October 23, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

Not going home on Diwali, yet another time

Ever since I got into IIIT, I never celebrated Diwali at home. And diwali in south India is not really celebrated with much enthusiasm as compared to north India. Last year I might have gone home but the laziness factor overpowered me and I chose to stay back at IIIT. This year, I was thinking of going home.

I woke up at 7:00AM on Oct 19th to book ticket in Tatkal. But the almighty computer caught my attention and I was browsing random stuff till 7:30AM. I left for the station in a hurry and discovered a huge line for reservation. While standing in the line, I was just thinking how railways and airways completely looks like a computer network. Assuming rail tracks as wires, trains as current, stations as switches, junctions as routers, local MMTS network as VLANs, airways as wifi and people as packets who want to flow through these. The entire transportation system translates to a computer network. AC/Sleeper/General translates to different quality of services. Both of them have the same problem, they are overcrowded. Anyway I was there in the queue for 40 minutes and I could move only 8-10 feet. And a few minutes later, I realized that Tatkal quota was over. Yipeeee!!!! We have crossed the allocated bandwidth limit. Check back laterz. I got back to IIIT and successfully continued browsing after that.

I could have tried for the ticket the next day but again the laziness factor overpowered me and now I am ready to celebrate Diwali at IIIT yet another time 🙂

October 22, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Food, Fun, Life

Somani’s Birthday / Haveli / Club8

October 21st, 2008

For the very first time we decided to go to a club in last three years at IIIT for a change. And to feel a bit grown up 😛 To get started Club8 was a nice spot because its cheap as they don’t charge you for stepping in.

We left at 8:30PM. We wanted to have dinner in Club8 but then Banga suggested to move to Haveli because it was a bit suffocating in Club8. All of us moved to Haveli. Following Pankaj’s suggestion, I tried Veg Monchov for the first time and it was crap. It may be place specific. Anyway had almost nice dinner in Haveli.

Somani's Birthday at Haveli

After dinner, we moved to Club8.

Somani Birthday at Haveli

People (very few) had drinks. In fact only Sachin, Pankaj and Kapil Bajaj had it. Rest of us are still kids, if I may use that word 😛

Somani Birthday - Sachin, Pankaj, Kapil Bajaj

Sachin was almost drunk even without having a sip. And the dangerous pic says it all.

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sachin Goyal

After a bit of drinking, everybody for dance. And after that only dance.

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Me

Somani Birthday at Club8 - We

Somani Birthday at Club8

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sambhav, Nitin Gupta

Somani Birthday - Sambhav, Nitin Bansal, Nitin Gupta

Somani Birthday at Club8

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Me

Somani Birthday at Club8 - Sachin, Pankaj

We moved out at around 11:45PM. BTW It was Ajay Somani’s birthday.

October 19, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Camera, Fun, Life, Photography

The Indian Aviation Show 2008 at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad

Today (October 18, 2008) Indian Aviation Show 2008 was open for general public at a nominal price of Rs. 150/- as a ticket. We (Me, Sambhav, Mahaveer, Romit Pandey (UG2K7), Manish Sharma, DJ Ranga, Deepak, Prateek) left for the Begumpet Airport at around 9:20AM. As the roads were almost free due to Saturday, we reached Begumpet at 10:10AM. The place was crowded as hell (literal meaning of hell is not intended :P). We somehow managed to get tickets quickly. But the queue to enter the airport premises was real long. Almost more than 1500 people were in line at any instant of time. Romit, Manish and Mahaveer managed to get in quickly by switching lanes. We (the unlucky ones) had to wait for some more time. We finally switched lines and got in at 11:10AM. A deep breath after an hour of frustration. I entered an airport for the first time and was surprised to see the awesomely f***ed up security. You can carry anything you want. Its ok that the airport is not used anymore but in situations like these when you have thousands of people in airport, the security should be tight and everyone should be screened well. Anyway, after getting in we started clicking pics as I was ready with my digicam 😀 The first picture I clicked is of an helicopter named Dhruv.

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Dhruv Helicopter

After that we were roaming around clicking everything possible. There was an exibition of different planes/helicopters/private jets etc. All in all it was a nice show and worth visiting. Below are few more shots from the show.

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Helicopters

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Kingfisher

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Air India

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Sports Star Plus

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Liberty XLE

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Bharat Earth Movers Limited

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Bell Helicopters

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Messed Up

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Indian Airlines

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad

Indian Aviation Show Hyderabad - Kingfisher

October 18, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Fun, Google, Hacking, Life, Success

Almighty linked lists

As the time for placements has finally come, I am trying to train myself for the lame questions that companies usually ask instead of asking things related to the real talent.

