blogging workshop @ NITT

Blogging is something that is catching up slowly in India. We are not still much into this phenomenon, for I keep facing such questions from my friends as ‘ye kis chidiya ka naam hai?(which bird’s name is this?) and then as usual I try explaining them, showing my technical(or say internetechnical) superiority over them. (as being an engineer, you are supposed to know all these things happening on the internet).

I had heard about rashmi’s blogging workshop in IIIT hyd and IIT kgp and the feedback from IIIT was good. So this was one thing I thought we must have in our campus too, and what better the occasion than in Infotainment section of our department’s technical symposium. And I knew enough bloggers in campus to make sure, that response will be good.

But unfortunately, rashmi bansal was unable to impress the audience as much as one gets after reading her blog or JAM! For the simple reason that the audience didn’t turn out the way she had expected. While in IIIT the audience was around 80% already bloggers and 20% wannabe enthusiasts. The ratio turned out just opposite over here. And not knowing much about blogging, you certainly don’t enjoy watching others go to stage and display their blog and get personal feedbacks.

Although I don’t think of it as a fault on rashmi’s part too, but I certainly think that if you are going to conduct a workshop which is not yet common, its better to be prepared to face audience who expect you to start from the 'ABC' of the phenomenon.

Anyways, I and others who are already into blogging, did get something out of the workshop but by the overall response of the audience, I think it would have been better if we had asked rashmi for a lecture on ‘entrepreneurship’ instead!

pragyan '08

Pragyan, the international techno- management festival of NIT Trichy, as they call it, which aims at imbibing a scientific temper with the spirit of innovation among the youth, truly lived up to its expectations, in its fourth edition. It not only provided a platform to the students to make innovative working models using their engineering skills or to make a profitable Business plan, but also gave them a chance to compete against the best geeks in coding to f1 car making!

What made this pragyan special was not just the participation from across the country, which even turned global in many events, but the strong desire of organizers to deliver the participants, ‘the best’. From 3D movie shows to guest lectures on breathtaking topics like ‘time travel’, from the so-called humanoid robots performing dance on ‘dhoom’ song to the workshop on investment management, it was where everybody found something, which they had always wished they could!

Day 1 – After witnessing one of the biggest contraptions ever at the inauguration ceremony, junta pulled up all their seat belts, to be a part of this classic journey for the next 3 days. The morning crowd puller was the robotic workshop by Mr. Amir Shapiro, where he shared various invaluable fundas with the robotic enthusiasts. It was the day where all the participants made their best attempts to clear the prelims of different events and reach the finals. The results brought smiles on the face of some alongwith the awareness of tough challenge lying ahead in finals! And glimpse of sadness on the faces of those who could not clear the prelims. But as someone has rightly said, ‘success is never ending and failure is not an option’, these high spirits pulled up their sleeves for rest of the events, to give their best shot next time.

Day 2 – After gaining momentum in its very first day, pragyan still had a lot more to unveil and this was proved on the 2^nd day, when the participation in the next round of events touched new heights. Starting off with Ventura, one of the biggest Bplan competitions of India, which had more than 4 million INR at stake, the day saw engineering enthusiasts building bowling machines with simple materials and mind-boggling creativity! The day ended with an admirable alumnus of college enlightening the future engineers about the importance of renewable energy and entrepreneurial aspects it offers.

Day 3 – where there is a beginning there is an end, but at pragyan they seem to believe not in the end but in continuous improvement. With a promise to come back next year, better than ever, this year’s pragyan came to an end. The day witnessed the final results of various events, eminent guest lectures including the one by mr. subramania swamy on indian economy, jagriti- the ‘contribution to society’ aspect of pragyan and pengufest- the linux workshop.

Nostalgic it was for all those who had witnessed previous editions of pragyan and an unforgettable experience for others.

p.s. – The things that I liked the most, as NOT mentioned above, included food stalls and few temporary maals (or hot-chicks, as they are called) in the campus. Special thanks to www.findnearyou.com team, for giving me a pen drive for writing this blog :)

hanuman returns

Thanks to those responsible for power-cut at our hostel last night (which ofcourse is not a new thing for us Indians), which compelled us to watch this movie for having nothing else better to do (for those using scratching their heads on how we watched it when the power was not there, we watched it on the laptop!).

Surprisingly, the movie turned out to be really good. It not only reminds you of your childhood, but also makes you aware of the difference in the kid’s understanding at your time and now.

What makes it appealing is its relevance with the today’s world. This is what in my opinion gives it an edge over other such movies. Rather than just portraying those mythological stories on screen, the creators have made the movie fully based on the present scenario. From the I-phone’s touch ‘zoom in’ option which hanuman uses, to brahma’s laptop carrying assistant, the movie has everything that you can relate to the normal life. The best thing is the usage of language, unlike the normal ‘shudh hindi’ types used in such mythological movies which rather go above the heads of kids, they did not mind using the frequently used hinglish words.

Featuring the voices of SRK to gabbar to big B to mogambo, the movie doesn’t just makes you feel relaxed, but also has some important teachings for kids.

The sholay spoofs and other general bollywood spoofs prove that its not only aimed at kids, as they won’t understand them.

Although the animation quality can never match up to those in Hollywood but it is acceptable. And also, last part of the movie is a bit dull. But overall , the movie is a good watch, even if you are not a kid, as apart from entertaining it also imparts some good messages through the best way possible, relating it to god. And for those parents out there, I think this is possibly what you were waiting for to show your kids, once they get some time off, rhyming on the tunes of today’s sex and masala video songs/ movies.

Movie deserves a decent 3.5 out of 5.