Sand Dunes to DehraDun

Landing up in Dehradun, after my Dubai stint, was definitely  a twist in the story. I had never really  planned or thought before, that I'd really be studying in Doon, even when I was leaving Dubai. But you know the universe conspires, and the University of Petroleum and Energy, I suppose called out to me, and my love for the greens and mountains also drew me up to the place. Dehradoon I had heard was famous for its natural beauty, nice weather, lot of institutes and Mussouri- the tourist hub was just 2 hours away. We( mom, mamisa, cousin and me) arrived in Doon, by train on the day of my registration(Aug 3^rd 2010) for the course; the weather was spectacular. It was drizzling, and slightly cool. The hotel was one close to the railway station and we quickly wanted to check in, so we could quickly get ready and get to the University.  So, for checking-in, they had to put in our check-out date and time as well. The funniest thing then happened. There were three clocks in the same hall or lobby, and all three showing different times! One  showed 6’o clock, the second one 6:30 am and the third was inbetween somewhere!  Anyway I don’t remember, but a suitable time was picked and entered( probably 6:30 am). What a sleepy town, is what I exactly thought! Nevertheless, finally, eventually I got ready and we headed to the University.

The special thing about the university is that it is located in the lap of a valley, 10 kms into and through the woods, and a village called Bidholi. Now that, I'd call idealistic, since I love living in the middle of wilderness! We got a Trekker( a sort of a car which is especially meant for hilly or uneven terrain). Trekking through the woods and the greens, with a speed of 20kms an hour, we really got to enjoy it. It was so green and foresty, and I was thrilled  and thought of the 10-year old girl who got lost in the woods, in a book by Stephen King, and totally pictured myself in the situation. As thrilling as it was for me, the actual 10-year old girl, ie my little cousin, also had fun and  quipped, “Someone could so be a Botanist here!!” She is the cutest girl I ever met! So, well, we were travelling; the road bent left and right, past a lake, past the tall woods, left and right again, and then after a sufficiently long and pleasing drive, we reached the University gates.  The University seems to be lovingly surrounded by hills and the weather at the time of admissions, effectively plays the trick ;) on new students and parents.  To talk about weather, it’s just like out of a film or book, totally welcoming.  As planned, then I got registered, and the process was pretty much stretched out of time limit, and that added to my understanding that, either time was timeless, or punctuality was a petty concept here.  But what the heck, the time I had to wait, was more than fruitful, as I met my to-be bestest friends there in pretty much no time :D!

After everything was done, and my hostel decided( which was right where the city started after the university’s route got over), we made a bus-trip to Mussoori, which was good. Finally, family had left and I was all out on my own again.  One sunny Saturday morning, I decided to venture into the market, Rajpur Road and the Paltan bazaar. Dressed ready and equipped with an umbrella, I took the city bus, and reached Rajpur Road.  Soon, after I got off the bus and was ready to embark upon a shopping spree, it started pouring! Pouring Cats and Dogs and more, seriously! I quickly took shelter in a nearby Juice-shop, and was soon led into a sipping spree alternatively.  Sitting and sipping juice, it was more than an hour, and the rain didn’t think of taking a break. Everything had stalled, people huddled into tiniest of shops and corners and waited, and  transportation drastically slowed down. That is when I understood why time was timeless here, and how punctuality was rather rendered obsolete; the rain does it. Finally the rain, got a little easy, and after some minor window-shopping, I took the bus back.  Un-constant weather, makes Doon, a little more interesting, I think, since it never lets you get bored atleast. And an umbrella is prime and essential.  Still, speaking of weather, I have always loathed Winters, because winter in Jaipur used to be rather dry biting cold, but winter in Doon is really cold and moist, somehow the nicer kind.

Well, in a nutshell, Dehradun is a cosy little city. Comparing with Dubai, I figure it being the exact complement! Where Dubai is a desert and full of malls, Doon resides in greenery without there being a single mall!  The people here are simple- hearted, yet colourful,   fashionable. Something I notice is that the major chunk of people consists of grey-haired old people and funky young people, and not the middle-age family people. There is a lot of scope of developing adventure sports. Mussoori, Hrishikesh and Haridwar are major tourist hubs, which are close by. So please come and visit J! I might have more stories, which I missed out upon in this post.  Will add them in later.   Enjoi! 

