I'm Home!

The first day or rather first evening in Gainesville. Me standing with Deepika and Vineesha outside Gainesville Regional Airport. Hardly had the chance to speak to anyone in Hindi except among the 3 of us. As I stared at the unfamiliar coins in my hand, on the brink of making a phone call, I suppressed a chilling, depressing thought "I'm too far from home!"

Then Varun and the ISA ppl show up to pick us up. Its my first conversation in Hindi in Gainesville. On reaching A103 Regency Oaks, Ananya's friendliness and helpfulness disarms me. Those were the days of "first" everything. First visit to Butler Plaza, first courier arrives home, first phone call from new phone, first day at university, first visit to CISE... and the list is just too long to put down here though I will certainly describe a few memorable firsts!

There was that first DBI project when we stared at the computer screen for an hour not knowing what to do. Thanks to Nikhil's generous donation in terms of time and brain-power, we got thru it and how! The first Algos assignment where "regrade" was a frightening concept given that for Mumbai Univ regrade means waiting till your next sem exam gets over! But here ofcourse "regrade" means a chance to justify urself and on some occasions redo your work for more marks!

Another notable first would be my visit to food-joints here. Cici's was the privileged first but now endless visits to Starbucks, Subway, Noodle Bar, etc. have made me lost track of the chronological order in which I discovered the delights of American Fast Food.

There are surely those major firsts like the first Gator Night and first day at the University but those are probably well documented and reported on blogs elsewhere. I won't strain my fingers typing them out here or risk boring u with them!

From those first moments I slowly set into a routine. The visits to Publix and gigglingly cursing the cart as we dragged it back full of groceries. Finding out just why Betty and Veronica drool over yet try not to give in to having a Banana Split. Studies and more studies at Library West. Long trips in search of a campus job. Exams and assignments.

Taking an account of the things I believe counts me in as part of the desi grad students population here...I have a job, an SSN, an address that I put in at countless places, a cell-phone, a UFID and a Gator1 card, a BOA account and its debit card. I stay up late-night doing assignments or doing timepass. I get spam mails in my name in the mailbox. I have a UFL mail and a CISE mail account as well. I don't think Krishna Lunch's food is bland anymore, infact I enjoy it as "tasty food". I don't need a map to walk around the campus now.

Even more than these small things, I have lots of friends here who will always help me, be it a difficult assignment, falling ill, getting upset or just generally feeling moody. Thanks to Swati and Megha, there are memories of good cooking (yumm) made with them, outings to Lake Wauburg, Oaks Mall and various small-time places with them, gossip sessions late night and movies watched with them. Interesting coffee sessions and depressing assignment sessions...we have seen them all. Its time to start a memory book here too!

And that one thing that qualified me to type out this post is Janki's visit to UF today. Showing her the bus routes, helping her get her Gator1 card, seeing that she needs a map to find her way about, telling her about various facts and figures she'll need...all those very same things happened to us when it was the 'first' phase of life in Gainesville.

Today after 40 lectures * 3, 10 + 5 + 3 = 18 assignments/projects, countless moments as described above and the realisation that its a few short months before we are "seniors", I can confidently and happily say "I'm in Gainesville...but I'm home!!"

The Making of a Grad Course Project

Projects are an inseparable, typical, all-encompassing, essential, fundamental, constitutional... (alrite alrite I agree I Googled those synonyms!) of a graduate CS student's life! So here is how they are begun, made and ended!

You get up one fine sunny day and try to deceive urself into thinking that you have many more hrs of peaceful sleep left when actually u hav just a few mins. The cell-phone alarm you set yesterday night at 4.30 a.m. rings and u realise its 9.30 a.m. U curse urself and the alarm and put it on snooze and try to get back to that dream u wer having (abt a maal ladki/ladka??)

The phone starts ringing again! U are nt one bit surprised tht ur internal clock is so jumbled up it can't count the minutes right and snooze time is over! But surprises, its a phone frm ur project partner (the one who got up early and attended the lecture u intend to watch on video!). "The next assignment is out! And due in a week!"


