I could feel the same pressure how a batsman would feel when he needs to put the ball outside the stands during the last ball of an innings to win a match. Yes, it’s the season of placements in our college. Cognizant was the buzz word round the campus from the mid week of November and the process was scheduled on 17th and 18th of December. The expectations from my relatives and friends were high on me. Instant thoughts about our cool captain Dhoni kept me cool at times. I geared up with my certificate files and laptop on the eve of the placement day. I got a clear idea about the pattern of aptitude questions from my friends and I did not do any specific preparations for Cognizant. One of my friends said that everyone in our college were preparing like mental. This alarmed me but I knew it’s weird to get alarmed at the last minute. I got into a route bus to Gandhipuram bus stand where I boarded a bus to Sathyamangalam and took a seat in the last row of the bus. The climate was pleasing and the cold breeze made me fall asleep for some time. Around five in the evening, I got into the town bus at Sathy where my classmates Rengarajan(Ambi) and Gowrishankar joined me. After our dinner, we had plans to solve some aptitude questions on syllogisms. As we planned, we solved it for an hour and started to gossip till 1am. It was time to bed and I need to get up early in the morning as the registration was at 8:00am at Vedanayagam Auditorium.
On hearing the tune of Airtel music from my mobile, I woke up and disabled the alarm which I had set for 6:15am. I had a small nap for next five minutes. I knew it was getting later, but still it was a pleasure feeling to sleep under blankets in a cold morning. After my bath, I had confusion in selecting the pair of dress to wear on the first day. After a long time I finally decided to wear the lucky blue shirt for the first day. I wore it and my mobile screamed the airtel music again and this time it was a call from Ambi. He asked me to get down the stairs for our breakfast at the hostel mess. I took my certificate files, locked my room and joined Ambi and Gowri. After our breakfast, we moved towards the auditorium. At the registration desk, I signed the attendance list and found my name to be in the thirteenth place in my class based on percentage of marks. On seeing the number thirteen, my thoughts switched towards analysing the unlucky number for a while. When we entered the auditorium, we saw that there was no isolation based on gender in the arrangement of seats. We decided to go to front row and we occupied the fourth row. Some instrumental music was being played. In a short span of time, the dignitaries from Cognizant arrived and the presentation started. There was a break soon after the presentation. Along with my friends TamilArasu and Sundaram, I had a walk near the library. We had a cup of coffee and I was in need of that to keep my brain active. I knew that the next couple of hours will decide my fate. So, some plans started passing like clouds in my mind to crack the test. The strategies of Vishnu from IMS, a guy who trained us on aptitude question for a month last year, strike my mind when I was crossing the Department of ECE. The strategy was about to pick the easy questions at first and finding the answer from the choices given. Since I had written my MAT exams in the month of September, I was a bit confident regarding the management of time. I got back to the auditorium and they distributed an answer sheet in which we were asked to fill up our personal details, marks and skill sets etc. I was aware of the content to be filled in it and felt easy to fill it. First, they gave a question paper containing 25 aptitude questions and the time allocated was 30 minutes. I started picking easier questions and started working out and to my surprise I solved it in about 25 minutes. The great thing which I did was I didn’t hang up in a particular question when I was not able to solve it. When 30 minutes passed, they got back the question paper and I received another question paper on verbal. There were 25 questions to be answered in duration of 20 minutes. I had tough time with it. The moment I answered 10 questions I was in search of time. I shaded the rest of the unanswered questions with alternate options randomly. The final set of question paper contained questions related to attention to details. It was quite easy to solve these kinds of problems. We had our lunch and relaxed for some time and got back to the auditorium. The results were announced around 4pm and my name fell into 5th panel and it was announced that the next round will be a technical and HR round. I was happy that I crossed half of the stream. Ambi, Gowri and I went to cafeteria and refreshed ourselves with some snacks and got back to hostel. Gowri and I touched upon the basics of C and C++ as it is impossible to look up the entire language over a night. We touched upon some fundamentals of database and OOPs concepts. I moved to bed around 1 am. The night was too cold as it was winter and I managed to cover myself under the blanket and kept myself warm.
