We had made this video more than a year ago for the send-off of our seniors' batch. It was recently posted on the Institute Facebook page. Here is the text of the poem I had written for those who wanted it (appears at the end of the video). The poem holds true even for my batch- I like to think it's timeless:

What a journey this was, all the way through
We've had so much to see and do
So much we've done along this path
So much we've learnt from the very start

We've learnt the difference between boys and men
The value of a word, the strength of a pen
We've learnt to cherish life's twists and bends
The blessings of a mentor, the importance of friends

The time to leave has come I fear
I end the odyssey I began here
And I recount all the days gone by
Of my life here at VJTI

My memories are what I'll take along
And the bonds of friendship I've tempered strong
To my alma mater, I bid goodbye
And begin the journey to touch the sky!

[RSS feed readers might want to click through if you can't see the video]

The annual VJTI Alumni Meet was held in the institute quadrangle on Sunday. What started as a typically stuffy event ended with a rather interesting twist. The event began early in the evening with a special private function for the silver jubilee batch. As this ended, the main even, open to all alumni, began at about 6pm. It began as a formal affair, with dignitaries like K. Venkataramanan and Dr. Vijay Khole taking the stage along with the Director and the Alumni Committee chairman and vice-chairman. The speeches were informative, although a bit long-drawn from what I'm told- I spent a fair bit of time managing the back-end and could only make it to the quadrangle intermittently. The subsequent entertainment programme proved to be a respite. It was well balanced with a number of talented performers in traditional as well as western acts. It was capped off with a brilliant performance by the band, that had amongst its executants present and past VJTI students. The finale stood out for having achieved something that I'm fairly certain is unprecedented: Now, the director of the institute is not known to be impulsive and is reticent and reserved by all accounts. It is to the band's credit and the committee's gentle persuasion that this happened: (The director is in white. The men in suits are the Alumni Committee members. Some of the band members are not visible.) If you can't view the embedded video, click here.

I'll skip the part where I apologize about the uncharacteristically long delay since my last post. With the term coming to a close and my exams around the corner, I probably won't be able to post too often for the next few weeks either. --- This appeared on the front page of the Times of India today. And this was a feature piece inside:

Two weeks ago- October 11th to be precise, I donated blood at a drive in my college. They coupled it with a free Thalassaemia checkup- something that is normally prohibitively expensive. The drive was carried out by the Think Foundation in association with the State Blood Transfusion Council. It was managed by a group of doctors from KEM Hospital and by student volunteers. Vinay Shetty, the Vice President of the Think Foundation, a non-government organization that organizes voluntary blood donation drives and helps create awareness about thalassaemia, oversaw the drive. I got the opportunity to have a long chat with him. Mr Shetty happens to be an alumnus of my college. Mr Shetty has been involved blood donation drives ever since his college days. He organized his first drive at the age of 19 when he convinced his old high school to hold a blood donation drive on their grounds. The folks from the hospital who came to collect the blood came prepared with enough blood bags for just 50 people. They arrived to find a line with many times as many people waiting. They had to send someone back to the hospital to get more blood bags. Needless to say, at the end of the day the lady in charge was gushing with joy. A few years ago, the person in charge of the blood bank at Breach Candy hospital noticed him- he had accompanied a number of donors to the hospital. He told her about his activities in blood donations. She asked him if he had ever heard of thalassaemia. When he responded in the negative, she directed him towards a society that works with people afflicted with the condition. Ever since, he has been working towards spreading awareness about the genetic blood disease. (In fact, when he came over to my college for the blood donation drive, he went from class to class delivering talks on both issues- blood donation as well as thalassaemia) An issue he brought up during our conversation was platelet donation. This is something that isn't very well known. I had never heard about this before, and from the look of things, neither had anybody else I spoke to about this later, save one individual. It is a life saving procedure that helps patients with problems that arise due to platelet dysfunctions and low platelet counts- basically helps people undergoing chemotherapy, those who have AIDS, aplastic anemia and a number of other diseases. Though the actual donation takes more than an hour, one can donate again after as less as 3 days, unlike regular blood donations, which require a 90 day gap between consecutive donations. To this end, the Think Foundation has helped establish the 'Lifesavers' Club', a joint collaboration with the State Blood Transfusion Council and Doctors For You, a group of doctors from KEM hospital. Beyond his work with blood donation, thalassaemia awareness and platelet donation, Mr Shetty has also been involved in organizing inter-school chess championships and chess championships for the visually impaired. Does the Bournvita inter-school chess championship ring a bell? He's the man behind it.

I've been meaning to write for a while now. I haven't had much free time on my hands so far and I don't have much now either. An interesting incident will have to do for now. More elaborate posts at leisure. Now these MUNs are pretty interesting events to attend or participate in. The link is fairly descriptive. Go through it if you have no idea what it is. It should suffice to say that a fair bit of research is involved in preparing for a MUN. You do not want to be in situations like the one I'm about to describe: I was at a MUN at some college. A friend of mine was assigned the country Israel. Now the agendas (topics to be discussed) of most MUNs are usually predecided. In the MUNs I've attended so far, it has been customary for delegates to begin with speeches that state the position of the country they represent on the topic at hand. Questions or comments by other delegates often follow the speech. The topic for this MUN was essentially the Middle-East peace crisis. My friend delivers a pretty good speech on his country's position. The floor is open to questions. The delegate of Lebanon stands up and asks him, somewhat sternly I might add, "What is your stand on the Sheba farms dispute?" He looks at the Lebanon guy quizzically for a moment. It's clear that he was taken off guard. Everybody's waiting for what he has to say. He tries to take the safe route: "We are neutral on that issue." Big mistake. At this point the Lebanon guy looks like he's about to have an aneurysm: "You're neutral on that issue?!! Your country has occupied out land... blah... blah... blah!!!!" Mr Israel attempts a come-back at this point: He replies, with a very straight face, [sic] "Well, it's not ours, but it's not yours either naa." Needless to say, that golden statement just made everybody's day. In his defense, I must say that he was assigned his country on the day of the event and had earlier been given a different country. Circumstances did not permit him enough time to prepare. All things considered, I think his comeback was pretty good actually.

I'm known to use a lot of long-winded, verbose sentences in my writing, but even I found the response I gave when a friend asked me how I had been doing (or something to that effect) rather odd:

Don't ask! Got back from a MUN yesterday only to get an eye infection today when I'm supposed to submit a yet unprepared bio tomorrow for a bunch of interviews next week while simultaneously preparing a presentation for a TPP (Technical Paper Presentation) competition which is to be held at an undetermined time and to arrange for a quiz and another TPP competition, both of which are to be held at uncertain dates. I'm pretty sure I'm missing somethings here, but the meds I'm on don't exactly facilitate good memory.

How have you been?

A fair bit has been said in jest about animals that roam the halls of engineering colleges in Bombay. Here is proof. From my own class. No kidding. This dog strolls in during a lecture and decides to take a bit of a nap.

Well, the dog wasn't alone. These guys didn't mind taking 40 winks themselves: Methinks this does not bode well for the professor. To be fair, it was the fag end of a very long day