I saw this movie today.

I must say, it's one of the most touching romantic movies I have seen.

It's obvious when you are watching a romantic movie that the guy and the girl will meet in the end but it was so beautifully crafted. She avoided loving him and he kept on trying to make her love him, even when he hated her for spoiling his party (well the reasons were different but whatever). A lovely movie to watch out for.


Another great movie that I watched yesterday is 'If Only'. It's sooooo touching, I cried through half of the movie. I'm not gonna tell the story of the movie. But I can say its the best movie I've seen till date! The dialogues, cinematography, depiction of scenes... everything is just fabulous!! Don't miss it

I am so excited!!!

I just found a plug-in for Microsoft Office 2007 that allows me to publish a pdf file DIRECTLY from Microsoft Word

And its very simple, all you need to do is download it and run it. Right after that you'll find the 'Save as.. PDF' link in Word

So, here's the link:
Docx to PDF conversion

Saw this movie by the reference of a friend and honestly, I was touched by this movie. Its about the time when outsourcing of jobs to Indian call centres was in its initial phases.

Starts with this American fellow being sent to India to teach Indians how to imitate an American accent, going to how he resists India and wishes to go back to US asap. Then comes a phase when he starts understanding India (and loving it ofcourse), all thanks to the female lead of the movie.

All in all, a good movie to watch for timepass and some not-so-serious-but-heavy stuff.

P.S. - I don't even know why the hell am I writing this post. I just felt like writing one and couldn't come up with a better topic. I know, very lame but the guy is very cute ;)

I was wandering about on the internet and happened to come across a site which told me how to switch on/off hibernation mode. And I remembered that since I had reinstalled my Vista my hibernation mode is not active. So just to not forget switching on hibernation mode when I reinstall Vista, I decided to put it on my blog only. Hope it helps someone.

Here are the steps to switch on/off hibernation:

1. Open the Start Menu
2. Right click Command Prompt
3. Select Run as administrator
4. To turn Hibernation off - 'powercfg -hibernate off ' - w/o quotes
   
5. To turn Hibernation on - 'powercfg -hibernate on ' - w/o quotes
   

"Now did raj thakeray stand outside taj and check identities of commandos and said...only maharstrian commandos go in?"

That was the status of one of my friends on gtalk... I would like to add another question to it, What if there was no Maharashtrian commando there, would he go in himself because he is a 'Maharashtrian'?

These politicians don't have the guts to come up in times of difficulties, why would they, when they can sit comfortably in their cozy houses just comment on how bad the condition is and plan to play with the sentiments of people at such times also and use it to their advantage. Until such people are attacked and driven out of their houses they wont understand what the common man suffers everyday, what fears does he take with him while walking out the door of his house because they always have their security force to cover them.

Elections are coming and they say that the power is of the people, but when an ordinary man tries to raise his voice, he is slaughtered by such people who fear opposition from the public and downfall and all they want is publicity and money. Such people can never work for someones betterment, except their own.

Come on you people, who claim to be the leaders of this country, do something to save this country rather than just talking stuff. If you guys are so capable then how come just a handful of people reveal your weakness, your debauchery and your laxness in even the barest of the security measures. Its already been 48 hours!

The 1st non-tech company

As I had got to know from all my seniors and other friends also, Deloitte is a very well reputed company for the consultancy services.
Till date all the companies having given a reporting time of say 8 a.m. haven't arrived before 10. But we all were in a state of shock when we saw all the Deloitte officials walking into the audi VERY smartly at exact 6:00 pm - the time they had promised us. You won't believe we were absolutely spellbound at the way they all were dressed - All formal with black coats on - and just kept staring at them for about 20-30 seconds. But that did prove that these people were hell lot serious about everything.

They started with a presentation. The initiation was like all other ppts, the intro to the company. It was then drifted to an introduction of all the 15-20 officials who had flown down to Delhi(boring). I guess I listened to about only 2-3 intros which were all delivered by very enthusiastic guys. THERE WERE a couple of them who had terrible communication skills - unko bhi suna, because we had to maro comments na

On top of that me and another friend of mine - MS - were playing foot fight (Can you believe that! ) and there was a company official standing right beside our row - whom we had obviously not noticed - and we were on the 3rd seat from him. (And yeah I hadn't started the fight, he had. So am not guilty ). I think he noticed us more than a couple of times but didn't say anything (obviously! ) but we had started feeling weird once we noticed him standing there. And used to fight only when it got dark for the movie presentation. Smart na
After some time a girl called Simmy (from Deloitte) came towards our row and suddenly bent towards my friend SA and all 3 of us froze . We thought she had come to scold us for not paying attention during the ppt . But she had come to ask us about the Girl's Hostel (GH) deadline. So relieved we were (phew!). Then thankfully, the presentation got over soon. Looking at the seriousness displayed by the officials I had realised that I won't be able to make it to Deloitte for sure.

