I’m back in UAE!

Four fabulous years at IIT Madras has come to an end. Well, I’ll get back one-last-time for the convocation, but the thought of never getting to live, the way I lived the last 4 years is heart-wrenching.

But, Dubai never ceases to surprise me. I’ve set a few goals for this summer, and they seem to be right on track! I’ve continued my running “career” (I should say), by making sure I run ~4-6 km every alternate day (early morning). Along with that, I’ve taken to swimming. I’m an amateur swimmer, but my progress in the past 2-3 weeks has been quite promising. Panting for breath after swimming 25m (breast-stroke) to slowly increasing it to 400m has been exhilarating. For this, I would like to thank you-tube and the set of breast-stroke technique videos. They’ve helped me better my breathing technique, making my swim more efficient.

After a close-friend told me that I might be better of reducing some pounds, I’ve been working on that aspect too. On doing some online-reading, I drew this conclusion => working out is important, but if you don’t have a control over your diet, the attempt is pointless. Yes, barring these two factors, your genetic make-up plays a significant role too. (Thou shalt blame thy parents/ancestors for that :P)

Now, coming to the academic goals I had in mind. I enthusiastically started working on my Thesis, trying to make some significant advances. But, after working on the problem for a few days, it seemed like I had reached an impasse (Here, there wasn’t any disagreement, but mere scientific inaccuracies). Then, I shifted my focus to learning simple web-dev/android tools. And, there was a domino-effect.

#Apographi – Team!

Learning webdev tools — Visited many blogs — Heard about Hackathon in UAE — Formed a team — and finally ended with us winning the third place.

T’was my second Hackathon. And, I should say, it was significantly different from hackathons in India. Getting to network with start-up founders, VC’s, angel investors was a brilliant experience. Special credit to Mr. Tariq (our mentor) who shared his excitement about our project by helping me formulate a fantastic pitch for our idea.

Apart from networking and learning, the day ended well, with us getting a cash-prize of AED 9000; plus a crystal plaque and a certificate. Apart from the materialistic benefits, the feeling of winning in UAE after 4 year dry-spell (while in IIT) is fantastic! (A video of the same posted by the dubai-smart-govt: https://instagram.com/p/3re6k4QV2M/

Pitching our idea!

After Hamdan Award, Sharjah Award and Honda-YES; This is the next big-prize that has significantly filled my pocket 😀

Priyankaa, Me, Atul (Atul – the epitome of sincerity & muggu-ness)

The last few weeks have been fantastic. I’m done with my grand-viva, BTP Review and a few minor projects. To all those who don’t know what a grand-viva is, let me elaborate that further. It is a ~1:30 hour long session, with the student standing beside a black/white board with a marker in his/her hand in front of a panel of professors (~6-7 profs). They question the candidate on courses the student has taken in the past 4 years at IITM. I didn’t know a couple of questions, but answered quite a few too. Well, the “net” experience was positive 😛

Junaid, Srivatsav, Pratyusha, Senthamizh, Manu, Priyankaa, Me (The BT Family!)

I am finally done receiving all my admits & rejects. In all, it’s 6 admits and 2 rejects of the 8 places, I applied to. That said, I’m entitled to choosing a single university. I’ve chosen MS(Research) in Carnegie Mellon University. Even though, UC Berkeley has a slightly bigger name, I felt CMU would fit my interests (wrt exploring biomedical diagnostics and therapeutics). Plus, a couple of good friends will be coming along with me to CMU.

Having said that, I experience infinite nostalgia when the thought of leaving IITM crosses my head. Of all the schools I’ve attended in the past 15-18 years, this has been the best of all. I’ve experienced a true sense of belonging over here. Of all the friend circles I’ve had, this is one place where I could fit in, without any effort. Let me reiterate that “Zero Effort”.

Institute Day – with grandparents!

With Junaid (Room-mate ho to aisa :D)

The institute has been kind by organizing multiple “hang-out” sessions; where members of our batch can meet, talk, laugh and cry. Well, apart from the above activities, for the ‘photo-whore’ in me, I’ve featured in infinitely many pictures! So, here are some pictures, from the OAT dinner, hostel night(s) and from Institute day. Oh, I won a prize during the institute day this year too. This time I’ve clicked some pictures with my grandparents who came all the way to IITM, to witness that one-minute, where I got to share the stage with the director, professors and a few distinguished alumni :’)

Supreeth, Me, Srivatsav and Junaid

Institute Day prize

Most of my courses in IITM have stressed that every product designed should be “novel” technologically plus it should be made keeping the users requirements in mind. So, instead of assuming the user’s requirements, it’s best to meet, interact with users in order to determine what functionality they might require in the product. 

