A small excerpt from my life

 A lot has happened in my life from the last time I updated this blog. This is my humble effort to pen down some of them in this blog. I am the kind of person who finds motivation in the stories of other people, so if you are like me, and you are stuck in some situation which is draining all your belief and confidence upon yourself, then maybe this would be a read worthwhile.

I graduated in 2018 from NIT Agartala. Got my Bachelors done in Computer Science and Engineering, and now when I look back, it was the only SINGLE branch that I could thrive on. Infact, name me any other branch and I can point you out at least 3 things that I suck horribly at which would make my life miserable had I chosen that branch.

So after the dust settled, I had a decent job right after my college. Things were going well, within a year I could payback the education loan that I borrowed for my bachelors. And then I thought, why stop here ? So took a little more risky initiative, and brought my whole family down here in Bengaluru permanently.

I loved my job. I could work mainly on those areas which I like the most (databases), and responsibilities, respect, money all flew by hand-in-hand. And also got the luxury to live together with my joint family. How better can things possibly be ?

Life is cruel, and it would hit you hard when you expect it the least.

It was December 2019. My almost healthy father passed away due to brain hemorrhage infront of my own eyes, and I could not do anything. And within weeks, I lost my job. And there I was, stranded in a metro city with my family with absolutely no income.

It was harsh. When everything was going so smoothly, you just cannot expect such a sudden turnaround of events. And the Hindu rituals that followed after the death just made things worse, it felt like as if the same pain was intentionally inflicted upon me and my family every single day.
I could not sleep for days, had no other option but to cry myself to sleep, until the day when there no more tears to weep.

And I realized, it was time to retaliate.

So I composed myself back together, started preparing from the ground up. Applied to a lot of companies for basic SDE role, but my inbox was full of rejection emails. Some job needed 5 years of experience, and another job needed a seasoned Java developer, and so on. However, finally I got the chance to interview at three companies, and here are the experiences -

1. Google    - Google Interview Experience
2. VMware  - VMware Interview Experience
3. Zoomcar  - Zoomcar Interview Experience

I know some people who are actively looking for job and have their interviews scheduled sometime soon. If you are among them, I would be glad if those interview experiences help you in your journey.

That's all I had to say. Never give up on yourself, sometimes things will stretch so hard that you won't be able to find your feet. Still, stay strong. And in case it helps, if at some point you need any advice / just someone to hear you out, you can always reach out to me for any kind of discussion, provided that you feel comfortable.

And also, try to be as close to your family as possible. Not only during this corona-virus pandemic, but in general as well. They might not tell you, but they need you. And believe me, you need them too.

Stay safe, stay blessed.
Until next time.

Day 3-4

These two days had been quite a hectic one. I was unable to manage some time to post anything yesterday, so I thought let's merge the happenings of both these days in this blog.

Day 3:
Yesterday's morning had been one of the best mornings I ever had in my life! I bet this goes equally with both Dipanjan and Udayan as well. We woke up, freshened ourselves and took to our breakfast, and it was already time to register ourselves and collect the whole lot of goodies that this event had to offer us! We registered ourselves in the event, and as we went to claim our Codechef T-shirts (how I wanted this t-shirt!), we were told that first we have to click ourselves in a specific theme! We proceeded.....

We did a little paperwork, collected the goodies and it was already time for lunch! (Remember the timings? :D) I kept on hoping that the lunch will be a mixed blend of sweet and sour... and I was quite disheartened as it was almost all sour until.....

Payesh! (Can you see it?)

While we were counting hours for the competition to start, we planned to have a practice session that would help in increasing our chances in the event. And there's no better place to think and code than sitting in a quite greenery with peace all around.

After having a good time practicing, we thought to stroll in the fields. The field had some special members as well.....

                                                                                     

                                   

                                        

Baidya and Dipanjan were upto their creative skills again ...

We went on to attend the welcome ceremony in the evening. Again, I must repeat the words. Mesmerizing! Hypnotizing! Don't believe me? Have a look.

And then there were some stellar performances...

