What happened between 2006 and 2010

Caution: I think this gonna be the longest post in my blog. I am trying to fit in all the sweet memories of my engineering life.

2006 june/july:
I secured 118th in EAMCET exam. Counselling happened sometime in june or july. I still remember the official asking me when my turn came, "what you want to study?"
I looked at the live charts which show the current status of seats in various colleges. I had only two colleges in mind and I am ready to take up any stream I get but ECE being my first preference.

The Charts showed ECE seats filled up. I replied to official, "I would study CSE (honestly I know nothing except it is something where in I can play computer games)"

So he told me to pick up the college and Damn it, both the colleges are available to me, till that moment I never thought I would have to choose one among them. I attended counselling with three people along with me, my dad and two cousins. Generally they don't allow us to take more than one person but we somehow managed.

Seeing my puzzled expression my cousins came near me to help. My dad is sitting somewhere far away. They added more confusion to me. The cousin on my right said "take OU". and the cousin on my left repeating "Take JNTU".

Unable to decide anything , I looked at my father and his eyes told me to pick up whatever i wanted. So I picked up JNTU.(I never know why I picked it up ).

2006 August-2007 May :
It's almost end of August and my first day at college. I remember nothing of that day except long introductions and few congratulations from the faculty.

It's on second day something happened. I went late to class and as soon I entered I figured out that only the first bench is vacant so I sat there (which I don't prefer generally because of my height). I sat beside this guy named Bhanu Teja, little I know that this is the guy with whom I am going to freak out, have fun and spend almost my entire Btech life; whatever I kind of liked him and the next few days as soon as I enter the classroom I would search for him and sit beside him.One day when i entered the classroom I figured that he is sitting somewhere in the last bench(which he never does, later he told me that he came late, so he sat there). As usual i sat beside him and found that there is a third person with us, madhav. That's it! We became best buddies and we would sit in the third bench middle row and that's our permanent seat, we are very particular about it.
One great memory is we never listen to the lectures. We would be teasing someone or cracking jokes on the faculty and we would generally laugh out aloud. But by the time the faculty looks back Bhanu and I would turn silent and it's always madhav who will be pointed out and scolded. We used to sleep under stars outside my pent house (whenever we got a chance) and would discuss things and laugh and laugh or we would suddenly go to a second show movie.
Days passed with class bunks, mass bunks, movies, late nights etc.

We used to have a dress code for all freshers (full hands shirt and a normal trouser). One of the advantages is that seniors can catch us easily.(ragging purposes). I figured this out and never followed dress code for the first 6 months. I would walk in campus with confidence as if I am a senior student so no senior caught me. Suddenly one day I got a message from seniors that I have to meet them in hostel (a first year student entering college hostel is like entering a den full of loins eager to leap on the prey). They came to know that one junior out of all is not following dress code. Thanks to Ch. Anil Kumar who leaked my information to seniors (of course he did it out of fear). I escaped it someway but I had to follow dress code from that day.

As the year end started approaching I realised that I know nothing about any subject and it's then I was formally introduced to One-day batting style of reading. It always worked for all the Engineering students and for me too.

One memory from our exams "It's BEE exam and Dinesh wrote a question on back of his question paper and passed it on to Bhanu (His expectation is Bhanu being 47th ranker would know the answer and would help him)". Bhanu took some time and returned the paper to him and when dinesh turned it back he was shocked to see that "the question he wrote was striked off and bhanu wrote another question below it". That's how we used to prepare and write our exams.

Fortunately I passed with good percentage and I became a senior!

2007 june-2008 may:
I moved to College hostel into a big or huge or whatever you may call it, but its a room of about 7 people. The atmosphere is the best and the food is not bad (Pulihora being the highlight). For good or bad I became president for Anti-Ragging committee of CSE and the highlight "I am the first one in the entire college who was accused for ragging!!" I had to fight with our Vice-principal, the most powerful person in the entire University. I cannot narrate what happened here entirely but after two months our vice-principal realised that I was misunderstood and he became a good friend to me.

