An exam that is not welcome….and a course in swimming !

The whole weekend is murdered……again reading that wretched +2 level things, and what more, everything, phys chem math and bio. Come saturday and rain kicked off. And in sunday, had 2 wade thru knee-deep water to the scholarship exam venue, presidency clg kolkata, in the perennially nostalgic college street. The exam was too much ol’ fashioned, 10 short Q each in phy, che, mat nd bio, then a ‘large’ Q from one of da 4 subjects, and then,…..oh god, ‘an essay on a scientific topic’ which was so much saridon-craving! The topics were (chose one from 3) — 3 likely technogical breakthroughs in the coming decade and their effects on people in india, full technical details of a remote-sensing pollution-measure system that you would propose (this was the best, but maybe a bit higher in our standard ), and ‘tell of any paradigm-shifting discovery in the field of bio and why u think so’ (this one’s most boring, and i did it, as I am not much of a technical man or thinker to attempt the other two ). After exam, heard of several ‘likely’ breakthroughs, like ‘antimatter-power generator’, ‘invisibility cloak’ etc., great scientists blooming, eh ?

And then, coming out, water higher and another bit of swimming that was quite welcome, unlike da exam.

Time to be kids again………in cricket !

The twenty20 world cup is on now, and I saw my first full match yesterday, India played england and won by 18 runs. Scores ? india 218/4 in 20 ovs. and eng 200/6 in 20 ! Unimaginable to the likes of W.G. Grace.

Well, the smashing shots are specially ‘for ur eyes only’, but it makes the bowlers feel like an endangered species !
If this form of the game makes much hay, batting techniques are just going to decline and mindless muscle-flexing slam-bangs are going to flourish. Test cricket must continue to exist to counter this kind of cheap things !! It’s almost like the cricket we used to play in ‘galli’-s when we were children,………looking to hit every ball for six !

Meanwhile, a good reason for indians to feel good ! Yuvraj Singh smashed 6 sixers in 19th over, and made himself in to the limited hall of fame in this respect.

OCSC Afterthoughts,….about people :)

READ THE ARTICLE BELOW THIS FIRST, ELSE PROBABLY WOULD BE HARD TO CATCH ……..

First my roommates,— Vivek, intelligent boy, but got too carried away, else could have been in top 20. Surojit, a fellow bengali, champion gossiper. Vineet, rajasthan-da-puttar, 1st in manipal, now in AIIMS, he left maths after 10 yet has an amazing sense of logic ; he too relaxed completely, yet got easily in top 20.

In mandakini 26, Sudhanshu. Damn popular guy, got well with all. Sreekanth, from kerala, nice looks, taught him some statistics ! Devanshu,…..well, the best thing about him is dat he knows what he does and is very confident. Tamoghna, pretty serious, he WAS disappointed not to get in the fantastic four!

Everyone was saying about some kaustav majumdar of delhi, who seemed like some sort of genius from what i caught of their talk. But (sounds rude, pardon me), the boy seemed to be quite heavy-headed about his reputation, and behaved in such a way thruout that a top 4 place was guaranteed for him. That of course dint happen, which made him very upset.

I was looking for two persons specially, Abhishek gadre and kalyani, for they qualified both in bio and chem. Gadre turned out to be pretty cool, Chahal made us chuckle by his persistent ‘oye gadre !’, “yeh gadre title main pehli baar sun raha hoon’ etc. I dint catch much of kalyani, except sht was in shorts thruout, which made the boys refer her as ‘foreign tourist’. But she did seem serious, and argued with kale sir the gr8. This brings us to kale sir……..well,well, great guy, i cant say more, no compliment is enough for him. He made us feel at home in the labs by his generous cries of ‘bol beta bol !’. ok, am coming to the teachers, but let me round up here. Among girls, we referred to viviktha as ‘mallika’ or ’sherawat’ (for her resemblance to the actress !), and ashwini as ‘woh KCET-waali hai naa’ as she talked about KCET counselling to Vartak on the very first day. Some of us boys(pardon 4 this, wont name any, but obviosly not me ) fell head-over-heels for Ritika and suggested that kale sir should include her in top 4 for her looks:))

Now the teachers….Vartak maam was good, we named her ‘chiku’ for her toothy grin resembled a rabbit named dat in some serial or movie. Dipesh sir once told ‘you know, the larynx is in the brain’ ( at least what i heard ) and hence got named ‘larynx’ ! Sandhya maam was helpful. Dint catch much of anupama maam.

Mumbai— the OCSC experience !