Magician

Children viewing Magic Show

The first phrase I uttered on the day of my first Half-marathon was: “Oh F***, We’re Late”.

We (Me & Atul) left for Puducherry on 7th evening at around 5 pm. After an arduous bus-journey, we reached our hotel (Ram-International) by 9.30 pm. The delay was due to infinite traffic in chennai, coupled with the fact that our bus was moving at snails pace.

We overloaded ourselves with 2 butter Na’ans & a Kulcha, a high-carbohydrate diet, in order to ensure none of us face hypoglycemia the next day. Done with dinner, we reached our rooms and crashed. I set 4-5 alarms just-in-case. But, all the efforts were in vain. We ended up waking up at 5:30 AM, missed the 5:15 AM free shuttle to Auroville from pondicherry. Our run was scheduled to flag-off at 6:15 AM and we estimated that we would reach the start-line only by 6:30 AM. But, luck wasn’t on our side. We started the run only by 6:45 AM.

21.1 km Marathon – Bib

The first 3 km were a cake-walk. That is when I started having a mild-knee ache. This was absurd, mainly because I’ve never had pain in the knee while running, be it 3km or 10km. Once I reached the second aid station, I used the volini spray to numb the pain. This helped me boost my speed for the covering the next 9 km. After a while, I saw the placard labelled 15km. The excitement was tremendous. Having completed 15km, I had to complete 6 more. Not a very difficult task after all, I felt. I continued running at the same pace. After crossing roughly 2 Aid-stations, refilling my system with electrolytes and glucose, I reached the 18km mark.  On reaching the 18k Mark, I realized my knee ache was back again, with the only exception it was much worse. Thanks to another Aid-station, volini did the magic again! I was back on the track at a much lower pace, but strong enough to complete the run.  There was tremendous joy when volunteers screamed that I was at the last 500 meters of my race. I sprinted from then on. After 2-3 minutes, I had 200 meters to go, could see the finish line and picked up my pace again. I ended my first 21.1km Half-marathon at 2hrs and 28 min, which translates to an average running speed of ~ 8.5km/hr.

A more experienced marathoner has expressed his excitement about the Auroville Marathon. Well, he run the Full Marathon and his blog post is just a delight to read. Please take a look at it. On reading the same, I notice the immaturity in my post – as a beginner marathoner and the maturity in his.
(http://soulfulgrowing.com/the-agony-and-ecstacy-at-auroville-marathon/)

Having spoken about some of the intricacies of my run, I would like to present some background of my “Athletic abilities” back in Dubai (over the first 15 years of my life) – A stark contrast of my current life.

My family (Dad, Mom, Sister and Me) has been excited about exercise in general, and walking to be specific. But, we never set high “Athletic” targets to meet. We were regular runners at 2 famous marathons in Dubai (namely, Standard Chartered and Samsung Marathon). We used to always go for the 3km fun-run. While in my 12th grade, I struggled to finish a 3km run – sprinting 0.5km and walking the rest. I never trained while at school and used to hate running.

I started jogging at IITM from my 2nd year, when a couple of friends (Balaji, Atul, Aritra) decided to start running with the sole objective of burning some fat. For me, losing weight was my initial goal. The mess at IITM helped me pull down ~6kg and the morning runs probably ~2kg.

More than the number 21.1, I’m excited about my improvement over the past 2-3 years at IIT-M.
From 1km (At Dubai[Grade 9-12])–> 4km (Mandak-Maingate-Mandak[2nd year]) –> 6km (Terry Fox Run[2nd & 3rd year]) to 10km (T+ Run at Anna University[4th year]) –> 16 km (GC-Maingate-GC (4 times) [4th year]) and finally to 21km (Auroville Marathon[4th year]). 

It has been a fabulous journey, and I hope to scale up to the Full Marathon (42.2 km) and then the Ultra Marathon (50km) in next 2-3 years (probably at Graduate-school). I’m attempting my 2nd half-marathon next month (March 22nd).

Talking about Graduate school, I finally got my first admit from Cornell University. I hope the other admits follow 🙂

The term “IIT” and its inhabitant “IITian” has been used, abused in almost every Indian household atleast once. And, now we feature in most memes and websites. I recently came across a dating site exclusively for IITians, something called dateiitians.com. WoW. Innovative stuff. Well, I fear the site might be populated by guys alone.

