The days that follow..

ok..life goes on(..n so does the PS)..n heres how they go by...

We are supposed to reach at 9..we do so by 9:30....

The office is supposed to end at 5 pm..We r home by 4 (thats on tue,thurs n sat...yes saturdays r working too...bt we've managed to convert that to a holiday...) cause our instructor comes to the office on these days only and on rest of the days we r back after just a couple of hours in the office by abt 12 pm....

And in between....the lunch break for the staff is for an hour..we have a 2 hr lunch break n after that too we need n't go back to work....Most of the time is spent in Vishrut's cubicle...( ya he's gt a cubicle n AC....n net connection too....) while I and Yash have to work on the assembly line...luckily the machine i am supposed to study n work on...too needs an AC..so most of the time we r working is spent here....

The machine i have been assigned to is called NLT( ...No Load testers for those who haven't done ES GC 272 Electrical Sciences 2....) The importance of this can be gauged frm the fact that this is the only electrical testing that is done on the motors...i generaly spend the time staring at the machine..its actually a gr8 machine..imported etc...bt jitna bhi mai research karoon uske baare mein..my co ordinator says ""Go into more depth..."..so i have stopped trying....

rest all is masti....will write more after GD tomm...

The First day....

okay..my PS is at GE motors Faridabad....this is my experience of the first day..i.e 24th may 2007..
tI
9:00 am
All pressed n dressed...luckily had already talked to the ps instructor cause he wasnt responding to his mails we had sent on his bits mail id...( guess this guy too doesnt use his bits-mail.. ;))...n cause we had to know the time for reporting cause this company doesnt start working upto 9:30 n employees keep coming uptill 10-10:30 am...
We were finally supposed to reach at 9:30....

9:30 am
Reached punctually...no sign of the teacher...find the rest of the guys there.. Vishrut, Akshay Yash n Vikram also came in till 9:45...however the teacher hadnt arrived...

10:30 am
We finally got our respective departments to report to..n no two of us was in the same deptt..Vishrut was given IT, Akshay was in production, Yash in the assebly line, Vikram in R&D n i was in manufacturing....
Anyways we went to our coords to report to them...n till that time too our instructor hadnt reported...
My coord just told me to go around the plant the first couple of days...

11:30am
Finally the instructor arrived...we reported to him..he told us the basic rules etc..all the stuff abt quizes, gd etc...n told us to report back to our coords...

1230 pm
My lunch time...we all had diff lunch times..bt now we have managed n i had a 2 hr lunch break...cause me n yash see the assembly line..so the workers go for lunch at 1230..n we couldnt do anything after that...n staff has lunch frm 1:30-2:30 pm..so we have lunch then..

4:00 pm..
We all met at the reception n came to know that Vishrut, Akshay n Vikrams instructors hadnt come so they were all free..so we all sat down n waited for our instructor who had told us that he would come back frm JBM Auto..( another PS stn under him...) at abt 4...

4:45 pm
The instructor hadnt still turned up...so Akshay called him up..made some excuse abt some ficticious family function n we all left for home....


Generally our instructor comes thrice a week...n we have to do some work..go around the plants etc whuile the rest of the days...its just masti...
PS is going gr8 till now...though i did learn a few things..n i am sure so have the others..n its gr8 masti....

n m gonna miss it when it ends ;)

The Train Journey....

Generally BITSIANs frm Goa travel by Goa Express..bt the reason that I and Vishal were travelling by Kerela Sampark Kranti Express was because i had to leave for Leh the following day and wouldn't have been able to reach on time by Goa Express...

11 pm
anyways I had Vishal reached the Madgaon stn uneventfully..Everything and everyone on the station was as usual asleep(including the guy at the enquiry counter..). We reached the stn at abt 11 pm n the train wasnt due till 2 in the nite..so we had to find ways of passing our time..

00:00 am
At abt 12 the first sign of activity on the station arrived...it was Matsyagandha Express...the crowd finally woke up and started moving about...The next was Netravati Express at abt 1 pm....

1:50 am
Our train was supposed to come at 2 pm..n abt 1:50 pm..we bid adieu to Bharat and Soju baba( Soju baba..spent the time on the stn sleeping...) who had a train at 3...n moved to the other side of the station...where our bogie was supposed to be coming...

2:15 am
We could see the faraway headlight of an engine and thought it would be our train..bt when it arrived on the station..it turned out to be just a engine which stopped in front of the control room...n a guy came out with his suitcase n boarded the engine and it went on its way....boy were we livid...and just to add.. Vishal hadnt slept more than 4 hrs in the past two days cause of consecutive exams...n i too hadnt had too much sleep...

2:40 am
Another set of healights in the distance..this time we thought it would definately be our train..bt it happened again..an engine came, stopped,the co-driver came down..bought tea for himself n the driver n it went away again....

2:45 am
Vishal was literally getting pissed off..n went to the enquiry to ask when the train
would be coming..bt the guy was sleeping...Finally the guy woke up n told us that he couldnt contact the driver of our train.... only possible in INDIAN RAILWAY...

