What's up, Part-II

Part-II (in continuation to Part-I)
No matter how much I write about this whole ordeal of applying and accepting admissions to US universities, I won't be able to cover every damn thing! Nonetheless, I'm not discouraged from attempting it! So, firstly, why wasn't I shraing this... simply because things were very very tentative back then. And besides that, I wasn't very sure if I'll get offers from univs I had applied to. I didn't want to spread the word unnecessarily. I've been through this kind of experience once already. Plus, with too many resignation rumours going around in Nevis, I didn't want to take a chance. I was all dejected as I kept getting rejects... all rejects to start with, then 1 waiting list, and only 1 offer. I was all gloomy and aloof, confused wheter to accept it or not. I wasn't enjoying work at office either.

Then, on one auspicious, Thursday I guess, I got an email, with that title that had been racing my beats for past 4 months: 'Admission Decision'! Every night, at odd hours, I used to get up and check if I've got any replies from univs. I was just too desperate for a break, to study, to move out of Nevis and do something better with my life. And BINGO! I got the admit to CMU-INI! It was THEN that I decided I'm definitely going for masters. But yet had a LONG way to go: Transfer of Tech at office, pulling finances together, applying for visa, visa documentation, getting visa, etc. By no means, any of these were megre and easy tasks! It's real PITA to go through all these. But, in the end, I believe it's worth the time and effort spent. And I can write on and on non-stop on each of these and still not cover everything.

After the visa preparation ordeal was over, came the much anticipated day of visa interview. I drove from Pune early in the morning at about 0511 hrs, reached VFS lounge (US visa consulate's facility) at 0745 hrs. I was scheduled for interview at 0901 hrs. After waiting for 2 good hours, I was usherd in @#$@ed up unventilated swampy room. With no fans facing me. After sweating like a pig for 1 more hour, we were taken to another room, the so-called AC room, which was no better then the previous one, only that it's situation in basement made it even more choking. Then came call for people scheduled for interview for 0901 hrs. I got a chance only in 3rd lot. The bus drove us to the consulate, where I had to wait for another 45 mins or so. Then, after harrowing checkup, I finally got a token! Thank GOD! I could at least see Visa Officers now. I'm nearing my goal, I thought! I was called within 15 minutes, and my interview was over in 31 seconds flat! Only questions I was asked were:
1. Why are you goin to US
Ans: Duh!!! You are holding my I-20, can I go for anything other than studies?
2. Which course?
blah blah...
3. How are you managing finances?
another blah blah....
4. Why is your sponsoror intrested in sponsoring you?
more blah blah....

All the time he was doing something on his PC. Then he said, so sounded like: 'Congratulations! And wish you great career ahead. You are granted the visa'! WHAT? I couldn't hear him :( But the smile on his face, and the fact that he kept my passport with him gave me a clue that I've got the visa! Yupie!!! I thanked my VO from the bottom of my heart, not once, but twice, and left the room! The fact that my interview was over in 31 seconds was not sinking in yet.

Apparently, a buddy of mine was standing in the queue JUST next to mine! And I didn't even notice her :( She did notice me, though. But probably she was VERY NERVOUS with not in a mood to socialize in such an unsocial enviroment of visa interview. Only when she told me I came to know she too was there for her visa interview. I was done by 1245 hrs and I wanted to take passport the same day, which meant I'll have to spend 4-5 hours lingering around. Then me, mom and daddy decided to go to Charni Road Chaupati, our favourite place from the time we grew up in Mumbai. Had lunch there, a stroll on the beach in the with scorching sun, took a long drive around Marine Drive, and then back into the queue! I was thrilled to get the visa.

Then came the tickets booking. The agent refused to take check, and I didn't carry cash of that order to buy the tickets. My agent is in Mumbai itself. After endless calls, and failed attempt to manage that much dough, we managed to convince him that we'll send him demand draft the VERY NEXT DAY (I wasn't carrying any ATM cards either)! Thank GOD, he agreed. I couriered the DD, and to my horror, even after 3 days it didn't reach him. I was panic striken :( As much I was worried about having to shell extra bucks for tickets, I was worried about NOT getting the tickets of my travel date at all. After 100s of calls to DTDC, talking to, God know how many dumba$$ a$$h__e regional managers, managers, deputies of DTDC courier in Pune and Mumbai, all the information we got was: 'Your courier is on it's way for delivery'! !@#$ you! I know that, I can see that online myself. They all kept playing blame game, since 10 in morning to 2 in the noon. It was then that I got a call from my agent that he's got my DD! Phew! I was soooo relieved! I've sworn that I WOULD NEVER use DTDC now! And would advice you the same!