I’m no sexist, and the earlier comment was meant to reflect the poor sex ratio at most IITs. It’s a pity that there are not many girls here. Well, I could attribute that to the importance “modern” parents give to marrying their daughters away, nurture them to be mediocre because an IITian girl cannot find a guy more qualified than herself. Hmmm. And, this is the typical mindset in most families, ranging from conservative to bold risk-takers, every one.

Being in IIT, I fall into an existential crisis quite often. Seeing my friends at other institutes post pictures of their outings during Onam, New Year, X, Y and Z, I question myself : “Is all this ‘Fight’ really worth it?”; “What do I plan to gain out of all this?”; “Why not just enjoy my present to the fullest?” Every single time these questions flash in front of me, I pat my back and say, “If they enjoy 1x now, you’re creating a future to enjoy 100x”. Now, this statement has become a joke. I mean seriously, I’m surprised that I’ve been so gullible to believe in this fact for all these years.

Living with such questions, I often wait for miracles aka achievements to “tell” me, “Yes, I’m doing the right thing”.

Shaastra and Saarang, the two fantastic festivals conducted by IITM are done, and my last semester has begun. Shaastra gave me 30k, couple of shirts, bags , while during Saarang, I attended my first dance workshop. I won the IITM Research expo and was awarded with Rs 30k, while the consolation prize at an android app development competition got me some goodies. And, I finally went for a Salsa dance workshop this time, thanks to Shreya who teamed up with me.

A really fun start to this year. One of the movies I watched recently was the “Pirates of Silicon Valley”. It’s an old film (1999 release), depicting the birth of 2 Computer Giants, Microsoft and Apple.

Let me end this post with some memes. All are IIT Memes. Most, True.

“It’s been such a long time since I last blogged.” Well, I couldn’t find a more appropriate line to start this post.

Yes, my last semester (7th-sem) was the major reason for this long period of hibernation. Even though, it was really hectic, with a course-load of close to 30 credits, I thoroughly enjoyed most of the courses I took up. [For those relatively new to the education-system at undergraduate college/universities – 30 credits is a LOT. Most universities in the US “force” their students to take close to 30 credits in TWO semesters, and is deemed impossible to be completed in a single semester.]

My semester was a fun-one, and the winter that followed was quite interesting as well. This time, the first time since I joined IITM, I took close to a month’s break. All these years at IITM, I’ve had long summer (~3-months) & winter breaks(~1-month), but I’ve always been keen on keeping them only a week-long, and then heading for an internship/project.

This winter, I spent my time, applying to graduate schools, learning the basics of Django (not the movie), and speaking to a lot of people. The “speaking” came a bit late in the winter, and most of it was with friends who were with me at Meccademia. It was exciting to know their exotic plans for the future, ranging from pursuing a Masters/PhD to founding a start-up. Of all our discussions, I learnt one thing – “Machine Learning (ML)” is an important tool every engineer should possess. I was introduced to Neural Networks, unsupervised learning and the basics of ML in my 7th semester by the course titled “Computational Neuroscience”. [Even though I had a course-based introduction, most of my understanding came from this set of lecture-videos by Dr. Yaser at Caltech]

Of all the things I’ve learnt at IITM, I’m happy that I explored athletics. I recall my disinterest in running while in school, barely managing to complete the 3 Km Fun-runs conducted by Standard Chartered. Now, this has changed for the good; My morning walks at IITM converted to Morning runs and now to marathons. This winter, I completed my first un-official half-marathon (21.1km) in ~3.30 hrs. [I wasn’t registered for the marathon, and hence took a different route to complete ~21 km] My next half-marathon is in two months (Feb 9th) – The Auroville Marathon – close to Puducherry. I’ve re-started my training, and now that I’m back in IITM for my last semester, I’m going to make the best use of its big-campus.

Auroville

I’ve been reading Peter Thiel’s book “Zero To One” the past few days. It’s an excellent read for start-up enthusiasts. In my next blog post, I plan to provide a summary of the book and the important pointers I have gathered from my first complete read. [For those of who’ve never heard of Peter Thiel, he’s the co-founder of Paypal]

I’ve been a Rahmaniac since birth; followed and relished every single composition. His mesmerizing composition never fails to “up” my spirits.

This time, it’s different. It doesn’t just “up” my spirits, but I end up getting goosebumps every time I replay the song. And, part of the credit goes to Lata ji. Her voice compliments Rahman’s composition brilliantly. 

Having used so many adjectives to describe Rahman and Lata ji, I’m going to attach the clip. Watch it, and enjoy! A small primer:- This video is specifically made to support women empowerment.