Unknown place, chilly morning. Its not that I have never seen poverty. All through the 23 years of my life, what I have seen is widespread poverty, ignorance, hunger, brazen apathy on part of those who were chosen to do something but who in turn chose to do nothing, misery, injustice. But there are some pictures which just get fixed in your mind. Amputated limbs, cement bag to sleep on, devoid of any hope for a future, and yet refusing to beg, a section of modern man tries to survive, somehow. The elation of Vijay Diwas, which endured for two full days, vanished suddenly.

Sometimes I wonder. Almost every revolution in the modern era have been brought about by the middle class. The middle class defines principles to fight for. They decide whom to fight against. They decide how to fight and ultimately they only decide what next be done after the outcome of the fight. But in their zeal to uphold freedom whose freedom do they end up upholding? In their endeavor to create a new world which they dreamt of, are they not forgetting those, who did not even get the chance to dream once? There was once a dream of a nation. Now we stand as a state with many nations. Where did we falter?

I feel every country has to pass through this phase. When some live in high rise buildings, some live on the footpath of the flyover just in front of them. In this era of ebbing morality, one is justifying every type of inequality. The logic is pervasive. We worked, we labored and we succeeded. Those who didn’t, are lying in the dust. The fact that we were born in an environment which gave us the opportunity to sweat in peace is beyond our control. It can happen to anyone. But what is important is that we did what we were supposed to do, rise. And the unfortunate rest are doing what they are supposed to do, survive.

Resposibilities come after rights. It is rights which guarantee you a life to discharge responsibilities. But sadly our mental faculty is in a state of discord over the choice to make resposibilities second to or secondary to rights.

The mind is in a state of chaos. It is dark, and yet, its not the darkest hour. Answers seem impossible to come by and yet, the only way towards light is to get them. The question whether my soil will survive this cruel world or not fills the vision with haze. After so much of struggle, what we inevitably end up asking ourselves is, did we do our bit? And yet, we choose to ignore it throughout our lives.

Signing off…

- Sarkar

Now that the movement has ended, thanks to the GOI for acceding to the demands, more questions are coming up. Isn’t the Jan Lokpal a slap on the face of our vibrant and enduring democracy and its pillars, namely, Legislative, Executive, Judiciary and the Press? What ramifications can the concentration of powers in a single committee have? What is the guarantee that the committee and its chairman, who is not directly elected by common masses, will not be incorruptible? Or worse still, isn’t Anna Ji’s method of agitation setting a dangerous precedent in the minds of our people? Let’s deal with the last one for now.

Why is Anna Hazare’s mode of agitation being scrutinized and branded unfair whilst the Jat and the Gujjar agitations gleefully escape notice? True these agitations set a dangerous precedent in a democracy. But which one needs immediate counselling?

Let’s get some facts before going into the discussion.

The Gujjar agitation caused a loss of Rs 1500 crore to the Railways in 17 days. Railway tracks between Delhi and Mumbai were blocked along with the Jaipur – New Delhi highway. The previous agitation claimed the lives of 70 people. Tremendous damage was done to public property and still demands were pressed for the withdrawal of cases against the perpetrators. All this was done for 5% reservation in government jobs.

The Jat agitation also targeted the public property in general and the Railways in particular. For 15 days, they blocked the Delhi – Lucknow route. According to reports and NDTV news, 15 key train routes had been blocked for 15 days and 70 trains were cancelled. Around 12 lakh commuters had to face tremendous amounts of problems. This was done to get them included in the OBC bracket so that they too can get reservation in government jobs.

Compare them with the latest movement. Candle light marches, hunger strikes, no jamming of railway tracks, no reported loss of life or property, all protesters gathered at places which caused minimum disturbance to public life. Each and every member of the Indian society gathered in support of one optimistic proposal, that of creating a citizens’ ombudsman.

Now let’s have a history check.

The Jats first rose to prominence in the year 1669 in a rebellion against Aurangzeb. The Green Revolution, Panchayati Raj, Land Reforms, particularly the abolition of the Zamindari and the Jagirdari system has resulted in the Jats becoming one of the most prosperous groups in India on a per capita basis, with a large number of rural crorepatis.

The Gujjars, on the other hand, amaze me. They were the rulers of a once great empire in the early medieval India, who so utterly defeated a huge force under Caliph Junaid, that they had to run for their lives and could barely cross the Indus. How proud they should be of their history and tradition of bravery, and yet, they are now in a position to be counted amongst the OBC’s. I can only look with dismay at the turn of their fortune.