Once again, I started the day with the tune of Aitrel music and I got ready in a leisure manner as we need to be present in the auditorium by 8:30 am. With my certificate files ready, I wore the light brown striped shirts and dark brown trousers. I had a dilemma of wearing a tie and had it in mind for quite some time. I came to the auditorium and my friends wished me best of luck for the process and I was the last person in my panel. I was sure that I would be interviewed only in the noon. Some were busy wearing the tie and again the dilemma of wearing a tie was creeping in my mind. Alas, I decided not to go for a tie. I was in fifth panel and our panel moved like a tortoise. I had a glimpse on my mark sheet and I was not interested in it. As time passed, we were asked to move to the ECE seminar hall and the student friends who completed the process got back to the seminar hall and they were narrating the questions they faced and Deepak of my class was at his best in clearing doubts in database. The time was around 1pm and I started feeling hungry and still I was not called upon. Around 1:15pm we were asked to move to placement cell and I waited around ten minutes. Four students including me were yet to be interviewed. The entire process of waiting was similar to a scenario at Tirupathi temple where people used to wait in cabin for the worship of deity. I had a sip of water and my watch displayed 1:38pm. I had an eye on my watch every minute and alas I was called at 1:58pm. I wished my interviewer a good noon and after his response he signalled me to take my seat. He got my certificate files and started off with the fundamental question “Tell me about yourself?” When I was describing about me, he had a glance at the various certificates and I was happy that my efforts are being noticed. He started off with fundamental questions in Java and C++. It was quite easy and he asked me to proceed with my project. I started explaining it in detail and he got impressed on my explanation. He staring enquiring about my knowledge in database and I frankly said that I have a basic knowledge of database and nothing more than that. At the end he asked me whether I have any question for him. I asked his experience with Cognizant and how he got into it. He narrated his experiences and finally asked whether I have any choice of preference in work location. I replied him that I would prefer Coimbatore followed by Bengaluru and Chennai. He bid me thank u and so I. I was confident that I would certainly be selected as I knew that I performed well. I had my lunch with my juniors and I got back to my room and started hearing songs from the tamil movie “Paiya”. Around 4pm I entered into the auditorium and when I entered my favourite song from movie Paiya was playing. Then came the awaiting results and M.Sc(Software Engineering) was the last branch to be announced. Many names started flowing and I was delighted on hearing my name. Alas, I felt that we had a full stop for the nonstop lament we had for the past three years about our future.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
An Outlook on Sathyamangalam
Being ingress to Mysore, Sathyamangalam is about sixty kilometres from Coimbatore. People pride their place as sandalwood city as it was renowned for late Veerapan and his sandalwood smuggling. To quote on the climate, it is unpleasant round the year. Located on the beds of Kodiveri and Bhavani River, it’s a hot place to live on. Agriculture is the main occupation here and Bannari Amman temple located about fifteen kilometres from Sathy is the main deity preached here. Bhavaneswarar temple is situated near the bridge. Since Sathy is not densely populated, you need not hang around for the vehicles to pass by to go across the roads. Few weeks ago, when I was travelling with my friend on the streets, I found some zebra crossings on the roads and grinned myself imagining the purpose of it. People freak out to the four cinema halls for entertainment. Bannari Amman Institute of technology is a boon to this place and its existence in a rural area crafts awareness of education in this surroundings. Long ago, when I was travelling in a town bus, an uneducated poor man enquired me about various courses available in my college. This gave me confidence that awareness in education has flourished. When you travel in the Athani road you could see two roads diverging. If you pick either of the roads you will reach Bannari Amman Institute of Technology. If you pick the road on your right you will reach Bannari Amman sugar factory followed by Kodiveri dam. The infrastructure can upgrade if rail route is constructed between Coimbatore to Erode via Sathyamangalam. Moreover this rail route can be used as an alternate at times if some problem creeps into existing rail route between Coimbatore and Erode. I wish Sathy to progress as a full-fledged city satisfying the needs of the people as earth revolves round the sun.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Seeing Blue in Greens. . .
