Sandpaper 2.0 THE FACTS ON BITS ADMISSIONS FLYING AEROFLOT ! - bitsaa
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VINOD AGARWAL CEO, LOGICVISION IS PERSON OF THE MONTH
THE FACTS ON BITS ADMISSIONS ¦ FLYING AEROFLOT !
The BITSAA Edition
Sandpaper [2.0]
May 2003 Inaugural Issue Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazine
Dr. AMIT SHETH
When Academicians
become Entrepreneurs
On the Road to
Pilani
My College,
My Country
By Dilip D’Souza
In Memoriam
Remembering Leuna
and Vamsi
Naagarji’s
The last bastion of
BITS gastronomia
A conversation with
Krishna Vavilala
Racial profiling
grows post 9/11 BITSCONNECT
The ambitious $1.5 million project
to create the best broadband network of
any university in the nation
Sandpaper [2.0]
May 2003 Inaugural Issue
CONTENTS
3 EDITORIAL GENERAL INTEREST
28 My college, my country
FEATURES 30 Racial profiling rises post-9/11
4 Sandpaper Online 32 Setting the record straight on admissions
5 BITSAA Roundup
7 Business News EDUCATION & ACADEMICS
8 Masala & Spice 34 Profiling Dr. Amit Sheth
Series: When academicians become entrepreneurs
COVER STORY
9 BITSConnect: The $1.5 MM project PERSON OF THE MONTH
12 The Impact of BITSConnect on Pilani 36 May: Vinod Agarwal, CEO, LogicVision
13 BITSConnect buzz
ALUMNI CORNER
NOSTALGIA 38 BITSAA International Initiatives
14 On the road to Pilani 39 Partyin’ around the world
18 Naagarji’s – The final frontier
19 Re-living BITS MERA BHARAT MAHAAN
40 A conversation with Krishna Vavilala
IMMIGRANT SONG
21 Flying Aeroflot IN MEMORIAM
41 A tribute to Vamsi & Prasanna
CREATIVE & HUMOR 43 Leuna Harkawat, Pilani’s nightingale
23 Cartoons
24 Poetry 44 SELECTED CLASS NOTES
25 Selected articles
52 JOIN BITSAA
GIVING TO BITS
53 BITSConnect pledge form
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 2
From the Editor
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazine
HELLO AND
We’ll constantly bring you News about our People.
Through Person of the Month, we’ll inspire you with the
extraordinary achievements of ordinary people.
WELCOME TO THE To help you tell your stories, we’ve assembled an
NEW SANDP !
incredibly diverse team at SandP from around the world. I
expect this team to expand with regular and guest
contributors, as well as some of those writing legends from
your past. We welcome them all to pick up the pen again
Ten years ago I founded a newsletter for Economics at and let the words flow like they used to.
Pilani. Titled Zero Deficit, it aimed at providing
newsworthy information in a casual way to the Eco Group. BITSAA International got started because a dear friend and
I doubt Zero Deficit still exists. Zero Deficit was all classmate, SS Seshadri passed away untimely. The desire
business. It required work, it had no masala, it stirred no of a small Eco ’87 Yahoogroup, 20-odd volunteers in New
emotions. Jersey, and the passion of the BITSAA alumni body
resulted not only in a lifelong scholarship in Sesha’s name
Magazines, like causes, survive because of people, passion at Pilani last year, but also ignited a small revolution with
and money. We believe we have ample quantities of two, the birth of BITSAA International. By stirring our little
and little need for the third. idea with the magic of BITSian passion, we accomplished a
small wonder. Sandpaper got started to tell all of you about
Naming this magazine Sandpaper made sense to my team. this collective magic, these small wonders.
In management-speak, “SandP” had unparalleled brand
recognition. It conjured up images and passions for most BITSAA Roundup , and Alumni Corner will tell you how
of us like no other name. I was reluctant to grab the name we’re collectively bottling and selectively releasing this
from BITS, but my teammates were very convincing. So passion in the years to come.
