Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.


This is one video that will make you happy! One video that will pick you up on even your worst of days! Smile and be happy!

Click here to go to the youtube site with the same video. I had some problems with the video on the above mentioned site.



Cheers!
Kedar

The other day, at Tarams, Sania made this wonderful statement -
"Over the four years, I've learned to curb myself from doing things out of sudden bursts of enthusiasm".

Nothing very profound, one might argue. It's one of those things that we know! And still, we fall prey to these little bursts of enthusiasm, and land up committing to things we never had any inclination towards!

Here, I am going to list the things I started doing out of these sudden bursts of enthu. Some are good and some I repent -
1) Took up projects with professors at IIT
2) Took a course on graph theory and landed up screwing my GPA
3) Asked countless number of girls if they will dance with me at Saarang 2005
4) Started blogging
5) Became councilor for some six very random freshers!
6) Took up Classical Field Theory
7) Became insti bridge captain - the admin work was a pain!

This list is by no means exhaustive, and I will keep appending things as they come to my mind..

While writing my previous post about my experiences with the CCW (here), I chanced upon this story. Read on....

And the Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In one year, I am going to make it rain and cover the whole earth with water until all flesh is destroyed. But I want you to save the righteous people and two of every living thing on the earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark."

In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark. In fear and trembling Noah took the plans and agreed to build the Ark. "Remember" said the Lord, "You must complete the Ark and bring everything aboard in one year."

Exactly one year later, fierce storm clouds covered the earth and all the seas of the earth went into a tumult. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard weeping. "Noah", He shouted. "Were is the Ark?" "Lord, please forgive me!", cried Noah. "I did my best, but there were big problems.

First, I had to get a permit for construction and your plans did not meet the codes. I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw the plans." "Then I got into a fight with OSHA over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system and floatation devices. Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission." "Then I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting trees to protect the Spotted Owl. I finally convinced the U.S. Forest Service that I needed the wood to save the owls. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service won't let me catch any owls. So, no owls."

"The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or a hammer. Now I have 16 carpenters on the Ark, but still no owls."

"When I started rounding up the other animals, I got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me only taking two of each kind aboard. Just when I got the suit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I could not complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn't take very kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of the Creator of the universe."

"Then the Army Corps of Engineers demanded a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe. Right now, I am trying to resolve a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that I am practicing discrimination by not taking godless, unbelieving people aboard."

"The Internal Revenue Service has seized my assets, claiming that I'm building the Ark in preparation to flee the country to avoid paying taxes. I just got a notice from the State that I owe them some kind of user tax and failed to register the Ark as a "recreational water craft".

"Finally, the American Civil Liberties Union got the courts to issue an injunction against further construction of the Ark, saying that since God is flooding the earth, it is a religious event and therefore, unconstitutional."

"I really don't think I can finish the Ark for another five or six years." Noah wailed.

The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine and the seas began to calm. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up hopefully. "You mean you are not going to destroy the earth, Lord?" "No", said the Lord sadly. "I don't have to. The government already has".

I found this story on a site called To God's Glory, and the link to this story is here.

During their stay at IIT Madras, only a lucky few escape without having an encounter with the CCW. This, my friends, is my story, about the state of the art, unbeaurecratic offices in one of India's premier technical institutes.

CCW stands for "Chairman, Council of Wardens". It comprises the office (and its leader, the Chairman) who rule over the hostel zone in IIT Madras. Using methods of extortion, they spread terrors in the corridors of every hostel. They fine every fart a student lets out, and are notorious for being a financial blackhole.

To inconvenience students, the CCW comes out with rules that are beyond most people comprehension. One such rule involves students who return early from vacation.
If a student comes to Madras, and stays in the hostel, he has to join the messing facility. If a student is found residing in the hostel, but not availing of the mess facility, he is fined between three hundred and thousand rupees. Now, if a student does happen to come after the first week of the month, and decides to stay in the hostel, he pays a fine for joining the mess late.

I'm sorry for ranting it out this way, but to put it briefly, this is what their rule says -
If you return to the institute after the third day of a month, then -
(a) you may stay in the hostel without joiing the mess and pay a fine of Rs. 300
(b) you may join the mess and pay a fine of Rs. 150
Now, has it ever struck them that they leave students with no other opportunity? The idea of having a hostel is to give students a convenient place to stay during their academic year.

Another one experience I had was when I was trying to get permission to stay in my room. It is ridiculous when you think of it rationally, but rationale has been missing in CCW since its inception.
This is the procedure to get permission for residing in the hostel. In the paranthesis, I have given the time it took me to do so -
step 1 : Get signature from Head of Department (20 minutes + 1 visit + 10 minutes squabbling)
step 2 : Get signature from the Chairman, CCW (6 days + 8 visits + 2 hours squabbling)

Another gem coming from that office was to my request of making the process of getting permission more student friendly. My point was that considering that students come from home and have no place to stay but the hostel, the procedure should be make electronic so as to allow us to do the needful before coming. Also, this will save time (it's not worth running around in the scorching sun in search of signatures). When I put forth my point, the reply was, "It is not at all troublesome. The process is very easy, you can do it sitting at home. Just ask your friend to do it for you."

