It is Festember X this year!

Though I’ve completed my course at NITT, I still have that enthusiasm when I hear about the upcoming Festember. Hardly a month to go.

Festember X

The next edition of Festember is here in true cowboy style loaded with guns, hats and wagons. This years its being called Festember X instead of the usual Festember followed by the year. Refreshing change.

Sept 24-26th.

One of India’s best college cultural festivals. It has an impressive track record of being organized every year, right from the 1975. Many celebrities have performed at NIT Trichy for Festember and that includes Maestro Ilayaraja among others.

It is a must-participate event for lovers of music, dance, literature and arts. Look into the official site of Festember for further details about the events. There’s also an awesome publicity video this year.

Here are links to a few interesting posts about previous editions of Festember on my blog.

• Festember 09
• Kuraloviyam at Festember 08
• First Day of Festember 08
• Tune In, Drop Out
• Festember 07 and a few pics.

Time to say Goodbye…

After four years at this hot and dry place called NIT Trichy, it is time to pack our bags and leave. This place has been my home for the past four years. This place and the time I have spent here with seniors, batch mates and juniors have been responsible for shaping me into what I  am now. During my stay here I have made a lot of friends and have had a lot of fun with them. A lot of post are pending about this campus and my life here at NIT Trichy. I’ll eventually bring all those posts from the drafts stage to the published stage. This place has also taught me a lot about life and how to tackle it.

Its is now time for me to change the ‘About Me’ stuff in various social networks. From ‘a student of NIT-T’ to ‘an alumnus of NIT-T’. It does feel different.

It is now time to say goodbye. Goodbyes are not forever. Goodbyes are not the end. They simple mean that I’ll miss the place and all my friends here. We part only to meet again. Love you all.

NIT Trichy Alumni Network and the First Ever Global Alumni Meet

About a month back I got to know of a site, NIT Trichy Alumni Network which says that there’s a Global Aluni Meet happening at Bangalore on August 7th 2010.  It is a new site being developed by the RECAL which is the Alumni association of REC/NIT Trichy. It is also in the process of creating a comprehensive up-to-date database of alumni contacts. A new site at the new domain is coming soon and till then the previous RECAL site remains the official site.

Here is the link for you. If you are an Alumni of REC/NIT Trichy then register yourself at the following link to include yourself to the database. Even those students passing out of NITT in the year 2010 are requested to register themselves at the site. You can also register for the Global Alumni Meet to be held on August 7th. It is a full day event and the targeted participation is around 1500.

If you have any suggestions/questons you can mail them at alumni[at]nittrichyalumni[dot]org

Kiruba Shankar at NITT

On an uneventful Sunday I chose to attend one of the guest lectures of Currents 2010. The reason being the topic of discussion – Blogging, something which I’m very passionate about. And more importantly the speaker – Kiruba Shankar. He is probably the best example  one can give of  Personal Branding. So I went for the lecture in spite of the fact that I’m from a different dept and not many other-dept guys were present at the lecture. Though the lecture got delayed too much, it was worth the wait.

He managed to keep the audience entertained through the entire duration of the lecture, something which is not easily achieved especially at NITT. He started off with a story of two friends trying to run away from a tiger and then went on to discuss how businesses could benefit from the social media. He cited quite a few interesting examples like Dominoes Pizzas, IIPM,  Trisha etc etc to emphasize on the fact that social media can have a huge impact.Though I have read/heard most of what he said earlier, it was interesting just because of the way he presented the lecture.

Like him I too give importance to something called the digital presence. If you google for ‘Alagappan’ you are sure to find my domain name at the top. As Kiruba said during the lecture, my domain is my digital property and this simple search can be a substitute of a business card.

He also made people think on the fact that so much of data could be generated if all of us start blogging. Even his lecture at NITT could be soon forgotten unless someone writes about it. As of now there would be just a couple of tweets, a few facebook updates and this blog post which records his presence at NITT on this day.

“If only everybody starts making proper use of the various tools available to them, they can have a huge impact on this world.”

NIT Trichy is a Desert!

