Movies-College-Muscle !!

Call it the beginning of the end! Fourth Year of B.Tech is finally here. Pro life is coming fast. But the start of the new year .. er.. didn't exactly point out to that fact. First, we were 3 days late starting off! And then, we find out, the others were coming even later. So we jump out of the campus, and land at the very famous Cine Planet Multiplex. What a start to the first day of "college". By 11:30am, we already dished out some money to watch the movie, The Incredible Hulk. For a second I thought it was going to be the dubbed version in Hindi!! But I was later assured of the normal version.

The movie, was er.. fine. Lots of action, and lots of emotion. Somehow, the two didn't go together well, but that's what framed the movie in the first place. As I didn't see the prequel of this one, I cannot say how the story was like. The only thing I realised by the end was, there were too many loose ends to the story. They tried some dry comic dialogues, but most of them didn't work. Some things were too predictable, and some things were too unpredictable! That smart way of showing "No. of days without incident: XYZ Days" was fine atleast, but it gets bugging later, and too predictable. Somehow, the movie was simply made of Biology, Action, emotion and destruction. To add to all that, there a few "technical flaws" (like an occasional power-cut, sound getting cut off, etc) in the "Multiplex". Maybe people going to Cine Planet have gotten used to that. Yet, it sells. It's sells single-handedly because of the college students..

To mention a few good things, the VFX were great to watch. The camera angles in a few shots were very good too. It's the usual action-packed entertainer. If they can explain those unfinished parts (a scene where the infected blood gets mixed with the scientist's blood and his head starts bulging. They left it at that!) atleast in the next sequel, it might be a better story... my story after that was bad. Somehow my stomach didn't accept the famous "Paradise Biryani"...



...100..120..150..180..200..GRRRRR...

Yuppie! It's Over!!

It's final, and nearly official. My mini-project is over! On the whole it didn't look like a big deal, but there are mixed reactions on this one.

While the Senior guys at BHEL were amazed at every stage about how fast we were, and how bright we were. We don't even know whether this project will be accepted at college. At the end of this One Month (actually, its 20 days - 10 days break = 10 days of work), I can see the striking differences between a bunch of Researchers and a bunch of Educationists. While the R's are very friendly, encouraging and most importantly intelligent, the E's are miserly, narrow-minded and extremely dumb. While the R's focus on learning, which the E's should be doing, the E's actually focus on studying (there's a difference). While the R's teach for the sake of teaching, the E's teach for a living. While the R's are pretty lazy to R, the E's want to E all the time. While the R's encourage the use of Technology (stuff like CFD analysis, and 64GB RAM servers), the E's are totally against it. They hate to see CellPhones, flash-drives, and other tiny gads that we find cool. The more shocking thing is this.... quoting the words of the Principal, "Why do you people want to do a project on the computer? You won't get anything out of it. You simply have to type and you'll get the results in a few seconds! I want you to work atleast for 100 hours. Only then, you'll get 50 marks. You do I say. You do... i must see a physical working model. A small turbine, or something. No problem it it fails. Next time, you'll do it better. Do I say .. do ..."
    And the reply in my head would be this.. "Who the hell will agree to spend the money? Buying the materials, buying the parts, and shockingly, even the machinery! You guys won't even have that in your great labs! And the time wasted in travelling 60KM a day will count to nothing? WE invented computers to avoid all this junk! This is the smart world where things need to be fast. People can't sit calculating a 'something' that they aren't even sure would work. And we guys learnt many things, from our previous attempts at working models! Use the shear properly, or you might find a finger of yours missing! (YUCK! That scene in The House of Wax!!!) Don't use the drill as a source of breeze, it might pull your hair out! Don't over use the rivetting gun, or you might find a chunk of your skin missing! Warning: Working model projects are only for those with a handsome bank account and lots of fuel. Inspite of all this, we do take it up as a 'challenge' and what do we end up with? A few harsh lessons on the use of harsh machinery, and backlogs on subjects, a realization that Rs 30,000 was spent on a pile of metal, a bald head, an injured arm, lots of CO2 emission due to travel, a result that was no better than a guess... failed!! etc ..."

Another Woes post .. woes-of-a-blogger.....

Mummy!! It's Over!!

Can't believe, it's already the end of vacation. I never noticed them starting. Last thing I remember, I was running for the door, I had to find the passage back to the place I was before ... That was my last memory of the exams ... fitting lyrics really!

It's been a month and I never enjoyed a single day except that IPL match-day at the stadium. All the time was spent either in BHEL or if outside, thinking about it. Never a thought like, "Phew! All pressures gone, I can get back to my guitar". It was rather like this, "@#*& *#$&@## @#*&$ ... Why can't I get day free?!" Ofcourse the time spent in BHEL was time well spent, but one hates it when it happens at a time you were supposed to be relaxing on a far far away beach. It's a record I made, not being able to touch my guitar for so many days during holidays. I used to make it a point to jam for an hour after coming back from college. Am I going through some kind of a change? I really have to find that passage back to the place I was before ... "Relax", said the nightman. "We are Programmed to recieve, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave". And the blues guitar solo that comes after that, wooo..

