MSRIT

Issue One

19 a

Lights,Camera, Credits!

Introducing… the 19 a team…

Co-Editors Shrusti Mohanty 5th sem, Dept of Electrical and Electronics EngineeringNisha Nataraj 5th sem, Dept of Industrial Engineering and ManagementShashidhar K.J. 5th sem, Dept of Industrial Engineering and Management

Chief Liaisoning officerSantosh K. Prasad 7th sem, Dept of Computer Science Engineering

Editorial Design : Gautham S.B. 5th sem, Dept of Mechanical engineering

Photography: Gautham S.B. 5th sem, Dept of Mechanical engineeringVignesh Raja 5th sem, Dept of TelecommunicationsShashidhar K.J. 5th sem, Dept of Industrial Engineering and Management

Spl Correspondent: Gurupad B.V. 5th sem, Dept of Medical Electronics

We would also like to thank many people who helped us out a lot… but since we cannot list them all out, we will just thank a few of them and consider it done.

For starters, Krishna Raj sir, and Phaneesh sir for their advice and pointers, and for believ-ing that we would pull it off (although at the rate at which we were going we are surprised our proposals and rough drafts did not wind up in the bin)

Our principal has also been most encouraging and has lent us unending support.

Finally we would like to thank the CATCE for letting us use their premises to work in.

Thumba Thanks Ri!!

Digital Art and Illustrations Copyright: Gautham S.B. All Rights Reserved.Photography Copyright: Gautham S.B., Vignesh Raja, Shashidhar K.J. All Rights Reserved.

The image use for ‘Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon’ is of a cover of an audio recording, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the work or the artist(s) which produced the recording or cover artwork in ques-tion. In this magazine it is used solely to illustrate the audio recording in question.

Inside.

.Editorial

.Much Ado About Nothing

.The Idiot’s Iliad

.The Happiness Sale

.The Chaos Theory

.Debunking Ramaiah

.Ramaiah Reviews :

..The Dark Side of the Moon

..Singh is Kinng

.Our Future

.‘Scopes by Bubba Alien

.Regeneration

.Fire and Smoke and Everyone Broke.The Ugly, the Bad-leave Obscured

Creatively YoursAs the new semester crawls its way into existence, a new member joins the ‘M.S.R.I.T fam-ily… no no, not that kind of member... not ESB the fifteenth either, that too but… ahem okay, lets start over… <Insert drum roll> We the students of MSRIT hereby adopt, enact and

give to ourselves, our very own student college magazine… 19(a)!!

So to set the record straight… this compilation that you are about to peruse, is the official (yes, we take particular pride, alright fine, GLOAT, in having earned that tag) student col-lege magazine. 19(a) is with reference to the article in the constitution of India, that guar-antees the freedom of speech and expression to her citizens. We at 19(a) propose to do exactly that… guarantee every student of namma college, the freedom of to express their

thoughts … literally… on just about anything under the sun, on this official forum.

The idea was conceived in the middle of the night, when a certain someone was SUP-POSED to have been studying for a paper on network analysis… but instead decided to do

something about the appalling state of literary activities … and thus 19(a) was born!!

The entire process has been, admittedly, arduous - vast quantities of sticky tape to be dealt with, vast quantities of people who averred to send in vast quantities of articles which somehow lost their way and never quite made it to our edit desk… disagreements, dead-

lines, revised deadlines, absolutely-final-deadlines…

In the end however, after the case of chronic catachresis had lifted from the campus, and some amount of gentle coaxing, we’ve managed to put together a respectable number of articles, for your reading pleasure. (Take a bow gautham, your ‘persuasion’ skills are the

best…!)

For our pilot issue, we’ve voted to go full steam ahead without a theme. The only common thread meandering its way through the following pages, is that of creativity and Ramaiah-ness. The enthusiasm that we have seen during the making of this issue, has been very en-

couraging, and we hope to make the next one bigger and better.

Here’s wishing all our readers a happy, eventful odd semester, and to the first years.. Welcome to Ramaiah!

To infinity and beyond! (I can hear someone screaming behind me – Give Buzz Lightyear his due credit! Okaaay!)

We’d love to hear from you…Write to editors.msrit@gmail.com with your feedback. We ac-cept all major credit cards.

-Shrusti Mohanty5th Sem, EEE

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING“Wake up, Goutham, wake up” the voice cried out. I closed my eyes and turned hoping it would go away, but it didn’t. It only grew in intensity. I persevered but I was shaken awake. It was my mother. I looked at the clock. It was an ungodly 5 a.m. “Your father is at the gate. He is back from his trip. Go wake up the gurkha.” said my mother. I slowly made my way downstairs from the 3rd floor that we live in, simultaneously trying to call him up (yes, he has a cell phone). I was on the 1st floor when I first heard him snoring. Life is all about irony. I disconnected. I reached the ground floor. My father was near the gate, shouting “Bahadur, Bahadur” for all he was worth. I have always wondered why so many of these guards are called Bahadur. Is it because you sus-pect crooks to be lurking around and you want to scare them? Or is it to remind the guard that he is supposed to be brave? OR maybe they think that by calling him brave, he will become brave? It’s probably just because they forget the guard’s name. I shook him. He didn’t stir. I smiled. I had just made a James Bond drink (bond likes his drink to be “shaken, not stirred”). God! PJs at five in the morning?! I’m unbeatable.

I think he has one of the best jobs in the world. He is the only guard for our building which has about twenty flats. It comes in second on my list of dream jobs. The salary may not be bril-liant but the perks are. A roof over your head, free water supply and electricity (the tenants pay for it). Free cable too. You can sit and watch TV the whole day near the gate. You can sleep too, anytime of the day - nobody expects you to be awake the whole 24 hours. If they see you sleeping during the day they’ll think you were awake in the night and vice versa. You even get to drive cars, while parking, and bikes, when the tenants want you to run some errands. You can always borrow money from the tenants (that translates to a credit card or an insurance policy depending on the situation). What more could you want out of life?!