Let’s get back to the Indian government. For the first time in many years, we got a near clear mandate. The INC emerged much stronger than their previous tenure and people had their hopes pinned on them for the next five years. And yet, what did we get? CWG scam, Adarsh Housing scam, 2G Spectrum scam? Each scam causing a loss of more than a lakh crore (1 followed by 14 zeros!!!) INR to the exchequer. Pranab Mukherjee in his latest budget talked of so many investments, but he simply refused to earn. Where will he earn money from? There was again a furore regarding the appointment of the CVC. Mr. PJ Thomas, with a dubious background and with cases of corruption pending against him, was chosen by the ruling Congress. I mean, are you nuts? And all this while, our honest (not being sarcastic) Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, gives just one argument in defence, that he was not aware of things. Now you cannot put such a lame excuse forward when you are in charge of the most responsible post in India and head the group of minister governing 120 crore fucking people. We are not morons for God’s sake. People choose you, so that you pay heed to what they say and what they want. You 545 members carry more expectations per capita than those 11 hapless cricketers who won the World Cup, despite not being answerable to the people of India, at least on paper, and yet have to bear the brunt of all the failures.

A Raja, Suresh Kalmadi, Mamata Banerjee are the persons who matter to all the Indians till 2013. We launched an agitation keeping constitutional morality in our head. The men in the Parliament had stopped listening to a demand which brings hope in the minds of the Indians across the length and breadth of the country. And yet we are restrained. Yet we did not resort to violence, blocking our railways network, damaging public property when a 72 year old is fasting not for getting some bloody parochial demands like getting reservations in government jobs met. Yet we control ourselves when Iron Sharmila Chanu fasts for 10 years to get the Draconian AFSPA lifted and instead of listening to her, the government of India forces food through her nostrils in a hospital. We kept constitutional morality in our minds. We will keep constitutional morality in our minds. We are too proud a nation to stoop low while pursuing something which will take us one step forward as a peoples’ democracy. And we have the history and credits of being the oldest surviving civilization in the world. But the government of India keeps just one thing in mind, public memory is woefully volatile and short. Unfortunately, this is the sad truth. And this is why life attempts are dared on RTI activists. And this is why we want Jan Lokpal. To protect ourselves when we fight against injustice, to safeguard our rights and our dignity as an Indian citizen when they are being furtively and yet mercilessly trampled upon by any damned person or entity on earth.

- Sarkar

In each and every serial, there will be one character which will be constantly plotting, scheming, causing fights and yet would be getting away without anybody noticing. In most cases, the most noticeable feature of this character (which almost always is a Vamp) is that she is heavily decked with jewels, is having the most modern and sophisticated tastes and hails from some very affluent family in the town. She will smile slyly in front of everybody but nobody takes notice of it. Though there will be random people telling bad things on her face, but it only ends up increasing her resolve to do mischievous stuff.

Then there will be one character (again, a feminine character) who is totally opposite. It seems someone has stuffed Fevicol in her mouth and kept the tap in her eyes running. Although she knows that the Vamp is shamelessly conspiring against her, she suffers everything silently, hears every abuse hurled towards her with utmost patience and then when everything finishes up, goes to the temple to bother the hapless idol with her plight. Not surprisingly, the idol is as dumb as she is.

But everything cannot be imposed upon the Vamp. That would be unjust. The sufferer is designed in such a way that the character sucks big time and after some episodes, begins to tell on your nerves. After carefully seeing a sample soap opera, I can well imagine one scene with which I can even dream of starting a serial. Here goes the scene:

Husband – Darling, aaj TV pe cricket match kyon nahi hai?

Wife – (Says nothing, just starts weeping, and her eyes immediately turn red)

Husband – Kya hua? Kuchh bolte kyon nahi?

Wife – (Still says nothing, keeps weeping silently in front of him. Meanwhile some random music starts in the background. Mostly it is “Dhoom ta na na na na na” or “Tere na tere na tere na” sort.)

Husband – Are kuchh batao to sahi?

Wife – (Still silent and weeping)

(Now the camera starts turning from the husband to the wife, then from the wife to the husband and so on. With each turn of the camera, there is also a background noise of a heavy THUD. This happens for at least 4 times. The sequence may vary)

Husband – Agar nahi bataya to mai tumhe chhor ke chala jaunga…

Wife – (Still weeping, but moves her head from Left to Right, as if trying to say “NO!!! Please”)

(Again the camera starts turning. Meanwhile, the “Dhoom ta na na na” turns violently loud along with the THUD)

Husband, totally frustrated and heavily pissed off, leaves the room with a huff.

Now since there is only the wife in the room, the camera can show only a single person. Here, the INGENUITY of the cameraman comes into play. Now the camera turns towards the wife, but from different directions. First, from TOP to the wife’s face. Then, from BOTTOM to the wife’s face. Then, from LEFT and at last, from RIGHT. Then there would be a sudden change in the intensity of the lights, the facial expression of the wife changes curiously to show a hotch-potch of fear, sadness, amazement and all other negative emotions.

Now comes the ultimate part. Suddenly appearing is a small temple of either “Mata Rani”, or “Lord Krishna” or my favourite, “Ganpati Bappa”. There follows a long dialogue where again our protagonist does not complain, but just asks for strength to bear everything in silence. As if some strength is still left in God after punishing 6 billion humans and all other beings (the exact number is unimaginable for me) on earth for being sinful.