My new venture, Atez was supposed to kick off as my next full song and actually did. It's a 6:09 min long song, but almost entirely an electronic one. Somewhere from the back of my mind a voice told me, "there's no Rock in it. What are you upto??". I sat and remodelled a part of the song, and now, it's a mix (I hate this) between Rock and Trance. I still need to add a solo in that, and my fingers are unable to move down the fretboard. I wanted a purely technical sound, a sound that comes only from a kind of pattern playing rather than framing one in the mind and playing it. So far, I have been highly unsuccessful. It only means one thing. My brain is demanding more than what my hands can do. Until there is coherence, there's nothing that can be done, except practice ofcourse. With all this, the blog seems to be turning into a woes-of-a-guitarist Blog, rather than the one it intended to be. I forgot what that was, so forget it ...

An I-am-bored-so-I-posted Post

Monsoons are here and here to stay. Good thing is, the place will cool down a bit, the bad part though is the roads that'll promptly get water-logged every year. Being more of a walker than a biker, I have to bear all the difficulties in jumping across varied sizes of puddles. Ofcourse I must also learn the skill of dodging water-sprays from aggressively driven cars. The mosquitoes will be back and who knows, they might have evolved into a new species that's immune to our famous mosquito-repellents. Everytime you go out, you should carry an extra thing with you, your umbrella or your rain-coat. And hey if you feel like getting drenched in the acid-rain, you can happily do so. Not to mention the everlasting power-cuts. Everytime I think I made a good tune, the power's gone and my tune's lost...

And this week wasn't a BHEL or Bhel week. It was just an At-home week, which I enjoyed nevertheless. The results weren't great with 71.4%. I remember rejoicing more for having a Pass next to every subject than the reaction after calculating the percentage. That's what engineering life has turned into. All we want to see is the leap across the stream. We don't care how far we leaped or if we just managed to clear the stream or used a boat or a bridge (copying!!) to cross it.

At BHEL, though we managed to get the results of the mini-project we are doing, we still haven't finished it and it's unnecessarily getting more and more delayed. At a stage it looked like it would be wrapped up in a week. That extended to a second week because of stupid mistakes and the tutor going out of town. And when the tutor is back, Chakradhar had to go out, dragging this to a third week. Right when we didn't want any more delays, they came crashing into us... and depriving us off precious holidays.

I just uploaded some photos taken from a 1.2MP phone-camera (don't ask me where I got it). These are of the BHEL R&D CFD wing, and the results of our CFD analysis. The project isn't officially over, but the pictures say it's over.

The BHEL R&D CFD Block. Good sky behind...


The streamlines show the flow in the Spiral Casing of a Hydro-turbine. I hope it's accepted... it's not Aeronatutical


This is a vector view of the flow with the arrows marking the direction (hope you can see them). Don't mind the tilted images. I snapped them from the monitor. Luckily LCD or else I would have found only lines in my photo...

The Bhel week

This week has been a week of mixed emotions, as you would find in the road-side Bhel Puri with the various (sometimes unknown) eatables (atleast!) mixed in it. And all those mixtures have come from this place called BHEL. Well, the so-called Compulsory Mini-Project kicked off with me and Chakradhar visiting the BHEL R&D industry (where his dad works) and we decided on a project (or rather, we were enforced upon a project) called "CFD Analysis of the Spiral Casing in a Hydro-Turbine". Well, in the beginning, I was pretty disappointed that this was a more Mechanical Project than Aeronautical, but sometimes, you have no choice. Though a Gas Turbine study was available, we were doing this because of certain circumstances. Whatever they were, I don't know, but we sure had a worry in our heads whether we could finish the project within a month. We were already late in starting and in case our thing dragged on, the first few weeks of college would be gone as well. And as an Engineering Student, I have noticed that my peak learning occurs in the first month of the semester. The trailing months just pass by before realizing it. If I missed that crucial month, the semester would be a disaster. So I was really keen on giving a quick start and a happy ending. With that, and all the terms and conditions settled, we were in!

We are in, and 'End of the Story', but not so fast buddy! There are many hurdles you have to cross, to reach the finish line. First thing, travel on the Hyderabad roads with enough guts! Then face the lazy staff of the office. Then you might not have a system for yourself. You'll have to wait till that person gets over with his work. The power-cut might suddenly ruin your entire design. As a multimedia guy, I should have had that habit of saving work after every move. But I never learnt that! It taught us big lessons while working. An 'unusual' power-cut wiped out our complete design. Then the tutor attempted something and ruined one of the curves which we took hours to repair. The same tutor once asked us to add an extra section which swallowed 2 days of very hard work. At one point when 80% of the work was over, we found out that there was a major flaw in the meshing, and had to go back right to the beginning. It's all been a very tough ride. And yet, by, don't know who's grace, we nearly came to the end of the project in just 6 days. That's something the tutor was amazed about, an apprentice (who was helping us) was surprised about, and the other heads were impressed about. We did our work as normally as we would. Arriving at 8, starting work by 8:45, taking a break at 9:30, working upto 11:00, taking another break, running for lunch, and then mostly leaving after lunch. All this counts up to about 2 hours of real work daily. That was all that was needed to come to the final stages of the project! Ofcourse as the staff pointed out, our project is only a small piece of a big thing. But doing it in a professional place, in hardly any time, in softwares we were using for the first time, (ICEM-CFD, TascFlow, CFX, I-deas, etc.) was pretty impressive both for us and the rest.