First on my list of dream jobs is a Volvo bus conductor (the ones that ply to and fro from the airport). You sit around the whole day in an AC bus doing nothing, there are hardly any passen-gers. And what’s more you get paid to do……. nothing! Plus you get a tour of the whole city everyday. You are like the royalty of the bus conductor community. Some people may disagree and say it would be better being the driver, what with a powerful en-gine at your feet, and what not, but, keeping Bangalore’s traffic in mind, I would rather be the conductor.

In case you are wondering, no, government desk jobs don’t make my list. You have to pay a heavy bribe (ok, only for the lesser mortals like me who can’t make the cut by merit alone) to first get the job. Then you keep getting transferred (the transfer part is not as easy as it looks, believe me); and there’s too much office politics involved for my liking.

Oh! I forgot to mention the best part of these jobs -you don’t have to slog your butts off for four years (5 for the architecture people.), learning things which won’t be of any use in your future career (well, most of it at any rate).

Coming back to my task at hand, Bahadur finally woke up and dreamily opened the gate. Turns out, the gate wasn’t locked. He had just hung the lock on the inside. The Irony.

-Goutham Murthy 5th Sem, ME

Erstwhile, the village idiot went on a quest, To vanquish the evil dragon he sought with all that zest.Trouble loomed close, aye.The poor boy knew not how near by.

An approach to the wise man confirmed our fears,“Idiot!” he yelled, and brought him to tears.Yes, we knew he would not survive,A battle with the dragon, even a while!

Erstwhile, heart-broken, refused to give in, He exclaimed, “I’ll show them! I shall win!”Armed with a stolen sword,He set out to prove his given word.

The days that came were long and weary,And Erstwhile the idiot, hallucinated of many-a-fairy.But he marched on, stood his ground,Although, he might have lost his way, and gone round & around.

The time came when he approached the lair,Yes, the men that ventured here were rare.“Dragon!” he kind of provoked,While outside, in fear, the beard he’d grown, he gen-tly stroked.

Now, the idiot knew nothing of swords, or even to fightThe most he’d endured was say, staying up all night.And as he stood outside, he recalled these things,Saw that maybe they were right, and suddenly wished to sprout wings.

The Idiot’s Iliad

Too late, he realized, as he heard a rumble,The dragon, roused, had begun to stumble.Erstwhile began to quaver,But reminded himself of his foolish declaration – never to waver!

The dragon finally came out, and saw light,Annoyed by whatever gave her a fright.Tall as the sky, She eventually spotted a puny guy, about to cry.

Confused and perplexed, She looked at the boy oh-so-vexed,Most of the men, who came to kill her,Were surely, a tad bit fuller??

She sat down,Unsure of this clown,Who finally opened his eyes to see,A figure sitting down, the huge monstrosity!

Erstwhile the stupid, but also the brave,Ventured to speak, lest he be sent to the grave!“Dragon”, he ventured, “Get set! I’m here to slay you!”But, that he was ready to pass out, was also true.

He unsheathed his sword, and stood with a deter-mined frown,While she still wondered why he bore no crown? He paused, wondered how to carry out the rest, While she sat there, thinking, “Is this a test?!”

The idiot decided to charge at last,While the dragon saw, that he wasn’t very fast.He struck her “hard” on her toe,And stood there expecting some blood to flow.

But, alas! She didn’t flinch,What? Did this idiot expect a lynch?!The dragon finally had enough of this game,She spoke, “Boy, tell me your name?”

Erstwhile stood back to see if he heard right,He regrouped his courage with all his might, “Erstwhile” he said, “Would you like my age too?”She blinked, and said “Young man, How do you do?”

Now the idiot was confounded, really puzzled, How was this dragon not the least bit frazzled??Here he was, standing to kill her,And maybe even make roast, and grill her?

But this girl, she seemed hardly worried,Basking in the sun, her scales lurid?Was this some kind of sick joke?!“Oi!” he heard, and into his thoughts she broke.

“Do you mind?!”“How are you? To reply would only be kind!”“Al-Alright” He stammered,Considering, the possibility that he was hammered.

She laughed, and saw he was a simpleton,That the only chance he had, in a fight, to run.She smiled, or bared her teeth,While the idiot thought “I’m dead meat!”

She decided it was best to let him go home, Rather than bury him in some loam.“Boy” she said, “I’ll strike you a deal”“Provided you sit down, and have a meal.”

The idiot, now completely convinced he was a nut,Chided himself for priding his gut.He sat down carefully,Even as The dragon eyed him playfully.

“Go home kid,” she encouraged,“We’ll have my death staged” “I’ll pretend to have died” “And you can claim to have done more than tried!”

She offered him some goat flesh, She urged, “Do have some, Its Fresh!”He saw she was careful of her manners,And suddenly became mindful of his own “gram-mars”!

The offer he reasoned, was too good to be true,If he didn’t accept it, he would most definitely rue! “Okay, Lets do this! I’ll pretend to kill you!”“Lets find some green stuff , and cover my sword with goo!”

They had a whale of a time,Bonding over the length of this rhyme,As they carefully planned and staged her death,The idiot was overjoyed, and into the air he leapt!

The time came, when he bid her adieu,“So long” he said “ I hope to sometime see you!”She returned his greeting,Happy she had the opportunity of this meeting.

Erstwhile set out, back to the village,Thrilled about narrating his made-up tales of cour-age!And as he finally reached the outskirts,Realized he looked a warrior – covered in dirt!

The villagers came to receive him, he was now a hero!They’d no longer compare him to that Indian thing, a zero?As the idiot swelled up with pride,The rest of the village were now idiots – for he had lied!!!