What I can’t imagine is that why, in each and every serial, there is a housewife whose mouth is shut by some unknown force, why her husband is the biggest asshole on earth, why the vamp always goes unnoticed so lamely when there are so many other ways, as shown by our beloved politicians, in which she can go unnoticed and why, this being the biggest question of all, do people continue watching those serials every day in spite of the fact that they themselves get so frustrated with them after suffering one full day doing household jobs or office work. And why are there so many advertisements in between? Can’t there be a way in which the protagonist at least talks in front of everybody, and talks reason?
-Sarkar

Signing off…

Good night…

– SARKAR…

Today, they are together, enjoying their last few moments to the fullest, which they do deserve for sure after three and a half years of slogging. Tomorrow, who knows, where will each one of them be.

Next year, when I will be in the same position as they are in, perhaps suited and booted, who is going to be around me? People whom I thought to be close to me are actually a bit far away. It is due to my mistake, I accept it. I do not expect anything simply because I know I should not. Right from the first day of my Second year, when I got my eligibility sheet in my hands, I knew I was not to be a normal student anymore. And if this realization comes true, it won’t be an exception. I have tried my best, but I have seen failure everywhere, be it in studies, be it in relationships, be it in any other activity I am involved in. So basically, I am habituated to all this.
Tonight again, its cold. I am wearing the same thin sweater and coming back from the library. This time, its not the high frequency response of the amplifiers that is revolving in my mind. “Was I correct in taking a Dual Degree which perhaps no one in BITS has ever taken nor will, most probably, take?”. Hah!!! Whatever had to be done, has been done. I know there is no point thinking about it now. But then, human mind sometimes mindlessly tries to answer that which is already answered and we end up wasting our imagination on one obvious explanation that would unfold eventually. “Was I wrong in taking this Dual?”… “Obviously not!!! I deserved it”… “Perhaps”… “Don’t know, let’s see whatever comes after this”… No idea as to what exactly has happened to me. Perhaps, I will get over it in a matter of hours.

Signing off…

Good Bye!!!!

I have made my intentions clear. Awaiting yours.

Signing off…
bbye…

I am a kind of person who would do anything to deny the idea that LUCK plays a major role in your life. Whether it is Cricket, Politics, Campus Interviews or the ever happening Tests here in BITS. And yet again, I faltered and was proved wrong.

We had the most complicated data structure to program, Graphs and its characteristics. Till last night, I coded it fully, wrote around 550 lines of code to implement its characterics fully and THIS program was running fine. It executed briliantly and showed all the expected results. This, I did myself when many were busy copying the program from somewhere else(If you are reading this and are hurt by this statement, then allow me to be rude for sometime and abuse me personally later!!!).

I came to believe at that point that I can crack the paper.

Guess what! A similar program was given and mine did not even compile at the time of evaluation!!!!

It happened like this. I made the full program. Compiled it successfully and executed it. It was running brilliantly without any errors. I sensed a very high score within my grasp. Then I added one more “function” to do the housekeeping job which was just a formality. After doing this, I could not recompile the program because the time was up. Although my program was complete but it wasn’t compiled.

Then came evaluation. I was getting full in almost all the components for evaluation. I lost some marks in algorithm implementation because my implementation was what I found easier for me to do in this little time and it was working correctly but I was not supposed to use that implementation. But the thing which hurt me and surprised me the most was that when it came to compile, my program refused to do so.

The housekeeper “function” which I added after initial successful run of the program curiously contained an error. And that was an extra “(“.

Got ’0′ in compilation.

Some suggest that I should not have dead stopped at time up and should have corrected this minor mistake by taking one more minute when others were taking 10 more minutes even after time out…

But then … did I deserve 11 out of 18 …

I thought I got overconfident. I somehow chose to ignore the fact that writing 550 lines of code, even though fully by yourself, is nothing when compared to the fact that in industries, several thousands of lines of codes are being written…

But I will bounce back … Sarkar down ho sakta hai … out nahi …

Will my small dream get a jolt. With propositions of dropping a whole semester because of Tuberculosis, which I got from don’t know where, coming from influential quarters onto me, I am in a big dilemma. Come on, it’s just the initial stage. The local doctor here diagnosed it and on my insistence, started the treatment. On somebody’s suggestion (name withheld), I went to New Delhi to get a second opinion. There started the problem. I reached New Delhi on Monday night. I got headache from that night. The Delhi doctor changed my medicine (the composition remaining the same) which I took only on Wednesday morning. Yet that headache and head spinning continued and I returned to Pilani. I reached out to the same local doctor here for help in this headache case. But he refused to treat me as I have taken the matter to another doctor. To make matters worse, he lied to the Chief Warden here that I am getting headaches only after taking the Delhi medicines, whereas I clearly told him that I was getting headaches since Monday night and I had taken Delhi medicines for just one day, on Wednesday morning.

I seriously think that a respectful person like him should not have lied in this way. It is like playing with his own reputation. Even the Chief Warden knows that he is lying. What did he get from it, inner satisfaction? Mental calm? Bheje ko shaanti mil gayi aapki? Khopdi ka light off gaya tha jo jhooth bolne chale the?