3:00 am
The train finally arrived n we got in...We had 2 lower berths n cause Vishal had his guitar wid him..he wanted to sleep on the upper berth...the other four berths( n another in front...) belonged to a Goan family..who for that matter looked as if they were travelling for the first time by train.. First they couldnt find their seats..even though they would find 5 empty seats
anywhere on the train...then they managed to find them...Then they told us that these are our seats...Vishal who was looking forward to a good nite sleep had to literally point to each seat n count...one..two..three...four ..five... Then he told them that he wanted to exchange one berth cause he wanted to sleep on the top berth....n he just climbed up n went off to sleep....i too lay down on my seat n switched off the light....n after that i could see the family count the no. of seats to see whether they totalled up to 5 or had we tricked them...and so finally at abt 3:30 we went off to sleep.....

The rest of the journey was okay..n finally in the evening..the guy asked us where we were headed..n when we told him Delhi...he asked in surprise whether the train goes to Delhi...n he was going beyond Delhi...

Rest of the journey was okay...reached Delhi on 14th morning....n left for Leh on15th morning..I'll write abt that later..after i get the pics..which i dont have at faridabad....where i am doing my ps...

The Comedy called CAS

CAS..Circuits n Signaal as our prof calls it...finally gave the compre yesterday bt i still have no clue why we were doing that subject...Lemme tell u abt that lecture...

The course:
EEE/INSTR GC 272...Circuits n Signals...supposedly a pre requisite for DSP...dont ask me wat that is...that we can take as an elective in 4 th yr...

The Timing:
The lectures used to gr8 fun..The actual time for the lecture was frm 11-12 in the morning..bt i can actually count on my fingers the number of times the lecture has gone for more than 1130...
The first few classes: Ok this is one of Murphy's rule in..."there will always be a professor in the coll. whose accent or language who wouldn't understand"....well the first few lectures were spent on repeating SIGNAAAAAL as our prof use to pronounce signal...n there was also this song frm some movie with the same word in it...

The Company:
Ob...with a common subject for EEE n EnI...we had expected to b sitting next to some serious looking nerdy eeeite or an instruite...bt i was really lucky to have some gr8 company...Sagar, Harsh me n Meet on the same bench...n KK n co.. behind us...man it was nothing less than a party...me n Sagar cracking stupid jokes...Harsh like a dedicated student taking down all the crap the teacher was teaching n Meet asking us DOUBTS...as if we were even concentrating...n there was also Sodhi sitting in front of us who used to turn back n he n Sagar would start singing wat they used to call "a song"...bt i beg to differ.....
Behind us KK used to be the guy who generally used to start shouting time up at 1125 itself... n make those 10 ptrs look back at us in annoyance..well they could listen to the prof speaking all yr long...

The End result:
Ok the prof is leaving coll next sem..bt he did some really boring part at the end telling us that it would be useful for DSP in 4th yr..hell man i dont know wat electives i will take next sem...n this guy is talking abt 4th yr...absolutely mental....
Well..am really proud of this statistics..none of us bunked more than one odd class..n it was such a gr8 fun attending the lecture..i could do it all over again..

n i think i'll scrap a B in CAS... but only the prof know :)

Sorry Nimit...

ok.. i apologize to nimit..when i wrote my first entry i had written that i would try to b as regular as Nimit..bt...

There was actually some prob with my comp and blogger wasnt opening...bt i finally formatted it..n blogger is opening now... :)

ok..have my Circuits n Signal paper tomm..will write another post after that...

PS1.....

ok..PS1 is Practice school 1 for those of you who do not know it....

After 2nd yr BITSians have to do an industrial training for 5-6 weeks to get industrial exposure....well there was a lot of speculation about who will get which ps station n who all will b together..after all everyone needs a good partner ;)

well the list is finally out...n most ppl have gt a good ps station..with lotsa frnds together....
this is summer is gonna be a BIG PARTY....



btw i got GE Motors Faridabad...with Vishrut and Akshay....so GEMi...watch out..here we come...

In the Line of Fire....

This one is dedicated to one of my favorite topics...Defence Services....n not just mine...i still remember how I Nimit and Angad have spend most of our time together discussing wars..be it Longewala or kargil....

I read about this incident somewhere n here it is.....

In the Line of Fire

Vivek Pradhan was not a happy man. Even the plush comfort of the air-conditioned compartment of the Shatabdi express could not cool his frayed nerves. He was the Project Manager and still not entitled to air travel. It was not the prestige he sought, he had tried to reason with the admin person, it was the savings in time. As PM, he had so many things to do. He opened his case and took out the laptop, determined to put the time to some good use.

"Are you from the software industry sir," the man beside him was staring appreciatively at the laptop.

Vivek glanced briefly and mumbled in affirmation, handling the laptop now with exaggerated care and importance as if it were an expensive car.

"You people have brought so much advancement to the country sir. Today everything is getting computerized."

"Thanks," smiled Vivek, turning around to give the man a look.He always found it difficult to resist appreciation. The man was young and stocky like a sportsman. He looked simple and strangely out of place in that little lap of luxury like a small town boy in a prep school. He probably was a railway sportsman making the most of his free traveling pass.