-Nisha Natraj5th Sem, IEM

HappinessSALE

Yours truly was walk-ing around in one of the better known bookstores of our city, when the self help section zoomed into focus.I tilted the head in order to be able to read fully the titles of some of these tomes. ‘ How to Make More Friends and be Happy’ screamed one, ‘How to get that Pro-motion you Deserve !!’ claimed another… you get the drift.

everyone else? I find it terribly insulting.

It distresses me how these kinds of books are exceedingly popular, and how every-one’s lapping up all the material they can buy on lifestyling. I’m not going to take names of authors, for the sake of political correctness. Are people really willing to accept that someone else, who doesn’t know them or even of them, can tell them what they’re doing wrong with their lives and give them a five-step procedure titled how to clean up your act? And throw in a manual with coloured pictures so they can practice at home.

Maybe the moorings of this phenomenon can be traced to some rungs of our edu-cation system, where sadly, thinking differ-ently is frowned upon, especially during… umm… ah… lets just say UNIVERSITY exams, you those seven marks reserved for that

All I can say is that I’m envious of people who claim that the stuff works for them. If it took so little, 120 pages of yarn if you please, to inspire me to a realm, I would probably be, by now an international ice hockey player. It would be exceedingly convenient, albeit flighty. Personally I think it’s slightly superficial, in fact some what of a sham. if you had to read a book on how to kindle your life’s aspirations, then you’ve probably not lived at all. How anyone can throw at you, handy hints on how to better your life, is preposterous… simply because it requires that you start with the basic as-sumption that everyone’s life is exactly the same, everyone thinks exactly the same way and likes the same things. Well they don’t. Which is why we have so many differ-ent flavours of ice cream. What happened to individuality? How come people don’t mind being thrown into the same demographic, as just about

will cost you those seven marks reserved for that question even if you were absolutely right. Eventually people say ‘ Aw, what the heck, I need to make that FCD’. They take the easy way out, follow the tried and tested answers and bask their way to rank merits. Before you know it, an entire gen-eration has been created that has been trained to read life out of a book. Now cut to the ‘real’, i.e. out-of syllabus world, once college is over and done with. Forgotten how to think for yourself? No problem! The friendly guides are available, complete with past year papers, (read ‘inspirational books’) available at a bookstore near you. Look! They even have a 20% discount!

It’s a sign of desperation, it smacks of medi-ocrity, and yet people don’t mind.

Maybe it’s some sort of a placebo effect…You feel that since you’re learning ‘how to be happy’ and’ how to get more out of life’ from a book you probably are (you don’t want to have spent 350 bucks on NOTHING), and consequently, every ray of sunshine that wanders into your life you attribute to the happiness programme, and then you’re off and away, gushing to friends and family, urging them to get with it, before all the best seats are taken. Before you know it, it’s the plague that never was.

First convince people they are gerbils in a wheel and then promise you can get them out, for a nominal fee of course. It works! People buy the stuff by the scores.

SOMEONE’s making a lot of money out of this whole situation.

I think I’m going to write my own inspira-tional book.

-Shrusti Mohanty5th Sem, EEE

THE CHAOS THEORYIn everyday life, we come across many instances or happenings, which do not seem to be linked at all, but are all a part of a much larger system, and contribute to the occur-rence of a massive event. For example, let us consider three events - On a particular day, a street is filled with overflowing drainage. A nearby electric junction box breaks down, and its wires fall into this puddle of drainage water. A cat, playfully jumps into this puddle. The cat dies due to an electric shock. Here, three seemingly unconnected events (the drainage overflowing, the junction box breaking down, and the cat jumping into the puddle) are all responsible for the occurrence of a larger event: the death of the cat. The underlying principle in this example is the chaos theory. Basically, a chaotic system is one wherein long term predictions are impossible. The name “chaos theory” comes from the fact that the systems the theory describes are ap-parently disordered, but chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order in appar-ently random data.Like for example, if I push a car, I know that it is going to move and it will continue to do so if I go on pushing it. However, in a chaotic system, this situation can-not be predicted over a long period of time. Weather for example is a chaotic system. No matter how good your instruments are, you simply cannot predict the weather with 100% accuracy over a long term basis and forecast it. In both these cases, the system is depen-dent on the initial conditions. In fact, the system could have been in a dramatically differ-ent position, or behaved in a totally unexpected manner, if the initial conditions had been different. This highly sensitive initial dependency is called the butterfly effect. In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamic systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics which are highly sensitive to initial conditions (the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which mani-fests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears random. This happens even though these systems are deter-ministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos. Chaotic behavior is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather. This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system.THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT It is the most important component of a chaotic system. Basically, small perturbations results in amplifications which completely destroys the original nature of the system and makes prediction impossible. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado, or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events lead-ing to large-scale alterations of events. The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe one that wasn’t going to happen, does. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajec-tory of the system might have been vastly different. Of course the butterfly cannot literally cause a tornado. The kinetic energy in a tornado is enormously larger than the energy in the turbulence of a butterfly. The kinetic energy of a tornado is ultimately provided by the sun and the butterfly can only influence certain details of weather events in a chaotic manner.

Recurrences (the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions) together with sensitive dependence on initial conditions are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range (approximately a week in the case of weather). Although the chaos theory was initially applied to weather forecasting, it subsequently found its way into a wide variety of both scientific and nonscientific applications, from the geometry of snowflakes, and corporate strategies to the predictability of which movies will become blockbusters.