Dubai

Having been my second home for the past four years, Dubai definitely calls for a post here! There is a tonne of things to say about Dubai, one of the reasons being, all of my college life was here, which ofcourse makes this place truly special. Here, I will write about just some things about Dubai I find extraordinary or simply interesting…

Dubai blows my mind in many ways. Four years back, from the hustle and bustle of the India roads, to traveling in the bus on the 'Sheikh Zayed Road' for the first time, on my way from the airport to the hostel, the night I arrived in Dubai, was an experience I distinctly remember. It had felt similar to an experience of traveling in vacuum, in some city in the future, because swanky-looking super-fast cars soundlessly sped by, in such a controlled manner, almost like a laminar flow, which was indeed unprecedented(you know, India!!). And the chic buildings, that loomed on either sides, each differently styled though equally flamboyant in look, really created the effect of a futuristic city, of a scifi film..really!!

Talking about the weather, in Dubai, summer is the time to hibernate, to stay indoors that is, if one wants to survive, because stepping outside is like stepping into a furnace, literally. The temperature shoots up without respite to a degree high enough to suitably get you a perfect semi-boil within minutes. Showers of rain, are faint, few and far between. Well, as a matter of fact, one needs no rain here to get drenched, you see?!! So, Dubai summers is a must-avoid, but I must add Winters are quite as awesome. As the weather gets friendlier, Dubai turns into a total party place, with a spree of events like the Shopping festival, followed by Christmas and then New years '. Even, generally speaking , as for its club culture and night-life, barring the one month of Ramadan, Dubai is permanently turned on...!

Talking about the city in general, I'd like to call Dubai, simply the 'Land of Man-made Wonders'!! The malls are seductively fabulous, with dancing fountains, to high-adrenaline indoor adventure parks, to all the world's brands flocking in to woo, and every new mall opening is simply bigger and fancier than the last. Then, a seven-star hotel of the shape of a sail amidst the ocean to a marine-themed hotel created to resemble a lost empire, define and redefine sumptuous living as much as they conjure up awe. Apart from that, we have the world’s tallest building, the biggest underwater restaurant, the biggest mall in the world and so on. Well, sometimes the list of superlatives even gets stupid-I saw a picture of a building, with a sheet of water falling along its height, which was called ‘the tallest waterfall building in the world’! Plus, I think Dubai is the only place, which has desert, the sea, and even snow! (Ofcourse indoors!)

Talking about the Palm tree, you will find here palm trees planted everywhere, and those artificial ones inside the airport and expensive hotels. The artificial islands are also the shape of the palm and are quite obviously called the 'Palm islands'. I think the palm is not just a part of the desert, it is also indicative of the essence of the Arab muslim world here, which is austere, and reserved in its manner, but at the same time, also lofty and grand in its meaning.

Finally, demographically speaking, Dubai has a stunning mixture of people majorly consisting Indians, Filipinos, Europeans, Africans and Arabs. This is a result of easier business and tax laws here which have created attractive job possibilities and investment opportunities. Hence, for Dubai, eighty percent is foreign population of all shades ranging from black to white. And funnily perhaps, a single family makes up for the remaining twenty percent of the population!!

Rest later... Cheers!!

Just Smo(c)king !!

Finally, I’m here again, after a long time to talk about something rather silly and un-monumental, but I have to do it, to bridge this gap from not-writing to writing mode. I constantly often feel the urge to write something good, but inspite of opportunities, so  many factors hinder the process of it,  that seemingly I end up hibernating longer than even the dear old polar bears. But anyway, it’s never too late to break the trend!!

This post is especially dedicated to all the ‘Smoker’ friends of mine. Being in their lovely company I’ve not started smoking, but learnt quite somethings about smoking, and in this post gladly will share my views about what I think about smoking, which they probably already know, but here in a more descriptive sort of way.