With tickets issued, there's another, what I would call, BIGGEST, of tasks: Money, Finance, $$$s! Showing ability to pay for princely fees at CMU and actually paying it are completely different! While I sit here at Heathrow Airport, I don't have a DD for my fees, I'll get it later, once I reach Pittsburgh, hopefully IN TIME to avoid any problems.

I really envy people who have got their admits in very early, done with their visas within a month, followed by their finances in place, already a step ahead in registeration process, and shopping done, tickets booked! And all set to move, 3 months well in advance!!! All I can say is, some people are just darn lucky.

As to journey, flew with Jet Airways from Mumbai to London (Heathrow), and in United from London to Washington and Washington to Pittsburgh. The flight from Mumbai to London was smooth, except that at London you are allowed only '1' hand baggage, and I was carrying 2! Somehow I managed to sneak in with 2! Thank GOD! Otherwise they would have asked me to check-in the extra piece of baggage. With 3 pieces already checked-in, the fourth would have costed me a BOMB! Flight operators are notorious for charging princely amounts for extra baggages. But I was lucky to not get into that trouble.

At Pittsburgh, a buddy of mine was promptly waiting to receive me at the airport! On the way long journey back in bus to this apartment, where I'll spend few days before I get my apartment, he pointed me to every important place I might have to visit during few initial days. He was more than helpful in making me feel at home! Just today he gave me a guided tour of the CMUniverse!

What's up?

Part-I
So... why sudden online disappearance!!! If not all, then most of you are wondering so!
No updates on blog, you don't find me online on yahoo messenger, GTalk...
Sluggish email responses....
Well, don't worry, I wasn't abducted by sone aliens! Neither was I underground to save my a$$ from some bombings and kick-a$$ terrorist attacks!

So what's the deal???
Well, I've quit Nevis, about 3 weeks back now, and for a good cause... I'm going for my Masters to States! Yes, you heard it right, MS to Carnegie Mellon University. In fact part of this post is edited at the London Heathrow Airport, while I wait for my connecting flight to Washington.

Past 6-7 months have been full of frenzied activities: application plus office work. None even slightly considerate of human limits. I have spent sleepless nights over shortlisting universities, going through list of professors, understanding the courses, their requirements, preparing Statement of Purpose (SoP), getting transcripts form college and university (this is no small feat), readying resume, consolidating finances, and preparing package for each of the univs, with it's own unique requirements! And then the online applications! Phew! It was one hell of an experience!
And for good part of 3 months or so, this was the state of my room (my bro's room actually, which I capture/sabotaged for that duration!).

To quote you one hellish experience... due to my field of specialization, I had very limited choice of universities. For 2 univs I decided (GOD knows for what !@#$ing reason) to apply ON the last !@$#ing day!!! And guess what... the website started rejecting my credit card payment! Hell! I was scared to death, my face white as chalk and hands freezing cold, on the verge of shivering, and beads of sweat glistening on my forehead (the next day they told me there was a glitch at their end while they were upgrading my card). After too many failed attempts, I started calling buddies at unearthly hours for their credit cards. None of them had it :( I'M DEAD! Just then it occured to me to call Arun (aka Anna) who's out there in USC. Fortunately, I caught him just before he left for the office. And being there just for 3-4 months, he had managed to secure a credit card with enough credit left! Thank GOD! He paid the online fees and my registeration was complete! (Sad part is that I didn't get offer from any of these 2). But that 1 hr spent on application was the LONGEST!

But why didn't I share this openly... this post has gotten too long so I'll post it next time.
Keep reading....

Better GMail and Mohammad Rafi

Too little techie stuff of lately... what else to rescue other than vim...
Better GMail is really a very useful Firefox add-on for keyboard fanatics, which also translates to vim fanatics. I wouldn't dive into intricacies of the addon, because it has been already done extensively by Lifehacker.

vi's i,j,k,l commands are already supported on GMail, even without this extension. But this addon takes keyboard control to next level, you can:
- Jump to a label
- Create a new label
- Trash an email
- mark it as read/unread
- archive
and do LOADS more, just at the press of a key! Click the above snapshot glance what all it gives you. Once you get used to it, there's no looking back! Give it a shot! And my bet is you'll love it!
(Note: emacs users, stay away from this plugin, you'll come to hate it!)

BTW, there's another, what I would call, mother-of-all addons exclusively for vim fanatics: vimperator. I haven't given it a shot yet, but just glanced at it. And it's nothing less than a full fledged vim INSIDE firefox!