                                       
                               Last but not the least...not forgetting the BANQUET

Day 4:

                                           Today was the ultimate showdown.

We had some light breakfast and went on to march towards the event hall. The contest was scheduled to start at 9:00, but anyway, it started from 9:30 and continued till 3 pm!

To be honest here, we could have performed better. We got a great start in the beginning, but slowly our progress got decelerated. We overlooked a simple trick in one problem that kept us bugging for long, and slowly our confidence went down as well. We tried our best, but maybe it just wasn't our day.

We had our lunch after the contest ended and went on towards the discussion arena. There were some discussions over the problems posed in the contest followed up by the awards ceremony.

That's it for today. Although it had been not at all the way I wanted the contest to go for us, but never mind, we all had a good exposure of the real contest scenario. We would take this great experience with us as we leave Coimbatore in a day or two.....and I am sure that would really benefit us in our coming future.

Tomorrow is Excursion day. A lot of teams are going to visit several interesting places of Coimbatore, and we are going as well. The next blog would update the excursion. Stay tuned!

Day 2

                    We reached Coimbatore today. It was almost 5 in the morning.

Coimbatore Railway Station

We barely reached to the entrance gate where we saw Baidya, suited up in a completely formal attire. With three of us united, the only thing left for us was to spot the bus that would take us to our destination "Amrita University", where the event is going to take place the day after tomorrow.
With a bit of exploration we eventually found the yellow bus, parked at the rear entrance of the station. No wonder, thanks to our excitement, we were the first team to reach the bus.
But soon enough we could spot teams from various colleges boarding the bus, and when the clock struck 7, we all were ready to go!

Amrita Campus:
Mesmerizing! Hypnotizing!'
What a wonderful campus! It is vast, with large buildings all around. And then there are long roads that are surrounded by green patches of land. It's so neat that you won't even dare to throw trash here and there, and with the placement of statues of Hindu Gods like Shiva, Saraswati  before almost every building, it's definitely the best campus I have seen so far. Before I continue to the next part do have a look in the beauties that this campus has to offer!

And then.....a small glimpse of the beautiful garden...

Soon enough, we got our room as well.....

We left the room once we got our belongings settled inside the room and looked forward to explore the campus further, but wait..... our stomachs had something else to say.

BREAKFAST TIME! :D

The canteen is quite good. It's large, with dozens of tables and lots of well-equipped chefs! Hygiene 10/10. As we kept on scrolling the menu, we soon had all of our eyes fixed in a specific item that appeared to be delicious, and thankfully, was really delicious. It was "Poori Aloomasala", and along with it a cup of soda satisfied our tummies quite easily!

Bas, we were ready! We planned to take a bath and start exploring the other parts of the campus...when something happened.

After I finished my bath I returned to my room, only to find the door locked. Initially I thought that I was being the victim of a prank played by these two monkeys, but well, when I kept on banging the door for 15 mins and nothing happened, I started to worry a bit. My phone was also inside the room, and I was left outside with nothing but my dresses and a towel :P

I assumed them to be in a deep sleep, which is quite natural after the long tiresome journey we all had the previous day. So I roamed the campus to kill sometime, came back, and fortunately they were awake by now. Great save for me!

It was already lunch time, and being completely honest, this was a terrible lunch.We took a bit of all the items but when we started tasting them each and everyone turned out to be sour. Too sour, I mean. I finally took to rice, dal, papad and nimbu paani, and came back to our dal, papad and nimbu paani, and came back to room, with dissapointment.

It was evening and we planned to start exploring again! Moreover, we all geared up ourselves with Polemon Go! , and provided the fact that I got quite a few pokemons here (We three had already started collecting them from the moment we reached the campus!), we all had high hopes!

And we stumbled upon BumbleBee.....

And some few more pics.....

                      

It was time for grasses to get some water, so the sprinklers were activated. And there were a LOT of them.

And then the game began- "Escape the Sprinklers :P "

Not to get wet...and waiting for the right moment.....until

RUN!!  RUN!!  RUN!!  RUN!!  RUN!!  

