Galaxization

We might not have come such a long way after all. From the Stone Age to the nano age, from spears to nuclear warheads, from jagged paintings on brown cave walls to catalogued digital imaging, from tracking partly eroded footprints to inventing global position systems, from the barter system to globalization.

Eventually, we would meet a multitude of creatures from other solar systems and galaxies, living in different planets. It is bound to happen. We have got to admit that. The aliens would meet us thinking that we are aliens. Soon, deals would be made, boundaries drawn, constitutions written, alliances pledged and invasions waged. The world would no longer be our only world.

Trans-galactic corporations would come into existence. Or at least we would come to know that a lot of trans-galactic corporations already exist. Every sphere of knowledge, ranging from science to art, philosophy to literature, mathematics to astral physics would undergo a gargantuan change. A change so monolithic in its existence that entire civilizations of species across the universe would get wiped out, eerily extinct making other species flourish, thereby creating a new circle of survival. Some details would be chronicled in the golden annuls of history. Most of them would be forgotten.

The definition and scope of tourism would change radically. A variety of things, places and people would be discovered, invented and pulverised with ample gore. Multi-galactic cultures would then lead to various new species, which, in turn would coalesce into mere races. Corporations and firms would span galaxies. Rules would be relaxed, constitutions re-written, laws modified. A zillion genres of music would emerge into a colour we haven’t seen till date. Terabytes would be a trifle.


Computers and robots would be capable of interpreting and processing yottabytes of data. Students from Cygnus would be drinking Absinthe with students from Milky Way. A guy from Andromeda might be hitting on an Indian girl living in the Black Eye galaxy. Sculptors from Reinmuth might be travelling to Perseus to carve a gold stone into a creature with brown eyes. A drug peddler in Maffei galaxy smoking up a jaded bong might get caught by the unruly cops from Keenan’s.
In fact, I do not see the clumsy end of a confused world anymore. I see more. Things we haven’t thought of till date, things we did not know existed. Hypocrites would continue to exist, the battle of individualists and collectivists shall continue.

I honestly do not know what I would be doing. But I would definitely not mind owning a private galaxy, moving around in my space ship and living in a strategically located solar system. I would build a stone house overlooking a blue waterfall in a beautiful country of a colourful planet, modelling warp speed models and listening to thoguza music with unseen nature all around. Green skies, blue earth, purple water and soft soil.

It is left to us what we decide for ourselves. If you wake up at a different place as a different person, would you still be the same person?

I welcome galaxization.

You tubed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAvugZbbK4k

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

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A trip down the memory lane...

It pays to have a sweet school junior. He handed over his cycle keys to me and I
cruised around on the roads all along the campus. My closeness to profs was
always a double edged sword. I knew every single road and where it led, yet I
could not take the shortcuts to MB through them as next day I would be grilled
mercilessly. :-) I have seen very few sunrises in my life and the one at Gliding
Club remains amongst my favourites. But to be there without a Tam chemicalite, a
bong from shillong and a Mallu mimer would be unfair. The Reunion would be there
for that.

In a series of six brilliant personal posts, Madhurjya (Banjo) takes us on a walk down the memory lane. Oh, how I miss those things... A must read for all!

A Trip Down Memory Lane - I,
II – The Places, III – The People, IV – The BITSians, V – The Food, VI – The Epilogue

On the same note, here's about a small trip I made to Pilani last week: A Quick Trip to Pilani

The goan wave

Well it has been a long time since somebody blogged here . So i thought why not refresh the blog with some fresh new ideas and what could have been better than a post about the new campus of bits at goa .

started in 2004 this was the second campus of the prestigious BITS-Pilani university Rajasthan . A bustling batch of 600 had joined Bits in the sand of another kind . Soon Oasis became Waves and Apogee became Quark.today the campus has 1800 students and its first batch going for placements soon this year.

A normal bitsian from goa has to adapt to one thing . Those curious glances from family friends and relatives . A normal conversation between a Bitsian from goa and Distant relative (DR) goes on like this

Distant Relative : So where do you study ?
Bitsian ( proudly ) : Bits
DR : huh what you doing in goa , there is a Bits in goa , how strange ... blah blah blah

and soon you join his list not so worthy youngsters . But Probably every person here had made the choice of this life . All the people here left some NIT or an IIT or some foriegn university . All of them came here just on the name of BITS and all of them wanted to be a part of evolution of this body of BITS ...... BITS- pilani, goa.


well once the first hurdle is crossed , campus is actually very good . All the classrooms are a/c and students have single seated rooms right from first year . In place of c'not there is nescafe and monginis here and ofcourse our very own insti and sc cafe .

there is no ANC because actually you have to be back in your hostels by 11 PM . so all the hopes of that goan night life are thrashed . the students have there own student council , the annual cultural fest Waves in which pilani came this year . The annual technical festival Quark , the annual sports festival spree and finally the annual inter hostel cultural competition zephyr .