Oh yes, and for last 3-4 days, I've been listening to this melodious song sung by none other than my Mohd. Rafi (only few of the persons who can be called real singers, most humane and down-to-earth celebrity, with God's gift to mesmerize his listeners) from Tere Ghar ke Samne. I put it on repeat-mode and listen it while driving to and from office, NON-STOP. For 1+ hr straight, each way of the journey: Tu Kahan Ye Bata.
Yes, I'm a little crazy, but that's just me! You gotta give it a try, and listen to it (try it when you are at peace with yourself). And you'll feel you have attained the blissful state of momentary nirvana. That's the magic of Rafisab's voice.
Pick the song 'Tu Kahan Ye Bata' from this folder. Also find lyrics in the same folder. Passkey is 'rafi'. Oh and did I forget to say the lyricist is none other than the legendary Hasrat Jaipuri!

What have I been upto

It's been a long long time I've posted... posted anything interesting... It's more because I'm bogged down by so many things happening around, rather than, not having anything worth while sharing. There's NEVER a dearth of things I want to share.

So what the hell have I been doing lately, besides getting ground in the usual, boring, mundane and frustrating product releases and useless reports...

Movie Update

Yes, you know that, however busy I'm, I manage to see at least one movie in a fortnight, if not 3 or 4.
Jhoom Bara Bar!
Yes, I know the first reaction from the most of you will be" 'Atul! I don't believe you even agreed to watch this!'
Well then, the fact buddies, is that, I DID! I @!#$ing DID! Rather I HAD TO! (Note: not because of GF! Thank GOD I haven't any, to force me into such inhuman acts!) I'm so ashamed to admit this, that I walk with my heads down in front of movie buffs! Without diving into reasons why I watched it, I wanna tell you PLEASE, FOR GOD's SAKE DON'T EVER watch this shit! I'm telling you, the movie sucks, 3 love stories till the interval, and then 2 more after the interval. Never ending songs... and ever shortening clothes... (oh yes, don't watch with your younger/elder siblings if you aren't too comfy) and the @!#$ed up song (read title song) keeps playing every 15 minutes! I tell you, you have to be completely brain dead (not once, but a hundred times) to like this movie! The Bachans suck BIG time ever on the screen! My verdict: I believe the makers of this movie, including Bachans, should switch to the vacuum cleaner business where people actually want products that suck!!! Once again, NEVER WATCH THIS MOVIE! May GOD forgive me of committing this sin! Amen!

Guns of Navarone

An impregnable fortress... An invincible army... and the unstoppable commando team Another war-time classic, based on the battle of Stalingrad. Very well made movie... once again only makes be think... Only the dead knows what a war was like!

The Gods Must Be Crazy-I:

A Sho in the Kalahari desert encounters technology for the first time - in the shape of a Coke bottle. Thinks it's GOD's gift... And the life is NEVER the same for him again!
A nice thought provoking and light hearted movie, with a nice love story, good cast and amazing direction. What's most exciting about this movie is that how the small tribe survives in the extremities of Kalahari desert.

Pirates of Caribbean: At World's End

You will find a zillion reviews out there... so I'll keep it short...
Amazing special effects, worth watching once in a theatre. But the story is VERY incomprehensible. You better own a DVD if, like me, you can't take the fact that you can't explain every word exchanged on the screen. And don't dare watching it without seeing the first part, if not the previous 2.

Life Update

There's a one? Oh! Sorry! Next time around I'll remember that there's one! No novels! No new programming language (my stint with python died a premature death!) No new treks! No new places! Ah.. there's 1 new place I went to, 3D Funky, near Chandani Chowk. Nice place to kill time if you are in a group. I liked bowling the MOST followed by air hockey. First time I ever played both.

Funny Sticker

It was a smooth drive back home yesterday evening... though the sheer thought of visiting dentist sent chills down my spine. And suddenly I saw a big car ahead of me sporting a weird sticker. Reading it, I almost pumped down the brake pedal, and the very next instant I realized what an interesting typo it was!!! Fortunately, even at 60 kmph, I was able to click this photo, just to share with you all:

The sticker reads:

'Brake Down & Towing Vehicle'

What!!! Don't get it yet??? Read it again... B R A K E down! Brakes out of order, it implies!!! Imagine what would be your immediate reaction when you are driving at high speeds on city roads and read this sign on a BIG vehicle ahead of you :)

The sign actually intended to read:

'Break Down & Towing Vehicle'

Photographed with Sony W700i from a moving vehicle.

