A New Tale of Two Cities!
Author: Yash Desai
•09:17

    And so I accepted the job and thus, began my journey. From Aamchi Mumbai, mother in 3 languages: Mum + Ba (Gujarati) + Aai (Marathi) to land-forcibly-seized-from-farmers, hot-headed-men-carrying-guns, don’t-go-out-at-night-or-you’ll-get-raped-(doesn’t-matter-if-you’re-a-boy-or-girl), Yo-Yo-Honey Singh-@-Dandiya, etc city: Gurgaon, popularly known as Delhi outside Delhi and Gurgaon. Being born and bred in Mumbai, migrating here involved witnessing a paradigm shift in culture. Having imbibed policies from my line of career, I shall start out with positive points and then euphemistically crawl onto the unpleasant ones.
  1. The women in Delhi/Gurgaon are very philanthropic as they give free neck exercises to men. The amazing symmetry in their face have baffled mathematicians and Haryanvis alike, the divine proportion in their anatomy would put Da Vinci to shame and the perfect amount of melanin in their skin is a hot research topic for chemists.
  2. Metro. Cheap Metro.
  3. Liquor. Cheap Liquor.

    With this exhaustive list, I would delightfully pounce onto the more interesting part. The lack of public transport within the city leaves you handicapped at times. The fare for non-meter driven auto rickshaws starts with per km cost equivalent to that of a space shuttle and ends at Rs. 10 more than what you are willing to pay. While in Mumbai, cursing and posing rhetorical questions to rickshaw drivers was one of my favorite pass-times, you wouldn’t want to do that in Gurgaon lest someone pulls out a shotgun and shoots you in the face at point blank range with fountains of blood oozing out of your skull, eye-balls dangling out of their sockets, grey gooey matter dripping down your forehead etc. I recall one such incidence in Mumbai when I was with my dear friend Damle. They were bickering over Re. 1. It’s never about the money you see but about the principle. At last the driver retorted, "Ek rupaiya se mahal bana lega kya?" (Will you build a castle with one rupee?) to which Damle, in his highly conspicuous Marathi accent replied, “Toh kya tu bana lega?” (So what, you are gonna build?). And there was a long awkward silence.
    Not just the rickshaws but even the inter-city buses amuse you. As tech-savvy dudes (read nerds), we proudly booked tickets online only to realize we could have just reached the station and bargained in loud incoherent statements to save some bucks. Ironically, the same thing happened even at a posh club like Blue Frog! Nevertheless, we got into shabby “Indian-looking” bus which was submerged in chaos with travel agents fighting, women chattering, men heaving around with over-sized suitcases and the children, as usual, crying their lungs out. After an hour of this torture which made my ears and brain numb, the bus finally departed. I was shocked that the same crowd which quarrels over a frivolous issue like number of ice-cubes in soft drink was indifferent to the delay in departure.
    Having learnt the lesson, next time we directly went to the bus station. We even bargained in loud incoherent statements to get seats in a swanky AC bus. Our chest which was swollen with pride received a nice thump within seconds of departure. The bus had no shock-absorbers. And just when you think it can’t get worse, God unleashes His next prank while shouting out loud in a shrill voice, “Now take this sucker”. It’s the advent of “Complaining Oldie Paradox”. An old guy boards the bus and while he himself is the cause of complain, he curses everything else around. It seemed he had memorized an array of invectives which he blabbered in an infinite loop. At one point, I could hear air-borne bacteria sobbing because of this nuisance. Even in Delhi’s city bus, the conductor who was super-glued to his seat took Gowarikar movie-ish time to dole out the tickets.
    Another peculiar phenomenon is the crying baby syndrome. It’s an established fact that whenever you travel, there is always a crying baby in your audible radius. Gurgaon goes a step further and you are bombarded by kids everywhere. With malls and multiplexes being the only source of “entertainment”, probably parents must be bringing them back there to show where they were conceived.
    And suddenly out of nowhere, just like its mention in the blog here, winter sneaks upon you. It’s so cold that even boiling water is freezing. There’s fog everywhere, not just in the air but also exuding out of every possible hole in your body. I imagine a wedding night in Delhi winter. It would be like an onion married to a cabbage. The entire night would be spent removing layers after layers!
  All said and done, to keep in tone with the blog’s title, it has been a fun-ride so far with of course some trials and tribulations. Company of good friends, occasional trips, experience of living independently and obviously earning (spending) money have been catalysts in extricating home (Mumbai)-sickness. And eventually, you adapt to the “work and weekend” life!
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The Dream Job
Author: Yash Desai
•06:20