Can you spot some of the sprinklers?

We finally arrived to our room. It was around 6.30 pm, but dinner was about to be provided from 7 to 8 (how can someone take his dinner at this time of the day?), so we took some rest and made our way to the hall where dinner was being served. 

And it was not at all like lunch. We enjoyed it and were quite happy!

That's all that sums up our "today". Tomorrow is an important day. There would be registration followed up by practice sessions for the upcoming main event to be held on the day after tomorrrow!

We would try to give our best! Let's see what happens. Wish us luck!

Day 1

I reached Chennai yesterday by 10 pm. And Dipanjan's flight would arrive at 2 am!

After a long, lonely journey to Chennai, the only thing left to make my life more miserable was waiting for more four hours sitting inside the airport. I looked in my phone. It was 10.10 pm, and my battery was a run short to make a half-century. I started to watch the movie "Dishoom", and thanks to the battery of ASUS Max, I could watch it fully!

It was around 1.50 am, and Dipanjan came.

We spent the whole night inside the airport, planning all the things that are to be done the next day (today!). We eventually booked a hotel and at around sunrise we checked into it. We needed a small nap before we could start exploring.....CHENNAI!

We woke up in the afternoon. Our plans for Mahabalipuram got spoiled, as it's quite far and we had a train to catch at night. If only we woke up earlier.....

Once we got ourselves freshened, we searched for bong restaurants, but nay, it was in vain. At the end we made our way to a North-Indian cuisine.

After the eating has been done, it was time to start our Chennai-darshan. :D

We started with the Ispahani Centre. A decent sized building, hosting a variety of shops. But what we were interested in was it's Game Center. We found it's location and proceeded to venture into the unknown game.

It was named "Nuclear Countdown". In brief, some naughty scientist has planted a bomb, and you need to defuse it. Sounds easy, right? It was not...
We were taken inside a room. It had lots of components and monitors and a 45-minute timer as well. We had to find clues and decipher codes ( trust me, they were quite tricky! ) and defuse the bomb within the alotted time. Else, you know.....

We played well. Actually we could find all clues but when it comes to deciphering codes, one of the ciphers took it's toll and we were almost nearing a defeat... when suddenly things got better, we kept on solving and finally could defuse the bomb 8 mins before it would blast :P

I am extremely amazed by the game. There were many other games as well of the same genre, and they were costly, but totally worth it.

We proceeded to games of another genre. Virtual Reality.

In one game we were in an open airbaloon, and things were going right until an eagle came and bursted our baloon. In this situation we were provided a small plank leading to another baloon and we had to walk on it without falling down.

It was a thrilling experience! I struggled a lot but couldn't finish the game. Dipanjan came like a boss and aced it!

We played two other games as well, in one we were in a spaceship in alienspace, fighting with other spaceships, and in another we had to ride a dragon and collect eggs placed in several places while maneuvering the dragon. It was mesmerising! I performed excellently in these games and levelled the score with Dipanjan. :D

Next we went to St. Teresa's Church. It was huge, boasting a nice ambience as well.

We continued towards Marina Beach, but everytime we took an entrance it directed us only to some other place. The beach was in plain sight though.

We visited the Anna Memorial. A great weather, a friend beside, we felt good! After the hot and harsh weather out here the whole day, this provided some relief!

And finally! We found the right entrance to the beach! The waves were definitely not gentle, but I felt so good as they kept on arriving, periodically striking my feet.

We spent some more time there, playing shooting games and checking out the surroundings.

And finally, it was time to say Goodbye to Chennai. We have already boarded the Nilgiri Express that will take us to Coimbatore, and it has already started soaring while I am writing these things here.

It was a great experiece here. The next time I would come to Chennai I would make sure that I have plenty of days at my disposal!

Tomorrow awaits a new day. Udayan is joining us tomorow morning.

Coimbatore, here we come.

Day 0

Finally. The time has come.
Today we embark on our 10-day trip, and everyday I would try to post something of the cherry-merry moments that we spend around here!