DISCOVERY The first true experimenter in chaos was a meteorologist, named Edward Lorenz. In 1960, he was working on the problem of weather prediction. He had a computer set up, with a set of twelve equations to model the weather. It didn’t predict the weather itself. However this computer program did theoretically predict what the weather might be. Just a small change in the initial conditions can drastically change the long-term be-havior of the system.One day in 1961, he wanted to see a particular sequence again. To save time, he started the middle of the sequence, instead of the beginning. He entered the number off his printout and left to let it run. When he came back an hour later, the sequence had evolved differently. Instead of the same pattern as before, it diverged from the pattern, ending up wildly different from the original. Eventually he figured out what happened. The computer stored the numbers to six decimal places in its memory. To save paper, he only had it print out three decimal places. In the original sequence, the number was .506127, and he had only typed the first three digits, .506. By all conventional ideas of the time, it should have worked. He should have gotten a sequence very close to the original sequence. A scientist considers himself lucky if he can get measurements with accuracy to three decimal places. Surely the fourth and fifth, impossible to measure using reasonable methods, can’t have a huge effect on the out-come of the experiment. Lorenz proved this idea wrong. This effect came to be known as the butterfly effect. The amount of difference in the starting points of the two curves is so small that it is comparable to a butterfly flapping its wings. Such a small amount of difference in a measurement might be considered experi-mental noise, background noise, or an inaccuracy of the equipment. Such things are impossible to avoid in even the most isolated lab. With a starting number of 2, the final result can be entirely different from the same system with a starting value of 2.000001. It is simply impossible to achieve this level of accuracy - just try and measure something to the nearest millionth of an inch! From this idea, Lorenz stated that it is impossible to predict the weather accurately. However, this discovery led Lorenz on to other aspects of what even-tually came to be known as chaos theory.How is chaos theory applicable to the real world? First and foremost, chaos theory is a theory. As such, much of it is of use more as scien-tific background than as direct applicable knowledge. Chaos theory is great as a way of looking at events which happen in the world differently from the more traditional, strictly deterministic view which has dominated science from Newtonian times. Moviegoers who watched movies like the Jurassic Park, butterfly effect, The Sound of Thunder, and more recently, Dasavatharam are surely aware that chaos theory can profoundly affect the way things turn out and how someone thinks about the world; and indeed, chaos theory is useful as a tool with which to interpret scientific data in new ways.

Instead of a traditional X-Y plot, scientists can now interpret phase-space diagrams which--rather than describing the exact position of some variable with respect to time--repre-sents the overall behavior of a system. Instead of looking for strict equations conforming to statistical data, we can now look for dynamic systems with behavior similar in nature to the statistical data--systems, that is, with similar attractors. Chaos theory provides a sound framework with which to develop scientific knowledge. However, this is not to say that chaos theory has no applications in real life.

Chaos theory techniques have been used to model biological systems, which are of course some of the most chaotic systems imaginable. Systems of dynamic equations have been used to model everything from population growth to epidemics to arrhythmic heart palpitations. In fact, almost any chaotic system can be readily modeled - the stock market pro-vides trends which can be analyzed with strange attractors more readily than with con-ventional explicit equations; a dripping faucet seems random to the untrained ear, but when plotted as a strange attractor, reveals an eerie order unexpected by conventional means. Fractals have cropped up everywhere, most notably in graphic applications like the high-ly successful Fractal Design Painter series of products. Fractal image compression tech-niques are still under research, but promise such amazing results as 600:1 graphic com-pression ratios. The movie special effects industry would have much less realistic clouds, rocks, and shadows without fractal graphic technology. And of course, chaos theory gives people a wonderfully interesting way to become more interested in mathematics, one of the more unpopular pursuits of the day.

The very idea that two or more totally unconnected occurrences or happenings could be part of a much larger event or in some cases result in a calamity, makes for a very interesting topic of discussion. But there has to be something, or someone that controls all these occurrences. Like in the first example, all the three events (the cat, the drainage, and the electric junction box), had to happen at the same place for the occturrence of the larger event (the death of the cat). There is always a probability involved with any oc-currence. Who or what decides this probability, is an entirely different question altogether.

-Srinath Sriram3rd Sem, ME

DE-BUNKINGCLASSES

That name still makes me wonder about a lot of things. Ramaiah. Its the perfect blend of the sophistication and nostalgia that sim-mers in your morning coffee. Its for many, a reason to be born anew with that coffee. It is, for many more, a reason to make a herculean effort to drag their zombienesses to the campus at mid-afternoon and give a huge speech about how they’re going to be punctual, attend classes, concen-trate on what’s being said and try to be a better student, starting the following day, amidst the callous cacophony that exists in the canteen, the hazy sunshine that reflects off the bikes at Little shop, or a peaceful pseudo-summer that thrives in the sports complex. Ramaiah awakens different feelings in many a MSRite. A consequence of which maybe, the different professions that we do. For poetic justice, the foregoing be-seeches a respectful mention of the great minds of the college that actually study and bring laurels to the institution. (Its funny how I always use the word “institution” when I really want to say asylum) Jokes apart, they do play a vital role in it, be-cause if they were us, we’d by crippling coincidence, would have to be them! Its because of us though, that people ap-preciate them more. So we are actually behind all their successes and we are swell about that (in a very humble way). The second class of our population thrives in the canteens at pretty much the entire time of the day that classes go on in the silent corridors. These honourable souls take pride in the belief that they do their bit in conducting the lectures in a peaceful man-ner by (for a fact) staying out of it. They fear their presence will create a lack of seren-ity, which will decrease the percentage of people in the class who snore so hard that the ones sitting in the corridors are treated to a symphony with reverb effects, who sleep so deep that teachers fear death due to the mere guilt of waking up a per-son sleeping with such childlike innocence, who doodle away to glory for the entire hour of torture seemingly unaffected by any developments in the room, who try and try to stay awake waiting for their name to be called out but are so battle-worn by the episode that they sleep when it most mat-ters, or those many unsung artists, thinkers,

