Born Engineer

Since the day I left BIT & came home, there has not been a single day when these words have not been crammed into my ears “beta, ye to tumhara last vacation hai ghar pe..jitna aish karna hai kar lo” And all these days at home, I am seriously trying HARD to enjoy my vacation. And as a result of one of such attempts, I have started playing carom with my family.

Last evening we were engrossed in a game of carom when suddenly the tube light of my drawing room went out. “We will have to buy a new tube light” was the obvious reply of my brother. But on closer inspection we found out that there was no power in the drawing room and kitchen. My brother’s n my only concern was “TV”. Without wasting even a second, we checked out all the fuse wires but all the fuse wires were intact. My parents decided to call an electrician but it would be possible only by 2mrw. That means one night without TV—this is the only time my brother gets to watch HBO n Zee Studio and the only time I get to be online without any disturbance (my brother being hooked to TV)..So our eyes met each other and in a glance it was decided that time has come to prove that we are engineers.

My father, aware of our intentions, said, “The entire wiring needs to be checked. We have to go for dinner and I don’t want to be late for any avoidable reasons…and above all 12 hrs without TV would do you no harm.”

Me : “but papa you should give me at least one chance to prove that I m an engg now ( I know this is the most irrelevant reason but it was the only one my pea sized brain could think of..)”

Papa : “haan ab computer engg power problems handle karega!!!”

Within five minutes I arranged all the necessary tools—emergency light, screwdriver, tester, plier…down went the main switch of our house & I started checking from the fuse board. Taking full advantage of beginner’s luck, within 5 mins I found out that a wire coming out of one of the fuses was burnt & disconnected..n the only thing left was connecting it back to the fuse board. Victory could already be seen on my face but to my utter surprise I could not open the screw of that connection point however hard I tried. “The nut is free” was the only consolation I could give myself n passed the screwdriver to my brother (who was the first to mock at me..) and to my relief even he could not!!

Finally we concluded that it’s the job of an electrician and not an engg ( I always have consolations for me..hehe ) and what we did next shows what enggs are best at….if you cannot solve a problem, change the problem….so we shifted the TV to dinning hall, connected it via extension cord to another switch & finally the TV was working. Beaming with pride I switched on the TV only to find that its picture tube was damaged and my parents said a HUGE NO when I said “papa, soldering has dried out…just bring me a soldering rod and I will bring back color to this TV!!!”

MP3

Just by reading the title itself, you must have forced your eyes wide open & glanced thru the entire blog to know the name of “Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar”…its not my fault if the title misled you..it just shows the extent of influence movies have on us. A simple word used as a movie title erases all its previous meanings from our mind. Anyway I will not digress any further & tell you my ordeal to keep my only hobby (which I discovered during my placement interviews..hehe..) alive.

All these years in college, “beg, borrow or steal” had always worked & I had an awesome music collection. Within a week of release of some music, it was sure to rock our ‘M Lobby’ & my routine wud b..
1.Track the room in which the music is being played
2. Knock Knock
3. The door opens and the qs thrown at me is “gana chahiye???”
4.“Thank you” with a very sweet smile on my face n MP3 in my hand…:D
And since the time BIT had set up the much awaited LAN, it had been even more easy. Just at the click of mouse,I could listen to any music track I wanted.

And today, after one month of leaving college, my situation is this….I switch on the tv, go on surfing all the music channels only to see everything except good music. Some music channels are busy advertising their youth icons while the others are trying to raise their TRP hosting shows like GG4 which are related to music in exactly the same way as Indian politicians are related to our welfare.
Irritated by this sort of bakwas on music channels round the clock, I finally concluded that I can fall back only on my computer…so decided to download the latest hits…started my comp…thanks to 128 MB RAM…my comp took 10 mins for the start up during which the only consolation was the thought of the good time I would have once the songs are downloaded…finally started dialing..yeah I still have the dial up connection L….opening port…dialing…dialing…verifying username and password…registering your computer on network…authenticated…speed : 31.2 kbps….man,this dial up connection really sucks…at 31.2 kbps it would take an hour to download a song..huh…but still continued my struggle to download…it took 15 mins just for that site to open n all this while I forced my mind to believe that all impossible things say I M POSSIBLE …but what a misunderstanding on my part…downloading a song using dial up connection is not an impossible task but an idiotic task… in spite of getting “server not found” pages I kept on refreshing n refreshing the page for an hour and finally cursed myself for being an idiot…huh…

