Super Mario

I created this... it does look like our legendary superhero.

The Indianization of CSE, IITD

The rumors had turned out to be true. I as the convener of the class was given my first task to organize a meeting of everybody with the professors. The agenda had not been revealed officially but in every row of seats, the chatter was the same. “Why don’t they want us to intern abroad?” The professors presented their decision and gave many justifications. The main one was maintaining the status of IITD as a public institute and hence exposing its harvest first to the home crowd. People protested with all kinds of excuses, but Prof. M. Balakrishnan and Prof. Anshul Kumar were hard nuts to crack. Had it only been in hands of Prof. Banerjee, things would have definitely been different, all of us believed. But why only us? Most of the other departments were not forcing this policy, then why we? The computer science students are supposed to be the cream, right? Having the Dean and ‘would be Dean’ on your side can sometimes be bad.

The “intern team” had 6 members – Prof Prem Kalra, I (convener) and one group representative from every group (Ravi, Prateek, Rahul and Nitin). The work was divided into various phases – figuring out the pool of companies, contacting them and finally the hardest, forcing them to take interns without any test. There were many subtleties in the whole process which had become the talk of the batch. First, choosing the company pool was going to be a global optimization solution and hence some local preferences might go haywire. We students cannot be very sure about one single company and always want to expand our set of possible choices. This created issues while listing particular preferences. Still, somehow this was managed. Over this, the department was suggesting startups as a good option for internship, the idea which was ridiculed by the batch. ‘First they don’t let us go abroad and then send us to a startup. No way!’

Prof Kalra had to contact the companies. Once we had prepared the letters, they were emailed hoping to get positive responses from the company people. Many companies obliged but again, "many" was not what the batch wanted. We wanted a total of 60 seats and preferably more. It was tough being on toes every time. I kept bugging the professor all the time and pushed him to try more and more. But yes, one thing I learned during this was that when you are holding a responsibility that is very critical to other people who have vested the responsibility in you, it is not enough to let them know about the positive feedback. Every single update has to be given to them. Not doing this increases the unrest and they get a feeling that you are not doing any work. We five people had to bear a lot of spat from the whole batch, not because we were doing a bad job, but it was more because people were very anxious about whether they will get an intern in a good company. For some, it might also have been about venting the frustration on us for not being allowed to go abroad. Anyways, the lesson was correct.

Big companies have reputations to live up to so how could they bend their knees in front of this “weak” professor of IIT Delhi. Microsoft Research, Google and IBM were adamant on doing their own selection process and that complicated the system. Do we delay the student allotment for other companies for these arrogant ones? The problem was that these companies were good and people did not want to leave them. Besides we did not want the situation that people take up intern in a company and then leave it for some other. In the mean time, the department also had a reputation to live up since the other companies had also put their faith in us. The pressure was increasing from all the sides and we had to ask these arrogant companies again and again to do the selection as early as possible so that we could go ahead with the allocation process. At one point of time, there was also the department suggestion of nobody going to any of these 3 biggies but how could that be. We students want the best to happen to us.

“Never extend a deadline” was the second lesson I learnt. There was resume submission for the companies who were doing their own selection. And, I had been assigned the task to collect and forward the resumes. Few students asked me if they could submit the resumes a few hours after the deadline to me and I being the “good guy” said it was okay with me. But certain elements of the batch, when they came to know about it, raised a furor. I had to face people in my room trying to explain them why I had accepted the resume after the deadline. These elements just revolt and tell you that you are doing nothing and you sometimes feel the anger inside you. But again, it was the frustration against the department which was being vented at me so better to just stay quiet. But yes, in professional situation it would be a nice thing not to extend a deadline.

Then there was this Google issue. Of all the resumes submitted, the list of shortlisted people was astonishing to some extent. Many good people by almost everybody’s standards did not make it on the basis of the resume. I used the word “random” publicly for this selection and that again created an issue with people. Lesson three – Choose your words carefully. A single word can make a mob go against you. Finally, it was sorted out. The mailing list of the batch became a common place for somebody’s comments against the process and then a whole bunch supporting it and at last a meek mail in the end from one of the team to give a satisfactory reply. It was getting interesting.

The last issue was with some people being with low CGPAs being left out because of the CG criterion set by the companies. I can understand the frustration of these people because they might have got a decent internship had the batch been allowed to intern abroad. It again started the process of figuring out their best options and contacting the companies. And I had to be there in every meeting with the professor.

With all lessons learnt, spat faced, the allocation did go through. The order of allotment for the kneeling companies was decided to be on CG, the only objective criterion I believe when one is shooting an arrow in the dark. There might have been some small differences had it been a selection process by the companies themselves, but I personally believe that the whole process saved us a lot of hard work of applying, giving interviews which the department said was not worth an internship, and I completely agree with them (not because I got internship in MSR but because I really think so). Though some people might not be happy with their companies but I believe that this might have been the best they could have got in India.