The next day, I woke up at 5 to arrive college by 7:45 am. as the reporting time was 8:00. And once again unexpectedly () they all arrived at exactly 8:00 am! The test was easy but 40 questions in 45 minutes is tough. I attempted around 18-20 questions. Although they had mentioned no -ve marking, I still did not मारो any fluke. Tried at the end but gave up and was able to mark only 4-5 (though i guess that was good because I got to know later on that they WERE doing -ve marking internally). Cleared the written (very surprisingly because I knew people had attempted like 30-32 questions also! )

Next, we were directed towards the connecting block where the interview-cum-case study was supposed to take place. I was just running to people saying, "यार please कुछ बतादो, मैंने कल कुछ नही सुना ". There were 9 people selected from IT for SPS (Security and Privacy Services - that was the profile name) out of total 32 and out of 50 selected in TI (Technical Integration) with only one from IT . Anyways we were directed towards the CAD lab. I was scheduled LAST of all. I didn't know whether to be happy about it or not. Anyhow I waited for my turn as all my friends went one by one for their case study interviews. Some time later I got to know that the case study being offered is the same (one advantage of going towards the end ) - so I gave a thought to it and came up with a different solution to it. My friends told me that they are asking a lot of networking (). So I was advised by a friend of mine (PG) to go to the hostel and get the book and study Networking. So I ran to the hostel, to my savior friend SA. She was on phone with her father, so I grabbed the book from the shelf and started studying the various important topics (as my turn was scheduled another 2 hours forth). She came and I asked her if I could take the book along to the lab as it had gotten late and my turn would be expected in a little while. She wanted to study herself but not even once did she hesitate in saying yes (love you SA). Then I realised that though I had removed the books from my bag but I still had them in my car. I told her the case study as well, and we both together came down to another very nice solution .

Came running down to the lab and got relieved when I realised that there were still about 3 people before I had to go for my interview. Started studying and then came the topic for which I needed somebody's help, and AS came to my rescue . She made me revise all the important topics that were left (Love you AS). Then I revised my projects and just then I was shifted to the other panel as it was getting very late and they had to conduct another round of tech and HR interview. So as I went there I was asked about my perception of the case study - told them what I had made out because there was much more to the case study than what people had told me . Told them what I could. I was thoroughly grilled on the case study. After that came the turn of my projects. They asked me all of them one by one - that was probably the best part of my entire interview. Explained all of them in detail . Till now there were 2 people, then the 3rd guy also came in and he asked me to make queue and dequeue in the most optimal way. I made it with linked lists. He was pretty impressed with that. By mistake I interchanged the 'back' and 'front' pointers that we use. When asked I made up for it by saying "It's just a notation sir". That saved me, and probably created an impression also . All this while I was having a hard trying trying to hide my anxiety and nervousness . I just couldn't afford letting my lips curl the downward way as I could see through the corner of my eye that one of the interviewer was constantly staring at me and was observing all my reactions very closely. At last they allowed me to leave. As I was getting up(all relieved), one of them raised the question - "अरे इससे MBA वाला सवाल तो पूछा ही नही". And I was like " There I go!". Then came the बाप of all questions "What are your plans about MBA?"

Me : Sir, I don't want to do an MBA
They : Arey aise thodi hota hai. Kuch to karoge
Me : No sir, am not interested in higher studies as of now. If the job requires me to do something, I will.
blah blah blah... (Basically in logon ne meri bahut maari )
They : Ok you may go now.
(A word of advice here : However much nervous you are, shake hands with them very firmly. Don't crush their hands, but yeah it should be firm. Creates a lot of impact and shows your confidence)

Since I was one of the last ones to be interviewed, around 10 minutes after I returned to the CAD lab we were all driven out of the lab as they were to discuss the interview till now and shortlist the people. You wont believe after such an interview I was totally not expecting to clear to the next round bcoz I knew there were much better people than me who had had a very good interview as well. But you should expect the unexpected.

