wonderyears

The greatest question: What is the meaning and purpose of life

2010-12-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

To be honest, it is something I have pondered upon, searched and discussed a lot. Its a question that a majority of people on the face of the earth, may have asked themselves or others. In moments of desperation you often think that life is be born, grow, reproduce and die, just like all the other billion species around you. Man, is no different. But then, once in a while there comes an enlightened one, who thinks different and acts different.

Oft late, I have come to think the purpose of life is live. Simply put to enjoy life. You can crib all your life, or simply enjoy each day as it comes. In the course of life, to help the less fortunate and care for other human beings. Life is meant to be lived and to not care too much about, not to worry much, though at times it quite impossible not to, its meant find joy in the little things, to be compassionate and to shed a tear when something moves you, you laugh so hard that you actually find it difficult to breathe, to feel pain, to say nothing and know that you are comforting. Its meant to savor each bite, to climb a hill and stand in utter awe.

Coming to finding your purpose in life, I guess its trying to find something that excites you, to do something that makes you think this is what I really love. Now, whether you find that or not is another topic.

Bheja Fry!!

2009-04-12T03:10:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty normal saturday morning in bangalore, with my brother, and as like in college I woke up in time for lunch!! Since we did no cooking at home, we decided to head out to Shivajinagar, a whole 13km away. Destination: Hotel Hilal.

They are famous for their mutton chops and the "Bheja"!! Yup, thats right a goat brain fried. It tasted more or less like an egg scrambled and with the inside not properly cooked. The mutton chops on the other hand was pretty fine and nice!! Bheja fry is known to help humans develop a lot of extra brain power they regularly require in day to day life.. :P

Here's the St Mary's Basilica in Shivajinagar, the oldest church in bangalore.

Anti mosquito software

2009-04-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Okie, heres what I just found out. It doesnt work as well as Good Knight or All out or whatever, I was sitting in another room doing my previous post while tried the software and trust me I can see a lot of them dancing in front off me although I do think they seem to be in a slight frenzy, whether its the hypersonic sound the software makes or the precious blood they sucked out of me, I scarcely know.

I guess its better to use a toad or a frog from someplace than a software to get these killers!!

Truth abt college kicking in..

2009-04-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

It was Good Friday morning, and I just landed in bangalore, the garden city, at around the break of dawn, when I could catch the first rays of the sun hitting the IT hub of the nation. The air was cool and I was pretty glad that I was spending the weekend here than back in college. As I went to catch a local bus home, I noticed the large number of men and women scampering off to work and some from work. It was then that reality struck me in the face, and that too pretty hard. My college days were numbered, hardly a month left, I felt as someone hanging on the side of a sinking vessel (exaggerated version). All these left me a bit depressed and I made up my mind to tell the juniors to have a good time in college cos blah blah..

As for me I decided to enjoy the little time I have with the friends I care and love. And I decided that I should take a masters degree in something, so that I can have some more time in college although it would never be the same experience. As for some of the people in this city I truly feel sorry, cos they seem to be really in a hurry almost always, rushing off to work, rushing back home, rushing on their bikes and cars, they hardly have time to catch that ray of light that makes one's life truly worth living for.

FOSS-Free and Open Source Meet!!

2009-03-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

Almost a month of running about and hard work(not that much but still..) we managed to pull off another

FOSSMeet @ NITC

the 2009 edition. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, there were a lot of things that went wrong. There was very little involvement of many of the club members of organising clubs and I guess its timing too wasnt very good, given the economic situation and just a month before the end of this fiscal.

Moreover, although we had quite a few good speakers, we really lacked the likes of Kiruba who could get the crowd roaring. Anyways hoping that the juniors do a better job!!all the very best to them!! And heres my gratitude all the speakers, delegates and organising team members!!

frustrations!!

2008-08-17T03:34:00.000-07:00

hmmn.. it was one very tiring and depressing month..on one side it was the work at T&P and other side it was my own ego mixed with a lot of expectations which never came to life.. well to be frank i totally screwed up!! I took me a long time to realize that, but the good thing is I did.. thanks my very dear friends!!

people I'm back!!..(Raks says.. v'll c..)

Tech Institute Rankings..

2008-05-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

I got curious and actually googled the college rankings, as expected IITs topped and guess what, I scarcely saw NIT Calicut in some lists, maybe because our data never reached them, maybe because we never made it to the top 20!!

Some have put NITc somewhere close to 14 and 15..but then it struck me as weird, what is so wrong with us??We don't even figure in the South top 5, IITM,NITT,NITK,NITW, IIIT!!wheres NITC?? Let me put it this way, before we all got here at NITC, we were as good as IIT entrants, some of us even better..But where did all that go? I have tried to convince myself a lot of times before also that we have a lot that IITians don't, say foe example, we have Ragam, Tathva, clubs.. But even they have these things, some of them do it quite well too..Don't you think its time NITc woke up.. its time we work up to our real potential!!

Anyhow I'm thinking about getting busy..

blogomaniac??!!

2008-05-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

During a chat with a close friend, I confessed that I was on the lookout for topics to blog on, and that I kept thinking about my blog.. I suddenly called myself a 'blogomaniac' and for sometime, thought I had coined a new word!! But alas, Google knew better..

hmmn..anyway coming back to 'blogomaniac', I did a little research, and found that other people too suffered from this condition(yo! I've company!), though mine seems temporary.. I'll list out the symptoms that accompany this peculiar condition(courtesy: http://yelleoutloud.multiply.com)

maintaining several blogs (plural) all at the same time
checks out each and every blog at an average of 6 times a week
obsessed with even the smallest details in blogging (punctuation, spelling, etc)

she's listed out more in her blog, but I'll stick with these.. though I've to agree she's right..I AM A BLOGOMANIAC!!