I am a bit (a bit????) paranoid about pointers, linked lists and stuff that involves pointers. I couldn’t really keep up with the data structures because I learnt to use this WONDERFUL language called python. I was not a bond in C/C++ but my skill level was good enough to write basic codes. Though I didn’t submit all my programming assignments, I used to write C/C++ codes for fun especially during third and fourth semester when I was awesomely obsessed with Object Oriented Programming and classes in c++. But I never used pointers even in that period. After fourth sem, I completely switched to python quitting c/c++ totally. I have been doing fun things like my Google Summer of Code, IntelligentMirror, Youtube Caching and other private stuff in python since almost one and a half year. Python is a real handy language when you want develop projects quickly.

Anyway, I thought I’ll give c/pointers another shot. I picked up EssentialC, Pointers And Memory and LinkedListBasics from Stanford CS Library. Read first two of them from start to end without missing a single word. Read 5-6 pages from Linked List Basics and then thought of coding a very basic linked list with few operations. But unfortunately couldn’t do so even after fighting for one hour. Fifty percent of the time, i was fixing my code because I wrote the damn thing in python style formatting, forgot to declare variables before using them and blah blah… In the meantime Pankaj pinged for the BC session. When I told him the same thing, he said he implemented linked list few days back using arrays … OMG!! pretty easy. huh!! After we returned from canteen, I gave it one more shot. BINGO!!! I did it this time 🙂 I finally wrote some code in C for linked list which finally worked 😀

Loving pointers a bit and looking for exploring more.

October 16, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life, Servers

Exams Over and Upgraded to WordPress 2.6.2

Finally the exams are over for the 20th time ever since I joined IIIT. 20 times in just 3 years is a bit too much of evaluation and still there is not even single person in my batch who can really be evaluated based on his/her scores in these so called exams. More than 80% of janta spend 6-7hours per course per semester other than attending classes which anyway doesn’t count. And a BIG THANKS to the 20% of janta for studying damn seriously and teaching creatures like me 😛

Also, upgraded to wordpress 2.6.2 to be on the technology front-end. Previous version was giving some problems with image uploads and it was an irritating experience using elinks and stuff to upload image files.

October 14, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

Embarrassed

October 08, 2008

We (Me, Pankaj, Deepak, Nitin Bansi) just entered the main gate of IIIT Hyderabad after shopping. A delivery boy was already there with a Pizza ready for delivery. He was looking for help. I asked security guard “Whats the matter?”, just for the sake of moral responsibility.

Delivery boy : Scooter mein petrol khatam ho gaya hai. OBH jana hai. (There is no petrol in my scooter. I want lift up to OBH.)

Right at that moment a two wheeler entered IIIT gate. I didn’t realize who was it.

Me to delivery boy (pointing at the vehicle) : “Inke saath chale jao..” (Go with him).

The person (on vehicle) stopped right there because I pointed at him. And it turned out to be a faculty member. “Mere pairon tale se jaise zameen hi khisk gayee”. OMG. What I have done?? Why in god’s name will I ever stop a faculty member to ask for giving a lift to a pizza delivery boy.

Faculty Member : Whats the matter?
Me : (stammering) hmm… umm …. this guy .. um… this is a delivery boy (as if it was not obvious from his dress). um.. he is looking for help …
(Delivery boy almost took everything for granted and watch trying to approach the vehicle …)
Delivery boy : Scooter mein petrol khatam ho gaya hai …
Faculty Member : What he needs?
Me : hmmmm … he needs a lift …
Faculty Member : For what?
Me : To deliver pizza.
Faculty Member : (I couldn’t really get what he said but approximately) why are you bothering me?

And he left. I took a DEEP breath. This was one of the most embarrassing situations I ever faced at IIIT 😐

October 12, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Food, Fun, Life, Review

Four Seasons / Hyderabad House / Mak’s Kitchen

October 10, 2008

I was in Yuktahaar mess with Deepak Vig. I picked up plate to fetch some rotis from the basket and my phone rang. It was Pankaj. I immediately understood his problem. I received the call and he asked for going out to Four Seasons to have some biryani. That mouth watering word biryani took control over me. I returned the plate back to mess guy. I accompanied Deepak for the dinner but didn’t have anything. We walked down to NBH main gate. Gaurav and Kiran Dandu was already there. I told them about going out and they were already waiting for someone to join. Finally me, Pankaj, Sachin, Ajay Somani, Gaurav and Kiran left for four seasons.

We reached four seasons at almost 8:00PM. The place was totally full. And when we queried, the attendant said that it will take almost an hour to get a seat for six people. We were hopeless. All of us dying of hunger. Though we didn’t want to go to Hyderbad House because Biryani at that place sucks pretty much, we decided to checkout. We entered the place and as expected we were the only people there apart from one family. We took seats. But to our surprise they had only Mutton Biryani. I wanted to cry 🙁 Hungry!!!!

