Tuesday, April 29, 2008

If Well Begun Is Half Done...

Genre: Blabber

As far as exams go, this was as dramatic a start as one can ever think of.

It all started with the moment we got our question papers- for probably the first time in history of engineering exams, we had open ended 'Complete The Following' type of questions (similar to the ones found in language and Social Sciences papers of Std IX)!

One of the questions that had all of us in a fix went like this-

Piston Attenuator is ___________.
(Stumped? We all were! After all it was for the first time we all were hearing the word 'Piston Attenuator', leave aside knowing what the heck it is!)

As a result, we got to see some really creative answers, some of them highly interesting like these-

Piston Attenuator is a type of attenuator. (Oh really?)

Piston Attenuator is used in many applications. (If not, why would it exist?)

Piston Attenuator is used in cars (Piston.. cars.. sounds fitting)

Piston Attenuator is bad. (This one takes the cake!)

Adding to the chaos was the fact that for supervision, we had in our class The Great Billas- known all over for his amazing command over the English language- it is a little known fact that this gentleman has inspired many a film comedians from Javed Jaffery in Salaam Namaste to Anil Kapoor in Tashan; he shot to overnight fame in our college (and neighbouring ones too) with his "Once Gones The Gones" -an ingenious translation of the Hindi phrase "Ek baar jo gaya so gaya". Coming back to today- When some enterprising students told him that the question paper has some out of syllabus questions, he shot back-

"After over the paper complain that."

As if this was not enough, just as we managed to scrap through the 'Complete The Following' questions, a bigger shock awaited us- a question asked us to 'explain how to produce coloured patterns' (why dont they ask this at Asian Paints factory instead)- now anything remotely related to coloured patterns that we have heard of is in the subject called Communication Systems- a paper scheduled for next Monday, not today.

By this time the subject teacher was here and one student, who, just to vent out his frustration, asked tounge-in-cheek whether we could write about the colour pattern generation from Communication Systems subject, got the shock of his life when the teacher replied "Kuch bhi likho, chalega!". (By the way this is the same teacher who gave me marks for all 4 questions in the 'Attempt any 3 out of 4 questions' type Mid Semester test a couple of months back, resulting in me getting a cool 30 on 30- or should I call it 30 on 40! But that's a different matter altogether.)

More surprises were in store- as we went upto Q 4b, which was a numerical problem- after some tedious calculations we arrived at a value of the asked capacitance as -712.5! Eureka! We discovered Negative Capacitance!! Wait- before you think of sending me the Chemistry Nobel Prize for 2008, this discovery as of now exists only on our answer sheets! (For the non-scientific minded souls- capacitance is a measure oif a physical quantity just like weight, volume etc and hence it is always a positive value.)

Again, when this was brought to the notice of the teacher who set the paper (by now it was obvious what we always doubted- that she sets the paper by randomly opening any page of the book and the topic fist seen is put in the question paper- and probably while checking allots marks by throwing a pair of dice and noting the value appearing on its top faces!), she nonchalantly replied- "if its negative, let it remain negative. Don't worry." Ahem!

By the end of it, I just felt like asking the teacher- "kya aap paanchvi paas se tez hai?"

PS: I hope nobody from Times Of India is reading this, else this will appear tomorrow on the front page going by the enthusiasm that these people have in maligning the reputation of my college in whatsoever ways possible.

PPS: "After over the paper complain that." in Normal English means "After the paper gets over, complain about that."

BREAKING NEWS: It has emerged that the subject teacher had outsourced the task of setting up the paper in question to a professor famously (or, infamously) known as RaPa. This explains the flustered look on her face on seeing the question paper herself!

Friday, April 25, 2008

The IPL Tamasha

Genre: Blabber

Today as the Indian Premier League, or IPL, has sent the entire nation into a frenzy, we ask some special people to voice their opinion about the event. Some more opinions are awaited.

Arjun Singh: From next season, 27% seats in all stadiums will be reserved for OBC spectators.

Aishwarya Rai: (Giggles).... (Giggles again)..

Pervez Musharraf: The Indians have forcefully taken away my players. I will complain to Bush uncle about it. And Kashmir is a part of Pakistan.

Rakhi Sawant: Ye log apne aap ko samajhte kya hai.. Shahrukh Khan aur Preity Zinta naachte hai to chalta hai, main naachu to sabko problem hota hai.. meri to koi izzat hi nahi hai.. blah..blah..blah..

Ram Gopal Varma: I am planning a remake of this series. It will be called "Ram Gopal Varma Ki IPL"

Raj Thackerey: I want that 80% players in all teams should be Marathi speaking, or else we will launch an agitation

Manmohan Singh: I will ask Sonia madam and let you know.

Mukesh Ambani: IPL? What IPL?
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