The Tech Nut at IIT-G : Chapter 4

I’m currently waking up, listening to Clocks, by Coldplay. My mobile luckily does have a music player. It’s around 5 AM. A familiar sense of excitement courses through my viens. I was about to set out on a journey…of sorts.

The day before…I was frantically trying to make a presentation and pack at the same time. Not too successful I must say. I was using Lotus Symphony, which was newly downloaded on my PC. It’s a nice shell that IBM has built around OpenOffice. Can compete with Microsoft Office, once a few touches need to be  added to it. The best feature is the way it lets you handle documents, spreadsheets and presentations in tabs in the main application.

I was going nuts, trying to pack. Especially with an anxious mom hovering and hollering over my shoulder. I eventually went over the list 3 to 4 times, once before packing, once after, once before sleeping, and once in the shower in the morning! I still wasn’t satisfied…

Anyway, the reason I got up so early was because I needed to go over to Aishwarya’s, cause I was going to the airport with her. I needed to get up early because finding an auto early in the morning isn’t exactly a piece of cake and Aishwarya wanted to leave by 7 (for a 9:30 flight…God knows why!…I think she got it from Ritu ma’am)

Luckily enough, there was an auto hanging around. This was around 6:15 AM. The autowallah was charging me 30 bucks, mainly cause he had no idea where Sarvodaya Enclave was. This, even after I said it was near IIT (the Delhi one).

He started whining  (like his auto) when I told him to take the turn for the Outer Ring Road. Hehe.

Eventually, I got to her house at 6:30 AM, half an hour too early. I could hear someone inside, but not the kind of chatter associated with someone leaving on a trip. Anyway, I rang the bell, and her Mom opened the door.

There wasn’t anyone else about. Evidently, she was still sleeping. Eventually, a bleary eyed Aishwarya. still in her pajamas, emerged, yawning, stretching. We exchanged pleasantries, and I waited, reading the newspaper. I later borrowed a lock from her because I couldn’t find one for my luggage, which consisted of a strolley, my school bag and a sort of bazooka thingy for the charts – mainly for engineering drawings…my brother’s.

I then got a peek at her PC…it was pretty crowded. Everyone used the same user, which really isn’t advisable. She was downloading Viva la Vida, the new album by Coldplay. She was using Windows Media Player to sync it. She’s got a Creative Muvo (dunno the exact model).

Anyway, on the way, in the car, I was going nuts…the soundproofing in the car was virually non-existent. Either that, or the tyres were in a bad shape. The car sounded like a jet engine. At the airport, we had no problems finding ma’am and Vishaka, who was already there. As were Shikhar, and two of the eleventhees present. Actually, I have no idea which ones were there, but I’ll name all of them anyway – Ayush, Amit and Ankit. We checked in our baggage and got our boarding passes.

I got seat 25F. Yay! A window seat … sorry, slightly juvenile of me…:-P

Karthick had fixed the turbine assembly in a plastic dubba/box, but it was good enough. Actually, the entire thing was pretty shiny, with loads of decorative tape being used. I promptly proceeded to be my clumsy self, and smashed into it while turning around, and got shouted at by Karthick…this happened quite often on the flight as well.

Anyway, we had a bit of waiting to do at the airport. Luckily, ma’am had her laptop, and there was also WiFi. But it was really slow, with latencies of upto 2 seconds! Courtesy Jet Airways. By the way, we were flying JetLite, the low cost subsidary of Jet Airways. This obviously meant that we would get to food on board.

I do have a big problem with unsecured free public WiFi hotspots. It’s quite easy for a hacker to tap the stream of data from your laptop. Plus, in light of the recent blasts in Delhi, the e-mails for which were sent from unsecured Wifi networks in Mumbai, I must say that it’s not advisable. Nevertheless, I used it. I had to…because we needed some videos for our presentation, which I had forgotten.

Anyway, I was working on Vista, which I don’t generally get to do. ‘Twas nice. I’m beginning to think that it might be worth it…but it’s too early to deliver a verdict. Not until I get to work with it for a week or two. We couldn’t download the videos at the speeds we were getting at the time. Then the boarding call for our flight was announced. A small queue had formed already at the gate, and ma’am insisted on trying to muscle through that. I preferred to go to the back, whip out my iPod and wait.

By the way, while we were waiting, we also met a celebrity. A slightly less known one, but a celebrity nevertheless. You need to remember an ad that Cadbury had released, about Perk. The one with the wafer outside…damn…I forgot the name. Well, the postman who fights with the dog. That dude was also waiting for a flight. By the way, his name is Shyam. He seemed so unlike the onscreen persona he portrayed. Very calm, soft-spoken kinda guy, not excessively jubilant or anything…which I found a bit unnerving…

In the flight, we eventually got a seating arrangement where Karthick was in 25E, on my left, and a window on my right. By the way, I also took a video of take off…:-P…not exactly allowed…but I don’t see how a camera can cause interference.

The flight was pretty boring. We were listening to music, mainly, and reading the magazines. The slimy guys who published the on-flight magazine, put a close-up picture of a mouth-watering Rajasthani thali, which really was bad, because we had to buy the food on-flight, and it wasn’t exactly mouth-watering. In fact, we could only buy cookies and cashews to eat. Caterers – Cafe Coffee Day, so only the coffee must’ve been good. My stomach was grumbling big time.

The landing wasn’t exactly the smoothest ever. I got that on video as well.

After landing, a lot of us found that our mobiles were not getting any coverage. This turned out because we had prepaid mobiles, which were not allowed in Guwahati, apparently. I was lucky, because as I approached the luggage conveyor belt, my bag was the first one that was passing by me.

Anyway, in a mail the IIT dudes had sent us, we were told that there would be people to pick us up. They also said that there would be a bus to pick us up. They weren’t there. So, we were thinking of whether to take the bus or a pre-paid taxi, or the bus. We didn’t exactly know where the bus would be, so we decided on the taxi.

By the way, as soon as we exited the airport terminal, and looked a bit flustered, taxi drivers descended on us like vultures on a particularly juicy piece of carrion. We eventually did get 2 taxis, and loaded up and left.