"You people always amaze me," the man continued, "You sit in an office and write something on a computer and it does so many big things outside.

"Vivek smiled deprecatingly. Naivety demanded reasoning not anger. "It is not as simple as that my friend. It is not just a question of writing a few lines. There is a lot of process that goes behind it." For a moment, he was tempted to explain the entire Software Development Lifecycle but restrained himself to a single statement. "It is complex, very complex."

"It has to be. No wonder you people are so highly paid," came the reply.

This was not turning out as Vivek had thought. A hint of belligerence came into his so far affable, persuasive tone."Everyone just sees the money. No one sees the amount of hard work we have to put in. Indians have such a narrow concept of hard work. Just because we sit in an air-conditioned office does not mean our brows do not sweat. You exercise the muscle; we exercise the mind and believe me that is no less taxing.

"He had the man where he wanted him and it was time to drive home the point."Let me give you an example. Take this train. The entire railway reservation system is computerized. You can book a train ticket between any two stations from any of the hundreds of computerized booking centres across the country. Thousands of transactions accessing a single database, at a time concurrency; data integrity, locking, data security. Do you understand the complexity in designing and coding such a system?

"The man was stuck with amazement, like a child at a planetarium. This was something big and beyond his imagination.

"You design and code such things."

"I used to," Vivek paused for effect, "But now I am the Project Manager,"

"Oh!" sighed the man, as if the storm had passed over, "so your life is easy now."It was like being told the fire was better than the frying pan. The man had to be given a feel of the heat.

"Oh come on, does life ever get easy as you go up the ladder. Responsibility only brings more work. Design and coding! That is the easier part. Now I do not do it, but I am responsible for it and believe me, that is far more stressful. My job is to get the work done in time and with the highest quality.

To tell you about the pressures, there is the customerat one end always changing his requirements, the user wanting something else and your boss always expecting you to have finished it yesterday.

"Vivek paused in his diatribe, his belligerence fading with self-realisation. What he had said, was not merely the outburst of a wronged man, it was the truth. And one need not get angry while defending the truth. "My friend," he concluded triumphantly, "you don't know what it is to be in the line of fire.

"The man sat back in his chair, his eyes closed as if in realization. When he spoke after sometime, it was with a calm certainty that surprised Vivek."I know sir, I know what it is to be in the line of fire,"

He was staring blankly as if no passenger, no train existed, just a vast expanse of time. "There were 30 of us when we were ordered to capture Point 4875 in the cover of the night. The enemy was firing from the top. There was no knowing where the next bullet was going to come from and for whom. In the morning when we finally hoisted the tricolour at the top only 4 of us were alive."

"You are a..."
"I am Subedar Sushant from the 13 J&K Rifles on duty at Peak 4875 in Kargil. They tell me I have completed my term and can opt for a land assignment. But tell me sir, can one give up duty just because it makes life easier."

On the dawn of that capture, one of my colleagues lay injured in the snow, open to enemy fire while we were hiding behind a bunker. It was my job to go and fetch that soldier to safety.""But my captain refused me permission and went ahead himself. He said that the first pledge he had taken as a Gentleman Cadet was to put the safety and welfare of the nation foremost followed by the safety and welfare of the men he commanded.""His own personal safety came last, always and every time. He was killed as he shielded that soldier into the bunker. Every morning now, as I stand guard I can see him taking all those bullets, which were actually meant for me. I know sir, I know what it is to be in the line of fire."

Vivek looked at him in disbelief not sure of his reply. Abruptly he switched off the laptop. It seemed trivial, even insulting to edit a word document in the presence of a man for whom valour and duty was a daily part of life; a valour and sense of duty which he had so far attributed only to epical heroes.

The train slowed down as it pulled into the station and Subedar Sushant picked up his bags to alight.

"It was nice meeting you sir."Vivek fumbled with the handshake. This hand had climbed mountains, pressed the trigger, and hoisted the tricolour. Suddenly as if by impulse,he stood at attention and his right hand went up in an impromptu salute. It was the least he felt he could do for the country.

PS: The conditions were extremely tough. At a gradient of 80 degrees, the thick fog made the advance to point 4875 even more precarious. The enemy got wind of Batra's arrival. They knew who Sher Shah was, by now his military prowess had become the stuff of legend.

The incident he narrates during the capture of Peak 4875 is a true-life incident during the Kargil war. Capt. Batra sacrificed his life while trying to save one of the men he commanded, as victory was within sight. For this and his various other acts of bravery he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra the nation's highest military award.

Vikram Batra would have joined the Merchant Navy. He was to join the ship in Hong Kong. His uniform had been stitched, his tickets booked.

But he changed his mind.

A decade later, his decision would become the opening line of an Indian Oil print campaign. The public sector company paid tribute to the Kargil hero and lauded him for rejecting a lucrative career for the service of the nation. 'Sometimes an ordinary Indian can make a Rs 120,000 crore company feel humble. For every step we take, there's an inspired Indian leading the way,' read the ad copy, alongside a black-and-white etching of Captain Batra.

this is nt an isolated story..there r many more unsung heroes...men who die for the country so that others may see the light of tommorrow....n i salute these true HEROES....