They, mostly all, started smoking out of the very desire to be “cool” and to show off, but now they have quit smoking tens of times. It may be ‘the weather’, post dinner, after-drinks, between classes, afternoon or morning or any ordinary hour of the day even, the time is always perfect for a smoke…This is how it happens: Out of nowhere, an urge to smoke is up and talking. Even normal stress or general joblessness is good enough to get such urges. The cigarette “is” like a divine instrument, to let out  and clear normal crap  out of the head, and feel lighter, even delve into thoughtful moods and  somewhat comprehend life a bit more…Every time, buying a pack, it’s like doing an act, really meaningful and duly important. When it’s time to smoke, they very ritually, 2-3 times tap the pack on the palm to spread nicotine evenly inside, open the pack, draw a cigarette, put it alight and smoke up their lungs until they become black, to sheer calm and glory. They do it day in and day out, like practicing a sacred art, but underneath suffering, intensely, for the heck of it. They know it, but ignore it and make mild attempts to stop smoking. They make up real funny ass reasons for not trying to seriously quit smoking, and get grounded and bashed up by moms and sisters, on finding out, all too often. But these people still go on smoking up, charring the lungs and getting old faster than they could and all that. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say about ‘Smoking’ for now. Take care, buddies!!

Disclaimer: This  post in intended for fun and discourage you from smoking, if anything at all, more later!!

The Blue Hairband

I’ve been thinking what to write about yet again, and come up with no reasonable subject successfully for a long time. It is one of the hardest parts to really pick an interesting topic to blog about. So, today I finally gave up struggling and decided to write about anything whatsoever on earth that comes to my head!
Sittin in my room in the hostel, I suddenly saw a blue hairband.
The blue hairband I’m talkin about is not some kinky-lookin piece of hair jewellery, but just a thin, shiny band of blue that holds the hair stylishly in place. However plain a hairband, it adds glamour to whatever outfit it is assembled with and personality to the entire look. In its simplicity as an ornament , it holds great value as a piece of art which adds character to the one wearing it. It’s been part of a look from the time man saw his reflection, from a string of twigs and flowers twisted together to form a ring around the head, to tantalizingly creative trend-setter hairbands. A hairband, which usually adds a feminine edge to the look, would usually be, and has been seen as a female’s fetish. But, as fashion gets redefined every odd length of time, hairband has become an accessory vaunted as much by a boy as by a girl. A hairband lends a quirky look and adds an element of flexibility of character to a boy sporting the look. I think hairbands look generally cool, because it adds variation in the hairstyle, especially for boys, and for girls, it’s a must-have item for the closet, because wearing one, is actually fun.

Tales of train travel

Hi! Following is a story that we (my brother and me) created during an endlessly long train journey, in the holidays. It was really crazy, because we were really just scribbling one after another and we ended up writing this legend... (actually, we wrote others too, but this is most sensible of all)

So, his is how we wrote it:
Bro's handwriting- Red
My handwriting -black

Ganpat-The Great Goon

Once there was a boy called Ganpat who was really good in business without brains. He was totally busy goin to places like internet. But he suddenly decided to dance. But since he was an idiot, he thought he cudnt think while he danced. So, he decided to get back to his previous business and set out to trade his brains which he didn’t have. But first he went to a saint who told him to find his brain in Gujrat. So, he went to buy a World map, but failed to locate Gujrat. So, he went to Sonal Verma, the tarot card reader. She told him that she couldn’t do anything and advised him to go to Bejan Daruwala. But sadly, Bejan Daruwala had also decided to quit astrology and he went back to his ancestral business of sellin ‘daaru’. But someone hit Ganpat and he started getting short-term memory loss i.e. he couldn’t remember things for more than 15 mins. So he went to watch ‘Gajini’ for consultation. Because he was an idiot, he didn’t use a writing pad for notes, but wrote notes, phone numbers and hints to find him(him= the 1 who hit him) and wrote the notes on his body with permanent marker. Once he went for bath, he saw a camera in his bathroom and saw the video of the day he got hit on the head and realized that he was actually taking a bath and by mistake he hit a tap with his head. So, then he decided to watch ‘Gajini’ again, coz he had forgotten he had watched it already. In the theatre he met Sonal Verma who said “The moral of the story is, never take a bath standing too close to the tap.”
The End

Coming soon—
Ganpat- The mystery continues...

