The pelting rain made it extremely hard to see out the window.She was already half an hour late and the weather made it even more depressing.Slowly sipping his tea,he reached out to wipe the frost so that he could look into the street more clearly.For some reason all he could hear at that moment was Beethoven's 9th,it kept going in his head in cycles,like a river flooding,overflowing and then..... dying down into a trickle.He kept going into the past....but strangely grimaced at the futility of looking for things to cheer about there, not because it was painful but because he did not trust the past.The past with its tinkling laughter and the rosy sheen and the joys which seemed so hollow from afar.He loathed the way his memory twisted the past making it more cheerful than it really was,obliterating the little niggling discomforts and the background of chaotic cacophony and just presenting him with the visual, no sounds nor smells.

He was always more of a nose-person.He had his phases in which he indulged in a variety of smells.....gasoline,varnish,coffee,freshly ironed clothes.for weeks on end he would confide in these smells and escape from the reality of the situation.His current weird favorite was the smell of metal, iron especially with the sharpness of its reach.

His musings were interrupted by a sharp rap at the door telling him that the lawyer had finally arrived.Moving steadily to the door he opened it and let the grim looking woman of around thirty-five in, accepting her apologies with a nod.The lawyer opened her briefcase and took out the required papers.
'All the papers are in order and only some issues need to be dealt with.'
'Yes,We shall do the needful.'

Three quarters of an hour later,the sheets were in his hands and everything was indeed in order.The lawyer had left some ten minutes ago .The old Mahagony bookshelf was to go to his son who had shown a great inclination in caring for his book-collection,replacing the covers of many dog-eared classics and carefully dusting the shelf with his faithful duster.His space age retro furniture was to go to Sam,what with him pestering him repeatedly to turn it in as it had long outlived its practicality and aesthetic value.He had already had his confidential and classified material shipped to the department of defense.Better keep things uncontroversial.A major portion of his savings would go to ICBL-International Society to Ban Landmines.He was not one of those ungrateful types.

He woke up with a start with the loud buzzing of the door bell.Quickly he stuffed the papers under the couch and felt his robe to make sure everything was in proper order.He grabbed his crutches and made it to the door.it was still pouring heavily outside.
'hi honey,how was your day' he heard her say.
'great'
'well,I am pretty tired today...so am gonna grab a bite and going straight to bed.You had your dinner I hope.'
'Well yes I did.How was your day?'
She turned around caught unaware at the sudden unexpected question.The only conversation that they really ever had was monosyllabic grunts.
'Well...same old...had to take the overseas call today y'know'
He could almost smell the fear in the air.Also the very faint smell of Chrome,a cologne he hated for the tangy citrus smell that made him sick.He did not think it was masculine at all.Before this it was Davidoff.

'I am fixing myself a sandwich... you want something?'
'No I am fine'.

He saw her enter the kitchen and listened to the clatter.He thanked his rubber soled crutches and for a brief moment remembered the good 'ol days when his fellow officers called him 'The cat'.

He moved stealthily towards the kitchen and positioned himself in the dark corner.He could feel the sweat at the back of his neck accumulate around the tiny vial on the locket.At once he could feel his entire being, even the cold metallic outline underneath his robe and he shivered in the coolness of his sweat.but then he smiled, he knew he will be rewarded with smell of sharp tangy hemoglobin.Warm iron on hard iron.The rain had stopped.

The Five

I saw it in Debu's room once.The writing on the wall(apparently a senior's tribute to our Very Terrifying University(VTU)):'18 horrific Labs-62 subjects-168 internals-768 hours in lab,this isn't a f****n' B.E ,this is War and only the bravest make it'..Throughout this 4 year period we are bombarded with so much informtion and are kept so insanely occupied with exam prep that it is difficult to actually appreciate the subtlety and the profoundness of some of these absolutely brilliant subjects.Concepts which can make you go 'eureka' in the middle of the night and lead to frantic smses to friends of the :read pg139, Roth....amazing! kind. Appreciating engineering subjects is a very difficult thing as it is mostly concerned with mundane- how to do X or how to obtain Y from Z or with- this is how such and such a thing happens. But some of these subjects have such creativity in the way they arrive at results that you tend to wish fervently that you could be coffee wielding, bearded jeans-and-T-shirt grad student changing the way the world uses technology a La Bob Metcalfe /Jack Kilby/Richard Stallman/Kekule(OK Kekule is not quite engineering...we shall let it pass shaking the head silently at the demise of a once good Organic chemistry semi-expert) I have been waiting for a long time to do this post.I know my list doesn't contain the standard ECE gems-Digital Signal Processing,Electronic Circuits even Logic design....but the subjects that I have mentioned are the ones which I had most fun studying irrespective of their importance in the bigger scheme of things.Here in countdown format are my five most fav subjects :