Sandpaper [2.0], or Sandpaper, the BITSAA edition, was
born. Unlike Zero Deficit, this first edition has all the ingredients
of an Indian masala movie. Comedy, action, villains,
We’ve all grown and changed, so this Sandpaper has heroes, heroines, drama, philosophy, and most of all,
metamorphosed. But it remains a kaleidoscope of our passion. Sit back, grab the cheeku shake and enjoy the
lives. magic.
We’ve replaced the gossip column with a more gentrified There are no intermissions. Only sequels.
Class Notes that will be your companion for many years, to
help you live and learn about the travails and passages of And you all are scripting the show.
your friends and classmates.
Anupendra Sharma (’87)
We are intricately entwined with our past at Pilani. Hence Chief Editor
Nostalgia opens avenues for travel down memory lane. At
BITS, legendary tales of introducing non-veg food in the
messes, banning the NC, of Bihari strikes, devastating fires
and crazy professors were passed from batch to batch,
generation to generation. History will bring to life all those
tales of yore.
We’ve always been a gloriously funny bunch, so Creative
and Cartoons is stocked with content to keep you smiling
about this wonderful thing called life.
Business, Technology & Academics will bring news, ideas
and stories of our unsung heroes. Some may even inspire
you to start new businesses, to invent new technologies, to
research new ideas in academia.
Anupendra (left) with Venu & Sandeep at the
East Coast Golfing Event in summer 2002
In Mera Bharat Mahaan and Giving to BITS, we’ll
highlight charitable causes and showcase generous hearts.
Through Led Zep’s Immigrant Song, we want you to tell us
about your first experiences in the new world after you left
Pilani.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 3
From the Editor
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazine
SandpaperOnline
www.bitsaa.org/sandpaper/sandpaper.html
UP TO THE MINUTE STORIES YOU WON’T FIND HERE
This published version will appear at infrequent intervals. To access the latest news, stories, cartoons,
humor, class notes and to find out the latest regarding the BITSConnect project, visit the website. In
addition, find the 2002 Business News and archives of People in the News. In addition, delightful
articles and stories such as Sagarika Jaganathan’s Moments in time , describing her white water rafting
trip while at BITS, Laxman Mohanty’s Dining Dynamics, Sandeep Mukherjee’s Cricket in the Common
Rooms, and the most complete BITS encyclopedia prepared by the 1996 batch, are to be found on the
website.
BITSian AUTHORS BITSians IN ACADEMICS
Sandpaper has started a database of all At last count, there
books published by BITSians. Support our were 163 BITSian
BITSian authors, and read the works of alums teaching as
our literati, be it fiction, non-fiction or professors at
reference. universities and
research institutes
around the world.
All details including
BITSians IN BUSINESS research interests
Find out about the Top 50 BITSian
and awards are to
Leaders in Business. Also read about
be found on the
BITSian entrepreneurs who have started
website.
over 100 companies in the US alone.
TEAM SANDPAPER
CHIEF EDITOR Anupendra Sharma
GUEST WRITERS Dilip D'Souza, Prof. KRV Subramanian, The Sandpaper team is a
Prof. Rahul Banerjee globally distributed virtual
EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Sandeep Mukherjee, Devesh Satyavolu, team in the United States and
Pushkala Venkatraman India. We are looking to add
NEWS Venu Palaparthi people in Europe, Australia
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY Mukul Chawla, Aanand Krishnan, Ashish and most of all, Pilani.
Garg
CREATIVE & HUMOR Antara Bhattacharya , Sagarika
Send your letters, comments,
Jaganathan
suggestions and articles by
EDUCATION & ACADEMICS Vikas Chandra
NOSTALGIA & HISTORY Emani Satya Swaroop, Laxman email to:
Mohanty anupendra@bitsaa.org
CARTOONIST Sabya Kar
CLASS NOTES Suraj Srinivasan Visit our website at:
CONTRIBUTORS Suharsh Dev Burman, Rajeev Menon, www.bitsaa.org/
Sanjay Motwani, Sridhar Parthasarthy, sandpaper/sandpaper.html
Sriram Sundaramoorthy
TECHNICAL EXPERT Pirasanna Venugopal BITSAA International has
been granted 501(c)3 tax-
OFFICE Sandpaper Magazine exempt status by the IRS,
BITSAA International, Inc and is registered in New
34 Pierce Road
Jersey, USA.