While the world outside sees a rosy picture of IIT, the students walk on a bed of thorns. The case in point is the ultimate objective of the two year penance-cum-exile at Kota – landing with a “good” job. I am pretty sure many of you have been in the awkward situation when your mother’s friend (some aunty you have no frickin’ clue about who she is) looks at you and says, "Ohh, aap IITian hai, aapki toh bahut achi naukri lagegi – karodo (crores) me kamayenge”. And, you respond with a retarded smile which is otherwise reserved for social functions.
I wish that were the case. With the newspapers being the major culprit by printing headlines like “Facebook offers 65 lakhs to IITians,” fuel the myth that all companies dole out tens of lacs of rupees at campus recruitment in IITs. Without going into the number game, through this post, I want to recount my experience of placements at IIT Bombay in 5 phases.

1.The build-up:
This is the period from freshie year to the start of 2nd last semester when all we know about placements is XYZ craxxx ABC and some dotted incidences of dark horses or some stud junta missing out. Placements were a happy memory as they were always associated with treats. With the advent of the final year, there is a sudden explosion of information. Everyone around you talks about jobs and why consults are better than banks or how working at a start-up opens up your chances for MBA or why we as engineers should NOT work at technical companies (seriously?). Some blabber philosophical gyaan that they will do only what they love and what they love changed as fast as auto-rickshaw meters (before the RTO drive).

2.      2.  Selling yourself: Exaggeration is an understatement
At a resume-making workshop, the professional remarked, “So, for an exam you spend one day and for your resume which covers 4 years of your life and forms the basis of your career you will be spending just 10 days!” (the workshop was scheduled 10 days before the flexible deadline). He drove a point and suddenly a variant of that retarded smile was wiped off my face.
I immediately downloaded the folder “Stud resumes” only to demotivate myself further. I started getting fundaes from everywhere – show impact, numbers, results, team-work, all-round qualifications, leadership skills and hell yeah, I eventually concocted it all! For the next 15 days, the word doc of my resume was always open (along with the thesaurus) and I would stare blankly at it hoping words would magically rearrange themselves into something flashy like – Tom Marvolo Riddle became I am Lord Voldemort. Heavyweight words like spearheaded, revolutionized, conceptualized, etc became common jargon. Here’s an example of what to put on resume:
·         Spearheaded the 2nd freedom struggle of the World’s Largest Democracy
·         Collaborated with team Anna to launch the new initiative of India Against Corruption (IAC)
·         Received an overwhelming response from over 1.2 billion people across diverse sectors

What you actually did – chatted with your friend, “यार, ये अन्ना क्या मचा रहा है आजकल!”

So after two weeks of excruciating eye exercise, contradicting reviews and infinite iterations, I was finally relieved to get it done with.