5. Telecommunication&Switching-This subject mainly deals with the whole of the telephone network dealing right from the set at home to trunk offices and switching stations.It also deals with telecommunication traffic which ultimately leads to the usage of queuing theory.A very interesting thing to learn for people who want to go :you know.. this telephone network that you are so dependent on actually consists of twisted pairs connected to big Strowgers and sophisticated exchanges.....basically boast about their knowledge in front of their hapless non-engineering friends(never mind the fact that most electrical/electronics engineers are absolutely at sea when it comes to normal households appliances). I came across this in fifth sem and according to many this is a very strange/vague subject, the fact being that the textbook by J.E Flood is very cryptic ,brief and leaves much to imagination. My interest was especially piqued after seeing The History of Hacking documentary which deals also with 'phone phreaking' or hacking phones.


4.Microprocessors-8085.
Absolutely the only subject which I can safely say that I know in its entirety.The subject which,if you are an electronics engineer will never ever forget.The subject which changed the way I looked at technology in many many ways and exposed me to the sheer genius of this small little chip which runs each and every electronic device ever invented.microprocessors in layman terms are the very hearts of computers.It is the component in your computer which understands the 1's and 0's which everybody keeps talking about.I studied this in 4th sem and suddenly a lot of gaps in the knowledge of how things work in a computer were cleared.The invention of the microprocessor must surely go down as one of the most original and stunning creations of the 20th century.The prescribed textbook-RS Gaonkar is an absolute gem when it comes to lucid explanations,especially the parts about interfacing.really enjoyed reading it.

3.VHDL-It stands for VHSIC Hardware Description Language.VHSIC-Very High Speed Integrated Circuits.A programming language which describes hardware.It was a 6th sem subject and one of the only subjects that sem which were palatable (what with such heavyweights such as Microwave communication and Antenna & wave theory....subjects which merit a post all of their own) VHDL was an eye-opener of sorts 'coz it is one of those subjects which actually lets you think in terms of components such as Multiplexers,buffers,registers etc.So that you can actually envision a hardware design.I fondly remember cracking the logic of signed binary divider and some other tough-ies while solving some of the most beautiful design problems.bliss.

2.Computer Organization-A subject which is close to heart.One of the most diciest subjects in all of four years just because of the sheer amount of syllabus to be covered for the exam.The subject deals with the innards of a computer system...everything from memory,I/O,processor architecture,computer arithmetic.This was the defining turning point for me in engineering-opened doors of insights and I was truly a electronics engineering student after this.Loved reading about microcoded instructions,cache replacement algorithms and certain gate delays in carry-lookahead adders.*droooooooooool*.The textbook is one of the best I have ever come across...Hamacher,Vranesic,Zaky...apparently the cover of the book is a doodle by Vranesic's son.

and finally the Numero Uno:

1.Computer networks- The book-Tanenbaum.What do you call a book which is untouchable in terms of technical brilliance,has the capability of staying informal in tone always and is side -splittingly funny? I would call it:The Bible of computer engineering.You are seriously missing out on life if you are a CS/ECE/EEE student and have not come across this book.I suggest you shoot yourself in the head.Twice.Our university has this tendency to prescribe some amazingly boring and drab textbooks which suck the life out of you but strangely, we were prescribed Tanenbaum when it came to networks in 7th sem.I had a torrid affair with this book,who wouldn't... considering the fact that almost every page is filled with anecdotes of technical gaffes and Tanenbaum actually goes on to discuss the politics of technology and the serious problems that internet faces or is going to face in the future.The tone is always tongue in cheek.How can I ever forget...The apocalypse of two elephants,the history of the internet...countless stories about how people came up with ideas to make a world wide communication network,about the many versions of the Ethernet and the various internal squabbling between the various 802. IEEE groups.I especially admire the way he goes about talking about the various collision avoidance algorithms in local networks,also the politics of the ISO/OSI vs TCP/IP.Did you know that the person who invented frequency hopping spread spectrum is none other than -Hedy Lamarr-the first woman to appear nude in a motion picture(the 1933 Czech film-Extase)?People in my class had such fun reading the book that many of them read more than what was expected and on the day of the exam,were pretty relaxed.I leave you with the unforgettable Tanenbaum quote:
'never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway!!'