So then, because the GH closes by 8:30 and it was already 7:45 that time, they decided to hold the 2nd tech interview and the HR interview for the girls first. So I was sent for the HR, and 2 girls were sent to the 2 opposite (to the ones they had gone earlier) tech panels. The HR bandi (AL) was veryyyyyy sweet . Never felt uncomfortable with her. Infact she was so frank that in between the interview she didn't hesitate before saying, "Don't sell yourself, just tell me the facts".

It lasted about 15 minutes then I was met by this fellow outside the lab (S, don't know the surname). He asked me if I had any Questions. Though I had read a lot of questions that one could ask after the interview, none struck me that time . So I asked him a very general question (ek baar ko to main bhool gayi thi ki main kya poochne wali thi, thankfully mujhe time pe yaad aa gaya, warna uske saamne katta ho jata). Then he led me to the other tech panel (yes he was in the 1st panel that had interviewed me). There they first asked me about my projects, specifically Two-pass assembler and the project with AIIMS (basically they wanted to know the basic idea and your thinking process, they don't want exact technical details). Then they asked me a question wherein there was a string with every para change replaced by a '\' and we had to print that string with '\' replaced with newline so that it looks like a para. The extra condition was that there could be a '\n' somewhere in between the string. Said something and was wondering about something else (though I had realised that I could not figure out any other solution ) when luckily one of the panelists switched to another question. Could answer that with full confidence and was happily sent off.

Came out and S again started asking everyone the question he had asked me, i.e., If we had any questions for him. Some people asked some questions. (Bahut boring tha but we had no choice as we had decided to stay back for the results as the GH deadline had been extended to 11 pm ).

Then the interviews got over around 10:30 pm and we all went and sat inside the CAD lab waiting for the results while the panelists were in the lab adjacent to the CAD lab.

Then AL came out around 11 and was shocked to see us all waiting. So she said they'll announce the results and was about to announce the results when she again created suspense by running back inside the other room with a sheet of paper. And all of us were left waiting again. This time they all came out after that it went on like this:
AL : Congratulations ... blah blah... We have shortlisted 6 people.
Me n AR : (Look at each other) Yaar hamara to nhi hona
AL : Congrats to all the rest as well. So the shortlisted candidates are.....................................
.........................................................................................................................................................................
Isha Agarwal (followed by rest of the names - jo ki maine nhi sune bcoz i was like )
Me :
Me :
Then AS and JK congratulated me and I came back to life then realising that AL was calling forward all the selected candidates. Then she gave us the Deloitte T-shirts and cards and gave us the further instructions.

I was still unable to believe that THIS had happened to me. And then after walking out of the lab I was happily jumping up and down with joy as if someone had attached springs to my shoes

And so here I was conquered Deloitte - The 1st non-tech company to visit our campus

Oh yes there is more to follow... I went back to the hostel, reached about 11:20 pm and fortunately-unfortunately hadn't brought an extra pair of clothes with me and my dear friend SA also didn't have a spare set of clothes for me to wear. So here the lovely Deloitte T-Shirt came in handy and finally I inaugurated the T-Shirt also

Also my very first Company of the placement season

So the exam time has come out as 7:00 a.m.
Me : Subah 5 baje to uth nhi sakte chalo hostel chale jaati hu SA ke paas, usse mile hue bhi bahut time ho gaya.
So i stay in the hostel overnight in SA'a room (stayed, didn't get a chance to sleep)

All drowsy in the morning i woke up at 5 (yeah you would say what difference did it make, but I didnt know I will have to get up at 5 here also na). Got ready jaldi jaldi and woke up this friend of mine who was supposed to go with me (SA was sleeping so peacefully )
Me : DA get up
DA : mmmm
Me : DA get up
DA : uthti hu. 2 min na
Me : Arey(Abey) late ho jayenge jaldi uth

Finally she woke up in another 15 minutes and started getting ready. We reached the audi (auditorium) at 6:45. Stupid us, didn't know we will have to wait another hour for the exam to start. The exam started around 9. The paper was easy but there were 7 papers! Everyone had a good paper so I wasn't expecting to clear the written, but guess what I surprisingly made it through the written.

