My mathematics at stake

Back then in 2003, following cyber revolution; one more revolution happened, "Chinese" revolution. No, don't think otherwise. China is still very much under communist rule. But chinese food here in India did revolutionize people's taste. It took food, road-side vendor's industry by storm. One could see Chinese joints springing up at every nook and corner. Success of chinese food had many factors like a different taste, fast cooked and many other factors.

I was skeptical about the whole thing and never dared to try it out. But slowly  I started visiting them with my cousin who had craving for different food and great courage to put his stomach at stake. Anyway, within few visits I became acquainted with this Chinese thing and felt like words schezwan, fried rice, manchurian, hakka noodles etc are hindi words (Mumbai's Hindi is funnily imperfect, so the comparo).


In the month of May, when everybody enjoys summer vacations, wannabe engineers like me slog out because of exams. My family had gone to my native & I was all alone at home during one such summer. One fine evening, I was feeling lazy to cook anything, even a Maggie. I sensed an ideal opportunity to try Chinese food. The only problem was I had no company. My cousin who usually accompanied me to these Chinese joints, was out of town. My brother & a friend Sandeep was unavailable too. But how could it be the reason to skip opportunity of tasty Chinese food & I started towards one of the famous joint we frequented before.

High tech heist

I have always considered my diploma college days very special. I got my best buddies, best knowledge, best environment. Everything is simply "best" about it. Only then a different side of my nature was discovered (by me). We played all kind of pranks, cricket, rebellion against teachers, eve-teasing (:P) & a lot more. But a "heist" that too "high tech" sounds too much, isn't it?

We had a quite big computer lab. It was divided in 2 sections, one having windows network & other one having novell netware. Then, we had just been promoted from novell netware to windows. It was a much needed promotion, why? I think it can be another blog. Coming to point, we were working on windows network for our final year project work. We often needed internet to do more of surfing than doing project work, but we did need it.

Mr. Chopade was our lab assistant. He was a funny & helping personality. He also had a dedicated user name & password for internet access which we called "Magical key". When needed, we used to approach him & he always helped. But many a times, we had to wait as he was in charge of many other things & that would often delay our work. Also, under his supervision, we were restricted to surf Google.com only. This went on for some time we were really sick of not getting access to our email accounts when we wanted (of course for fun).

A 1300 kms adventure : 3. Mumbai calling

On 9th November, 2010 I woke up at 5. Took bath & was ready to roll by 6. But tying up my luggage was a big headache. It took me 45 minutes to do so. I decided, a saddle bag is must for next trip. Took blessings from uncle & aunt, and finally left place at 7. It was little cold then & I felt shivers when ever a breeze passed. I regretted having left for trip without gloves. Now gloves top the “Must buy” list. I had planned to ride till Kasal on state highway & then on NH17. I would take a diversion at Nivali phata (junction) to Ganpatipule. 

Road till Kasal was narrow but smooth. It was little deserted as people still had not left their homes. I came across few morons driving cars on that stretch who would occupy opposite lane while negotiating acute curves (to avoid braking) leaving me scared to death. No wonder why accidents are imminent. Riding on highways which don’t have dividers, is so dangerous that your life hangs on not just your luck, but others too.

A 1300 kms adventure : 2. Stay in Malwan

Next day, we woke up at around 9 in the morning. We did breakfast, took swimming costumes & straightaway headed to Tarkarli beach. It was some 4 kms from my native. Actually we had beach just 5 minutes away from my place. But we planned to do snorkeling too so went to MTDC resort in Tarkarli. I must say the resort is one the best I have ever seen. It is right in front of sea, with tent shaped rooms and surrounded by lots of pine & coconut trees. The resort has a lot of free space & is not clumsy.

To our bad luck, MTDC had stopped snorkeling for that season. You got to be really lucky to get to do it. It depends a lot on under sea currents which if strong, distorts the view inside. This was my 2nd failed attempt which left me sulking. Then instead of heading back to my place, we decided to get in to waters there itself. We played in water for like 2 hours. We enjoyed holding-breath-for-long, who-will-hit-waters-first-race & mud throwing fights in waters.

Introduction to Cyber world - Part III (Final)

I came & settled down on my chair. I was so embarrassed then that I failed to notice, helper was a girl. ;) Damn, Now I cursed myself & the thick book even more. We looked at her & she flashed an assuring smile. We felt relaxed & we surrendered ourselves (and our precious 20 minutes) happily to her. She took charge of the desktop now. She closed all the windows we had opened so far. I got to know, whatever we had attempted so far wouldn’t have led us anywhere. Then she went to “Start” option, “Programs” & clicked on “Internet explorer” icon. Bingo, door to magical cave of internet was wide open in front of us. I started thinking what magic a knowledge can do to you. What took us 40+ minutes, she did in hardly 4 seconds. When she opened that window I felt like we should take the control back as we knew what we wanted. But very next moment, what we had done in last 40 minutes flashed in my mind & I controlled my urge, for good.

She asked me & my friend, “Guys, what you want to do? Emailing or chatting?” My friend replied, “Email”, randomly. Then she opened yahoo page & opened new user registration page. Then she turned to us & asked one of ours name. I got alerted. Sticking to childhood lesson of “Don’t tell your name to strangers (though she is a girl)”, I decided not to tell my name. And I told her my friend’s name. My friend did not believe I voluntarily suggested his name for the coveted new email id. He smiled at me with anticipation. Such a win-win situation it was for me.

Introduction to Cyber world - Part II

The day arrived finally. We had to take a train as cafes were yet to come in our area then. We reached the place only to see it full of crowd & super hot. We waited for our turn for almost like an hour. Our name was called & we were given with one system placed in a small chamber where we crammed ourselves. We had to rush as time was really expensive. While entering, probably café owner had sensed our amateur faces. He offered us a helper. We being in possession of “Complete reference of Windows 98”, simply turned down his request. Everybody out there presumed us to be proficient with cyber world. We felt happy about that.

As we sat down, we took our monstrous book out & reached the page where I had seen “Internet” icon. Below picture, instructions were given about how to reach that icon. I was in hold of the mouse (yeah, I had finally got to know) & Sandeep (other interested friend) was reading out the steps. “Go to Start, then go to control panel”. I followed as an obedient child and it paid off, I saw “Internet” icon (I was familiar with the icon itself) there. Without wasting any time I double clicked on it. A window called “Internet options” popped up on screen with various buttons in it.

Introduction to Cyber world - Part I

Back in year 2000, when I had just left my school after SSC & had joined a diploma course, a new trend had arrived. Personal Computers were abuzz then. I had no idea what it was & what it does. For me it was just a small TV with 2 other complementary dabbas (boxes). Later on we saw a tail (mouse) coming forward from one of the dabbas where one of the human hand will always rest & move here n there making some click-click sound. I always found it cute. I always had curiosity to touch it, to sit there, to see what it does, to operate that cute little thing.

Time passed on. By now, I had my hands on personal computers in our college labs. I was all for it I must confess. By entering few keys (“dir” command actually) & pressing enter key made my screen dance & fill with many characters neatly organized on screen. At times screen scrolled automatically so fast, it always amazed me. I was all praise for these 3 boxes which did magic. As I got well versed with PCs, I started hearing cyber cafes, chatting & emailing. K B Virkar dictionary failed to answer these questions. So I planned to pay a visit to “cyber café” on my own.