3.       3.. Pre-Placement Talks:
It was a roller-coaster ride from snobbish show of superiority to bare reality of back-end work, from interesting game-changing videos to pinnacle of boredom. The end of PPTs would see some genuine doubts, some guys asking questions just for the heck of it and then there was a whole species of ass-kissers who would listen with rapt attention as if actual pearls of wisdom were being thrown out as freebies. Finally, it just became a matter of attendance lest we, the earthly mortals, stir up the wrath of the Dark Lord to be conferred with the Dark Violation (Institute rule for compulsory attendance).
*shivers*

4.       4.. The long short-lists and Preparation:
It was a traumatizing and tantalizing time of desperately finding your name in shortlists. At one time it seemed different combinations from a set of same 50 people popped up everywhere or it would be a CS company open, as if out of pity, for all departments. Even in the “Epic” shortlist my name did not feature! Only consolation being there were loads of technical companies for electrical. But that was not to be, as towards the end of November, there would be so many tests lined up (I had 5 tests each from 28-30 Nov), I just signed and returned the papers. Apart from killing time, these tests did an amazing job of murdering self-confidence and shaking your technical foundation. And yeah, those numerous aptitude tests! Why the hell would I care if a train travelling from A to B at x km/hr reaches at z o’clock or not? Grow up!

Deciphering why so and so is in a shortlist is like inorganic chemistry- looking at the result you can always come up with some crap as to why he/she made it. And if all else fails then, like you declare exceptions in inorganic chemistry, you can say, “ जुगाड़ लगाया होगा! (networking at work :P)”

Come placements and there is a sudden spike in the interest of Consultancies who work on the principle of “Chaato ya Kaato (kiss-ass or kick-ass)”. And everyone is practicing case-studies. Besides, people start reading economic times for finance companies, solve puzzles for Quant companies. Ironically, technical revision is the last priority and often left neglected. And then there are HR questions. So even after 21-22 years of fooling around, you suffer from verbal diarrhea when telling something about yourself.

5.      5.The D-Day(s)
With the institute trying to get everyone placed on day 1 slot 1 itself, multitudes of companies were squeezed in. (Un)fortunately, I did not have any interviews in slot 1. So I was a bit relaxed compared to the circus of chaos on display in hostel 4. Looking at the way things are handled here you get a fair idea of how our country runs! Most of my close friends were placed in the 1st slot and although I was happy for them but honestly it just added some more pressure of getting placed as quickly as possible. I had 2 interviews and 2 GDs lined up in slot 2. I did fairly good in one of the GDs but did not qualify for the next round. Thanks to the mind-blowing (literally blew my mind) scheduling and management, I had 2 interviews and a GD all at the same time with each threatening to disqualify me if I did not turn up. After some convincing, I managed to swap interviews with others and with that panicked state of mind gave the remaining GD and then the interviews. I was horrified to see that my resume copy with the interviewer was messed up and my top two selling points were overlapped with the header. So, if some members of the placement team have crippled babies then either the nuclear reactor at Fukushima in Japan had far-reaching effects or my curses took effect. At 2-30 am, I just had one company left whose results were about to be announced and my fatigue prayed that I did not qualify for the next round just so I could lie down and go for the test next morning at 5-30 am! And so it happened, and next morning I went for the test which was preceded by a PPT which would eventually result in some more crippled babies. Nonetheless, I had two interviews lined up for the evening and finally got through one of them.