Next was a technical interview. I was so scared, hadn't studied anything apart from C programming and data structures. I was so scared what if he starts asking me about networking or database or OS. But luckily I got a very sweet interviewer who didn't know DS himself (lol... I mean coming to an engineering college you should know DS). Anyways the interview went something like this:
Me : Good Morning sir
Him : Good morning. Have a seat
Me : thnk u sir
Him : So aapne kya kya padha hai
Me : Sir C, DS
Him : DS?
Me : Oh i mean Data Structures
Him : Ok. You know C programming then can u make the factorial function
Me : (nod)
Him : You know what factorial is right?
Me : Yes sir!
Him : Ok, go on
Me : (explaining from the code i made on paper)blah blah blah
Him : Ok good
Me : Sir we can also calculate the next value by removing the 3rd variable by doing blah blah
Him : haaaaaaaaaan, lekin will this work??? (with a confused expression on his face)
Me : Obviously sir! we just changed the variable
Him : (still confused)
Me : (explained him with an example)
Him : haaaaaaaaaan! ok! good. So dekha it reduces one line
Me : Yes sir

Him : Good. Acha can u swap two numbers without using a 3rd variable
Me : Ok sir I will try. (Though I have done this question a 100 times but I learnt during my internship interview that if you know an answer DONT speak it out immediately, act like you are thinking about the question. That'll give an impression that you don't know the answer but you tried and found the answer which is WOW for them. Except, obviously, the typical questions, which if you don't answer will make you appear dumb (eg. queue by linked lists)
Me : Done -- explained to him the whole thing
Him : Ok good I'm sorry I don't have much knowledge of Data Structures
Me : (Bloody hell! that's what I know best )

Him : Ok What other subjects you know
Me : Sir C and Data Structures are my strength (NEVER EVER MENTION SUBJECTS WHICH YOU DON'T WANT TO GO TO DURING THE INTERVIEW)
Him : (He opens the IT subject list) Ok you have done this analog and digital electronics also
Me : Yes sir but I don't remember anything and am not even good at electronics
Him : laughs (not sarcastically; he was REALLY a nice guy)
--Here we drifted towards a little informal talks
Me : Seriously sir, I never liked Electronics
Him : Ok but you can draw the circuit of p-n junction
Me : No sir
Him : Ok how do you represent the p-n device?
Me : (Drew the symbol for p-n junction)
Him : ok (then he gave me the go-ahead look and i stared at him blankly trying to put to him ki mujhe isse zyada nahi ata).
Acha 8085 ka diagram bana do. Microprocessor to padha hoga
Me : (with a confused and scared look on my face ) haan sir but mujhe kuch yaad nahi
Him : Acha chalo ok you can go
Me : Ok sir. Thank you
Him : Thank you. Bye

I head back towards the Audi half running, half jumping. Just 5 minutes had I been seated in the audi when my name was called out again and I was told to go for the interview again. I was cursing my interviewer on the way for asking me stupid questions because of which I had to appear for another interview.
Upon arriving the 'sweet' interviewer was sitting at the same desk and as soon as I entered the lab he was smiling at me.
Him : Sorry to bother you again
Me : Its absolutely ok sir (abey kya hai jaldi bata, maine kya galti kardi. Meri heart beat tez ho rahi hai)
Him : Actually I thought there will be a separate HR round but they said its to be taken together, so that's why
Me : Phew! No problem sir
Then he asked me the general HR questions. They had made us fill a 3-page form for HR which required us to cite 7 instances from our life which fitted their questions. We had a hrad time remembering 7 different instances and on top of that at the end he asked me:
Him : Acha I have this list of 9 points and I can't judge you on these 3 criteria can you state some examples to exemplify on these areas?
Me : (Idiot! wo 7 hi itni mushkil se likhe the abb aur teen sochoon)
I gave him some stupid example and then he allowed me to leave.

Following this we were required to head for the GD but unluckily it was around lunch time and 2 of our group members had gone for their tech interviews so we had to wait for them. Also the aricent team people went for lunch while we were waiting (aur hum bechare bache bhookhe pyase baithe the )
The GD was decent but I was not expecting to get through beacuse
1. It was the first GD of my life
2. I had good points but a couple of them came out at the wrng time
3. Others in my group were veryyy good

Was least expecting to get through. My roll number was 15.

The results were expected around 4:30 but around that time the interviews only were going on. So they announced the partial result. She started with roll number 13 and went back to 1 and left me confused because roll number 13 was in my GD group.

And then towards the end after roll no. 1 came roll number 15 and I almost jumped from my seat. I had cleared my first company and best one in C category! Couldn't believe my ears and SA and AK seemed more happy than me

And there I was through with C category and into Aricent

So the moral of the story is:
It doesn't depend on your knowledge if you'll get selected or not, it depends a HELL LOT on your luck!