skilled marksman, singers, analysts, musi-cians, time-trackers, score-keepers, petrol-heads, soccer-heads, radio-heads, mes-sengers, and talented souls that throng the classes at the time of “shortages”. They believe in the freedom of choice, and that interested students should be entitled to disturbance-free education and that they have no business attending classes and violating such rights. The listlessly active part of us endear in get-ting a natural tan by engrossing in hours of sport under an unrelenting sun, giving our lazy shameless life its due exertion. It results in a smelly bunch of sweaty guys entering a shocked classroom when they suddenly de-cide to give it a break, but such instances happen so few and far apart, that it foxes any teacher who claims to have known every person of the class. It is the second of the aforementioned shrines that blossoms free spirit and encourages radical thought so its no surprise that most ingenious ideas are the handiwork of the devotees of these shrines. It sums up all the places in the col-lege where rapid approximation of atten-dance (or invariably a coin toss) goes on, which enables the general public to make a rational choice of whether and when to go back to class. Same is the case with the section of our society that seeks solace in the “Little Shop” which we all have come to know and love. It is the epicenter of all geniuses, the rendezvous of all great laureates, and the command center of all criminally-insane ideas and ideologies that put Einstein and Plato to shame. It is the perfect battle ground, where all differences in opinion are handled in the most educated man-ner of debates of high drama. It is serenity for those noble souls who keep the campus pollution free. It is the right place to sit and dream about the golden day when the college choruses “Pappu pass ho gaya”. It is the sacred land where dreams are forged and palaces are built and to that we give our heart and soul.

-Prashant Natraj5th Sem, EC

... RAMAIAHREVIEWS

.Singh is Kinng-Vignesh Raja, 5th Sem TC

.Dark Side of the Moon

-Shashidhar K.J.5th Sem IEM

Singh is KinngWarning: This article is meant to insult all those who liked the movie. So read carefully. If anyone from the bolly-

wood (hahaha) fraternity reads this frame, pray you don’t do anything that deserves such a thrashing.

To begin with it’s not a movie. It’s a bunch of Neanderthals getting paid like CRAZY to dance, “sing” in Exotic Locales with Expensive Equipment that could have been put to better use.

The director, in an interview, said he wants to make masala movies which make money, so a hundred families will be benefited by its success. A noble gesture. Indeed. If the money used to produce the movie had been used to buy land for agriculture, many more families could have been benefited. But after watching the movie, I feel the direc-tor isn’t suited for the principle of farming either. Just another Big Shot friend of the producer, spending money for

the heck of it.

There is no content in the movie; the story could have been penned by a ten year old. The emotional sequences were predictable and, forgive me if I sound insensitive, just plain boring. Tears were rolling down my face not be-

cause of laughter or emotion, but just sheer boredom.

The acting in the movie was horrendous. It was almost as if they were in school and the director/teacher had as-signed a role to every actor/student of the class. Om Puri is an absolute waste as “Rangeela”. Unfortunately his

experience and tolerance for such scripts, actually gives “rangeela” to the movie. Kirron Kher’s role can be simpli-fied into one scene, when she is dressed up by the servants of the house and looks absolutely stupid. That scene implies that an experienced actor can be made to look like a fool if he doesn’t make the right choices. Jaaved

Jaffrey is Jaaved Jaffrey. He deserves every paisa he gets, but his Mika dance… unnecessary, unwanted. Katrina is writing a book on criminology, I don’t think so, just a big book on bad Hindi, horrible facial expressions and a how

a rich girl wears a six year-old’s clothes; I guess it could be a bestseller. The whole concept of the movie was lost in trying to make it look cool. True we did not expect a thought provoker yet certain syllogisms should be maintained.

Now coming to the hero, Akshay Kumar, I’m sure he doesn’t care. No matter what he does, he gets a gorgeous heroine, his movie is crap and yet no one rips his case.

The action sequences could have been conceived by (again) a ten year old playing with GI-Joes. The action, I think was directed by the same kid. The running sequences were a drag. I have seen better in B-grade Chinese movies. The parachute sequence was a testimonial to show how bad editing can totally ruin an already ruined shot. Every person had a gun that I was hoping they would fire because they would have shot themselves, which, a) I would

have found funny b) The movie would have ended sooner.

The music was ok. I found a few tracks stuck in my head as i was running out of the theater. Snoop dog wearing a pagdi was stupid. But the smart guy featuring in the video has marketed his name in

India and he got paid for doing it. I respect him for that.Now coming to the whole concept of the movie degrading the Singhs, I totally agree with them though not their protests. I have many friends who are Singhs, who can make at least 90% of the people in any given room look

stupid. The movie concentrates more on their heart and physical prowess in the movie. If they had portrayed them more smartly the movie would have been different and more entertaining. I would have loved to a see a smart

sardar as a character using his brains outwitting the baddies. After watching the Mika dance I presumed he would be the smart sardar, employing a weird plan and achieving what he wanted. But my hopes were squashed to see

him wielding a gun yet again…sigh…True he is a goonda but not all goondas are stupid.

NOW, ALL YE “DIRECTORS” AND “SCRIPTWRITERS” LISTEN UP.THE AUDIENCE ISN’T STUPID. IF MOVIES LIKE AAMIR AND TAARE ZAMEEN PAR CAN INVOKE SUCH INTERESTS, IT SHOWS THERE

ARE SMART PEOPLE WAITING FOR SMART MOVIES…(heavy panting….) True, stupid movies run sometimes and this movie was enjoyed by some people (how I fail to understand). You guys make a movie; if it’s a hit you fol-low the same formula?! Grow up. Be men. Tap your own potential (if you have any) and make movies which de-

serve critical acclaim and audience satisfaction. I know it’s hard, if it wasn’t, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be making movies.