Its 2-1 semester lab exam. Only 15 minutes left and Nishant is unable to execute his program. He called the lab assistant and told him that there is a problem with the system, while the guy is checking the problem he silently switched off the computer and He immediately asked him "Sir! What did you do the system? All the work i did was lost now!" This guy got scared and wrote the result as "program executed successfully."Hahaa...It's he who taught us the power of spontaneity(pulihora in JNTU HYDERABAD).

It's in second year I had my first Crush (not my classmate, definitely not from JNTU). She is married now :) and it's in the same year Bhanu had his first crush too; both are in US now pursuing MS. I wish his story would be successful at least.

2008 june-2009 may :

Third year!

Everyone enjoys first semester and the second would be a bit serious because of campus placements. But economic crisis came and we all understood that it is less likely we gonna have placements third year so we enjoyed both semesters.

I had to change into another room now. I had three roommates this time Ashok, Nishant and Surender.Let me explain something about them.

Ashok : He is from ece. Entire college knows him. He is like those kind of student's who is everything for the management. He treats Nishant like a child (younger brother).

Nishant : If you remember he is the one who did that Lab exam skit. He is the laziest bastard I have ever met in my entire life. All his work was always done by Ashok, so he became more lazy. Still, even today he is staying with Ashok and all his work is done by ashok :)

Surender : I love this guy, partly because he used to listen to whatever nonsense i say to him and so i dumped lot of trash into his mind :P . He would change his goal every semester. His goals varied from IAS officer to MRO.

All three are very close...yeah, like a family :P

We successfully conducted Quest-09, a national level technical symposium conducted by CSE, JNTU. I along with Bhanu sacrificed the entire semester holidays. I would daily go to his home would study HTML, Javascript with him, would have lunch in his house, then work sometime again and leave. That's my daily routine for entire 1st semester holidays. We designed website for Quest.

One twist in the story is we got a new HOD. No one is able to understand what he wants. Anything we design(brochure, website, banners for Quest) and go to him, he says put some pink color in it. God knows why he always wants Pink! But god helped us in one way, "we got permission to go on to North India tour (which Unfortunately i was unable to attend)". So I cannot write the memories of tour here.

It's in early 2009 I took a life time decision of being a complete vegetarian and came out of all the guilty feeling I used to carry since my childhood.

OO yaa.....3-2 is when the legendary innings of Sasidhar started. Its called BPL(Bridge Premier League). He is the host, the Key player, the financier and everything. Bridge game is introduced to us by Kondu (Konda or bunda venkatesh) and is taken up and was made the craziest game of the hostel by his lover, boyfriend, family member Sasi. From 3-2 to the end of Btech 70% of our time was dedicated to this game. Our game had grown in sync with IPL game, changing its formats and becoming more interesting day by day.


We got only one company Capital IQ and only one guy was selected in the entire college! Dinesh (the same guy whose life became miserable in BEE exam). Imagine! Everyone says it's recession time and here we have only one guy who was selected. He is like a hero amongst us.

Third year we completed with some issues among us (boys )which we resolved the same year.

2009 June-2010 May :
Each one of us know this gonna be our last year in engineering so we never let any chance to enjoy slip by. We had countless parties all through the year.

Let me share a secret here. The entire class knows that Bhanu and I are thickest friends. But in 4-1 I stopped talking to him, actually i didn't talk to him for 2 months! reason??

It's me, no nooo it's actually both. Btech is something that changed my life. Day by day i used to turn weirder. At some point of time he started trying to change me and I being very stubborn resisted it. It eventually resulted in this dark period of two months. No one knows about this except we both. Everything was settled after two months and we were back to normal.

Placements!! companies started entering the campus, not as good as the previous year but as long as some one or other is coming it doesn't matter for us. I got two offers :)

4-2 : It's again full of parties, bridge games, campus placements and farewell party. I don't recollect anything weird about farewell party...we just enjoyed and enjoyed (but no one cried :P).

Some common highlights for all years :
One day batting's : I think no explanation needed.
Lab Exams : Almost 98% of class never executed even a single program on their own in Lab exams, this includes me too.
Hostel day : arrghh!! we would go through all sorts of meetings, lectures and programs and it would be generally around 12 am they would give us dinner at hostel. We had to order veg or non-veg.
Each would have their own specials, like thanduri for Non-vegers. You know what is the special for vegetarians???
Apple!
All the four years they gave us apple as special on hostel day, damn it!
Holi : A pit full of dirty muddy water is used to be prepared and you can imagine everything!!
Love : We had two couples (successful loves) and many one side failure, still pending love stories in class. One funny thing is three guys tried for a single gal!! (my dear 3 idiots, no hard feelings but is she worth that much??? I sincerely doubt that!)

