The Trilogy Drama

Yesterday, we had a day filled with drama, a recruitment test which transformed itself into a hilarious picnic at a five-star hotel, thanks to our dear professors.

Few days back, a mail propped up in my mailbox announcing the arrival of Trilogy for off-campus selection. Trilogy is known for its lucrative pay package, which surely entices students in huge numbers. This time, they came to our campus made a technical talk and to add to my joys, two of my hall seniors who are currently working at Trilogy, arrived with others. So,we had a great party at night where we ferreted out our secrets, our stories. Then, in the morning, when we reached gymkhana, we found that the four buses which were supposed to take us to "The Park", Calcutta were already stationed there. I also found that the btechs, dual degrees and mtechs had all arrived with equal enthusiasm. But, there was someone else too, someone whom we had not expected.

The mystery man was no alien, but the chairman of HMC himself. He called the DOSA to join him. They demanded us the explanation as to how these buses had arrived, where were we going and why had they not been informed beforehand? They accused Trilogy of misdeed and I do not remember who but someone even came with the notion that Trilogy was attempting to hijack the students. Thereafter, what began was a volley of cellphone calls. DOSA talked to Deputy Director who supposedly instructed him to send us back. He was too furious and even threatened to take mass disciplinary action against us. As a matter of fact, he even took I-cards of some of us, and began jotting down our roll nos. etc. Then, Siddhartha Dutta (a Trilogy employee and IIT Kharagpur alumnus, 2004) entered the scene. I duly remember the expression on the face of HMC, chairman when Dutta offered to shake hands with him. Finally, we all returned "safely" to our hostels.

Truly, speaking I felt offended that we even could not move out of our own discretion, even for a genuine purpose like job interview. I do not know if we duly deserved the gibes DOSA fired at us. But, our seniors made another fighting attempt, contact Prof. Goutam Sinha, sought his permission, stripped off the test part and we simply headed to The Park, Calcutta for a picnic, funded by Trilogy. The journey took longer than our stay at the hotel, but it was all made enjoyable by funny and "innovative" jokes of Sengar, Mukund and Shail, along with many others.

Finally, we returned back safely to our hostel rooms, I even thought of informing DOSA of my safe return so that he could sleep in peace rather than worry about us.

Anonymous comments have been allowed.

The CSE department drama

For all who know about it, please bear with me in this epilogue. The drama began with a mail from Samir Satpathy informing us about the SRIC projects for which KK Mehra and Ashish Chordia were being considered. The offer was lucrative with a fellowship amount of Rs.50K per semester. Then, instead of congratulating them, we started accusing them with the charges of information hiding. In order to justify their stand, Chordia and KK came up with their versions of the story and tried to gloss over the details. But, still junta did not seem satisfied. In fact, KK came with incredible propositions like the notice was supposed to be of limited circulation, so our faculty advisor did not take the trouble to inform us. So, KK came with the proposition of reevaluation but backed off when sushmit came to take the challenge in a gamely manner. Now, some stupid fellow indulged himself in the fatuous act of writing a mail with an anonymous id to all the concerned professors. I simply feel that the two guys were good at using the oppurtunities to their advantage and we should try to learn from them how to filch the oppurtunites instead of indulging ourselves in bitter criticism.

But, we should request the authorities to automate the system of notifications and make proper arrangements for adequate dispersal of all notices, so that some canny fellow cannot seek the chance to say that only he got it, because the notice was supposed to be of limited circulation as if he belonged to the gentry and we are nothing but shitheads.
These are my final views on the topic and am ready to apologise to anyone who felt hurt by my inadvertent actions.

Omission of Inzamam from World XI

Omission of legendary Pakistani player,Inzamam ul Haq from the world XI really aches me. In fact, Inzamam figures on my list of all time great Pakistani players, just after Imran khan, Wasim Akram and may be Javed Miandad. He has brought numerous victories to Pakistan, and is among the most shining stars of the galaxy of gifted Asian cricket players. Being an Asian, I feel this Pakistani has been denied the due respect he deserved being a veteran with more than hundred test caps. Though, he maintains a low profile, I feel he is a better captain than Shaun Pollock, and could have even been appointed the captain of the World XI without the slightest of hesitation. If we dare to fulminate the selection board and accuse them with charges of prejudice, we cannot be held guilty. In fact, Inzamam fits both the versions of the game and given, his form in the last year, I may well pick him ahead of the master blaster batsman Tendulkar, who has been out of the game for considerable time due to his fitness problems. I am sure Inzamam who is well known for his laconic attitude will deliver a due reply to the world with his bat, who will repent for having ignored this batting maestro.

I will request all avid cricket fans to pour in their comments in support of Inzamam or with justifications for his denial.

The great Talisman

Everyone knows that the life is not a bed of roses; and here you find the experience of a denizen of IIT Kharagpur. A final year, who for the last three years always dreamed of reaching the elusive final year when there will be no more classes (or very few classes which you can bunk with the priviledge of being a final year), no further pressure of earning a CGPA and being the seniormost, you move with a consequential air.
But, these are elusive dreams and here I share the truth. When you reach your final year, you fear that you will be thrown out of the protective environment of the institute very soon and you restart your journey towards your career goals after a brief hiatus of three years. You need to seek the answer to the golden question WHAT next?.

Today, I was sitting in my room with my GRE date approaching with the velocity of light; in fact time seems to be the only thing that moves faster than that (Do not take me wrong, I still have due respect for Einstein and his theory of relativity). Also, I have been appearing for few mock CATs and my dismal performance serves to increase my woes further.

Not to mention, to aggravate my agonies, my department has scheduled a class test tomorrow in Graph Theory, undoubtedly not among the easiest subjects by any standards. If this was not enough, I see a mail today in my mailbox reminding me that I did some summer training which needs to be presented within a fortnight.

And, finally the thing which eludes every IITian...a dream job with a lucrative package, Trilogy is visiting us this weekend to see if we deserve to serve on their pay-roll. Not to mention, in this semester, I am supposed to some research work which is known as B.Tech Project. With all these worries in my head, I was desperately looking for a talisman, which I will like to share with all my brothers and sisters and it is

Whenever in doubt, quit.