5(b). In Retrospect
Not getting recruited on day 1 had a disastrous effect, not just on me but most people around. Unlike slot 1 where competition instigates people to slit throats and gobble intestines (both small and large) like noodles, everyone is very supportive and helpful otherwise. Not just friends but acquaintances and even strangers kept each other motivated and it was really heart-warming. The mind-set of getting placed as soon as possible throws you into a lake with a big rock tied to you and sometimes it becomes too overwhelming to come through. The sleepless nights, the foodless day, the restless mind all play a conspiracy and it becomes impossible to keep your head on your shoulders. On day 1, I was quite tensed but once I started interviewing I kept great composure and probably was at my best (which even surprised me). Not getting selected in spite of doing good was the most demotivating factor and I had almost given up the battle like many others around me. What I learnt though is that some things are out of control and its best not to dwell on them but to keep oneself in the fighter mode. This is not the end of the world but just the beginning of the bare reality of life. Its important to set our priorities and work towards them while believing in oneself. On paper (or currently on your computer) this seems like a philosophical sermon but in practice it’s just introspecting what you like, preparing for it and being confident during the interviews and the whole process. I learned it the hard way when my confidence was smothered and I became defensive which was really unnecessary given the opportunities we have. I eventually convinced myself and pulled up my socks but it would have been easier had I known all this earlier. But then again, experience is the comb nature gives you when you become bald!
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The Place between Life and Death
Author: Yash Desai
•12:26
Everyone dreams of flying and I am no exception. When I got this chance of flying, I shed all worries of death and more importantly, exorbitant cost and set my mind for it. People often take cheaper (ref. Damle UDD : my friend in IIT) and simpler routes (dope, ref. random junta in IIT) to "fly" but I took the highway. So I brainwashed people in Montreal who wanted to go bungee jumping by the selling point "Lets do the ultimate thing!" In the end, it was 5 of us : vivek, charul, nitish, sushant (who was to drive us) and myself. On one hand, I was getting excited watching those sky diving videos on youtube with people giving retarded expressions and "over-repeating" one particular phrase ("yo man" seemed the fav) while on the other, people were scaring the shit out of me by puking statistics of sky diving deaths. And I remember, charul asking me, "Agar mar gaye toh? (What if we die?)" and I replied, "It would be a good way to die!" (It does sound a little corny now :P). To add to the woes, Sushant's mind was dwindling owing to money issues ($400 is not cheap) and the climax: the night before the jump, he disappeared and was not answering our calls!

       But bad luck was having a bad luck! Sushant returned and the plan was on track. I left a note to my family saying I love them just in case I became victim to those puked statistics. Next morning we reached the airport. The cute receptionist had a calming effect. Getting done with the legal formalities (they are so foolproof, you can't blame them in any possible way) and the protective gear, we got in the plane. The aircraft took off into the heavens and so did our hearts into our mouths. I got 1st into the plane and so last of the 3 to jump out. Charul went first and after substantial resistance, the instructor finally managed to defeat Nitish's high inertia.

   It was my turn. Few heavy steps and I was at the exit of the plane. 14000 feet high above ground! Few scattered clouds. Lush green land and tiny blue specks. A strong gush of super cold wind slapped my face. Trust me, no matter how brave you are, how many adventure sports you have done, but "Plane se kudne me sabki phat leti hai!" (jumping off a plane scares the crap out of you).The instructor literally dragged me and jumped out of the plane.


    


 And there it was: "The Place between life and Death". The feeling of weightlessness overwhelms you. The icy cold breeze caresses you. You feel you are just falling into nowhere. Mind becomes numb. It all happens so fast, the brain cannot comprehend it and gets literally blank. Probably even my heart skipped a beat. I felt lifeless and yet not dead! I reveled in that moment. The brain soon boots up. As expected, the instinct first kicks in and you realize how helpless you are. Free-falling with no access to the parachute! But soon the rational (??) brain takes over and I felt FTW, lets enjoy this even if the parachute fails to open, I don't care. This is when I had an epiphany about myself: even in the most dire of situations, I try to fish out the good part and that I attach more importance to "enjoying life" than "life". Most of the first time sky divers just scream and give the customary thumbs-up but once, I had this "near-life experience" I did dance, swim, salute and make other gestures to justify my philosophy and made the most of the 50 second free-fall. Definitely more than worth for $400. An experience for the lifetime.

  Soon I felt a huge thrust and the camerawoman went far away. The parachute
opened and now it felt like I was floating in air. The instructor handed me the parachute strings and taught me to maneuver it. It was a breath-taking view from above! He showed me all around- Montreal, the lakes, the mountains, the greenery, the tiny buildings and cars...
Every now and then, he would say,"ur gonna feel funny" and then he would pull the strings and it felt like I was hanging in the air. It was super cool. A few more aerobatics later, I returned safely to mother earth.

Undoubtedly, it was the most memorable experience of my life and somehow I feel I have accomplished something now. (Check out My skydiving video).
    