P.S. I hope people who like to protest, do so against such movies for thinking that the audience is that stupid. If the said victim says something about artistic integrity….kick him for blasphemy.

See you on the Dark Side of the MoonThe image is intriguing. Bold. The utter simplicity of it yet for the same reason evokes the most complex emotions. Its a refracting prism against a black background. I’m not looking at a science text book, but a Pink Floyd album. I hold the CD in my hand and keep looking

at the album art.

This was a few years ago when I first saw the album. Rewind some more back to 1973, the last years of great classic rock music. Two demigods, James Marshall Hendrix and James Douglas Morrison were dead, The Beatles were bickering amongst themselves and any

great talent in rock music was lost in a haze of drug abuse and overpowering disco and polyester.

You don’t see The Dark Side of the Moon as a great album. You see it as an institution of creativity. Legends don’t die and this was truly a legendary album. Very few artists can manage a sound Pink Floyd has dared to explore and pull it off. Blending insanity, psychedelia, philosophy, human nature and tendencies with sounds apt and relevant to the lyrics, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick

Mason gave the world probably, their finest work and their most defining album.

The album begins with “Speak to me” with the human heartbeat recorded by staff engineer Alan Parsons who also brainchilded most of their unusual sounds used through out the album (yes he also started The Alan Parsons’ Project) such as the ticking and chiming clock

sounds in “Time” and the loop of coins jingling and money registers in “Money”.

Another prominent theme featured in the album was that of voices recorded in the songs to enhance the insanity of the album such as the manic laugh used in “Speak to me” and “Brain Damage”, or the recordings of interviews of various members of the roadie crew to questions on flashcards revolving on the theme of the album, insanity, violence etc. This elicited some very startling answers from them.

For example in the opening of “Speak to me”, “I’ve been mad for f@#$^!* years, absolutely years, over the edge for yonks...”

The vocals provided by Clare Torry in “The Great Gig in the Sky” is another masterpiece with great vocal improvisations and as Jack Black in the “School of Rock” professes it needs to be studied by vocalists.

“Us and them” is a song how a person is always “in the right”. David Gilmour and Nick Mason’s skilled synchronization of guitar and drums, with Rick Wright’s gentle keyboard works which give way to sudden bursts of energy in the song giving an almost grand theatri-cal effect to the song. The song easily ending and blending to an instrumental “Any colour you like” which in the opinion of the author

is one of the most, trippiest shit ever.

“Money” mocks greed and the capitalistic philosophy of consumerism and also has one of the best guitar solos as opined by many art-ists.

“Time” bases itself on procrastination and how people struggle towards their last years to realize their dreams and in the opinion of the author really makes you get up and think a little about your own life.

“Brain Damage” deals with whether insanity is only relative, and senility. And when the old try to recapture what was once their prime, comes off as insanity. Punctuated by manic laughter the song really is an insight.

But Pink Floyd were clever. They knew what would keep the listeners coming back. They, like Led Zeppelin, cleverly used the media to build hype around them of their antics and got out a lot of rubbish to popularize themselves. Like the rumour about playing the “Dark side of the moon” simultaneously with the “Wizard of Oz” a lot of images would synchronize with the album and the lyrics and the band

did not do much to down the flames of this rumour.

Or the tour comic they got out featuring the band members in various fantasy sequences, Waters as captain of the English football team, Gilmour as a daredevil motorcyclist, Wright as a playboy tycoon, Mason as a captain of a warship. But just when it seemed all of that

seemed to become a bit too much they’d silence them with their music and keep them mesmerized along the way.

But all this is nice and dandy for all the artsy fartsy people and their haughtiness. The question that may linger in you is “Why on earth is this fellow raving about this album so much? Is it really that good?” To that I’d say a resounding yes! You’d think that an album so experimental wouldn’t go so well with the general public, but it did. In the author’s opinion did exactly what art needs to do, bring it

from the high realms down to the common masses.

Just look at their numbers, this album set a record of being on the billboard top 100 albums for 14 years! 14 years is staggering. Britney Spears was still in her diapers when this album was selling strong and still is. Most recording artists these days would be lucky if they

stayed on till probably a month.

I mean the masses aren’t that idiotic to keep buying an album for 14 years, which only goes to say that a good album will sell by itself (the author would not mind at all if someone would buy him a copy too). It also is the second highest selling album only to be beaten by

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

To summarize Pink Floyd with this album pushed the envelope for creativity and can be credited to the very creation of the genre of progressive rock. This album, clearly paved new grounds for thought and music. It has also established itself as one the most technically

sound albums. A must listen album for music lovers in general.

But enough said. Like Hendrix must be experienced (pun intended), this album too must be experienced. And as the lyrics go in Brain Damage … “And if the band you’re in starts playing in different tunes , I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon…”

OUR FUTURE

Most of us, if not all, have come across the term “recession” in one way or the other in the recent past. With the rising number of pink slips, for potential job seekers, this is big news, as our very future [depending on what you do with it, of course!] depends on what is going to happen 7500 miles from here. To employee an oft used cliché, whenever the US sneezes, the World catches a cold. This is evident from the way the Indian markets crashed taking a cue from a probable recession in the US and a global economic slow-down.