THE BIOLOGY OLYMPIAD ORIENTATION-CUM-SELECTION CAMP, HBCSE, MUMBAI, 4TH-11TH JUNE_____
June the 1st……..AIIMS admission test, went outta home with dad in early morn and gave the exam in KendriyaVid. Fort William, Kolkata. The question was absolutely HOWLER (Please consult Harry Potter ! )……exam went okay. After coming out, dad told of my +2 boards result, which was to be out today. Bengali, English, and Physics murdered…… expected more.
Anyway, in evening, aboard the Mumbai mail with dad……………
June 3rd.……My first breath in the scintillating city called Mumbai…..went Nerul, freshened up in a ‘family friend’ Sukumar Nandi’s place. Then by car to HBCSE in afternoon. Checked in the Mandakini 63 room of BARC hostel just beside. Roommates Vivek and Surojit, a fellow bong joined. Tamoghna, ‘representing WB’ with me, was in 26 of same bldg.
June 4th…….Here I go, amigo ! Vivek in ‘masti’ mood already. We were registered, schedules and bags and etc. (Oh yeah, and Olympiad t-shirts and caps, nice things 2 show off to muggles, eh ?) handed out, and ‘lessons’ started. Everyday, first sessions were problem solvings, then discussions, mostly by our ‘favorite’, Kale Sir the great. Then lunch (Food’s quite good, but only everything veg !, and the soup they were giving as appetizer was really yucky.). Today, after lunch, we had our ‘LAB ORIENTATION’. Essentially was to ‘teach’ us kings of theory the basics of lab works ( how miserable !). Exhausted after 3 hours, many dragged till 4 or even more I gess. We did Chalk chromatography, paper chromatos, sectioned earthworm, handled crabs……….New roommate Vineet joined us from today….. a damn good bloke, 1st in manipal !!!
June 5th…….Lab exam in Plant sciences,…how’s dat ? there was sectioning of 5 root/stem samples (which I did horribly in school, but managed somehow here), then identifying leaf samples by dichotomous keys, Thin-Layer Chromatography, Doing floral diags of given flowers and the memorable one ( for me)….test for plant photosyn. We had to grind leaves and then filter by a round Filter paper into a test-tube, and what I did was filter through the thin tissue paper given, and as result, dint get a color change. Told Chiku maam( Rekha Vartak, the head of the whole program), not of what I did, but what happened. She shrugged (possibly guessing I did something wrong !!). After exams, another thing..… the PMT results, I am 363, though expcted more. Tamoghna 196. Three in top 10 (vineet 9), vivek 49……..what will happen to me on 11th ?
June 6th……..Animal Sciences lab exam. The tasks were to identify and classify ten animal samples, taking out appendages of shrimp and pointing functions, doing blood smear and comparing, observing feeding behavior in paramecia, and a marathon task— taking cuticle and nephridia of earthworm on slide, observe and show to observer, point 3 things in earthy’s body (couldn’t do this one, dint study ‘bout it b4 )……and what next, from given samples of alimentary canal, guessing what functions do these parts do ?! I would’ve knocked out if I got hold of the Q-setter then……..Again exhausted after a messy 3 hrs.

We were supposed to study after the exams, but I (and many of us) found myself repeatedly dozing off in library, and after coming home( that is the Mandakini 63 ), all four had a solid two-hour gossip session.
June 7th………My best exam till now. Biochem test, ……identifying carbohydrate samples, absorbance studies of glucose oxidase enzyme and graph plotting (got a nice curvy curve), restriction site problem and blood smear (again !)
Tamoghna very serious ……. ‘SRK in chak de’ type. He did a silly mistake yesterday and was furious.
June 8th………No exam, Vartak gave lecture on Biostats and told bits of formulae for tomorrow’s genetics exam…. basically it was mugging up, many were bored, and in evening in library, I was enjoying my ‘best’ time, just a stat-know-it-all to all the il-math-erate would-be docs (pardon me, but they behaved so !!), while myself was confused ‘bout what to read for tomorrow.
June 9th………A very very mediocre exam, was blown away by the first 2 things,– Pea seed genotype determination (and statistical analysis of data), and detecting mutant bacteria cultures. Guessed the pea-leaf problem; agar-plate culture observation, and restriction study was OK, what went well were pedigree analysis (PKU, reagent/coloration etc. ), and the onion-tip mitosis problem.
After exams, came home to take rest, but found myself playing cards with vivek and naman. Studied in Library a bit in evening.
June 10th…….. The big bro, theory exam (which brought us here !) A 4 hr exam, 2 papers, no energy left after 1 pm, the end of exam. Did okay, now can breathe easy. Today also did the graph problem well ( at least I reckon, as I judge by the shape of graph (!),and got a beautiful sigmoid exponential curve. )
So, all over. Nothing to do, went Trombay with father in afternoon. In evening, read a ‘feluda’ detective story, the eng translation of ‘badshahi angti’ (the royal ring), which was half-finished from yesterday evening !! Tamoghna still reading, today a Sigmund Freud book. He doesn’t seem to be willing to leave HBCSE this early!
June 11th…….. At last, got into the top 20, not in top 4. Had a wild hope, but did lose focus, dint deserve, otherwise I believe I could do it. Kalyani got most of the killings, best in theory exam, a place in top 4, and top 20 prize. Aparna was best in pracs, and others in top 3 were two Anurags (Chahal, and Shahi uncle(!)), and chubby Devanshu. Surojit predicted him, and vineet, kaustav, ritika. I thought it would be nishant, vineet, tamoghna (though wishing deep inside heart may it be me !), and ritika.
Now went out to see the city, with dad. Surojit and vivek left, vineet left yesterday.
Saw the Siddhivinayak (the bachchans made it more famous!), mahalaxmi, chowpatty beach, and changed 3 trains amid the famous mumbaiya rush to mankhurd late, after 9. Was lucky to get a dinner at the canteen.
June 12th…….. Had our train in night. Checked out with dad in morning, went VT, kept luggage in cloak-room, and set foot outside. First gateway of India, then taraporewala aquarium and then the big thing I was waiting,….a visit to TIFR, at Colaba. Have a namesake there (or rather HE has a namesake in me ), a scientist in the dept. of Astrophysics. Met Subha da on net September last yr, when he was in Canada, joined TIFR this yr January. We three had a hearty chat over and long after lunch……he’s from kolkata, ‘dumdum-er chhele’………Then return to VT by bus, and train in night. Oh yes, and meanwhile, had loads of juices and sherbets,—mango, pineapple, rosemilk, kala-khatta, nimbu paani………dint have the pav-bhaaji though. Both me and father agreed that eating this ‘faltoo’ thing is sheer waste of money.