  
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Lively Lonavala!
Author: Yash Desai
•10:20

LONAVALA:
Junta
choon n damle




me and anish

rushabh's expression


God Bless u kanchu!


cast:
Yas  (Yash )
Gaam  (Anish )
Choon (Kunal )
Damle (Damle)
Shab /Oongh (Rushabh )
Kanchu (Kanchana)
Saeee (Sai )
Santosh(driver)
some day during 3rd year 1st sem:

It all started with the brilliant idea of Yash and everyone just agreed with him to wake up at 6 in the morning (slight resistance by anish ).and surprisingly everyone got up by 6 and were ready to leave for dadar. There was no plan as such on how to start the journey. At dadar , we hired  a tavera and woke up santosh- the driver.
            But can everything work so smoothly ever??? We decided to have breakfast in the meantime santosh would get up and fulfil his physiological urges. Super-enthu Damle ordered 4 everyone and poor choon was denied his onion uttapam. We finished soon and finicky kanchana started giving vent to her whims saying that she has a bad stomach-“mujhe chai nai peeni mujhe sprite chahiye......”
            Back at Shah Travels. Santosh left for filling diesel and may be he was actually digging and drilling out diesel bcoz he took almost a year to return. finally he arrived and damle had a blast on him.barring the usual scramble for better seats , the start of the journey was pretty ordinary. Super-enthu Damle’s spirit was getting dampened sitting in the middle seat with the couple ‘Kanchoonal’.
Our dj for the day: GAAM kept manoeuvring the fm channels. Also he had brought with him a unique fragrance- Gaam’s Chameli Ka tel. Its special super-sticky and gooey formula keeps your hair painfully stuck to your scalp so that even if you pass through a tornado they wont move a single mm.
Giving in to kanchu’s insistence we stopped at Food Plaza where we relived ourselves. Santosh went to dig to another hole and gaam who had a sudden wave of fuel –saving enthusiasm, turned off the engine. But then we came to know that the car we hired had another facility. Once stopped , you need to flex your muscles to get the car started.
            Next stop- Bhushi  Dam. It was pouring down very heavily with chilling winds at 100 mph which almost defied Gaam’s chameli ka tel’s  sticky claims. Shab had second thoughts about  stepping out of the car and it took a while for the others to realize that he was still inside trying to fight his will. The way to bhushi dam was completely flooded. It was like walking on Jupiter with your feet tied to rocks and we made it look as if we were swimming thru amazon holding hands , pulling each other. After 20 mins and burning five thousand calories we finally made it to the dam.

Man...and was it a sight there !!! Looking monstrous & ready 2 gulp us all, it took away all the courage we had at first sight. All of us stood still watching "crazy people" who didn't know "they could die" frolicking in the waters. But minute by minute the same crazy people were being envied by us for they looked so HAPPY !!! Yassss of course was the first to shed inhibitions closely followed by Damle n Gaam...& no guesses for who wuz the last :) choooon "i dont want to die". Painstakingly one at a time we braved the raging waters, Sai n Kanchu being hauled at every step by yasss n choon respectively. Shab ofcourse managed with an umbrella in one hand...how he did remains a mystery to this day...perhaps the unchanging expression of utmost disgust on his face was helpful in his feat !! Anyway, grabbing some vada-pav  n chaai on the climb we were finally at the very top of Bhushi Dam on par with the swelling reservoir behind.

More to enjoy dry ground for a while than anything else we decided to continue into the hills overlooking the dam. It was too misty to even see a few feet around us & we felt we were quite alone in the middle of nowhere...then suddenly with a gust of wind, the clouds r gone & hey !! couples, sardars, drunks, huts, waterfalls, some more couples...everything appeared out of the blue. It was breathtaking (the waterfalls n valleys in case you were wondering). Damle n Sai were running hither thither in excitement while Kanchoonal tried the filmy slow run.