Gayi waapis raaton ki neend and gaya waapis din ka chain! So then it begins this way :-

• First 2 days, do nothing abt the project bcos u already hav other imp tasks and a week is like an eon to some1 used to working at the speed of light b4 submissions.
• Next 3 days, try getting something done but mostly gossip around in the lab. Atleast the framework is ready.
• 4th day, panic bcos u cudnt understand nething in the lecture abt the project. Finish ur coding as fast as u can without a damn to whether it will run or not.
• 5th day, its a Friday and the prof. tells u in class tht the deadline is postponed to Wed bcos the test driver is nt yet up :)
• 6, 7th day, wait around for the test driver. Heck, its ur weekend neway. U can spend it watching Race or lecture videos. Something at the back of ur mind tells u "Coding khatam hui is statement mein koi information nahi hai"
• 8th day, the test driver is out. Start testing ur project.

The testing starts with compiling the code. U get 600+ compilation errors at the first go bcos u forgot what u named ur functions and variables half way thru the project! So u fix compilation errors...300...210...91...83...44...17...3...2...1...segmentation fault! Oh tht last part comes after all compilation errors are gone and u start the program. I'm never gonna code for rockets, missles, bombers, etc. for this very reason u kno!

Then u rush thru the debugging with GDB and lots of couts and more frustration and more Gatorade and more curses at PuTTY, WinSCP, ur proj partner (he/she curses u too :) ). Then is the "Bachao!" time when you start calling and buzzing other teams on GTalk abt doubts and more doubts. So in the hope of getting ur project up and running u rush on Sunday aftnoon to college but don't understand any of the explanation tht others giv neways.

Then u find out there r no buses to come bak (those with a car or a cycle ignore this!) so u curse RTS (ur delighted to find a live target for ur frustration...not a little black & white window for a change!)

So after a lot of exhaustive (for u) testing, the project is up and running just fine! Then u discover another bug 1 hr b4 submitting! After some high BP, frantic calls and frantic buzzes on GTalk, u discover its a bug with the test driver. "Bewakoof" TA...cursing him/her for almost giving u a heart-attack u fix it. Nw the proj is surely up and running and u submit it!

U forget abt this after a while till u receive a 0 in the proj and are called by the TA for a demo! A prog tht works just fine and is running in top shape receiving 0??!! U confront the TA incredulously! On running the TA's test cases u find a bug in ur previous assignment's code.

Oops! Hehe!! "I'll jus fix it and show u a demo again." Thank God for nice TAs, ur marks r increased to 100 and there ends the story of ur project. By the time u fixed the bug and re-submitted the project and sent a mail to the TA, its 4.30 a.m. U set the alarm for 9.30 a.m. and try to get back to that dream u wer having (abt a maal ladki/ladka??).....

Satyameva Jayate!

Some days back, while explaining our National Emblem to students of Hawthorne Middle School, I stressed on these words as being an integral part of our emblem. Literally translated, they mean "Truth alone triumphs." Morally they mean a lot more.

We are awarded a wealth of knowledge through this simple quote. It stands not only for the end that is always achieved by the righteous but it also stands for the battle that we must fight for achieving that end.

India's history teems with sacrifices, wars and broken hopes to achieve this message. The Ramayana, the Mahabharata all describe the fight for truth. Our stories from the Panchatantra and plays like Bhasa's Swapna-Vasavadutta all describe this very ambition at their core. The beauty of this phrase is reflected in world-wide literature with Romeo-Juliet, Illiad and Odyssey and even If Tomorrow Comes.

Why am I quoting a mixture of love stories, thrillers, mythology and history to illustrate this straight-forward term? Because I believe that "truth" has a different meaning to each person, each situation. For Ram it may be defeating Ravan, for Udayana it was a refusal to teach Pradyota, for Tracy Whitney it was getting back at an unjust system. Depending on the way you look at it, "Saytameva Jayate" translates to a picture of bloodshed and misery or to a rosy picture of flowers and love.

There have been numerous occasions in my life when I was faced with a battle, however insignificant, to uphold this ideal I firmly believe in. 'If you are right, make sure everyone knows it, no matter how long it takes and how high its price.' Perhaps I should change that to everyone who matters. Sometimes it just close friends and people and at other times its everyone I know.

This very principle has of course been applied numerous times in my academics since that's where you can be reasonable and logical yet the grader isn't always so. Maybe 4 years with Mumbai University and a spate of its depressing results led me away from believing in this adage and trying to achieve it my way but it was my continuous effort to try and enforce this.

No amount of deterrent has ever stopped me from pursuing what I believe is right, whether it is to more marks, a better project or no material gains atall! So comeon folks, get up and follow me, to make "Satyameva Jayate"!