Pissed off by these futile efforts, I resorted to the option I had always mocked at….buying MP3….So at last I went to a CD shop & asked for MP3 of latest songs...he started showing me audio CDs priced at Rs75..."are bhaiya,ye nahi chahiye..Rs30 wala pirated MP3 chahiye"..n the reply slapped on my face was "are Madam,ab yahan pirated MP3 nahi milega...aapko original hi lena padega"
:(((

A Trip to Heaven

Yes ppl, I have been to heaven. I will tell u how one feels like in heaven but only if u promise me of not spreading the word around…bcoz I don’t want news channel ppl flooding my house & covering me 24*7 , tagging this memorable trip as “ BREAKING NEWS – A Girl Back from HEAVEN.”

Some 2-3 months ago, I casually mentioned my desire to travel through the beautiful valleys of Kashmir & snow covered ranges of Himalayas to one of my cousins. And most unexpectedly I got the reply “ Mast idea hai…you ppl just come to Ambala & together all of us can go to Leh-Ladakh.” The entire planning, the route we would follow, the bookings for the night stay & every other minute detail was taken care of by my cousin(cho chweeet f him).

And thus 7 of us – my parents, my brother, my cousin, his parents & myself started our “trip to heaven”. After a drive of 6 hrs we reached Pathankot , halted there for the night and set out for Srinagar early in the morning (the only ‘not so good’ part of the trip—my cousin literally pulled me out of my bed at 5 am daily…huh..). However, leaving early paid off & we were at Srinagar Army Base by 5 in the evening( ohh btw did I tell u my cousin is in Indian Airforce…so we were welcome in all the army n airforce stations—another imp thing which Kashmir is known for now-a-days).

I was awed by the sight of still & serene water of Dal lake…lined by tall pine trees & surrounded by mountains…colorful shikaras add to the beauty of Dal lake… we hired 2 such shikaras & floated around for 2 hrs and gazed down in wonder at the floating gardens, floating markets & floating tea stalls selling ‘KAWA – the kashmiri tea’ (the best beverage I have ever had!!). Intrinsically carved wooden houseboats (each one costs around 1 crore so u can well imagine its beauty) covered almost 1/4^th of the lake. Even the Mughal emperors appreciated the beauty of this valley of flowers, visited this place often & built many gardens…Shalimar bagh, Nishat bagh to name a few…and the sight of colorful flowers and fountains are sure to touch the hearts of old and young alike.

Next morning we started for Kargil and this was the day when we had our first encounter with the deadly n beautiful (yeah…I know its contradictory but its true..) mountains, winding roads(even the most optimistic person wud describe it as rocks flattened enough just for a car to pass.. ) and deep valleys. We had to cross the Zojila Pass which was at a ht of approx 12000 ft (I m really bad at memorizing exact figures but my approximation is decent enough..hehe..). The road was just wide enough and our Innova fitted in there, in a way similar to trains on railway tracks - deviation of even a cm from the tracks would have resulted in an accident. My parents were petrified at the sight of the deep valley from the Zojila pass. I felt as if I was on the top of the world not knowing that this was just the trailer. We crossed some of the world’s highest motorable passes later during the trip..

Winding thru the mystic peaks, we reached Kargil by evening. I had always associated Kargil with terror & war but believe me, it was the most peaceful & beautiful place of the entire region. Surrounded by bare, high mountains (both Indian & Pakistani) , this place becomes really windy in the evening .

Next morning we left Kargil and entered Ladakh (the land of high passes) , a cold desert , with little or no signs of life…snow covered peaks were our only companion. And believe me this place is no less than Switzerland!!! All of us were dazzled by the sight of shining, snow covered ranges all around.


We saw glimpses of Tibetan culture in Leh, the only town of Ladakh. China border is nearby and situated there is the Pangong Tso lake (a dream destination). 2/3^rd of this serene lake lies in China and 1/3^rd is in India. Far from the maddening crowd of this competitive world, Leh has innumerable Gumphas & monks form the major chunk of Leh’s population.

For me heaven is a place blessed with natural beauty where your mind, heart & soul find ultimate peace. The Gumphas built at the foothills of Himalayas, is the best possible combination of beauty & peace. My mind, heart & soul experienced a divine peace (which I had always craved for) in the company of monks. However hard I try, I can never put into words, the peace I experienced there. It was then I understood the real meaning of heaven --- a place that is much more than beautiful…