Since I am completing this blog after almost two years, all I remember from the remaining trip is that we went for lunch where we were amazed by kanchu’s monster-appetite (she almost gave choon a run for his money!), we took some pics along the expressway and were back home.
Undoubtedly, this was one of the best trips I ever had!
              





“heyyy juntaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.........
SHOW ME THE CRAP, FILL IN THE GAP

contribute generously to this noble cause to make the event even more memorable

yours painfully,
Yash”

this was the original sign-off and I’m gonna keep it. spcl thnx to rushabh, kanchu, gaam for helping me write the blog (i dnt remembr if othrs helped :-/)
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The 22nd!
Author: Yash Desai
•17:19
               Five out of the last six years I have spent my Birthday outside Mumbai.This time it was the city of Romance, Montreal on a saturday. Could it be better? Yes! I had not received my scholarship and I was already $200 in debt (does not sound grave in $ but its Rs. 9172!). But justifying the blog name, I received the money just a day prior to my birthday.
               I was to throw a party to the other Indian interns on Monday after they return from their Toronto trip. Amongst them, these girls- Charul , Harpreet and Vasudha asked me to meet them at a god-forsaken shopping center. The (unreliable) Google map showed 32 minutes walk but after walking for 32 mins I started doubting if I was heading in the right direction. The city map came handy and I resisted the urge to take a U-turn. I had come so far I swear I could see the Toronto skyline! Finally inquiring about a shoe shop "Zellers" (which was NOT a shoe shop) to a French attendant who had a hard time understanding my Indian accent, I reached my destination, only to NOT find any of the girls. The rise in my temper was directly proportional to the walking + waiting time. 
               Finally, I saw them. Although they were all IITian girls, I controlled my temptation to greet them with "pleasantries". After pacifying me, they took me to a nearby park and tada! They had arranged for a party- cake, chips and coke. Although the location was a bit unusual (old ladies singing, a woman looking and walking like the one in Grudge, Grudge 2) it turned out great fun. Later, we went to Cold Stones (where I also celebrated my bday last year) for one of the best ice-creams. Then, we had a night out watching movies, series, baking a pizza at 4am, eating a pizza at 4-30 am and so ended my b'day as per Indian time.
            But it was still my b'day in Montreal. I went to Vivek's apartment. We had a beer (I almost completed a pint although I hate beer). This was not enough so we had a lemon vodka cocktail, watched a movie in a slightly elevated (high) state and went out clubbing on St. Laurent. It was a carnival out there. A string of night clubs with long lines of  people trying to impress the bouncers to get in, stalls offering fast food, bright lights everywhere. After hovering around, we went to a club, chilled out for sometime and then had poutine for dinner. And thus, ended my birthday-and-a-half!
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Flashback
Author: Yash Desai
•16:07
Its 18th June, 1989. There are no mobile phones, internet, laptops, TVs ... no wait there are TVs, Play Station, or Sachin in the Indian international team. I was born at a hospital in Borivali, Mumbai. And ever since, I fell in love with Mumbai and spent the rest of my life, till date, here. I completed my schooling at St. Francis D'Assisi High School. Then I went on a two-year exile at Kota, Rajasthan to prepare for IIT-JEE at Resonance Coaching Classes. Finally, I got admitted to Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay for an integrated Bachelors and Masters (Communications and Signal Processing) program in the Electrical Engineering department. As I write this post, I am in the 5th and final year of my IIT journey. 
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The Beginning of the "Happy Ending!"
Author: Yash Desai
•15:28
Life always has a happy ending. Or so I believe. Be it getting almost deported from Nairobi, missing Computer Science in IIT, being held by a Special Agent at New York or most recently, Visa problems for Canada (true story-Canada can be painful; ask Rushabh for further details!). But just like a Bollywood movie, with rare exceptions like RDB, Aal iz well in the end. I always wanted to write a blog but my high affinity for optimization of time (read laziness) prevented me. Finally, I took my birthday as an opportunity to make a start!
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