What to do in long plane journeys? This question has been something that I was pondering over for sometime, and here it is! Now I myself have a journey from Guwahati to Chennai and although the travel time is just 3 hours, well, sitting tucked up in a small aisle seat is not at all how I would like to spend any "3 hours" of my life! The plane has already started drifting towards it's destination and I was wondering, looking out through the elliptical window trying to figure out what to do in the meantime. I plugged on my earphones, and as Tochi Raina's "Kabira" made it's way through my ears, I suddenly felt a drizzle of nostalgia all over. And that's when I made up my mind. Let's blog the trip and note into it the memories that we make here.


Guwahati:
This vacation has till been quite a handfull for me! First of all, I got to meet my family after a whopping 15 months! And now, I am leaving again. Time runs fast, doesn't it?
I was already looking forward to the upcoming ICPC competition in Coimbatore, and was quite happy regarding that, and to put the cherry in the cake, my semester results ended up to be quite good (Unexpectedly!).
Guwahati has also some places to offer, and the hillside view is amazing! I didn't get to spend a good no of days here, but I will definitely like to spend sometime here in the near future!

Although the crest of a wave
doesn't last long enough, but who cares!? I am quite happy in the moment and that's what finally brings up an upward smile in my face as I jot these down sitting inside the plane.

Three CSEians, left by themselves in a thrilling journey before them. Want to know what happens next? Janne ke liye padhte rahiye.....

Finding Happiness...

Hello everyone! Had been a long time I scribbled something up, isn't it? Well, I was a bit stuffed up with my personal works, & hence couldn’t continue my 'once-a-week' schedule of writing new posts in my blog. But nevermind, I am back with a new topic for my loving, sincere readers. Hope you enjoy reading it :-)

Happiness…well, it can be defined both as a one-liner, as a paragraph, or someone can even write an essay on it. It seems that people understand it's meaning quite well. But the irony lies here… Although they understand it's meaning well, but they hardly become successful in achieving it.

(At this point, I must stop for a while & make an obvious point--> I am not a philosophical expert, neither I am trying to give some religious lectures on how to achieve happiness or something. I am just sharing my viewpoints on this whole thing.)

After all, Nobody can achieve the highest level of happiness for eternity, because the moment they reach this level, the current highest level shifts to a new higher level. In a nutshell, the previous line just expands the well-known fact: Man Is Greedy. 

But, inspite of that, we can do a few things (which might not necessarily achieve this "happy-forever" model), but would atleast try to accomplish a miniature version of it.

Follow these points sequentially

• Stop lamenting  --> Obviously. An hour of pondering & lamenting over the matter, along with a bucket full of tears would do no good. [ Yeah crying is necessary sometimes…but a bucket? Seriously? :'( :P ].

• Cut at the roots  -->  Yes. That's important. If you are unhappy, first & foremost identify all those negative energies which are responsible for your sadness. And only one thing left to do. Delete them from your memory (Shift + Del, pun :D).

• Be Strong  --> Be mentally strong (Sorry six-packians, I didn’t mean physique :P), & thus make yourself adaptable in handling any kind of traumatic situation.

• Expect Failure  --> Ofcourse. Rome was not built in a day, & so expecting success at the first attempt is like dreaming to become Zuckerberg overnight. Learn from the mistakes, and as the wise man says, "Try & Fail…But Never Fail To Try".

• Be Satisfied  --> Well it is perhaps one of the most important points (ummm, all of them are important though :D). Believe it or not, the other name for "Happiness" is "Satisfaction". If you are completely satisfied with something, then you are well on with it. "Everyday try to do a lot, but at the end, even if it is a little, be content with it". And happiness will follow automatically.

