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

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 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 9, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Camera, Google, Graphics, GSOC, Hardware, Photography, Sony

My new Sony Cybershot DSC W110 Digital Camera

Finally after a long wait, I bought this Sony Cybershot DSC W110 Digicam from Hyderabad Central yesterday. Actually Deepak came to my room and said there is huge offers on Digicams in Hyderabad Central. I didn’t think twice and me, Pankaj, Bansi and Deepak headed to Central. But we found that there were no offers on Sony. But I had already decided to buy this model. So who cares for the offer. After a few minutes of bargaining ( i suck at bargaining ), I bought it for Rs. 9600 ($210).BTW I bought it from Third I Digital shop.

Features : 7.2 Megapixels, 4x Optical Zoom, High Sensitivity ISO3200, 2.5″ LCD Display, Face Detection, Smile Shutter, Full HD.

Accessories : Camera + 1GB Memory Card + Battery Charger + Battery + USB, Audio/Video Cable.

Gift : The shop keeper offered a scratch card with the camera. And I won three days and two nights holiday anywhere in India 😀 Nice.. aint it 🙂

We clicked some shots in Central. Here are few.

Left to right : Kulbir Saini, Nitin Bansal

Deepak Vig

Pankaj Saini

Then We headed to my favorite destination in Hyderabad, City Center. We had burgers as usual. Pankaj did some shopping while we “ogled” at few “good looking” girls. We moved to crossword (a boook shop in City Center). We decided to leave for home. As we came out of Crossword, there were some dandia performance by some group. We captured some shots there as well.

Left to right : Nitin Bansal (Welcome to Sajjanpur wala Bansi :P), Kulbir Saini, Deepak Vig

Few more shots and we headed back to the divine place .. IIIT Hyderabad 🙂

We forced Pankaj to go for Dandia but unfortunately he couldn’t find a funti as only couples were allowed 😛

A big thanks to all the people who provided their views and helped me to by this cam 🙂

PS : Thanks to Google for all the dollars.

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 …

October 5, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Fun, Life

Bread Talk / CCD / Cafe Late / Dominoz

Following Zenwalker’s suggestion, today I broke my first resolution of not going out of campus. Since a few days, Sachin was saying this place named “Bread talk” is kinda nice (as suggested by his guardians) and we should visit that sometime. While we were doing some random BC at Coffee Shop, we all decided to go out today (thanks to the awesome weather). We didn’t have any idea of place and what is served there but all of us were sure that it’ll be something related to breads.

We left for Bread Talk at around 7PM with the idea of having dinner at the place. But when we reached the place, we discovered that it was a small corner in some shopping mall near brand factory on the way from Hi-Tech to Panjagutta. And the place is supposed to be visited when you wanna have something light before dinner. Everybody was like WTF!!! Anyway its a nice place and the items with alien names were worth the price. All of us had good time at the place except Mr. Kapil ‘Sophisticated’ Agarwal.

Then we decided to go to CCD near the check post on the same road. While we were in auto on the way, Mr. Pankaj Explorer (the one who explore places, and not the Internet) Saini was guiding the auto wallah. He took us to some CCD besides this Benz showroom. But we didn’t get in as it was only “take away”.

Then we boarded a bus to visit another CCD on the same road. Unfortunately, the bus was a Metro one. Pankaj asked for the minimum ticket because as usual he was not sure where CCD was. The conductor asked for Rs. 12 (for 6 of us). But suddenly he started asking Rs. 30. Now here comes the ego problem. Nobody cares for that much money but we won’t pay that just for the heck of it. The conductor threw us out of bus at some place 500 meters from the previous CCD.

Then we started walking and we discovered this place called “Cafe Late”. But we didn’t get in as this place didn’t have much to offer. We were a bit hungry.

From there we took another auto to the next CCD. While we were on the way, Mr. Pankaj ‘Explorer’ Saini discovered that the CCD has disappeared from the place he visited several times. We finally ended up in Dominoz. Nitin Bansal was ordering pizzas. At the same time, there appeared two girls (above average looks). One of them ordered something. Nitin Bansal, Pankaj and Ajay ‘Google’ Somani was also at counter at that time. After the girl left the counter, all of them successfully reproduced the mobile number that the girl spoke while ordering the pizza. They did so independently without any communication among each other. Guessing the level of frustration??

After having pizzas as Dominoz, we returned to IIIT. The godly place 🙂

October 1, 2008 by Kulbir Saini on BC, Computers, Fun, Internet, Tips n Tricks

Resolutions for October

Will avoid going out of campus as the traffic is really frustrating and it can spoil all the fun.
Will not overwork myself just for the sake of moral responsibilities.
Will try to stay away from computers at least for one day in a week.
Will avoid commitments which may be hazardous. Will think before I say yes.
Will buy a digicam and start clicking nature to add some liveliness to life. Currently my life is all about few tabs in Gnome terminal and Firefox.
Will try my level best to renovate IIIT LUG as its almost (?. completely) DEAD.
Will try to do assignments as I have missed almost all the assignments till now in this sem.
Will start thinking about aptitude tests for placement.
Will try to implement caching for Google videos.
Will try to work on the above resolutions.