Ok, I'm no expert on this but blogomania disappears with the net connection and something else to do.. so for now I'd rather continue living like a blogomaniac ;)

prisoners..

2008-05-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

Correct me brethren if I'm wrong.. But I seem to think we have made ourselves prisoners in the G-world...

yes, G for GOOGLE,man i'm screwed if the HR from Google sees this, but I guess some one has to notice these things.. Frankly, I think I'm a prisoner, coz the first site that I usually go to as soon as my browser is up is Google.com(honestly its because its very easy and quick to load that I can confirm an internet connection in a jiffy) and then Gmail, Gtalk, Gnews.. the list goes on.. Did i forget youtube,haa who am I kiddin blogspot itself, orkut.. the list seems endless.. but is it so??

As Google buys more companies and its 'net' share rises, are we increasingly being bound by GOOGLE. We seem to have made ourselves believe that all that we desire is here..(not exactly everything)

ps:Mr. HR I'd actually love living here as long you let me work with you ;)

Life at NIT Calicut..

2008-05-14T03:03:00.000-07:00

Three years of technical education and its time to look back and think how life at NIT Calicut, deemed as one of the most prestigious technical institutes of the country, has been.

College life is never like school life and in my opinion, it should never be and we should never want it to be. Well its college after all.. NIT Calicut is one of the best places to be, the BEST!! For one thing its not a bunch of techies who pass out of it, neither a bunch of hooligans, but a group of individuals who have developed in a lot of spheres. They are the people who totally understand what a community life(well most people) and who learn that to survive you will have to co-exist.

I started out at NIT Calicut, pretty well, for me there was no problem in staying in a hostel, cos i had been living in hostels for some time then. Guess, i might have one of those lucky few, who had a chance of coming all alone to the hostel, yup, just me and my suitcase(a large one though, still have it tucked beneath my bed). Friends from school and coaching centers turned up pretty soon. We soon were a well organized gang within the first year hostel, in a very short span. Known as the 3rd Rates, we were quick to organise and were well known by the seniors too, that did us a lot of good, as a year. I guess the only thing that brought the year together, and made our first year so memorable was the simple lack of other entertainment means within the first year hostel. We were imprisoned within the hostel for one complete semester and part of the next. There were couple of delights within the prison, like the one time when we celebrated someone's birthday with washing everyone with water, diwali was also very memorable.. though I did end up getting a memo.. in short it was absolute unadulterated fun!!!even the motta season was fun, we did get ragged by our seniors, but I wonder what the next few years would have been without it all..Ragging as done by the mallus in NITC is a must, else you will end up losing the greatest fun in college life!!

A year passed rather fast, soon, we were junior execs in various clubs and all.. all very busy people..2nd year in B hostel was also rather an enjoyment, the xmas tree, xmas celebrations. evrything.. oh! the elections were really very nice!! man..sweet memories!! then couple of my dear friends did crash their bike on lamp post injuring their legs but one of them did end up with a nurse from the hospital...

think i'll write on 3rd year separately..

hmmn.. NITC rocks!!! the hostels are the place to be!! the wealth of loving and caring friends you get can never be matched!!

Things to do when you are absolutely bored..

2008-05-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

Ok.. this is not the ony guide and it will never be the only one either..

I'm gonna keep updating this list with things I do when I'm very bored..

1. SLEEP - the only objection to this is that I do this even when I'm not very bored!!

2. visit www.bored.com - trust me they have a pretty neat collection of jokes and puzzles and stuff to do..

3. read something online, theres always stuff to read on the net, always good stuff and bad dumb stuff..choose for thy self.. well now you can also see stuff online, provided you have a good net connection.

4.watch the pendulum swing, yup, that is a swell way to spend your time, literally watch time go.

5.. rest is on its way..

open sesame..

2008-05-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

my eventual first post.. tried doing this post lots of times, but it just dint work out..
anyway, it actually has been some time since wrote something useful and interesting, if i remember right, must have been my 12th boards, so an year after coming to NIT Calicut, I thought about blogging. But I guess it was only last year that I actually started a blogger account and thought of a name, yup, wonder years, although I'm now wondering if thought of that name for my years at college or my childhood days..

Talking about wonder years the series, man, once it was one of my favourites, my brother and I used to watch it regularly.. fans..(ps: we even used to watch The Bold and the Beautiful, those days, ya.. that jobless and mom wasn't around either).. anyhow we have grown and had our own wonder years, things that have actually shaped us, changed our view of the world..
my childhood, I'm sure none of the readers of this blog will want to know about it but I care not, I'll still tell you, that way, I can read this entry and think..

My earliest memories are in Tiruvalla, a town near Kottayam in kerala for the people of the web, in our rented house there. I distinctly remember getting hit by an Auto rickshaw, ya an auto, three years old then, nay, nothing happened, luckily the driver was sharp minded fellow, who later scolded my mom. But what could she do, I had snatched the money from her hands to get groceries for her from across the road..then I remember lots of mango trees, swinging on some of them eating ripe mangoes, with cousins..

hmmn.. memories are indeed funny, they evade us at exams but come easily at other times, I hardly understand my humble brain.Enough of this for now, but I leave you on this note, life would certainly not be worth living had it not been for those memories and it certainly would have been tough living without our ability to forget the past..