after first AIMCAT...!!

Yesteday, i had my first AIMCAT, that is practice test for CAT conducted by TIME. It was a good learning experience. I did well. Expecting a respectable score. Although its not the best i could have done but still satisfied, given that its just the beginning. A long way to go ahead. A lot to study. And moreover all, a lot to learn.

I remember my JEE days. The efforts i put in for it. Today, i specially remember the first test conducted by Brilliant Tutorials. It was total disaster. From all over india around 5000 students attempted that test and with all my sincere efforts i secures a rank somewhere close to 4500. This was first time ever in my life that i had such a poor performance in any of the test i ever attempted. It burned a fire in me. I decide to improve my performance. I started studying sincerely and put in a lot of efforts. Two months passed and it was time for the second test. This time around 10k students tried there luck and i was 65th. A good return to the efforts given. As time passed, we had few more tests. And with each test i kept improving and JEE happened!!

After JEE, many things changed in life. But there is one thing for which i will always regret. I forgot the desire to excel. I stopped competing with myself. As a result, i never gave the best i can, in any of the exams. Maybe it was because i was complacent with the fact that i am in IIT. Suddenly there was vacuum in life, nothing was left to achieve. And then one day, i decided to attempt CAT. Maybe it is one of the best decision i ever took. Today, After first AIMCAT, i am feeling motivated. Desire to excel is back in me. I am ready to compete with myself, to give the best i can . No matter whats going to be the outcome of CAT, i am very happy with the fact that, i found the part of me which i lost 4 years back.

reservation debate and role of media

Since last few days, one topic is very hot, reservation. From chai ki dukan at the corner of your gali upto the parliament 'the great reservation debate' is going on. Everybody has something to say and they are saying it. Some people are in favour of it and some are against. Widespread agitations are going on, both in favour of as well against this decision of government. And as usual, electronic and print media has a lot to say on this issue. They play important role in the process of consensus building. But are they playing their role sincerely?? What i observed over last few days is that, media's role was biased over this issue.

Few days before, there was a rally organised by medical students at Azad maidan, Mumbai, in support of reservation. Since, medical students were agitating media has an impression that it must be an anti-reservation rally but to their disappointment, medical students there, were supporting the step taken by government. As soon it was clear that, its a rally supporting quota, all cameras were off. They were no more interested in covering it. They interviewed few students and none of those were aired. On other hand, all the rallys against quota were given exclusive coverage, live telecast of these protests were shown on television. Large number of students interviewed and their point of view was conveyed to entire nation. But then, what about the opinion of those who were supporting it?? Will it be possible for quota debate to reach to some conclusion if the debate is not inclusive?? Besides that, reporters on television were trying to instigate the public opinion against quota. Is this the role media needs to play??

We are very proud that, we have free and responsible media. But before any logical debate, if media assumes that one point of view is perfect and other is not worth listening to, then process of consensus building gets afftected. We all are determined to buid a society which is caste free and does not discriminate. Media has a crucial role to play. My personal view is that, media need to introspect the role they played after reservation-debate surfaced.

Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd:........

Today i was going through my mails and had this interesting mail, which says,
"It's not a joke. You will receive it in a few months. An employee got a promotion in 3 days after sending it. Another employee was retrenched from the same job for not sending and breaking this chain letter. Please send 20 copies and see what happens in 3 days. "
I don't know that people who keep on sending such kind of forwarded message are actually stupid or just don't like to think once before they forward it to everybody in their friend list. How can somebody may get promoted after sending such crap message?? And moreover, how somebody will loose his job, girl friend, property etc etc just because he is not forwarding some stupid message to twenty people??

This is just an example of such mails. There are many going around. One more mail asks people to forward an e-mail so as to help a poor, 7-year old little girl suffering from some type of cancer. That mail claims that there is some kind of counter attached to it. God knows how that counter thing works!! Still people keep forwarding such messages.... huh. Interesting thing is that, since last 4 years i am getting same mail to help that poor, 7-year old little girl. If we assume that, this mail was first time forwarded some 20 years back then maybe by this time, kids of that girl might be enjoying healthy life. But community service by some people still going on.

Then again, on yahoo! messenger you getting very intersting messages. One of them says,
"If someone by the name of j_neutron07 wants to add you to their list dont accept it. Its a virus. It is a hard drive killer and a very horrible virus. Tell everyone on your lits because if somebody on your list adds them you will get it too. Please pass this on to everyone on your list. Sorry for the inconvenience. Right click on your group name of your buddy list and click Send Message to all."
My god!! And there are people who actually believes this and keep on sending it to all. If killing somebody's hard drive is that simple then by this time i could have caused a lot of damage to this world :D.

There is an endlist list of such stupid message going round the world. Interesting fact is that people are not tired of sending such crap messages. I didnt get the point, what purpose such messages are going to solve??

Usually i prefer to neglect such mails. Deleting hunderds of such mails take less time than i am taking to write this blog. But few days back i had an e-mail which says,
"...if you dont forward this to some n number of people, your dad will be dead etc etc...".
I know that, not forwarding such stupid mail was not going to harm my family in anyway. But this mail really disturbed me. Maybe its because it says something bad about the people i really care for. Maybe its not that disturbing for some others, but for me it was....!! After expressing my displeasure to that person about it, his response was, 'yaar tu dost hai is liye bheja tha!!!'.
Kisi ne sach bola hai, aise dost ho to fir dushman ki kya jaroorat!!!

another weekend gone

So, one more weekend gone with no significant work done. Again it proves the fact that, no matter how serious you are about making a plan to utilise coming weekend, it just dont work. And history repeats itself weekend-after-weekend. On every sunday night i decide that it will not be the same thing on next weekend. Maybe, i need to wait for a week to see what will happen on next weekend.

To summarise, on friday night i had a long drive to Bandra reclamation and then a fundoo treat at Moti Mahal, Bandra. After that again few hours of driving on roads of mumbai followed by a night out to watch some movies 'Main, meri patni aur woh','Pardes' being few of them. Saturday was a Dream-day for me and preferred to sleep for entire day. At night it was again eating out with friends, who are here in mumbai for their M tech admission procedure. I was meeting them first time after our junior college days. It was great time with them. Specially all those memories of college days were awesome.

Sunday night was usual masti time in Hiranandani. Had dinner with friends and ofcourse ice cream. I am suffering throat infection since last few days but its very hard to control myself when ice cream is in front of me. Maybe, tomorrow its better to see a doctor.

All-in-all, this weekend was full of fun, masti and specially memories of old days.

plans

Today is one of the happy day in my life. Today we had all our grades out and me very glad with the fact that i passed fourth year of my academic curriculum. Thses four years went very fast but unlike our B. Tech. counterparts we have one more year to go in iitb. Fifth year, it is suppose to be all time lukhha year, and last 4/5 days are like trailor of this upcoming superhit movie.

With plenty of time to pass, i have some plans ready. i have decided to join lawn tennis camp, have plans to go to gym daily, late-night long drives will be there and last but not least my DDP (dual degree project). I am sure that, like new year resolutions these plans will not move ahead more that 3/4 days but who cares.

And one more thing i added to this list. Blogging!! yes, from today onwards i am a blogger. Right now as per my plan i will continue writting blog, let us see to what extent ill be successful in it.

So with best wishes to me, shubh ratri.