With the blazing hot sun, the temperatures have shot up to probably its highest ever at Trichy. And NIT Trichy with its frequent power cuts and water shortages is nothing short of a desert! Often we have to walk quite some distance just to get some water. NITT has become almost uninhabitable. Whats the point in constructing numerous hostels if you can’t provide proper electricity and water to any of them? it wont be long before this place become uninhabitable.

Amidst all this I get messages asking me to switch off lights during the earth hour. I would have happily switched off everything if it was some other ordinary place. But at NITT we have earth hours almost throughout the year that such a concept is absurd here! As one twitter update said – ‘Asking Indians to celebrate Earth Hour is like asking malnourished kids to forgo a meal because burgers are making Americans fat’..

*The two hours scheduled  power cut was just increased in duration to three hours.!!!

Update – After 3 months.

I’ve been neglecting my supposedly ‘new’ blog for such a long time that Google still ranks my old blogspot blog ahead of the new one. The reason for the neglect might have been because of my busy schedule throughout the semester and may also be because I’ve been posting regularly at my twitter profile – @alagappanr and my facebook profile = fb/alagappanr.

My blog was crying for some fresh content. So I guess its time I start posting content on this new blog and get its ‘page rank’ up.

So by the time I’m typing this post 7 semesters of my college life are over and I’m now just a few months away from being a full engineer. For all those curious guys who want to know about NITT Placements – I’m not yet placed and I don’t intend to talk about it here.

In the past few months hundreds of things happened and that includes me writing my CAT Exam, The Great Chennai Run, a trip to Ooty+Coonoor, supposedly an agitation against the college mess, watching all seasons of 24 and TBBT, reading a lot of books among other stuff. I just feel this semester could have been a lot better and I hope the next one is.

Festember 09

Yet another festember has gone by. This one being the last one of my college life. Didn’t want to miss blogging about this. Thats why I’m back from a long hiatus.

Thanks to the heavy downpour in Trichy on Day 0, I couldn’t attend the inaugural function (in which the college presi wished everyone good morning at 6 in the evening) and I also missed a few performances by the Dance Troupe of  NITT. But I did make it to the concert by Kadri Gopalnath. He started off with a few classical ones and eventually went on to what the audience really wanted – the ‘Anjali anjali’ song. Overall it was a memorable performance. It was followed by half-an-hour long fireworks display. The sky was completely lit and the I’m sure the awesome show would have caused a few accidents in the adjacent highway due to mesmerized drivers.

A few of the other events I attended were ChoreoNite and Tarangini the major events at barn. As usual there was an uncontrollable crowd shouting every time a team performs for some ARR song. There were quite a few catchy performances from various colleges. Vijay TV’s Super Singer winner Ajesh too had come over for competing in Tarangani with his college light music team. The crowd loved his performance.

Yet again, the Dance Troupe and Music Troupe of NITT were at their best. It is a great thing for participating institutions that they don’t have to compete with the hosts in the dance and light music events. Else the best they can get is the second place.

Another popular event at Festember every year is the pattimandram type of event conducted by the Tami Mandram of NITT. This year it just got bigger, with excellent group of participants and and awesome judge, Barathi Baskaran of Sun Tv Pattimandram fame.

This Festember wouldn’t have been fun without Sushish Kamath‘s workshop. He was called in for a workshop on Independent Film making and he was at his best. He gave us tips on how NOT to make a movie. He included his own experiences making TFLW and another movie He Says, She Says. He definitely kept his audience attentive even though the workshop’s timing made many of them stay hungry.  It was indeed an enthusiatic turn-out. After all he is the best known film critic of south India.

The best of the events were saved for the final day. The ProNite show had an energetic Benny Dayal and a band called Bandish currently making waves in the music scene. Benny Dayal’s concert was simple superb, but had to be cut short as the girls were asked to leave early. Then a just-for-boys show by Bandish began enthusiatically at 11 in the night. The best thing was the absence of staff and the girls. With them in Barn, Festember wouldn’t have ended the way it did this year. Would never forget their performance I guess. They rocked the stage and the barn truly came alive with the whole crowd cheering. It ensured that Festember 09 ended on a high. Inspite of there being a few organisational glitches, and rain playing spoilsport, I would say that Festember 09 rocked. (and even kra feels the same).

