Someday..
I'll start all over again..
And may be...
do dozens of ‘em; all together!
And it is just about time.."
And here again.. I come!
Unsure about the dozens though!
"A lot of thoughts crammed in a li'l mind" ? Yes, but before all of them, here I am with the thing that has pushed me back to this place! Thanks to all the 'Non' first benchers who pushed me forward onto the dias today! And thanks of course to the 'superman-scientist' who keeps saying "I am at the limit of my knowledge" despite leaving absolutely no territory unexplored!
It was an ordinary Tuesday morning, the super cool 'namma' Bengaluru weather, a lot of 'big' brains around, and a not-too-early class to attend ( never dreaded either! ). The 'same'y simple 'Single Idly Vada' breakfast; the 'paper plate' looked like an anti-apartheid rally shouting out the slogan - "Black and white bhai bhai"! The morning only got at least a million times better at 9:15 AM when my cousin dropped by to deliver a parcel full of sweets from the festival I gave a skip!
The classes here have never been dreadful and that is easily one of the most important factors that keep me going despite the fact that I still cannot really see a reason for my selection ( by an elite interview panel though ) to be here! A cool and breezy Communications class seemed to be over immediately after it was announced started with some "Channel Capacity" gyaaan.
Sometimes I am forced to believe that having 60 minutes for an hour was mankind's biggest blunder! Yet, that’s the way an hour will stand for so many more hours to come! Okay, so be it, I move on!
A break of 15 minutes. Nope, I would prefer calling it 'An Invitation' or a 'Statutory Warning' for the class that was to follow, for it is THE class everybody is proud of here, yet has very little hopes about it. ( now no.. you did not hear me say this was indeed a class that everyone dreaded! )
The Professor is pretty much a scientist, and I would rather say it is the fault of all the folks here that we just cannot seem to scale up to even "10 to the -10 of his level"!
Enter Professor GNS Prasanna - the humble genius, the superman I was talking about! He commands one and all to "sit down" or rather "don stand up" even before anybody even attempts to stand up! The previous class of the professor was over after an extensive discussion of the world of PDE's and discretization woes in a computer. All geared up to listen to some more of the same, but a twist. The Professor 'kick'-started the talk with an old friend of his and pretty much out-of-reach to the class until recently; he threw an "oh-so-familiar" question at the class- "How would you test a mammoth program that implements a shortest path algorithm, say you have all the code with you.. How would you give me a solid evidence that it works fine forrr... say all kinds of inputs of the order of say.. Hmmm.. a million nodes?"
Phew! This is probably a fact that; to Prof.GNS the number system actually begins at 10 to the 6 ( and 10 to the -6 on the negative side)! It has barely been a month since I have gotten used to the number of zeroes in 1 million!
The class chose 4 people in all to answer the question. What was more perplexing than the question was the reason a good bunch of people; predominantly from the last 4 rows ( although it was all started by the fella who sits just behind me in the second row ) started shouting one weird name in unison and I happened to realize a little late that it actually happened to be mine! Fish!
Thanks to Ashley, the brain that sits just about one place off, to my right! She just initiated the thought process and soon I realized I actually had a decent answer! In the meanwhile, I heard the Prof announce a 'Frooti' as a reward for the best answer! It was right there on the the Prof's desk. Off I went onto the dias ( Or I was actually being pushed ?! ), after one biggie brain had already put the class in the right direction. 3-4 minutes may be and I was done.
A pretty good response for a dumb head! Elated I was, to know a little later that all four would get a 'Frooti'! Now the target, the Frooti Prof had with him! It is "Professor Prasanna" ! I would have it as a memorabilia for life! "Go!" said my mind and at the end of the class I did get it! Oh my God! An unmatched shot of emotion! Like I had just won a Filmfare! "It is Prof.Prasanna who gave me this Frooti!".. You may get a glimpse of 'my latest prized possession' s - the Frooti 'tetra pack' and the straw below.. They are all mine now!
Thank you IIIT-B!
Now I know.. an ordinary day could change in a matter of a few moments!