Personal Highlights
1. twice I Thought I would fail in my exams but both the times i am one of the toppers (u can imagine my pulihora talent and also the talent of ppl who corrected my papers).

2.My life can be divided into before Btech and after. Its somewhere early 2007 I realised that there is something wrong with how people are living. Something! and I started searching....and searching.....it resulted in all my priorities being changed. I think my humour saved me all along.

3. In 4 years I talked to girls of my class not more than 5 times! yeah, I maintained so much distance and never went near any girl unless some situation demanded. Reason? hmmmm.....never felt like it. (My present colleague may not believe it, but you can validate this from my classmates)

4. I read almost 60-70 books, not related to Btech. Infact from 2nd year to the end I never bought even a single textbook, never! and this is the case with many.

Thats it! This is what happened between 2006 and 2010. Something very precise. It already took me three days to write this much, if i go into more detail it would take me a month to complete.

But one thing!

What would have happened if chose OU instead of Jntu? I would have met a completely new set of people and a new set of situations. Do i regret selecting Jntu?

Never!

If you ask me what is the best decision I have taken in my life, the first thing that comes to my mind would be "Choosing Jntu" I have met the best people, had been in the best situations and had the best possible fun.

All these together made me who I am today.

Friends, thank you very much for choosing this college, this stream and giving an opportunity of spending my most valuable 4 years with you.

Who am I?

Warrior, warrior I call myself.
I fight for splendid virtue, for high endeavor, for sublime wisdom, therefore I call myself a warrior.

Compassion

We take birth, grow up, meet many people, we die.
Through this veil of events which combined form life,there is one thing you can't avoid-relationships.
A relationship can be with your birth-givers, love providers, co-workers, pets. Either we care too much for a certain relationship or we don't care at all. These form the two extremes attachment and detachment. People who are intensely emotional are either onto attachment or detachment.

If you are an attachment extremist, you care too much, like you want your child to be your child even when he/she is 50 years old and if the person of your attachment leaves his body you cry, you suffer or you may become delusional.

If you are a detachment extremist, you simply don't care. Like most of Indian Sadhus who leave everything in search of "something".

There is a narrow path between these two extremes, a path of glory and courage. A path not so easy yet liberating-the path of compassion. Only when you are compassionate you know when to get attached and when to step aside. Only when you are compassionate the relation prospers, only then the true purpose is revealed-everything before that, any relationship of the either extremes leads ultimately one day or other, one form or other into suffering.

A small poem on compassion (not written by me of course)

I cannot ease your aching heart,
Nor take the pain away. But let me stay and take your hand
And walk with you today.
I'll listen when you need to talk,
I'll wipe your tears away.
I'll share your worries when they come,
I'll help you face your fears.
I'm here and I will stand by you,
Each hill you have to climb.
So take my hand lets face the word,
Live one day at a time.
You're not alone for I'm still here,
I'll go that extra mile,
And when your grief is easier,
I'll help you learn to smile.

What's your dream?

When you are 2 minutes away from death what is the one thing you think about? It would definitely be the most important thing, so what it can be?
about your love?
family?
money?
I think the thought that comes to you is "have I lived my life? Did I really live it?!"
What else can be more important than this question?
Living your life means living your dream.
Not a dream that comes to you when you are asleep but a dream that doesn't allow you to sleep.

When I ask people what's their dream is, I get two type of responses
1. I have so and so dream.
2. I dont have one.

If you belong to the second type then it's time that you start thinking. There is no one out there who doesn't have a dream. You are concealing your dream under many layers. Layers like
doubt on your strengths,
fear of failure,
fearing what your parents may say,
fearing what society might think etc etc

But underneath all these layers, it is waiting. Waiting there patiently hoping that one day you would atleast acknowledge its presence.