Weekend update and funny demands

After a LONG LONG time, maybe a couple of months, we played a full game! We have been playing short games for quite some time now, due to lower turnaround of the gang. It took me a while to get adjusted to full game, it requires completely different skill set compared to short games. Controlling ball from long passes and making one is really tougher. But it was FUN! Wish the fun continues! There was once a time in U2 when people used to be at the ground at 7 SHARP, so that they don't have to wait as substitutes to get into the action. Even the senior-most and best of the players had to wait if they came late! But not anymore :-(

Apart from that... I would like to share a really funny thing from my workplace... There's a concept called as 'mid-week status report'. As the name suggests, its idea is to track where you are going wrt your schedule at the mid of the week, rather than at the end of the week. So that corrective measures can be applied (if applicable ;-) ) And guess what... we are expected to send such reports on Monday EOD! ROTFL!!! Such a ridiculous thing, isn't it! I couldn't control laughter when I heard about it! There might be logical reasons to demand this report by Monday EOD, but I wonder the usefulness of such reports. What makes it funnier is that we do send a weekly report just on Fridays! Plus 1 more report sometime during the week. GOD! I completely lost track of *when* all should a report be sent. Sometimes such things just drives me crazy :(

Besides that, weekend was plain average, but relaxing. With 2 product releases going on in parallel, I don't have much time for myself, and very little to share here. Hope to get over it soon.

Alternate profession for emacs users?

Adi's a converted vim user. Earlier he was emacs user, but later it dawned upon him that if he has to live longer as a programmer/hacker with healthy state of his fingers and finger-joints, emacs is NOT his editor! Of course, there's only one real editor he could fall back to, VIM! And this is what he quoted yesterday, which I would say is comment of the year!

Emacs users always have an alternate profession to fall back on: The Pianist!!!

You won't get the essence and depth of this sentence unless you have seen an ardent emacs users manoeuvering the keyboard while editing/debugging his code furiously, all the time giving an impression he's no less than Yanni! This reminds me of another good line, which I bet I've quoted many times:

Emacs is a nice OS, but it lacks a good editor...
that's why I use vim!

Related links: http://the-shaolin.blogspot.com/search/label/vim

I lost a VERY precious gem yesterday

Bansi, yesterday night called me... and I immediately sensed tension in his tone. Couldn't think of what could have happened. I thought, rather I wished, I judged the voice wrong.

He then asked when did I talk to Romesh. What??? I jolted... What happened to him, he's sick, he's got a fracture? What tell me, fast! He's no more, he replied! I wanted to ROTFL on his joke... but wait... his voice was gravely serious... The morbid fear of mortality gripped me... we both chocked and after few uncomfortable moments, we resumed. All the buddies we talked to, claimed to have talked to him as late as 2 days back. This has to be some kind of joke someone played on you, I told Bansi. To confirm the news, we contacted one of his cousins and @#$@ing SADLY enough, this was not a rumour, neither a prank. GOD! This is one of those few times when I would have madly liked something to be a rumour or become victim of a prank. Somebody, please tell me how stupid and idiot am I to believe this news... please...

He was 1 of my closest buddies who would stand by me against the rest of the world, even if I was wrong! And not only for me, but also for our other group buddies, Bansi, Anand, Gaurav, et al.

Now...

Never can I see 'Sandwich calling...' on my cell again...
Never can I see an unread email from Romesh...
Never can I see him again...
Never can I visit his ship...
Never can I walk besides him...
Never can I hear his sweet comforting voice...

So much pain...

Whatever happened, GOD, he didn't do anything to deserve to be taken away from us! Not this soon! He was our such a good buddy... and you have bereaved us of THIS precious gem.

All I can wish for him now is, GOD, please let his soul rest in peace and give his parents the strength it takes to go through the grief of losing their only loved child at such a young, vibrant and healthy age. AMEN!

This post is NOT to express my love for him, but for he deserves the mention that he was not only a good friend, but also a very good human. This is to mark that HOW sorrowful we all are to NOT have him with us anymore :-( Romesh, I want to let you know that we all LOVE you so much!

(L-R: Sandwich and myself. That's Sandwich's much revered Indian Navy ID card I'm holding!)

As of this writing, none of we group members know the cause of his departure...
Neither do we have the courage to call up his home and find out the details...

Sad state of roads and RTO bike-lifting

Here, you see how precariously the RTO guys have stuffed the bikes lifted from parked No Parking Zone!!! It's not only that they are screwing up our bikes, what if the rope snaps or the rear tyre slips.... some innocent person driving behind this vehicle will have to pay a dear price, for NO mistake of his/hers!!!

shot with W700i, on FC road

Here's another ingenious death trap at which PMC is unbeatable... This was right in the middle of the road, where traffic treads heavily! Ever wondered what a thread this poses in the night bike-riders!

shot with W700i, just near Chatushringi temple, towards Univ road

Related post: Rains yet to start and...