He might come down and ask me to keep quiet. He will, definitely, if I let my voice go out of control. But then, I am right and he is wrong. If ten more guys like him come onto me, I dare to bet nobody will have the guts to get me bowed down.

What should I blame? Whom should I blame? Myself? What have I done? The doctor who lied? He has just taken the matter to his prestige, although everyone expected a little more humanity from him. The influential person who suggested my parents to get a second opinion due to which all this started? He was just a well-wisher.

I am a mimick. And now, due to this illness, I am facing breathing problems and so might not mimick this time. That’s what has made me sad.

Dr. K K Birla passed away. Many people might actually be unhappy with him (or his father) for choosing a place Pilani which is accessible only by road (whose health is almost always in shambles). But I am indebted to him to make it possible to realise my small dream and so deeply regret his death.

Kosi river became mad. Lakhs of people got affected, nobody is sure of how many people died. Indeed a sorrow, what has it made of the once thriving region.

Blasts everywhere. Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Surat to name a few. We just don’t know on which bomb our name is written.

Death and chaos is all around… Should I give even a little importance to my ailment?

Hello my dear friends. I recently completed our PS-1 program successfully from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, studying and recommending various Fault Tolerant Hardware and Software to be used for the Manned Space Mission scheduled to be undertaken in the year 2011.

One unique feature of our otherwise unique PS program is to maintain a PS diary in which you have to record everything which you did there. Perfect instrument to vent your frustration as I found it out.

Well, my friends asked me to create a blog out of my PS diary as they were apparently pretty interested in reading what I wrote in it. It might become a bit long for everybody so I will present it in small pieces.

Hope you all will enjoy (or not!!!). In any case, please let me know by your precious comments.

Day 1 – PS1 Begins

We were staying in the Aruppe Bhawan of St. Xaviers College, Thumba. In the morning, after waiting for some twenty minutes for a bus outside the college main gate, we got into one and reached VSSC by 10 am. There we were introduced to our PS instructor, Mr. A. Amalin Prince, Lecturer, EEE Group, BITS – Goa. From the gate of the Veli Research Centre (VRC), we reached the Public Relations Office (PRO), where we were supplied with entry passes of one month’s validity. After a security check, where all storage and electronic devices, including calculators, were taken away from us, we went to the Human Resource Development Division (HRDD) Lecture Hall. We were divided into three groups, EEE, Computer Science and RSR Development groups, I being in the first group with Anant Gupta (DADA), Deepu (Sleepu), Jithin Parayil Thomas and Saniya Deshpande. We filled a list where we were to give our contact information and then we were taken to our Project Director, Smt. Valsa B., Head, Quality Division Flight Software (QDFS). She led us to room number 703 which was the Software Verification and Validation Lab (SVVL) where we had to do our project, the details of which were to be told to us by Mr. Anil Abraham Samuel (Scientist, QDFS). Our project had something to do with flight control hardware design. For the first three or four days, we were to study the techniques used by NASA, ESA, CNSA and RSA for their launches and we were supposed to suggest some means to enhance our own launches.

Something big is really waiting to happen, with the Tricolour, proudly flying high, looking down to us to perform.

Day 2 – Target Set

We reached on time to our destination – Room no. 703 (SVVL) and met Mr. Anil Abraham, who was to guide us through the rest of our PS. He started off with the basic control system of the PSLV and the GSLV and then quickly switched over to new generation control system for the manned space mission of our nation. In the already existing configuration, we used dual redundancy, and every part of the system has its own backup for safety. It uses the bus topology made up of the MIL – STD 1553B bus, which is a Military Standard bus developed by SAE in 1978 and is still used in the space missions of many nations. Each subsystem has two identical boxes, the prime and the redundant parts which work simultaneously giving rise to Hot Redundancy so that if one fails, the control is taken up by the other immediately. The main computer(s) controlling the navigation are the Navigation Guidance Control Program (NGCP).

Day 5 – Nothing to do!!!

Today is Monday. We reached our centre on time. Our work, as of now, was to be done in the library as we were to study different redundancy aspects utilized by different space agencies for their manned space missions as also the fault tolerance and display techniques for the human in the spacecraft. But for that, we needed the Library pass for which the HRDD applied today and which, we would be getting tomorrow. Meanwhile we were given some papers on Error Handling by Mr. Anil Abraham to study which we did for quite a long time and had many discussions and debates on it. Since nothing else was left to do, Mr. Anil let us go.

Day 6 – First day in VSSC Library

We were told by the HRDD people that we could get into the library as there was nothing as such to be called the Library Pass. We went to the library and quickly searched for some books and reports on topics such as redundancy in human space flight, avionics of space shuttle, fault tolerance in on – board equipments and display techniques. I for instance got one book on Military Avionics in which I got some idea about the display techniques used by them. There was the Head Up Display (HUD) in which the TV image is projected onto the windscreen for targeting by different reflective and refractive techniques.