It Happens Only In NIT Trichy

Photos of Class Notes

A couple of days before the cycle test, one person gets a camera and starts clicking. The properly compiled notes of a studious person(mostly a girl ;P), pages of a rare text book, etc are photographed and circulated to all students.

This method is generally easier than photocopying since it is free and can be shared on the LAN. More importantly because a digital camera is easily available(even I have one – generally used for this purpose ;P) and also because an overwhelming majority of the students own a laptop or a desktop computer.

Putting Technology to a great use.. ;P

Pragyan

Hey Algae.. What is it Pragyan? inquired Ganesh on gmail as I had my Status message as Pragyan 2009.

Since its holiday time, I have loads of time to read blogs, to write blogs, and besides other things, to keep in touch with old friends.

Our Tech Fest…. I replied.

Reminds me of my college days, continued Ganesh, an 2008 pass-out of a prestigious private college in Tamil Nadu. I was a part of the Guest Lecture Team in my college Techfest. Our techfest meant more to us than anything else.

I could see this guy lost in his old days. I could feel the pride in his eyes.

Have a Look at the Pragyan 2009 website, I said as I typed www.pragyan.org

After a few minutes,

Hey, Do you people outsource this website work? asked Ganesh.

Now, It was my turn to feel proud. It was the time to declare with a smiley that it was our Techfest. OURS. We did every bit of it ourselves. The posters. The Website. The Videos. Everything. And we did it like professionals. I didn’t say much.

All I said was, we do it on our own. In fact, even I’m partly involved in it.

Oh! So you did it? he was surprised.

Not just me. We work as a big team. Almost every NITTian is involved in the organization of Pragyan.

He wasn’t in a mood to project his techfest as something cooler than what Pragyan is. So he continued with the plain truth, Ah, Well… We used to outsource our website work. Even now I guess it is outsourced.

A sense of satisfaction replaced the feeling of pride. I felt more happy than proud to be a part of a culture which believed in the true meaning of a student fest. Students should make it work. The culture of Pragyan. Celebration of Technology..!!

Thats when the proud, satisfied and happy heart of mine wanted to shout - NITT Rocks…!!

Life goes on

Another semester of my undergrad came to an end this week. It went past as fast as the preceding ones did. Semesters in NITT have always been very small. And within these few months we do a lot of non-academic stuff, keeping us busy throughout. And time flies so fast. People say time flies when you are having fun. We did have a lot of fun this semester.

The semester started with all third years moving to the Garnet Hostel which is one of the new hostels to be built. After getting settled in our rooms we started setting up the LAN within the hostel. The G-LAN is one of the best in the campus and is almost always overflowing with data. It has data starting from various Software to various sitcoms to hundreds of movies, books and almost anything you can imagine.

Then the gaming craze started afresh. We started DOTA n WOW within our hostel now rather than going all the way to Octa. (It would be known to all those gaming freaks like me. If you aren’t one, then do click on the links to know more). We guys played day n night like mad. Then came Festember- NITT’s Cultural Fest. It was one of the best ever.

Festember posts

* Day-0

* Kuraloviyam

We guys had dinner almost everyday in the Dhaba – the roadside food-haven. It was far more better than our so-called mess. The mess food was crap and was the worse than what we had in the previous years. So if one guy felt like eating outside he’d drag everyone around him to have a enjoyable time together having dinner.

I got my Laptop – ‘ACER – Travelmate’ this semester. Spent a lot of time ‘loading’ data into it. I also spent most of my time watching sitcoms n movies. Amid all these things, I lost my mobile too. My Motorola – SLVR L7.. It was one of the things which i could never have lived without. Lost thousands of phone numbers. But Life does go on in spite of all these incidents. So yet another wonderful semester came to an end. Hoping for a better one ahead.