So the million dollar [apt currency?] question on everyone’s mind is, what is recession? And why are developing countries bearing the brunt of the effect? We will try to throw some light on these topics. It is certainly, by no means a task to understand comprehen-sively, the meaning, cause and effect of recession and if possible, maybe this can satisfy the doubts of hundreds of people out there.A recession is a decline in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth for two or more consecutive quarters of a year. A recession is also preceded by several quarters of slowing down of the growth in GDP. An economy which grows over a period tends to slow down the growth as a part of the normal economic cycle. An economy typically expands for six to ten years and tends to go into a recession for about six months to two years. A recession normally takes place when consumers lose confidence in the growth of the economy and spend less. This leads to a decreased demand for goods and services, which in turn leads to a decrease in production, lay-offs and a sharp rise in unemploy-ment. Investors spend less, as they fear stock values will fall and thus stock markets fall on negative sentiment. Current crisis in the US:

The defaults on sub-prime mortgages (home loan defaults) have led to a major crisis in the US. A Sub-prime is a high-risk debt offered to people with poor credit worthiness or unstable incomes. Major banks have landed in trouble after people could not pay back loans. The housing market soared on the back of easy availability of loans. The realty sector boomed but could not sustain the momentum for long, and collapsed under the gargantuan weight of crippling loan defaults. Foreclosures spread like wildfire putting the US economy on shaky ground. This, coupled with rising oil prices, at $100 a barrel, slowed down the growth of the economy.

The reasons for this crisis are varied and complex. Understanding and managing the ripple effect through the worldwide economy poses a critical challenge for governments, busi-nesses, and investors. The crisis can be attributed to a number of factors, such as the in-ability of homeowners to make their mortgage payments; poor judgment by the borrower and/or the lender; and mortgage incentives such as “teaser” interest rates that later rise significantly. Further, declining home prices have made re-financing more difficult. Be-cause of innovations in securitization, risks related to the inability of homeowners to meet mortgage payments have been distributed broadly, with a series of consequential im-pacts.When the crisis first came to light, many analysts called it a domestic problem-- one that would only affect US housing markets. However, the crisis quickly spread throughout the world. In September 2007, Northern Rock, a British Bank, experienced an old-fashioned “run on the bank”, after it was revealed that the bank was having trouble raising liquidity. Within one day, customers had withdrawn an estimated £1 billion. This was the first bank run in Britain since 1866. The Bank of China (the #2 bank in China) announced in August of 2007, that it holds $9.7 billion dollars of US sub prime debt. In January of 2008, Korean markets fell due to the “selling spree” of shares of US mortgages

Impact of US recession on India:A slowdown in the US economy is bad news for India. Indian companies have major out-sourcing deals from the US. India’s exports to the US have also grown substantially over the years. The Indian economy is likely to lose between 1 to 2 percentage points in GDP growth in the next fiscal year. Indian companies with big ticket deals in the US would see their profit margins shrinking. The worries for exporters will grow as rupee strengthens further against the dollar. How-ever, experts note that the long-term prospects for India are stable. A weak dollar could bring more foreign money to Indian markets. Oil may get cheaper brining down inflation. A recession could bring down oil prices to $70. A breakdown in the US and Indian economy takes a hit. It does seem very unfair, doesn’t it? However, that’s how the World economy is at present. Everything depends on the so-called “superpower”, [Don’t superpowers have super powers? Hmmm.] So much so that even their choice of President can cause a remarkable shift in the economic scales. The ultimate aim of man is to be happy and content in life [even though that’s rarely the case!]. And for being so, he needs a stable job and regular income, amongst other things [which we will not consider now]. As such, we should hope for the US to have a stable economic situation so that we can breathe freely [now, who would have thought of that?]. Time alone can tell what the future holds.

-Santosh Prasad 7th Sem, CSE

Feeling unlucky?? Bubba Alien connects to the stars and comes back with what they

hold for you... (Which is really a lot of helium!)

Aries (March 21 - April 19)Today is a day to eat triangular sandwich-es! The square ones maybe poisoned! There will be a lot of poop showers (as the poor crows ate up the square sandwiches!) So

always carry an umbrella with you. This might last for a week because of the kooky

alignment between Neptune and Pluto!

Taurus (April 20 - May 20)Don’t blow in your dog’s face; he’ll get mad

at you!

Gemini (May 21 - June 20)Mercury is in a very violent mood, so dress in purple for the remaining week or you’ll

fall flat on your face (literally!)

Cancer (June 21 - July 22)It is time to think about what you’re doing with your life. Eat as much ice cream as you can now, because you’ll end up with a cold

in the next 55 hours.

Leo (July 23 - August 22)Keep your head covered and your mouth closed. Wear mismatched clothes and

shoes.

Virgo (August 23 - September 22)Today is a very good day to be expressive! Keep away from heavy books! (The maga-zine is not responsible for any kind of inju-

ries and will not pay for first aid.)

Libra (September 23 - October 22)Make sure you carry enough tissues; the chances are that your lachrymal glands will be highly active (even more than usual!) over the weeks, as your ruler planet Ve-nus is just really unhappy for no particu-

lar reason.

Scorpio (October 23 - November 21)Don’t hate people because they are happy and you can’t be. Its time to be a little more secretive, as Pluto is in the eighth house. Don’t let anybody know what’s going on in

your head!That will really help people understand

you.

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21)Today you will either be happy or sad. Hard

to say for sure.

Capricorn (December 22 - January 20)This is the perfect time for the expression of your powers (If you can figure out what

they are!)

Aquarius (January 21 - February 18)Start whistling birdcalls in the middle of the meal. (That will get you noticed for sure!).

Pisces (February 19 - March 20)You might just invent the time machine by

the end of this week! Keep trying!

-Shruthi P Alawandi5th Sem, IEM

Regeneration\ \

At some point of time in the future, all life will come to an end. It is a cynical view of the ultimate fate of the universe. Don’t hate me for it. Let’s talk about the end of this world first. Whether an asteroid would destroy it, nuclear wars, global warming or just spontaneous disintegration is anybody’s guess.

I thought it would be interesting to deduce, or at least attempt to deduce what would happen after all life on earth, or rather the earth itself came to an end. So, I’ve de-vised a little thought experiment. I’m going to assume that the world will end by spon-taneously disintegrating. I’ve chosen this path to destruction, simply because it’s the most fun and it’s quick, with no crazy pan-icking by the earth’s populace.