It was around ten in the night when we reached Kumily, a small town located at Tamil Nadu – Kerala border. We were five in number and we lodged at Kumily. The next day turned out as a pleasant daybreak and we went to Thekkady which is about four kilometres from Kumily and started with boating at
We booked the upper deck tickets and I was ready for the visual treat in the lake. The boat started its travel around seven in the morning. The cold breeze blowing towards me kissed my face and I felt the freshness of it on my face. We had hired a binocular which helped us to have a clear view of the distant mountains. I had imagined a climate in the past and to my surprise, I felt the same over there. My brother also enjoyed the climate and he was busy with his camera shots. At a certain place, I witnessed the shadow of the mountains in the water and the crystal clear image remained for a certain period until a snake bird passed by. Meanwhile, we had a discussion about the conflict that exists between TamilNadu and Kerala regarding Mullai Periyar Dam. We spotted some animals namely bison, monkey, snake bird, tortoise etc. There were some trees in the lake where some birds have made their nest on it. The boat returned back and we got back to our hotel to check out. On having our breakfast in a hotel, we started a 100km journey to Munnar.
The hill road was not so steep and it was covered with lust green on both sides with cardamom plantations. On the way, we had a break off at spice garden. I was not interested in it at first but later I was happy that I did not miss it. A guide accompanied us into the garden and he started explaining us the various plantations they had. He started with cardamom. It was green in color and when I squeezed it I could see the seeds in a greyish black color. He then plucked a grass and rubbed the grass and named it as lemon grass. I got the aroma of amurtanchan balm. He showed various plantations like vanilla tree, sambrani tree, coffee tree, pepper plantations, ginger tree and kurinji flower. I have read in news that kurinji flower blossoms once in twelve years. But I did not ever dream of seeing it. History declares that there are seven mountains over there and in each mountain the flower blossoms at different period of time and we were in the mountain where it has blossomed. Then he guided us towards the banyan tree which seemed to touch the sky. We spotted a small lake where elephants come to satisfy their thirst. Near the lake, a tree house was constructed where the security guards make their stay at nights. They stay over there and if the elephants try destroying the plantations, they use crackers to avert them. We climbed the tree top and had a nice view from it. He showed us the sandalwood tree and it was three years old. He added that it would get the fragrance of sandalwood after seventeen more years. We moved towards the rosewood tree and had a glimpse of it. Alas we made some shopping and started towards Munnar.
On the way to Munnar we visited Periyacanal waterfalls where a song was shoot from a tamil movie named “Kovil”. The water was flowing at high speed and was very chill that froze my legs. On moving to other part of the road, the falls were running beneath the road and it was a spectacular view from that point of the road. As we started from there, the roads were covered with mist. 
