India at its best

THE F-WORD

"Behind every successful man.....
Is a woman"

How many times have you heard this line??? Counting the number of times its repeated in Indian movies and the soaps, I'm guessing that you have lost count of it(just like me). But recently when I heard that line again in one of the old Bollywood movies, it forced me to give it a thought. I'm not doubting its authenticity :-) But it made me think about the women(typical I know). Who was behind every successful woman???

I happily placed myself in the elite category of successful woman(Come on guys...I'm an engineer now:-D) Proclaiming myself as successful, I began to wonder as to whom I would credit my success to? My teachers? My books? My college? My school? Myself? The more I thought about it, the more it confused me. The inability to answer this simple question led to frustration. I decided to enjoy the movie and think about it later. I pushed the thought out of my mind or I thought I did. It never went completely out of my mind, this I realised while having dinner later that day. It was then that the first F-word hit me....FAMILY!!! Ofcourse its my family. I owe everything to my family. It is because of them that I'm here. The unconditional love, moral support, the confidence boost a family can provide, is unparalleled.Having quenched my thirst partially, I felt satisfied. (if you are wondering why partially, cos there is more to follow :-))

During one of the internals, when as usual we were cramming our brains with last minute preparations, Mayaa completely exhausted and dejected, exclaimed "Enough !!!". If the complicated diagrams in the text book were not enough to put you in a state of tizzy, you can always count on Mayaa.The full impact of what he meant was evident when he threw his book aside and got up to leave. Even before I could open my mouth, some of them pulled him back, opened the book for him and asked him to read the most important questions atleast." Read this part", "This is sure to be asked in the test", "This is simple, I'll explain" etc etc.. This is when the 2nd F-word hit me....FRIENDS !!!

After completing my test as I walked out, someone I hated(dont want to take names) walked upto me and said "The test was a cakewalk, wasn't it? I'm sure I'll score the highest". I gave a sarcastic smile and replied "Highly unlikely". I prayed to god and hoped to score atleast half a mark more than that person. That day I went back home and prepared for the next test with renewed vigour and interest. Hey, that was the third F.... FOES !!! The ones who give you a healthy competition and urge you to perform better.:-)
Next time, someone asks you the reason for your success, just reply back saying..."The F words" ;-)

THE SIAMESE TWINS

A small poem dedicated to the most colourful girls of our class Namarata and PP.
and this is in memory of the day when they entered into the data mining class with their brand new hair colour.

"The cluster analysis principle,
students, is not that simple"
Lincy mam tried in vain,
to get on-track, our wandering brain.

Her efforts seemed to be futile,
though catching an occassional smile,
from the dedicated first benchers,
while the rest planned adventures...
"Macha, munnar or waynad !!?!!"

At this point exactly,
over the hubbub of this clan,
came 2 voices silently,
"Can we come in mam?"

The siamese twins' entry,
with a distinct level of mystery...
for sure, broke our reverie.

Red shirt and blue hair,
Blue shirt and red hair.
They walked - in
nonchalantly to their seats.
while we did hear
loud drum rolls and beats.

Questions like....
"What was that?"
"who was that?"
did the rounds
forcing our mind to the grounds,
which few mins back knew no bounds.

Cluster analysis I say,
is not that tough after all,
because the siamese twins that day,
gave a perfect example to all.

and for the non engineering ppl... a cluster is a group of nodes which have similar properties within the clusters and differ wrt the nodes of diff clusters.. :-)

why the name amateur expert?

"better late than never"
I wanted to create a blog to pen my thoughts from many many days. But the only thing holding me back was the lack of time, and the lack of a name for my blog. And today all of a sudden while preparing for Cip my mind began to wander(as usual) and recollect the events spread across the 4 glorious years of my engineering life. I remembered signing up for IBM's the gr8 mind challenge :-) on the insistence of Chickerur sir. yes, we(pri, dee, pree n myself) spent an entire day deciding on the name for our team. "amateur expert" was the outcome of our imagination.
Looking at the zeal and enthusiasm on everyone's face after having signed up for the challenge, I thought we stood a good chance of winning the competition. And then the inevitable, 1 day into the competition and we backed out. WHAT A WASTE OF 1 DAY'S HARD WORK!!!
So i decided to put our hard work into some use and named my blog amateur expert. :-)