We walked out. And while walking different people suggested different place from Ginger court, McD (by me 😀 ), Hyderabad House near Lakdi Ka Pul, Mak’s Kitchen etc.. Finally we decided to go to Mak’s kitchen which is beside Temptations in front of Four Seasons. The place was average. Others took soup, it was below average. But biryani was good. It felt like having biryani after a life time. I still remember, the OBH mess once started offering biryani in lunch and dinner daily. I had biryani in lunch and dinner continuously for two weeks during that period. Good old days 😀 In the end the person at Mak’s Kitchen forgot to bill me and somani for the food. Nice 😛

After that we had ice cream at Temptations and headed back to THE holy place on earth, IIIT Hyderabad 🙂

PS : Have a lot to write about.

October 11, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Camera, Fun, Life, Temple

A walk to remember

This incident or series of incidents happened in the night of October 9, 2008. Time – 11:30PM. I was sitting in front of my PC thinking of thinking something which is not video caching because Kapil has cursed me enough for thinking about video caching 24×7. Pankaj buzzed ans asked for a BC session at coffee shop. Replied positively without any doubts in mind. After a few minutes me, Pankaj, Sachin and Sambhav left for the coffee shop. On the way Sachin said that he is hungry. I was not hungry but the way he said made me feel hungry. When we were in front of NBH mess gate, it just clicked me that coffee shop is closed due to Dushehra. Everyone of us hopeless as nobody had the backup of any eatables 🙁 We walked down to main building where Ajay joined the company and he was also hungry. Sachin proposed that we’ll go to Indira Nagar or High Tech. looking for something to eat. All of us agreed. As we crossed main gate, Sambhav headed back to hostel as he has to prepare for GRE.

We four walked up to the bust stop and eventually an empty bus arrived. All of us shocked. An empty bus!!! WTF!!! We got into the bus.

We asked for a ticket upto Indira Nagar. The conductor gave the ticket but driver didn’t stop in Indira Nagar. We landed in Gachibowli where we thought that its better to go to Hi Tech. We waited for sometime at the cross road but taxi appeared. We started walking towards Indira Nagar. Somani knew an eating point somewhere on the way from IIIT to Indira Nagar.

This place is on the street to Kendriya Vihar. But the entrance of the street was totally flooded with water obviously with no place left to walk across. But we somehow managed to cross the water body by holding the wall.

And we discovered that the place called KKD (Kadalivachina Kanaka Durga, Nobel prize to me for remembering the name correctly 😛 ). It was almost closed. But ice cream and soft drinks were still available. We had butter scotch (somani took vanilla). Ice cream was awesome. It might have tasted awesome because we were dying of hunger.

We headed back to IIIT. But everybody felt the urge to visit this temple on the way to IIIT. We walked upto the temple and sat there for 10-15 minutes. It was around 12:30AM. We took few shots as well.

After that we headed back to IIIT. Had juice at canteen. And that was it.

October 8, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Internet, LAN, Life

Internet != Anonymous

Learning of the Day : If you choose to use Internet that in itself implies that you are sacrificing your anonymity. Over the past few years, I tried to invent ways in which you can try to be anonymous, but every one of them had inherited flaws because after all everything has to flow on a wire which is not something you control.

Advice of the Day : Don’t post something as anonymous which you won’t if you were exposing your identity because it gets embarrassing afterwards. And I have personally felt the heat several times.

October 6, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

The mobile blah

I came back to OBH after having dinner at Yuktahaar. Entered my room, started Punjabi music at full volume. Suddenly phone started vibrating. Unknown number. I received the call and to my surprise some lady speaks up ..

Lady : Am I talking to Kulbir Saini?
Me : Yes. You are.
** Totally surprised.
Lady : Is it a good time to talk to you?
Me : Yeah. Just go ahead.
** Koi kaam to hai nahin hamein .. ( we are jobless people.)
Lady : I am from <some> company in Delhi. We have contacts with a fortune 500 multinational and they are looking for people in analytics research.
** If this is research, why the heck are you calling me 🙂
Me : Wait … wait… Where did you get my number?
** I was like wtf … I banned Vodafone and now these companies…
Lady : It was a search effort. I was doing it since last week or so.
Me : Are you sure?
Lady : Yeah. I swear it was a search effort. Nobody referred your name or number.
Me : Yeah. Go ahead.
** Oh… I am popular 😛
Lady : Can we proceed further with your academic qualifications?
Me : Sure.
Lady : So, what are your qualifications?
** I opened this. My resume in text format 😛
Me : I am doing my B.Tech.
Lady : Are you sure?
** Lady was like WTF!!! Totally embarrassed.
Me : Yeah. Because its me who is doing it.
Lady : I thought you are doing PHD.
Me : What?? Thats why I asked you “Who gave you my number?”.
** PHD??? Isn’t it a too much of popularity 😛
Lady : Anyway best of luck with your further studies/academics/life.
Me : Thanks a lot. Use Google next time.
Lady : Thanks for the tip.

Anyway it was fun …