A week ago I had a similar discussion with my friend. I asked him to see through the layers, just once think about something he would love to do, not for money,nor fame,nor success but for the pure joy of doing it.
In 5 minutes, just 5 minutes he told me there is something he love to do. I asked him to remove all the layers, think through and come back to me.

He came back to me the next day and told me what his dream is and how he wanted to start. I was shocked. There are many people who never mind about their dream, there are many who took months and months to think through but I got here someone who came back to me in just one day. I was very impressed and the only thought inside my head the entire day is "Here is someone who is going create miracles."

Apart from realising what's your dream is, you have to start working on it. Wherever you are right now, whatever so called restrictions you have, just take a step, a small step and everything will be taken care of.

The greatest joke I ever came accross is, "99% of people dont know why they are doing what they are doing." Engineers dont know whay they studied engineering, doctors dont know why they opted for MBBS and the list goes on.

Remember this, "Many people around you, infact all of them want you to live their dreams, believe their truths. No one wants you to find yours! "

"Find yours, live yours" Declare to all of them proudly that It's your Life!!

Live life, Nothing else matters!!!

The Voice

This is a true incident that happened years and years ago.

A 12 year old boy went running to his best friend. He told his friend,"Something is happening to me, something really terrible".
His friend asked "What happened?"
The boy replied "Well it's something terrible and you should not reveal this anyone."
His friend assured that it would be their own secret.
So the boy said "The thing is I am hearing a voice inside my head. It's happening since three days and it never stops!"
The friend replied "You are very late, I am hearing it since a year ."
The story ends here. But the boy's concern is not addressed.

Have you ever observed that there is a voice inside your head??
If you didn't just close your eyes now for 15 seconds, you will come to know. What does the voice do?
It talks and talks and talks.
It criticizes, judges, regrets, says you are an idiot or a great person.
You may say "Well, the voice is what I am thinking"
But the situation has changed long ago from "you thinking" to "thinking happening to you".
whats the difference??
When you think, you have control.
When thinking happens, you are under control.

OK let me ask you a question,
Have you ever bathed in your lifetime?? at least once??

When you bath you think of what dress you have to wear, when you are wearing a dress you think of what work you have to do in the office, when you are working you think of what the manager is going to say and it goes on and on..every single day of your life.
Every moment you would be thinking of some moment in the future or something that happened in the past. You would never be fully present.

So what to do??
How to stop this incessant mind chatter?
Well, we will discuss it in my next post.

Meanwhile that troubled 12 year old boy in the story is me and the friend is my childhood friend Hemanth .

Live Life!!! Nothing else matters!!!

People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness. They don't realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly. They look upon the present moment as either marred by something that has happened and shouldn't have or as deficient because of something that has not happened but should have. And so they miss the deeper perfection that is inherent in life itself, a perfection that lies beyond what is happening or not happening. Accept the present moment and find the perfection that is untouched by time.

Say Truth.....Act truth

What if a person speaks and acts truth and only truth?
First of all let me call speaking and acting truth as being truth.
If a person starts being truth,

1. He chooses his words and actions carefully.
2. Our reaction to anything would be generally a lie. He starts learning to respond instead of reacting.
3. He starts talking very less.
4. All his acts would be hormonious, cooperative and support unity.
5. He would be an odd man out in the societical structure.
6. All his current relationships may fall apart or get disturbed.
7. He would be more aware of his thoughts, as thoughts lead to beliefs which lead to actions.

As he goes on everything starts falling into place. He starts to be a person of quality rather than content.

The purpose for being truth would be always realising our higher Self.

You may ask me what would be the cause for being truth

• He may want to be different
• He might have started listening to his inner voice, the voice of his heart.
• He might have wanted to be Fearless.
• He wanted to grow in one life time which may save 10's of lifetime's effort.
• He is just experimenting.

As I started trying to be a truther, I realised two important things

1. We have to say truth and act truth. But not only one of them.
2. We have to constantly choose the highest truth according to our level of conciousness.

When u have to choose between being truthful and making other person happy with a lie (not cheating, but in positive way)....I think the later one is much better...!!

Believe me, the first gift for being truthful or following your dream or being different in any sort is

"Loneliness"

The real treasure always follows it and it is available for those who can be alone.