Of course, it would be too easy to assume that only the earth would cease to exist, so just to force some additional thought, let’s also say that the solar system itself ceases to exist.

Now, all we have is these random atoms and molecules, or maybe something smaller, left over. Most of these particles would aggregate, due to the forces be-tween them, and form a microcosm of the primordial hot and dense initial condition, or macromolecule, which in turn, at some finite time, would give rise to a mini-big bang. The mini-big bang would in turn give rise to light elements, such as hydrogen, lithium and helium. These light elements would, then form really dense clouds, which under pressure, would combust and give us stars. The formation of the other elements could be explained by an extension of a theory known as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. Particles of other, heavier elements would aggregate to form large molten spheres (because they have the least surface en-ergy). These molten spheres will slowly so-lidify, to form what we had come to know as planets.

Now comes the really interesting part. On one or more of these planets, there might exist the ideal conditions for the formation of life. First would come macromolecules of

organic proteins, then single-celled organ-isms and gradually what might resemble the human race, if we’re lucky. If probability is against us, and it usually is, humans might never come into existence. Instead, the new earth could very well have mutated liz-ards or even fish ruling it or polluting it, what-ever. Or we could be lucky to the point that primitive apes would come into existence, but they would never stand upright, be-cause they might never have to. We would be a race of rather short, bent-over people then, whom extraterrestrial visitors would come to ridicule. Discoveries and inventions would be botched up. Columbus might ac-tually find India (Or not; some things never change). This all might never happen, of course. It’s really a question of probability. If our chances were unimpressive, the stars would never form. If the stars never come into existence, neither would the planets and neither would the race of lizards/fish/apes, unfortunately. But we wouldn’t be there to complain about it, anyway. So basically, probability rules the universe. But, in all the randomness, patterns would emerge. The emergence of these patterns is tough to explain. It could be some mysterious force at work, or just dumb luck. I’d like to think it’s the former, but I can’t remember the last time I was right, so… The cycle would repeat itself, which in itself is a pattern. Oil pric-es would continue to skyrocket, no matter what we say or do. So, I suggest you do what you have to do, say what you have to say, while quietly awaiting your doom. Don’t worry; we’ll never even know what hit us.

I’d like to mention that the Big Bang is a cosmological model of the universe, and that I’ve chosen it because it is best supported by most lines of scientific evidence.

-Gautam V.5th Sem, ME

Fire and Smoke and Everyone Broke

Notorious. Scary. Terrorizing. Adda of all evil. Liitle shop of horrors

Most of you probably been warned to not set foot here, by parents, friends and ‘well wishers’.

They’re all probably right. Believe me, more than half of what you’ve heard is true and the rest is just hype to keep people like you out of here. This is what we (the little shop boys) would like you to believe.

I was asked to write 600 words on little shop… 600 words… I wonder… Is that enough?

Maybe not. Needing another 500 words to fill in, I head back to shop, hoping to get some inspiration. Damn, the entrance to shop is blocked. Two padlocked gates, one in front of ESB II and the other near the old mech department separate me from my comfort zone.

When there’s a will, there’s a way. I exit college through the boys’ hostel and take the long and winding road to shop. Its one o clock on a Thursday afternoon and the regular crowd shuffles in, all happy and smil-ing, unaware that history surrounds them.

I meet a friend, a senior who know works with a leading software company. We sit down and place our order, a by-two tea to Madeva. Barely out of college for one and a half months, he tells me he misses ever bit of it. He reminds me of the days, when we would sit and debate the effect shop has had on our lives.

I’m sure the countless hours of quizzing, DC, debating has (or will, someday) helped us, somewhere in life. Uptil now it has been monetary remuneration.

At this point, we drink up our tea and thank IITM, NIT-K,RVCE, BMSCE, and most other colleges around Bangalore for all the cheques and the Gandhi notes. [Writer’s note: I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that I do not thank a certain engi-neering college in bangalore, bent on ‘real world education’. They have scammed us two years in a row. Yes, scammed].

Coming back to our conversation… I won-der aloud if any of this will help me in my placements. He smirks and says “Macha, will some company hire you just because you can effectively pretend you’re dumb and get your friends to guess the name of a random movie.. or will they take you because you know that Brian May, the lead guitarist of Queen, holds a PhD in Astrophys-ics?”

I’m tempted to say yes, but choose to keep quite.

As we’re sitting around, a friend from the MadAds team walks in, and gives me the third degree for not giving him stage space. So, here I am, giving their team free public-ity. I’ve known them forever. And they’re not funny on just the stage… they’re not funny on stage either. Yet they continue to amuse the crowds, event after event. A pitcher to them.

Suddenly everyone around me is hooting and clapping. Bhuttre who claims to have gone on vacation( we bet he was out cold in some bar), has returned. With Bhuttre col-lecting his mufti, shop now feels like shop.

I’m going to stop writing now. I’m going to close my eyes and enjoy this shop moment.

I don’t know if I’ve written six hundred words. I haven’t counted. And anyone who wants to can go ahead and mail the word count to me.

The end.

-Gurupad B.V.5th Sem, ML

The ugly, the bad-leave obscured

World unknown

To a mind so pure;

The ugly, the bad, the world more known

Leave the good obscured.

Beyond that veil, see a child-

The good child-an angel, smiles.

Smile so honest; mind so mild;

Away from here – miles and miles

Is the ugly, the bad.

Stop. Think. Stir that mind

Now so sad;

See – the left behind-

The good child – an angel, smiles

And you smile too.

Away from here-miles and miles

Is an angel – in you.

Tread back to the world unknown;

To a mind so pure;

To the good, from the world more known;

The ugly, the bad-leave obscured.

-Chetana Nadiger7th Sem