Don’t see Harry Potter, the movie……

Saw Harry Potter 4 last night, ……..the film’s completely a waste, if u dint read da book, u cant follow it, so much shortened and modified, almost like a summary ! Hagrid, Snape seemed like joker, Dumbledore had the humourous tone but lacked the gravity dat makes him apart. And what else, there was almost no Sirius, and no dobby, no winky, no percy. In some places da innovations went good, like the introduction of foreign students in Hogwarts. Krum looked good.

The book is a lot better, Rowling’s a class apart. The film can’t stand on its own.

SOME TRY AND TRY TO BE THE BEST…SOME ARE BORN ISI-ANS………
Stat methods exam gone today,…….Saurabh Ghosh, the teacher,(the chubby face above) turned up late again, even when it’s exam, and keeps preaching to be punctual…….

dint know what to read, the Q turned out to be easy enough, still couldn’t do a 3-pointer, others ok……saw after exam dat , probably all, did dat very problem, why couldn’t I do it ? oh nuts !

I MUST, MUST, MUST perform upto my capability, am not satisfied.

Who says yoga is crap, ‘religiously-biased’ ???

Read some 4-5 days before that da catholic churches in england are considering to ban yoga as they think this is hindu-type !!!!………What can I say, ‘riddikulus’ is too little !!! These christian pope-father etc.community can match the muslims (i.e. only the extremists ) in stubbornness, and it is more enhanced by the colonial hangover that is so deep-ridden in their mindset………

P.S. Yoga is really good, I TELL U. I had a BMI of 27, and got it down to 26, gained quite a muscle mass, and a 2-pack ab (till now, that is !), only with a 1-hour workout with mostly yoga.

Exams on!!!!!

LIES, DAMN LIES AND STATISTICS………….

My first exams in ISI, The Indian Statistical Institute………started from 3rd, had linear algebra. Damn bad for a start…….30 marks, 10 buffer, still managed to attempt only 31…….fie !!! Would be happy if get 27-28.

6th….Probability. We are taught this by one of the country’s most distinguished probabilists……Dr. B.V. Rao……..his twinkling face gives some sort of assurance before exam. AND the exam went well……..easy questions, bit testing, the last one not complete by a whisker. Still okay…after the near-disaster last day.

10th…today…. Analysis exam, Mahuya dutta teaches us….she teaches so well that we ofter tennnnnnd to doze off in her lectures !!!!……frankly, so disgusting !!! The paper, by the way, was easy, in fact, unexpectedly easy. The seniors frightened us in hostel by repeatedly saying she sets questions super-hard, in fact, we were panicking till we got the paper. OK, so far so good. This subject does so many hullabaloo with trivial things………like, they define the thing muggles call ‘counting’ by “establishing one-one correspondence between the things tto be counted, and the set of natural numbers….okay,okay, that IS technically correct, but, just think, what f*** !

Stat Methods on 12th, light subject. The teacher Saurabh Ghosh (our dear Sau-daa ) kept on saying, “Don’t take this subject lightly, i think you are about to get a large surprise when u see the paper” in a hi-freq voice (which i can mimick very well) from the week our classes started !!!

Hi, this is Subhabrata Majumdar, Kolkata, India. More soon>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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