Nothing was visible in the roads, and our driver found it difficult to drive, penetrating the mist. We had an adventurous trip for about four kilometers. We reached Munnar around two in the
During the crack of dawn, we were ready for the next round of sightseeing. We had Kerala special breakfast namely “aapam” and “kola puttu” as we dint find Idly, vadai, and sambar anywhere. Our travel started towards Mattupatty dam which is around thirteen kilometers from Munnar. On the roads, I saw the sun rays penetrating between the trees and the rays where looking like a beam of light from a torch. I have seen such stuffs in photos but I was overwhelmed on a live watch. Wherever you look upon you will end up in a tea plantation. Tata has taken 99 years of contract for tea plantations and they own a school, where the children of employees working in the estate are educated here. We spent some time in the Mattupatty dam and we moved towards a location called echo point. This spot has some water on the base of a mountain which reflects the sound which is heard as echo. After a travel of fourteen kilometers, we reached top station. It is a point which is above 8500 meters from sea level. Vehicles can’t go there after a certain limit. My brother, driver and myself started walking towards the point leaving my mom, periamma and periappa as they feared of climbing the steep area. We three got down to the point. A guide accompanied us to explain the spots over there. We had a clear glimpse of Kodaikanal mountain from that spot. He spotted a tribal village and showed us a path to Bodinayakanur and to our surprise we received Tamilnadu network in our mobiles at that point. He spotted the area where some scenes of the tamil movie “Pithamagan” was shoot. We climbed back a mountain and reached the place where we parked our vehicle. On returning we went to another dam namely Kundalay dam. My mom and periamma were very busy with their shopping activities. I ordered bread and omelet in a shop and the preparation was very delicious. We entered into a tea estate on the roadside and spent some time with local boys who were playing there. A boy named Santhosh said that he was feeling bored to be in Munnar and said that he liked
It was time for lunch and we need to check out the cottage before
Friday, July 10, 2009
Hurray! I am a Sun Certified Java Programmer
Alas! My dream came true on Valentine Month. Yes, Believe it or not. I am a Sun Certified Programmer now. The story is about how I ruptured the hurdles I faced in this long journey. It all started on the month of June after my birthday celebrations. I did some ground work for about three months on the basics of java till June. While sticking to the basics I felt, “Why the hell are you studying this?” My brother Pradheep kept on asking me whether I started studying. Though I am poor in executing plans, I am a very good planner. But I made up my mind that I should prove that I am a good executor too. As per my plans, I started concentrating on it. I felt the best quality what I possessed was planning. Whenever I come across comments I took it as a challenge to crack it. It all happens when you are unique. As days started running, my grandfather was not feeling well and I took responsibility of taking him to hospital and he underwent an operation. Then I resumed my preparations after some days. My brother encourages me all the time from my childhood. Few of my friends started encouraging me. My roommate Gowrishankar said that he is also preparing for the same exam by his brother’s advice. On hearing this I felt that all brothers in this world would do the same. I was happy that I had a company to study. Moreover whenever I see him with the book, my consciousness alarms me, “Look, he is preparing. What about you?” I accelerated my preparations. I decided to take my exam on 10th of October. It was an online exam and one of the questions in the exam collapsed me entirely. Most of the questions were hard to answer and I finished the exam hoping that I will clear it. But unfortunately, I scored 48% and I fall short of success. I was totally upset. I don’t know what went wrong in the exam. I made a call to my brother and said the message. He consoled me and asked me to start to my home. When I came out of the test center, I felt lonely and started walking without any strength. I was not sure that whether I crossed the roads with consciousness. The moment I saw my laptop in my home, tears started flowing in my eyes. My mom tried her level best to console me over the phone. But I was not able to digest this breakdown. I got back to college the next morning and I felt guilty to face everyone in my class. Negative thoughts started flowing in my minds. I felt that this October was a black month in my life. After some days, fortunately, I started thinking of proverbs like “Failure is the stepping stone to success”. I gave a break to myself and with full of confidence I started again from the scratch in the month of January. I analyzed myself where I went wrong. I rectified those faults and finally I planned to take the exam on 6th February. Hoping that this would be my day, I was very confident in answering the questions this time. I completed my exam quickly. The moment I saw my score as 94% my heart was filled with joy uttering these words,
“A person can feel the core of joy and happiness only when he achieves his success after overcoming his hurdles”.
On coming out of the test center I was filled with happiness and this time the roads were looking brighter and I felt like shouting in roads. But behaving like that would be crazy. I shared my victory by making calls to my relatives, friends etc. I can narrate how excited I was through an incident. I typed a message and after pressing send button, I kept the phone on my ears for a dial tone. I started giggling to myself about my excited state. My brother informed me about Sun Tech Days’09, a national wide conference at Hyderabad. I made my mind that I should use this great opportunity by attending it. I felt that this day would be my turning point in my career. Also I did not fail to remember 10th October because if I had not faced that day I would have not got a better start now.