Day 7 – Microfiche

Second day in the library. I searched extensively for reports on topics like redundancy and display from the intranet. The library is arranged not in floors but in half floors or mezzanines. We have ground floor, ground mezzanine, first floor, first mezzanine etc. I came across the Microfiche which were kept in the second mezzanine. These are thin film strips of the size of a postcard on which about 40 pages of written or typed material is visually stored which are then magnified on a screen by a special reader to make them legible. I was studying redundancy in the Voyager spacecrafts. Those 40 pages were of the size of a half chart and the font size was that used in a book, or for that matter, used here. The document was 16 pages long and the library caretakers joked that I can take my own sweet time (2 to 3 days!!!) to read it fully.

Well!!! Hoping that I don’t have to continue with those microfiche tomorrow.

Day 8 – Typical BITSian Life Revisited

If you are a BITSian, then there is no way you are going to feel lonely. Continuous evaluation is always there, as your most faithful friend, soothing you in times of distress and pouring cold water in winter and hot water in summer on your happiness, giving you an overdose of nothing but itself. I went to the HRDD Lecture Hall, gave the test, got 3.33 out of 5 and came back to meet Mr. Anil to report to him what exactly we had done. Then we went to the library as usual. My groupies were reading books on military avionics, aircraft display, space shuttles and I was desperately searching for a good book on redundancy. Call it my luck; I came across Encyclopedia Britannica, my favorite!! I relished reading them, especially the accounts of historical characters like Cyrus The Great, Darius The Great, Alexander The Great, Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka The Great, Bahram Gur, Alcibiades, Akbar The Great, Saladin and the likes. That I knew already knew much more than what was written in them is another matter altogether!!! Oh! I forgot to mention Ashurbanipal!!!!

Day 9 – At last… One useful book

Today was an uneventful day. But the silver lining was, I found out a handbook on Computer Science. I hoped to get some useful information to be kept in consideration while designing a microprocessor specifically for a space shuttle, something of the sort Mr. Anil was talking about. I read about speed considerations, register allocation for programs and a small debate sort of thing on what decides whether a microprocessor is 16 – bit or 32 – bit or something else. There was nothing interesting as such and I quickly dozed off woken up by Jithin as he had to catch his train.

Day 12 – Another Uneventful Day…

We were not getting enough materials in the library. Not because there was a lack as such but because the Digital Search Engine was not efficient enough and searching through the five tiers of voluminous information contained in thousands of books easily discouraged anybody. And certainly not the Microfiche!!! I continued with the Computer Science Handbook and got some further information regarding microprocessor architecture. After coming back from the VRC, we studied the print outs of avionics which Mr. Anil gave us.

Day 13 – Kuber Ka Khazanaaaaaaaa……..

At last, we got it. Access to the internet in an ultra secure place like VSSC where even the office staff has restrictions on using it. And we were the prized possessors of a much coveted commodity which is available for 24 hrs in BITS but which, here in Thumba or Veli, was a scarcity. At once, information seemed to pour down on us like the monsoons of Kerala. In one day, we collected four times the information we collected from the library by searching manually for some ten odd days. And all this, because Mr. Anil got us the permission to surf the net. For the first day, we pounded upon the display systems and got papers related to Glass Cockpit Display and yes, the Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display (AMLCD).

Day 14 – Fishermen and their NET

The collection continued. We moved our attention to the microprocessor. Initially NASA used the old IBM AP-101 processors in their shuttles with Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) in each computer. The ESA people had developed their own range of microprocessors based on the open architecture of SPARC (Scalable Processor ARChitecture). The latest in this series is the LEON3-FT processors which is internally fault tolerant and is also radiation hardened so that it is not affected by the cosmic rays. ESA is also planning a quad – core processor based on the LEON3 model which will be called the GINA (Giga INstructions Architecture). NASA is also bending towards multi core processors and adding a bit of redundancy to it so that if one core fails, the other core quickly takes up its work and the processor carries on with a graceful degradation of performance. A multi core architecture will consume lesser power than a multi processor one.

Day 16 – A Time to Recommend

No, you are not wrong. There were no Saturday or Sunday and yet a day is missing. This is because the Left Democratic Front (LDF) had called a hartal in a Left dominated state and not even private vehicles were allowed to ply on the road. We started to prepare a report recommending what can be the possible redundancy scheme to be used in the on – board computer system of ISROs manned space mission. I worked the whole night on the microprocessor part and completed it at 5.30 am!!! Then I went to sleep, only to be awakened by a curiously irritating phone call in which the caller kept on asking “redundantly”, when I was going back to Pilani. I could not sleep and at VSSC I was drooling and had a severe headache. Meanwhile, we found out different data bus protocols, safer and more efficient than the MIL-STD 1553B, and had started final shape to our report.

Day 19 – Citizens of Democracy

Indian Constitution gives everybody a chance to speak. But people should also know the etiquettes of speaking. And so, Group Discussions (GDs) are a tool to develop your expertise in that area.