The bottom line in the whole process was that, constantly people vented their frustration against the department keeping them in India, in form of anger against this allotment process. But in the end, they also tried to agree with the department to maximize their chances in India.

It was interesting.

Everyone had a summer internship to look forward to.

The department had been Indianized.

A Logical Proposal Indeed

A is a shy guy and is not able to gather courage to propose to B. A is also a logician so he takes the help of predicate logic. Now A is trying to make B understand predicate logic, but actually he wants to propose to B. He goes on as following:

Let us first define the predicates.

M(x,y) : x and y marry

L(x,y) : x loves y

A predicate can be true or false. Just to see some properties of the above predicates,

M(A,B) <=> M(B,A)

“I am married to you” means “you are married to me”.

L(A,B) => L(B,A)

This statement is not true. If I love you, then it does not mean that you love me. Hence the predicate on left does not imply the predicate on right.

But now, if I say reverse them, that is

L(B,A) => L(A,B)

This statement is true. This is because whether you love me or not, I will always love you. Hence there cannot be a case where you love me and I don’t love you.

Now we also have,

L(A,B) ^ L(B,A) => M(A,B)

i.e. if I love you and you love me, then we will marry. But now since I always love you, we can remove L(A,B). Thus,

L(B,A) => M(A,B)

Thus if you love me, we will marry.

Do you love me?

Kumble needs me !!!

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me
Someone who can quickly wipe off the tail,
With vicious off spinners, and straighter ones,
Make every Aussie batsman curse himself and wail.

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me
Someone who can overcome Lee, Johnson, Clark
Pick fours at will, hit sixes out of ground
Let India, in one day, cross the 400 mark.

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me.
Someone who can never miss a catch,
Dives, runs, whatever to get the ball
And help the team win every match.

Kumble, in his team, for sure needs me

Falling into Lake Washington, It was Easy!

It was an eventful day.

After waking up at 12pm (for the first time in US), I got to know from Rahul that we'll be not be getting the internet installed today for which we had been very eagerly waiting. And all this was because of some confusion regarding our phone number because at the time of registration we had given Ravi's phone. And when the person called up Ravi, he told them that he did not live at our place. Hence Comcast guys cancelled our order. Unfortunate indeed.... Now we will have to wait for a week at least before we get connected to the world.

An afterthought now made me realize that we could go for canoeing today which was an event planned for the new grads. Earlier we had decided against since the Comcast guy had to come from 2-4 pm and for canoeing we had to reach The Atrium at 1. So considering this cancellation to be a blessing in disguise, we set out for the Atrium.

We were 5 people in all going for canoeing - Natalie, Nguyen, Eric, Rahul and I. Lake Washington is just a few minutes’ walk from CSE and looks beautiful. Rahul and I had a canoe for us and we set out to sail. I had earlier thought that since I had gone rafting earlier, the rowing experience would really help but it actually happened that we applied too many fundas for steering the boat than taking it forward so for the first 10 minutes we just kept on going in circles. Then we figured out the right thing and started our journey.

The lake is so vast and one area has been prohibited for canoes due to heavy ship traffic there. There are small and big bridges over which traffic runs at great speed. Some of the crossing over bridges are small to the extent that you need very accurate steering and also need to bend down while going through that. There are parts which are shallow and full of algae and some vast areas of clear water. There are small stretches which are shallow and full of algae around the banks. In such an area, the canoe capsized.

We were rowing through the shallow area and we drifted somewhat towards one of the bank. There was big branch protruding from a tree and was bent in such a manner that it directly obstructed our way. Rahul was sitting in the front and he just managed to lift the branch and go through by bending. The boat went straight and I too tried to lift the branch. But while doing this, the mass balance of the boat shifted to the left and it turned over. I and Rahul both fell in the cold water of Lake Washington. I cannot remember a thing that went through my mind at that point of time. It went totally blank. After a few seconds, we both were floating in water holding on tot he boat. The life jackets were keeping us above the water surface and since the lake was shallow here our feet were in the sand below. But the ground was not firm and it was like a quicksand. We had to force our legs upwards if we wanted to walk. We tried to turn the boat straight but when it did, it was full of water and hence the task was to empty it somehow. Thankfully, other canoes were also nearby and they came towards us. We gave out wallets and cell phones to them. Rahul was a bit more shocked because he did not know how to swim. I struggled against the water and quicksand and took the boat to the shore. Rahul slowly reached there and we turned the boat to empty it. All eyes were on us. People were concerned about us but hopefully none of us was hurt and we decided to row again.

We were in a dreadful state when we finally began to walk back to the university with other people. Clothes soaked with dirt, algae and water and sticking to our bodies; cell phones drenched and switched off..... We took a bus and returned to the apartment where we took a bath again and readied ourselves for other work.

It was an eventful day.