Alas! I felt the proverb, “Hard work never fails”.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Trip to Hyd - 21st Feb
We got up around 8pm and got ready for an entertaining day. We had our breakfast at a local shop and it was cheap over there. We then got a bus and it was the first time i got into bus at hyd. The bus was to go to Koti. On the way i saw various places like telephone exchange, cricket stadium etc. Once we reached Koti we took an auto to Charminar. The place looked like an Arab country. Most of the people over there were muslims and i found no shops open over there. This area is called as old hyd. Generally shops in and around hyd gets opened around 11am and functions till late nights. This is the trend of people over here. We reached charminar and took some snaps and had a view of mecca masjid from charminar. Then we moved on to mecca masjid. We saw many dove in front of mecca masjid. After exploring these place we changed our platform to other side of hyd. We went to birla mandir and prayed in the temple over there. We had a view of husain sagar lake from birla mandhir. Then we went to a shop and i managed to speak in hindi to the shopkeeper and had some cool drinks. Then we marched towards an another interesting part of the day. It was none other than imax. We booked our tickets for noon show. we had about 2 hours for the movie to start on. Inspite of our busy schedule we spend our time in sight seeing. Then we enjoyed the movie over there. Since it was a weekend imax was filled with youngsters and it was amazing to see such crowd in same place. We had many snacks over there. Also we went to various shops in imax and took snaps over there. We started from there and went to lumbini park and husain sagar lake where the buddha statue was located. We took a ship to reach buddha statue. Then we started for a walk on the streets around the lake. i saw Secretariat, NTR gardens etc and finally we reached EAT Street. We finished our dinner there and got back to our home after an entertaining day.
Trip to Hyd - 20th Feb
Today was the final day of sun tech days. The time was about 8:15am when we got up. As we were very active guys we got ready quickly and reached HICC. I attended the university day programme and my brother went for social computing track. The session were over by noon and it came the final minutes at HICC and Sun tech days. Then finally went around the halls for the last time and then we started from there. We went to Amaravathy restaurant for our lunch. Once we completed our lunch we decided to kill time. We got into brand factory and started our shopping. i purchased dress over there. Then we went to hyderabad central to enjoy over there. We spend around an hour over there and i enjoyed every moment over there. Then we got share auto and got down a few kilometres ahead of our area. We had a walk over the beautiful streets and we reached home. My brother prepared dosa for me and i tried his cooking for the first time. Damn i am alive. The next day was fully allocated to visit all the important places in and around hyd.
Trip to Hyd - 19th Feb
Today we were a bit late to getup. We gotup around 7.30 and got ready and had our breakfast at zaika. Then took share auto to reach hitex city. We took some snaps over there and once again started attending the sessions. Today we were keen about the lunch and as it was crowded we left the session about ten minutes earlier. We enjoyed the lunch with some fun explored a lot towards the desserts. Then we had our ice creams. We took some snaps at various locations and had fun over there. We also had lot of time for sight seeing. We waited for some compliments and received a multipurpose device and we started from there. We planned to go to Amaravathi restaurant for our dinner. We reached there around 6pm. But the restaurant was not yet opened. It was scheduled to open at 7pm. So we changed our plan and went to Madhapur and got into Chutneys restaurant. We then got back to room. On the way we went to my friend's colleague home to give away the dinner which they asked us to get on the way. To say about hyd, it is a city with ups and downs as it was a plateau. We planned for next day's schedule and went to bed.