We went to the HRDD Lecture Hall and to our surprise, were suddenly a part of a lecture series on the rocket propulsion system, which was originally designed for some outside NIT students, and which, we too were asked to attend diligently. Everything was based on Thermodynamics and I have been desperately trying to get rid of that dreaded subject (remember ThermoD, Mechanical Technology…)! After the lecture we had our GD in which Mayank Jog kept on thundering some technical details which contained just heavy words and very little details and others including me were left guessing what those details were.

Definitely, I don’t want to know how much I got in it!!!

Day 20 – Another Lecture in the Queue

So again, we came to the HRDD Lecture Hall for the lecture and we certainly did not like the fact that we have to do the same thing tomorrow only for a good feedback. The lecturer started with the combustion engine and at once the memory of Mechanical Technology classes came to my mind. My brain got fused and all the diagrams which he was showing were curiously similar creating a big mass of hotch potch in my mind. I am in no position to tell what happened after we came out of the hall.

Day 21 – Oh No!!! Not Again!!!

I decided not to go to the lecture today but at the insistence of some of my friends, I decided to go to the HRDD hall. I stayed there till the first break without even getting an air of what was being taught. I just remember some Tsiolkovsky Equation (I remember it by its strange name) which the NIT guys seemed to be particularly familiar with. After the first break, I came out, ate some snacks, and went to the library. After lunch we went to Mr. Anil who gave us our schedule of work, according to which, we would be in a great need of internet resources and have to submit a report every 4 or 5 days.

Day 22 – Got Rid of It!!!

Whatever might befall, today most definitely I was not going to the lecture to kill my time aimlessly. I wanted to do something productive now that we have got our work schedule. So almost all of us went to the library and I got a wonderful book which had something like integrating an Assembly Code with a C Program. Then I went to the internet where I frantically searched for SPARC microprocessor and it’s Instruction Set Architecture. I also found out some papers regarding Intel’s Pentium and Multi-core processors’ instruction set.

I am definitely going to study the instruction set and the data bus architecture.

Day 23 – A Long Wait!!!

Today was a day to wait. Only to get our entry passes for another one month. The HRDD was taking its own sweet time to forward some letter to the Public Relation Office regarding our passes and we were waiting in the Lecture Hall. After having our lunch we waited in the PRO for some time and after getting our passes, since the time was already over and chances of meeting Mr. Anil after lunch are always bleak, we went back to our hostel. Nothing productive was done today of course and we were definitely feeling the pinch of it since we were already impeded by the lecture series this week.

Day 26 – When Roles Get Swapped

Today it was our turn to play the role of a teacher. It was Seminar 1 and our EEE group presented the topic “A Brief Overview of the Organizational Structure of VSSC and an Introduction to the New Generation NGCP systems used in the Indian Space Missions”. The topic was introduced by Deepu and Saniya followed explaining the different levels of management at VSSC, the various achievements attained in the field of space technology. Anant and Jithin continued with the present NGCP configuration, explaining concepts like redundancy management, reliability, fault tolerance etc. I concluded with a brief description of various processor architectures such as SPARC V8, LEON 3FT and the ones developed at the VSSC itself, Vikram 1601.

Day 27 – What Are EEEites Doing With Software Engineering???

We met Mr. Anil in the morning as usual. Now as per the handout given by him, we are working on the various software components used in the launch vehicles such as NGC software, Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) software, on – board checkout and the use of open source OS in time triggered task scheduling. I took upon myself the OS part. Since we haven’t learnt anything about software engineering, he told us he would give a brief introduction to the field tomorrow and explain the basic concepts such as life cycle of software, its various stages etc. In the afternoon we found one IVHM software called Livingstone2 written in C++ for both Windows and Linux environments.

Day 28 – Thank God that I am a C6ite!!!

As was told yesterday, Mr. Anil gave us an introduction to software engineering. He also gave us a copy of a book on the same topic written by Roger Pressman. He explained the life cycle of software in detail. It includes various stages such as requirement specification, design, development, testing etc. He also showed us the differences between similar sounding terms like verification and validation. He also mentioned the different models used in software development such as waterfall model, spiral model, prototyping (“iterative” as well as “throw away”) etc.

Day 29 – HARD Realities of SOFTware

Mr. Anil continued with the various features desirable in the design of software. These include modularity, reusability, cohesion, portability, less coupling etc. (Now please don’t ask me their meaning!!!). There is something like an ideal software design has more cohesion and less coupling. He also told us about various kinds of software testing – Black Box, White Box and Grey Box testing…

Day 30 – A Day to SURF!!!

Today me and Jithin browsed the internet to find out more about IVHM and NGC software. IVHM is used to monitor the vehicle health constantly, report deviations and automatically rectify errors. Regarding NGC, we found out a paper about PASS (Primary Avionics System Software). It was the software used in redundant set of computers in the US Space Shuttles. We also found some papers relating to the implementation of time triggering in Linux.

