler of the tournament award.


NB Cup 2007 Winners and Runners! Cheers!!!


NB Cup 2007 Runners - 8th Sem CSE




NB Cup 2007 Winners - 8th Sem Mechanical

~IT's My Life

Fear of losing?

Destroy the fear!

For the past 2 days I have been caught off guard by this fever. What’s the best time pass that one can rely up on, when u are bedridden? Undoubtedly, it's the books! I began reading 'Wings of Fire', an autobiography of Dr. APJ Abdul kalam. An awesome book!!! I recommend everyone one of you out there, to read it at least once.

I had mentioned about our dept fest called e-utsav in my previous blog entry. I had hosted a game show called Bluff Master, a slight variant of the game show that used to be aired on star one. I had put up a question in that: 'what are the top 10 things that people fear most?’ One of the answers I got was 'Fear of Losing'. After all the show was over, I gave this particular answer a serious thought! Today I began to relate that answer with few of the incidents in my life.

Those were the days, when I used to see my brother ride on his bicycle. I used to fancy myself riding that someday, with the same excellence and control as my brother. I still remember how this very fear of losing, the fear of failing to ride it successfully prevented me from giving it a try. Finally one day I garnered all the courage to give it a try. I borrowed my neighbor’s (apoorv) cycle and gave it my first ever test ride! What happened? I did get my knee badly bruised!!! But that hardly mattered to me bcoz, I had won over the fear of having not been able to give cycling a try! It was my first ever tryst with overcoming the fear of losing!

When I joined school, I had this fear of not being able to take the initiative in any of the events that were held. I used to take part in debate, elocution with endless zeal. I remember myself of having spoken quite passionately about Raja ram mohan roy, debated on 'Whether science is menace to humanity?' or even the "Impact of western culture on Indian society', during the CCA sessions. It was all okies. But what used to irk me was, I never used to take charge of any event as a leader. Be it the 'captaincy' of any 'house' or any sport. I simply was never trusted to be worthy enough to shoulder such a responsibility! All this used to make me feel diffident and god alone knows how I longed to get out this place, where people had a gestated mentality. I feel, a mistrust in anyone is never gonna get the best out him/her. By the time I was about to pack my luggage and bid farewell to my school/college, I was almost sure that it wasn't my fault that I didn’t get to shoulder any important responsibility. It was just that the folks there never really gave me one.

When I joined engineering, I had some clear cut goals in my mind and some real good points to prove to myself and to the world around me. What’s the best thing that can happen to a person, who is in search of an opportunity to prove himself? Just drop him in a place where no one knows him. I loved this feeling of being in an open arena. At least now I had been bestowed with a golden opportunity to 'write my own script'. I knew that people here were not biased about me and would only judge me purely on my caliber. No matter how hard I tried to reassure that it was all a new ball game and I was a new player, the impact of 'Loser' tagged in bold, haunted me badly. It was hard for me get over this feeling for nearly an year. I had not shouldered any big responsibility as such till then. When I was in search of a great platform to prove my worth and enhance my skill set, the best thing that happened to me was, me becoming a representative of E&C forum. Boy! it was the turning point of my life. It exposed me to some of the best talents in E&C. I got an opportunity to interact with my peers, and also took me closer to my faculty as well. For the first time, I was sheltering a feeling of hope and confidence. I was getting over this whole TAG of LOSER! People around me had begun to trust me. I was offered with responsibilities I thought I could have handled long back! Amidst all this, there were numerous occasions where people have mocked at me and doubted my roles as a forum rep. What was that one fear that came along with the joy of finding such an awesome platform to flourish? It was the challenge to strike a balance between my academics and the forum activities. Initially I had repented several times and struggled hard in this whole balancing act. But as the time progressed, I did realize that more the responsibilities I shouldered, the better did I manage to utilize my time. The frustration was at its epitome when the Campus recruitments were around! When all my friends were busy slogging and preparing for campus, I was as usual involved with the forum stuff. My friends, used to question me about how I found time for all this stuff? All I managed to do was to keep mum, coz I too was wondering how. But today as I see it, I find the answer. Slowly but subtly, I had won over this fear that prevented a lot of my friends from taking up the job of a forum rep. The very fear, of not being able to strike a balance between their academics and co-curriculars.

These were just a few fears that I managed to collate from my past experience in life. I am sure I will be challenged to overcome many such fears in future as well. But, come what may, I strongly believe that it is this very fear that at some point triggers you to beat it!!!

One more thought, that I would like all of you to ponder over. Is it always about winning or losing? Is it always about Heroes and Zeros? What about those who shell out all their energy, time and resource into something and finally the damn thing doesn't work? Are they to be tagged as losers? Are they zeros?

PS: Talking of fears, I remember a quote; 'The fear of losing may take the joy out of winning!'. Remember that adversities always provide you with opportunities of retrospection. So come out this whole shell of fear and fire this fear off!!!

~IT's My Life

Windows Vista - Ripped off the shelves of Apple!!!

Harry sent me this video on how Windows managed to flick the features of Apple's MAC OS X and named it the Vista! It's utterly disgusting to see that Microsoft did that. I feel that all the money that Microsoft spends on its R&D is on training it's people on how to chisel the latest technology in the market and embed them in to their OS, and not to forget to give it a wonderful GUI. Vista just consumes too mush of your system resource. I would never wanna switch to Windows Vista.

A few of my friends who have seen Vista, have all said one thing! 'VISTA SUCKS!'

~IT's My Life