Trip to Hyd - 18th Feb
My brother waked me up around 6.15am to start our journey to Sun Tech Days. We got ready and went for our breakfast to Zaika rerstaurant. i had my breakfast over there and vadai was the masterpiece of Zaika. Then we got a share auto from there to jubliee hills check post. On the way i saw TDP main office and the landmark of DeShaw & Co. We then boarded on another share auto to cyber towers. Satyam Computers is on the way to cyber towers. The city was busy and it was the peak hours of hyd. People were flying and running short of time in their busy schedule. The dividers on the roads were with lawns and it was a beautiful sight to look on. The police men over here were on foots to control the traffic. The city does not bother about cross culture in share autos. Gents and ladies sit together and i felt this culture something which i have never experienced before. We took another share auto to HITEX city. The city is cent percent perfect in its security. Where ever u go u find metal detectors and security over there. i received the tags from the registration desk and entered into HICC. The crowd was about 5000 and i met my brother's colleague Malathi. She is my brother's senior. We three entered into main hall to hear the awaited keynote of James Gosling, father of java. The introductory music was fabulous and mind blowing. I had my lap and we tooked seats at the middle of the crowd. The first event was a from a drummer siddarth who was just 11 years old. The crowd was amazed by his performance. Then came James Gosling who was a simple guy came in a t-shirt to address the huge crowd. He hates microsoft products and he mentioned it during his demos. Once he completed his keynote and the various technologies he was addressing i felt that i was an illiterate but i was sure that at the end of third day i would become an literate. Then we went for our morning break. hp pavilion were the sponsors for break and lunch. we had three different kinds of biscuits and i had coffee. The coffee over there was not having the taste what we get in Tamilnadu. i tried my level best by adding four packets of sugar but still i was not able to get the taste which i desired. After the break various tracks were going on each halls. We attended web services and virtual box sessions till lunch. Then i started chatting with malathi akka and she shared her work experiences during lunch. i was impressed with the desserts over there. Then we attended the next two sessions which was on javafx. Since it was after lunch we felt very sleepy. Then once again a break followed by another two sessions. we attended one session and bunked the other. Once the sessions were over we received a travel bag. Then came the most interesting part of the day and it was party. The party started off with musical show by three musketeers followed by fashion show and dance. My brother commented that i was lucky to attend party on the first day itself in hyd. It went off till 8.30pm. We started from there and took the share auto and reached home. I ate noodles which was prepared by my brother's roommate Bhagavathy Das. Then went to bed as we have to get up the next day.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Trip to Hyd - 17th Feb
I planned to attend Sun Tech Days 2009 at Hyderabad from Feb 18th to 20th. I got OD from my college for a week and planned to start my journey on 17th evening. I started from my home at around 4pm on Feb 17th and reached airport around 5pm. My dad accompanied me to airport. Then i got my boarding pass and i bid bye to my dad. Then i went for security check where they inspected my hand luggage including my laptop. The departure of the flight was at 6.15pm. So i had to wait for sometime in the lounge till the announcement goes on. Then finally came the announcement and i moved towards Spicejet where i took some snaps in the runway and i finally settled in my seat. The flight took off exactly at 6.15pm and before few minutes of landing i looked through the window and i had a glimpse of the beautiful city of Hyderabad filled with lights. I landed at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at 7.35pm. Then i took my own time to get my bags from cargo. My brother made a call to me and said that he is on the way to airport to receive me. It was his birthday so he had some fun in his office and he got messed up in traffic. I was waiting for him at arrival section at airport. Finally we both met each other i conveyed b'day wishes to him and we took a cab to his residential area. We took NH7 to enter into Hyd city and it took an hour to enter the area where we had to reach. I was amazed to see the hoardings and the vehicles were flying on the roads. I was not able to see much of two wheelers on the roads. We reached the place around 10pm. After a long journey from airport we were hungry. He took me to a restaurant and we both had our dinner. When we completed our dinner the waiter kept a bowl of water with a piece of lemon in it and it was meant for washing our hands. It was a bit interesting to look at the kind of change i had. After our dinner we reached his home and the day came to an end.
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