Oh, I love exams!! ;)

Finally, exams are over today!!
What a feeling of relief it is!! It’s like you feel all drenched and consumed, but cleaned and so fresh. Let me, in brief, describe how the examination storm really comes about. It’s like, in college, everyday’s been passing nice and sunny, life’s been carrying on, all chilled out and great, filled with all this usual excitement of friendships, relationships, breakups, bunking classes, screwing up with faculties and college rules etc etc. Suddenly, from somewhere, dark clouds of exams start to cast shadow, you can feel some kind of tension build up in the atmosphere. Some people called ‘nerds’ sense it well in advance, while some others remain simply undaunted and unruffled. It’s time to prepare for an impending storm, the semester final exams. So, anyway, eventually, everyone (still barring exceptional cases), starts burrowing in, holing up smwhere with the books, and an unknown silence envelopes the campus. Then the thunder strikes, and the storm arrives…

Seriously, engineering is no cake-walk, and continuous exams is high-degree torture. It calls for perseverance and endurance and may be some more multi-syllabled qualities, to really do it. First, you’ve got to forget all the fun and just focus on things you’ve never cared about before (coz it wouldn’t be so difficult if you had!). At this point of time, all sorts of funny thoughts come to mind, and things start becoming complex.

Like, when I was to write the first of my final exams, which was emech or electromechanical energy conversion, I still needed to settle down, and start studying. I needed to ward off all the stuff in the world, and focus on motors and generators, their losses, efficiencies and whatever else they have about them.
Initially it was really hard, because I was reading it, yet nothing was getting into my head.
I needed to really think about these motors and machines to really get to understand them. So, I was trying to only think about them, these are the thoughts that generated during my process of reading the textbook,

I’m not being able to learn and getting tensed, temperature goin up! It’s called ‘No load loss.’

Efficiency of me….approx. 10%

Transformers- oh, that movie was stupid…

Power factor of me needs to be improved.

Magnetic hysterisis is rather hysterical !!

Alternator- I want to alternate studies with some fun now…

Rotating magnetic field- I can feel it in my head…

My rating - 7.8 cgpa

Equivalent circuit- how can it look so simple…

‘Reluctance’ of my brain is pretty high.

Squirrel cage motors- Why do u have to cage motors in squirrel cages?

Star delta connection- Hope this astronomical formation is lucky for my sun sign…!!

So, well, now it sounds funny because it’s all done and dusted. It wasn’t so 7 days ago…lol… Now time for holidays!! I’m goin back home…yippiee!!

Professors in my life

Professors in college, i think, is like a peculiar clan of creatures, whom we mostly find rambling about perplexingly strange and freaky things in classrooms, who usually have remarkably comical characteristics, in form, habits etc., are generally harmless, but occasionally attack verbally in class when they get bugged or by throwing bizarre surprise quizzes and tests. So, whatever, they invariably become subjects of discussion and jokes.

Let me tell you about some of these people in my life. I have this professor, who teaches micro-electronics, but contrastingly he has a macro size himself. He has an extremely huge pot belly, that alongside that, his head looks negligibly small. I think it must be close to impossible for him to look at his shoes while sitting or standing or sleeping. It must be terrible to be like a giant ball for him but to us, he looks really funny.

Then another character of this family is my fuzzy logic professor who is an exotic specimen from Egypt. So, he delivers lectures on fuzzy logic, which is already as abstract and hazy as a subject as it sounds, in an encrypted form of a language which is a hybrid of English and Arabic, which we first have to decrypt, into actual English and then decipher and infer its logic in fuzzy logic. For instance, bool --> pole, visibility--> feasibility, inference --> infeyerence, proposition--> brobostion, get the picture?

Another is one lady professor we have, who teaches pretty well, but has this incomparably unique sense of dressing, that makes us gape and laugh at the same time. She has short hair and a stern look on her face, and fancies big polka dots to fantastic geometrical designs, sometimes patterns which create optical illusions, to shocking colour combinations in clothes, and even shoes. She really is outstanding.

Well, anyway, more later...have fun!