Day 33 – Untamed Fascination

As I told earlier, for our next report, I took the whole part of Operating Systems upon myself. The topic was to estimate the possibility of using the Open Source Software like Linux (RT flavor), GNU compiler etc. for realizing the software and come up with new ideas and their feasibility of getting implemented. Soon after I started working on that I realized that I should have tamed my fascination with Linux, linking COFF files with object files of C codes using the GNU C Compiler, integrating Assembly code with GNU C code and other things. I know absolutely nothing about the working of the Operating Systems, processes and threads and so desperately went to Mr. Anil for help. He explained some basic concepts to me which would surely help me in my Operating Systems course next sem. He also suggested me to read some post – graduate level books on Operating Systems.

Day 34 – Even Trains have Stoppages

For a normal BITSian, tests and quizzes should not matter at all, we are so used to it. But somehow I feel that they are now acting as an impediment to our normal work. We were going so smoothly for our next report and I was getting lots and lots of material regarding Real Time Middleware in Windows XP/CE or for that matter, in Linux. And suddenly everything came to a grinding halt. All because of a 5 marks quiz. I simply wrote whatever I thought would be appropriate. Oh!!! Did I really think about the quiz questions? All this while, the only thing that was running in my mind was TMOSM and the 520 General Purpose Registers (GPRs) in SPARC. I don’t even remember a single question of that quiz!!!

Day 35 – Context Switching

I spent the whole day working on Operating Systems. I had to study processes, scheduling, context switching, threads, monolith kernel, microkernel, virtual machines and what not. If at all I get any feedback form regarding how to make PS1 better, I would definitely suggest introducing some CDCs in the 2^nd year instead of POE, Mechanical Technology and DySoc. If we are given work or project, be it even study oriented, we are handicapped for not having even the basic knowledge. Nobody likes being asked what they have done till their 2^nd year and that too in a taunting manner. Thank God that I did MuP so I am able to understand SPARC architecture. Otherwise other C6ites complain about the bad handling of the course, Digital Electronics and Microprocessors.

Day 36 – I need… A Break…

TMOSM has started getting on to me. Its full form is Time – triggered Message – triggered Object Support Middleware. It lies between application program and the OS kernel. It’s an object written in C++. Application programs don’t directly access the kernel. They first access the TMOSM, whose Main Layer has a scheduler which runs at the highest priority over and above all other processes and threads, even if they are of system programs or application programs. This scheduler will assign time slots to all processes and threads. Then the second layer of the TMOSM, the Kernel Abstraction Layer (KAL) provides APIs for using kernel services by making system calls. No new language needs to be created. Only some libraries need to be added to the existing compilers for the TMOSM APIs.

Day 37 40 – My Battery is Battered Down!!!

Although Friday was a day of strikes and we could not go to VSSC, it was not a day to rest. We had to complete our report and many left that night leaving the whole work of completing what was assigned to others, besides my own dear TMOSM, on my shoulders. I did that and was totally exhausted today. Those who left, went to Periyar, and after coming back, did not show good signs. Deepu looked devastated, Saniya was down with fever, and Anant was grappling after being sucked badly by 5 or 6 leeches. We discussed our topics with Mr. Anil and came back.

Oops!!! What has gone wrong with me? I fumbled with the day. Its day 40 not day 37!!!

Day 41 – Exhausted of Good Headings

Today we again found ourselves surfing the net. We were to search for DO-178B as well as for checkout systems for not only spacecraft but also for launch vehicle and the crew module. We got so many papers and some seemed to have been prepared during the Stone Age or the Jurassic Period (I know that it is a big PJ!!!), they were so old. After sometime, others went to have lunch and I alone was surfing. As asked Mr. Anil, I was searching for Real Time Algorithms to be implemented on Linux. I found out many real time OS like LynxOS, VxWorks, eCos, RTLinux among others. I found out patches of RTLinux (18.2 MB) and its full source code (2.5 MB). Well! I already have the full source code for normal Linux for the Linux From Scratch (LFS) tutorial. I am sure I will enjoy!!!

Day 42 – Life going like a Local Train

Why doesn’t life give you an opportunity to complete your work smoothly? Why are there halts, stoppages and red signals every other day? What I mean by this is our second group discussion. I acknowledge the importance of GDs in professional life, but it is in human nature to complain and grumble when the smooth flow of their life is interrupted. And I am just following that, for I need to vent some of my frustrations that have accumulated over the past 6-7 years. I dare anyone who can tell that I have lost my cool on any occasion.

Well our topic was “should a developing nation like India invest in space research”. Frankly speaking, even though I am aware of India’s problems, being myself from a semi – rural background, I think it is a matter of national pride and self reliance and we should not debate over it.

Day 43 – Tanashahi Nahi Chalegi!!!