That, my friends, is CCW! And welcome again to one of India's premier institutions, IIT!

Last weekend, I made a trip to Bangalore. I've got my fair share of cousins in Bangalore, and it's been a while since I've met up with them. So, when my friend Ipshita told me about a play that the Merchants of Drama (MoD) were staging on the 12th of July, I thought to myself, why not time the trip to Bangalore a the same time!

Merchants of Drama is a theater group based in Bangalore. The mastermind behind it all is Praveen Gopalkrishnan (PGK), who is a researcher (handwriting recognition) at a company in Bangalore, but more importantly, has a passion for theater. The group comprised mainly of people like PGK - talented guys, who spend the day doing regular jobs, and transform into actors at night.

Now, I'm not going to get into great detail about the plot of the play. I suppose a more comprehensive version of that could be found on the Wikipedia page. I'm going to spend my time telling you about the play.

First and foremost, before delving into anything, I loved the play. It was not much of an "entertainer" or a "feel good" production, but as a play, it was very good. More importantly, it was professionally done - good audibility, noone falling out of character, good voice projection and a well chosen script.

The play has been adapted to the stage by MoD themselves. Praveen has thrown in a narrator, so we have a Dusander narrating parts of his life, while another one acts it out. It reminded me of Five Point Someone, the similar way in which Vidyuth and me do the Hari bits, the narrator looking back on all those experiences. With the narrator come the freedom of monologues, and also welcome breathers between scenes. Do not misunderstand this - the breathers are welcome because the script is so dark, I had a niggling fear of going into depression after the play!

Coming to the acting, one word - brilliant! Dusander and Todd had the responsibility of carrying the show on their shoulders, and they did not let any one person in that audience down. They were extremely comfortable in their roles. The way they fought to control the other, and how each one manipulated the other in their own fashion was unbelievably real. Todd's cold stare (which I later learned was due to a combination of bright lights and lack of spectacles) were eerie, and the way his forehead moved when he spoke gave his character a whole new chilling dimension. But, Todd's brilliance aside, my pick for the best actor goes to Dusander. The transform of his character from a almost senile old man to a Nazi soldier was perfect! The metamorphosis was complete, with the audience being exposed to two totally different sides of the same German coin.

Another aspect of the play that worked was the stage setup. The stage had four very distinct regions - Dusander's house, Todd's house, Todd's school/hospital, and narrator's space. None of the regions overlapped the other, and with a very prudent use of lights, each space was given a life of its own! The lights were very well done, and I later discovered it was PGK himself controlling the lights!

And before I finish, there is one more person who is so easily forgotten after a successful show - the sound engineer! The unfortunate thing with sound is that when well done, it blends in to the show, but if there is a mistake, everyone glares at the sound box. Well, no one glared!

In my opinion, the show was excellent. I suppose I'm a little biased towards groups like MoD, but I'm sure any critic would feel the same way! There were barely any flaws, and the execution was like clockwork! I just hope they tour a little, maybe Hyderabad and Chennai, with the play, as I am certain this play can go places..

Doing the laundry! For some reason beyond my imagination, this always appears to be a Herculean task. I think it's something in our genes. Primitive man (after he had begun wearing clothes) had to spend impractically large amounts of time scrubbing the hunting stains of his clothes, and that has made a permanent chase in our brains.

Yesterday, thanks to my friend Erectus, I summoned the courage to walk down three floors, and put my clothes for a wash. It wasn't as hard it appeared, and within forty five minutes, the washing machine had finished the daunting task.

Phew! I suppose it's clean clothes for a week, then..

I suppose this is something that all of us have experienced! Thank God I increased my RAM by 1gB!

I suppose everyone has their own list of things that they want to do. Some give themselves a timeline, like my friend Erectus, and some people like me, who just want to do it, sometime in their lives. This post is about one of the things that I've been wanting to do for the past three years, and somehow, I've never been able to pull it off!

I've been quite fascinated by Linux users. Not because I believe Windows is evil or something, but the fact that they seem to have total power over their computers quite intrigues me. So, I decided, I have to get myself to become independent of Windows.

Linux is not as glamourous as people make it to be. It's nice (and the LUG-Tee is quite fancy too!), but it's something that I really struggle with. I think I lack patience, more than anything else. I upose the idea of the game is to fight out every problem that surfaces, check forums, and understand it. I much rather choose the easier route - phone a friend!

Finally, I've got everything running fine on Linux - wifi, MatLab, Skype (with video!). So, I sat in my room, quite pleased that all was fine. I thought to myself, "I should delete the Windows partition and make that final cut. Maybe, even try installing Gentoo?".

It's been a while now, I'm still thinking.