• Keep yourself happy  --> Sounds quite mainstream, right? Well I have a good  (& obvious) idea to achieve the same. Do try to achieve something, everyday. Now, there would be days which would be quite fruitful for you, while the rest would be non-productive days. Here comes the twist… Make them productive! Not necessarily by what job you are already doing, but by trying out something new [in which you hold the degree of an expert! :-) ] for a while! That can be any job…from any hard, tedious job to a simple job, even any small activity/passtime you are interested in! Just make sure you are good at it, & thus can achieve a feat on it. This point is a direct consequence of the fact, that it's human nature to ponder over what outcome we did achieve at the end of the day. So everyday, before you go to sleep, make sure you have something good to ponder about, regarding what you did on that very particular day!

And last but not the least… Spread Happiness & Positivity! Even if you follow all the above steps & still can't get yourself out of the trauma, just try to make some other person happy! Because this very notion… that someone else is happy due to "ME" , itself is a boon & quite relieves us of our sadness to a great extent, if not completely!

Trust me, it works! :-)

So that's all from me for now. Hope you liked reading it. Do follow up with your views on the comments section below.Thanks again for reading! 

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Disclaimer:  This post has absolutely nothing to do with the popular American sitcom show "F.R.I.E.N.D.S." .  No character or event cited about in this post has any resemblance with this show, & in case there is any, its purely co-incidental.

Hello everyone!

First of all, if you are reading this post thinking that it's about "F.R.I.E.N.D.S." , the American show, then my apologies, it's got nothing of the sort. But still, do read on a bit further, I guess it won't be a bad experience after all.
So...lets start up!

You know, its actually the very first formal entry in my blog, & I was kinda wondering what are the potential topics I should write about, & suddenly this whole idea struck me! That is, why not throw some light over those people, who made my life, the best life that I could ever imagine to realize & experience in the real time!

As you have already guessed whom I am referring to... yeah,they are the members of a special set of my life,, my set of "FRIENDS" :-)

And each & everyone of them are so different but so interesting in their own way :D .
Hola! , when I say they are interestingly different (or differently interesting, whatever :P), I mean it :D

Just to acknowledge a few... there's those who remain as Mr.Serious all the time, and then there's another group who just can't get serious over anything in life ( :P ) , & then there's those who remain confused all the time (LOL), there are those who are obsessed with a range of entities, ranging from hair & beards to grades & marks to tolly-bolly actors like Dev & RK :D, & then there's another group of saddists too, who would find atleast a  single reason to be unhappy in any situation (sounds weird, but anyway), on the contrary there's the jolly ones too(the mast-maula type), & then there's the foodies ( I am a foodie too, so love them)...& many more mad, but dear ones!

While writing this post I turned a bit philosophical, & so I was thinking if I could associate some more meaning with this tag of "FRIENDS",  & so I did put on a few minutes trying to discover something (might sound crazy, but typical of me).

And it all came down to this : F.R.I.E.N.D.S. -> Formulla Required to Increase Enjoyment N Decrease Sadness (ain't that good, but chalta hain :D)

(In case you are an abbv-jerk like me & want to make some improvement over this full-form, or might come up with a quite different,but interesting one... do proceed to the comments section :-), I would be more than pleased to derive ideas from you!) .

My whole idea of writing this post, apart from the aforementioned reason of acknowledging my FRIENDS, is to emphasize on the real meaning & importance of FRIENDS in our daily life. Just imagine, you wake up one day & you realize, that you have unlimited call pack( if it existed :P), but
nobody to talk to...unlimited internet, but nobody to chat with...unlimited money(wow :p), but nobody to spend for... I wont go further, things have already tensed up.

Got the essence? It would be so horrible! We are completely paralyzed without our FRIENDS, atleast I am, & I admit that. There are people out there I know of, who say "I don't care. I am self-sufficient & I don't need anybody around me." ...

I feel pity for them. Now they won't realize but with the passage of time, one day they would realize how wrong they were! And then, they would want to come back to the past & act accordingly but alas!... life ain't a game. It does not have a restore point where you can save & thus return back later.

So make the most out of the time you have today with your F.RI.E.N.D.S.  , because tomorrow, it might just be a bit late.

That's all I had in store for now. Hope you liked it. Do indicate your presence & follow up in the comments section, I would love to hear from you.

You can hear from me again the next Sunday. Keep reading & enjoying :-)