As of now, another hurdle has come up against us. The guide's out of town for a few days, and our closing ceremony will have to wait another week. Had he been here for another day, we could have successfully closed our project and proudly say, "Our month project took one week to complete!!"

His going out left us with a few holidays ourselves, and we are hoping to put our first holidays of this vacation to good use. Givson Panther (with Fndr-sytle Pick-ups) and Chetan Bhagat, here I come!

The End and A Start

Oh what an experience it has been, watching through the matches of the Indian Premier League! The over-hyped event, which did live upto the hype, finally came to an end and what an end it was! The last ball decider was as nerve-racking as the Penalty Shootout between Manchester United and Chelsea on the Champions League Finals. It's been the second time within the span of a month that I have seen a great final of a great tournament. And both the times, it was the team that I wanted, ending up on the winning side. There it was Manchester United and here, it was Rajasthan Royals. It is true that the Royals proved themselves in every match after a bad start, and yet I always considered them underdogs, and it's my desire to see the underdogs win unless it doesn't involve a favourite team of mine. Complicated stuff to understand, but putting it simply, I wanted RR to win inspite of having the feeling, they might not pull off this one. But like every other match I saw of RR, they simply proved me wrong! Everytime they play a match, I watch it with interest thinking, "..today something may go wrong and the team would collapse. After all, how long can a team survive without a proper coach, without big-named players, etc...". But they never seemed to fall apart. They keep talking about those "Roles" assigned to them, and "Executing" them. These Roles seem to be Royal Roles! The team simply defied all odds and continued doing it till the very last game of the Tournament. I expected them to pull off this feat at the end of the league stage, but always reminded myself of the fact that in this format, nothing repeats like the previous. Everything is new in a new game. And RR kept themselves fit for that ever changing pattern and showed nerves of the strongest possible metal ever right till the death!!

A special note towards Shane Watson: He's had the skill and control through out in all sections of the game (Bat, Bowl, Field), and rightfully deserves the Royal Crown with the Man of the Series. When his face appears on the Television screen, he seems too be radiating a sense of aggression and calm at the same time. He can threaten and joke at the same time and I am always left struck by his cool attitude...

There were incidents which shouldn't have happened but I think these incidents have actually boosted the popularity of the IPL. Yesterday, I noticed a poll that declared 92% people calling it a success, and 8% not agreeing with that. That poll itself speaks about how this event has turned things around, or even the face of cricket!

That was THE END.

And now, for THE START. The start of my month long journey with BHEL. The mini-project that I selected, was selected against so many factors. Things like hectic travel, 8am to 4pm timings, holidays gobbled up, lots of money put in, few weeks of college also unlikely, etc, all tried to turn me against this project. Yet, just for the sake of getting a certificate from a recognised Company, I had to go for it. Today was my first shot at it, and it proved to be pretty hard on me. I had a huge struggle trying to get there as early as possible. But once I did, the trees and clam atmosphere soothed me a bit.
But once into the office, it gives you a stench of the government-type offices. The lazy staff, with hardly anything to do, the unnecessary jokes, the extreme formalities, and so many other things really got to my nerves, and yet I held on! Somewhere at the end of this uncertain tunnel, there lies something valuable. The focus is on that, and the journey is being neglected. Thankfully though, the CFD Wing (my area of work), is properly Air-conditioned, with doors responding to chips in your card. The procedure to get registered took the whole morning and afternoon. It's seems to be like this: People roll in pretty late (upto an hour), then by 11am they rush for tea and chat about for nearly 1/2 hour. By 12:30 they are back for lunch. They spend an hour on that. Then, they lazily get back to work (if there was any!), by 1:30pm and by 2:30pm. they are out for another cup of tea. When they are done by 3:00, they 'work' and by 4:00pm, you can see a big line of vehicles waiting at the gate. The moment the factory siren rings, and the gates open, there is a rush of vehicles onto the road. It's like watching lazy schoolchildren dying to get out of school. All you can do in a day is, fill a form and get it stamped (if you luckily reach the office before he runs out for lunch!).

Phew! That's the life, I'm gonna live for the next few weeks. The start of this month has brought in the start of my peep into the 'Pro' World. How successfully I blend with it and get out of it alive, remains a mystery yet to be solved.