This is a typical slogan in Bihar politics, particularly when there is any Hartal sort of thing going on. Yes, I am talking about the one we witnessed, or should I say, I witnessed, in Kerala. I decided that whatever may befall upon me, I am going to VSSC. My only hope was the convoy of VSSC buses which comes to the bus stand near railway station during hartals at 9 a.m. From 8 till 10.15, I waited for them at the bus stop. The convoy did not come on that day and so I decided to have food. Oh my God! The streets were deserted, each and every shop closed down and police were roaming everywhere! Since buses were not running, I was stranded, 8 kms away from our house and that too near 12 noon with no signs of rain whatsoever. And all happened due to a hartal in which just 20 people took out a procession flanked by police ahead and behind so that “they” don’t cause any harm. Wonder what happens when a hartal is being called in Bihar.

I wrote about this hartal only because I witnessed it while others were lounging in there houses.

Day 44 – Another Day to Search

The whole day we kept looking for Mr. Anil. We mean only me and Jithin. Anant was preparing the part concerning programming languages and I absolutely don’t know anything what Deepu and Saniya were doing. Me and Jithin started looking for redundancy algorithms and a software certification standard, DO-178B. It is a stringent set of guidelines which has to be kept in mind in coding aviation software and which has little to do with coding and lots to do with project management and software engineering. The huge details, kept in an unorganized form makes life miserable for the one who tries to read it.

You will definitely not enjoy going through it.

Day 47 – Beginning of the End

The rough draft of our final report was finally beginning to take shape. Last night, I sat down and completed the study of DO-178B certification standards and also completed the part on the libraries of display software which was to be done by some other fellow but which, due to sheer neglect, fell upon me. I tried to raise the issue but it didn’t help with people who just want to snore away the time given to them. The compilation of the report was almost complete but Jithin said that he has done some more work on TTP/C communication protocol and so wanted to add something more to the report. Even I worked out some extra details regarding internal redundancy in processors.

Day 48 – When are we going to submit our Report???

Mr. Anil’s first question to us – What about the report? Should we tell him that the feeling of procrastination on part of some of us is delaying the work of the whole group? I and Jithin were the ones who had to face the question and I personally felt bad because such a nice guy is forced to keep so much patience. He was not annoyed but it was clear that he was a bit frustrated. Anant was doing his work in the library and the other two were missing since the morning and I absolutely don’t have any idea where they were.

Day 49 – I need to hold the reins

Now it was too late. We were 5 days behind our schedule. Yesterday after calling out everyone and giving them a stern instruction to read “Software Engineering” e-book which I mailed to them, everyone was present in the lab. We told Mr. Anil to just wait for a few hours before we could mail the final report to him. The reason behind this was Jithin, Anant and Saniya had to add some more matters which they studied. Mr. Anil taught us how to draw control flow graphs and how to verify the various procedures of avionics software written in ADA. Anant told me that he will sit for testing and mail his part to me. I somehow got into a café at night and submitted the full report only to get drenched due to heavy rain while coming back to home at 10 o’ clock.

Day 50 – The clock is ticking

Mr. Anil was happy that we had submitted our report. I was the first one to reach VSSC and I straight went to invite Mrs. B. Valsa, our project director, to attend our seminar. She told that she will be free tomorrow only after 11 am. The whole day Mr. Anil was busy with meetings and we also needed to make our presentation for tomorrows’ seminar. So he let us go early.

Surely, the clock is ticking for the final show.

Day 51 – The clock went on ticking

We were so skeptical about our seminar. Everyone thought that he or she might not even be able to speak for 5 minutes. Surprisingly, Saniya spoke for half an hour. I came and completed my part and was soon the centre of sentences like “time never seemed to move”, “you took more than 45 minutes”, “and we were thinking when you were going to stop” and the likes. I have a skin thick enough to ignore them. Jithin completed in another half an hour, Deepu danced out his part in 15 minutes and Anant had to really rush through his part as time was really running out.

Day 54 – Who says PS1 is Lite???

I wanted to come here much earlier but due to my usual bad luck, I missed two buses pretty closely and so just managed to come here at the usual time. I met Valsa Ma’am and explained to her how, due to unavoidable circumstances arising from the cancellation of our return journey train just five days before the scheduled date due to heavy flooding, we got engaged in finding out alternate routes and how our 2 days train journey has expanded into a 4 days one and so we couldn’t complete the report on time. She apparently was not worried about the report as the main work was already done. After that, we had to fill a strange feedback form from BITS which had more than 100 questions. Who is going to go through them back in Pilani is something to wonder!!!

Day 55 – The End…

In the VRC, on a big flat panel display, everyday a new Hindi word, along with its Malayalam and English equivalent are shown. Yesterday it showed “Farewell”. Strangely enough, it had come at a perfect time. Yes it was a coincidence but sometimes you passionately want to explain the unexplained. I don’t want to waste my imagination on this because of the obvious explanation that would come out of it. And that, of course, won’t be true.

What should I write now? That I met Valsa Ma’am and Mr. Anil to say that we had submitted our full report and now I am going to get my PS diary checked?

One story is going to finish. Tomorrow, we will not be here around. But I am definitely going to miss the cute, white pussy cat at the private canteen in the VRC.

The Tricolour is flying high, and I guess, we have done something worthwhile under its gaze.