All the cultural clubs are working in the campus apart from the campus has its own Centre for software development (CSD) and CEl .

the academic system is same as pilani with all its flexibilities .Bits - pilani , goa is probably the only place in india apart from pilani itself where you will hear so much usage of the word pilani . About the campus lingo it is developing slowly because of main chat on the direct connect client where you will find the whole campus discussing on some topic . right now its OB that half of the people in my batch would be thinking about the experience at ps1 which might range from bestest to thuest .


The campus has its own share of technical achievements . whether coming 5 in techfest at IIT Bombay or winning 2nd prize at Microsoft Imagine Cup . it has kept the flag of BITS flying high.


btw if you wanna tour our campus do visit www.bits360.com
signing off now
more about the campus later

BITS ranked sixth in Top 100 engineering colleges -Outlook Version.

The link to the actual article is here:

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060717&fname=Cover+Story&sid=5

BITS and pieces - reservation comes to Pilani

(I had posted this on my personal blog a little while ago. But considering the subject, I thought this might be a better forum for this post.)

After years of resisting Government interference. by avoiding UGC grants and federal funding and being supported primarily by the Birla group, BITS Pilani finally got bullied into the reservation mess by Arjun Singh and his goons. Rashmi Bansal summarizes this fiasco in her aptly titled post Another one BITS the dust?

On May 29, the very day the Supreme Court observed that quotas can divide the nation and asked the Government to explain its rationale behind the 27% OBC quotas, HRD Minister Arjun Singh further tightened the quota screws on the higher-education sector, both public and private.

In a note prepared that day for the Cabinet, his Ministry has proposed a legislation with provisions that give the Government unprecedented power not only to impose quotas in over 100 “deemed universities” over and above 32 Central institutions but also to regulate their fees, selection procedure—and even take punitive action.

So not just IITs, IIMs and AIIMS, the institutions which are brought into the 27% OBC quota net include Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani; Manipal Academy of Higher Education; Pune’s Symbiosis International Education Centre and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

We BITSians have always been fiercely proud of ourselves. We knew BITS Pilani could have had better libraries, labs and furniture if only we went begging to UGC for funding. But we realized that this would come with strings attached like reservations, entrance exam mandates and such. And we decided we would rather have the best students than the best facilities. We were secure in the knowledge that only the creme de la creme of India would qualify to be our classmates and competitors at BITS. We were admired when we graduated, and the BITS brand name was second only to the IITs in India.

Well, say goodbye to the perfect world, because politicians like Arjun Singh have decided to dishonor the sanctity of private and elite universities and bring them all under Government control. I have no idea how the Government can suddenly manipulate the constitution so they can exercise control over institutes like BITS. What's next? Can these so-called OBCs have job reservation quotas in Reliance, Infosys and Wipro once they graduate from BITS and IITs through their reservation quotas?

Don't get me wrong. I believe that India has to have some kind of affirmative action in place to accelerate the development of those who have been left woefully behind in our society. But such over-arching and generic reservation schemes will only do more harm than good - they will further divide our society on the basis of class and cause resentment and hostility between them. More thought should go behind such schemes, and reservation should be done more along economic lines rather than just based on class. The push should come at the primary school level, so that these backward classes will have come up to par and ready to compete on equal terms with everyone else when they are ready to enter college.

Much has been said against this reservation scheme by the public, regular media and bloggers alike. But we all know how this is going to end. Even when all this was going on, I did not for a minute stop and think that my BITS Pilani would be subject to this disgrace. For we've always stood away from the rest of the pack and made our own path. We've always prided ourselves for our independence and freedom from Government-imposed quotas and restrictions. All that has been felled in one swoop. And for what?

I'm glad I graduated from BITS Pilani when I did, secure in the knowledge that I rubbed shoulders with the best India had to offer. It pains me to see that this might not be true anymore. Yes, Arjun Singh and company will leave a legacy behind. A legacy that will be India's bane. A legacy that will leave many a broken heart and shattered dream in its wake.

PS: I would love to hear other BITSian opinions on this issue. This post will be updated with your comments.