East Windsor, NJ 09520
Tel: +1 (917) 930-1492
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 4
BITSAA Roundup
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
BY VENU PALAPARTHI
2002. THE YEAR THAT WAS
In 2002, we set ourselves a very raising money from two East Boston, Seattle, Detro it, and San
aggressive agenda and Coast fundraisers. This $16,000 Jose. It was the first time he had met
endowment now funds two merit- so many BITSians in the US (or
succeeded on most fronts. As a
cum-need scholarships in Pilani in anywhere)!
group, we pushed the limits in
our first year of existence and perpetuity. As a pilot project, it
demonstrates the loyalty of To enable high-impact networking,
laid a tremendous foundation on
which to build our future BITSians to BITS and their BITSAA organized its first golf
success. If you are wondering keenness to give back. The first outing in NJ with about 50 BITSians
two scholarships were awarded to in attendance. One particularly
what these achievements are,
read on … Krishnachaitanya and Charles spirited BITSian insisted that he had
Augustine in December 2002. played golf on the Sky lawns.
Needless to say, BITSians found the
The global BITS community: sand traps on the course more
Our biggest focus for 2002 was to treacherous than the sands of Pilani.
bring BITSians together and
enable them to communicate with BITSian Achievements: BITSians
and learn about each other. To won accolades around the world as
that end, our website, launched in they continued to blaze new trails in
February 2002, has been a huge science, technology, and the arts.
The Director in Boston hit with BITSians, helping us
with Prof. SP Kothari organize, communicate and
reconnect with each other around
BITSAA International (USA): the world. We are continuously
We expanded BITSAA inland developing this website as a focal
from our beachheads in New point of our community. Also in
York and San Francisco. At the 2002, the Sandpaper team started
end of 2002, we had 7 active brainstorming a launch. This issue
chapters (9 now) in the United of SandPaper has hopefully
States. We launched a massive revived the magic of that old
campus rag of ours. The Simputer
discovery campaign and added
over 1,000 BITSians to our
chapters! We connected with BITSAA USA get-togethers in Dr. Dorairajan Balasubramaniam,
BITSians from the 50’s and 60’s 2002: Until 2001, the only won the coveted Padma Shri in India
batches – BITSAA now boasts organized BITSian get-togethers for his contributions to the field of
about 60 members from the 50’s were in the Bay Area and in NY. Ocular Biochemistry – a first for any
and 60’s. In fact, Harish Jain Most BITSians met their friends BITSian. Two BITSians on the
(graduated in 1953) from over long weekends or “ran into Simputer team, Professor Vijay
Maryland visited BITS Pilani in each other” at Indian grocery Chandru and Shashank Garg, won the
February of 2003, exactly 50 stores and at universities across first ever Dewang Mehta award for IT
years after he graduated from US. BITSian reunions are no innovation. BITSians were not only
BITS, longer random run-ins at airports at the helm of companies that brought
or shopping malls. In 2002, we computers to the common man (the
had a total of nine (9) social Simputer), they also brought
Perhaps the most notable
events where nearly 800 BITSians supercomputers to the Indian
achievement for BITSAA in
met each other. And that is not scientific community (C-DAC led by
2002 was obtaining our 501c3
including the chapter events that Dr. Arora launched the
status. As a tax-deductible not- ParamPadma).
for-profit organization, BITSAA coincided with Diro’s trip. Diro
immediately embarked on was pleased with the reception in
creating an endowment by all the cities he visited – NY,
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 5
BITSAA Roundup
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
India 100 list. Among the December.” Anu Hasan won the best
professional executives, Vivek supporting actress award for her role
Paul of Wipro was the highest in a TV adaptation of Chitra
paid professional executive in Banerjee’s “Sister of my heart.” A
India according to The Week. BITSian from Pilani - Kaniha has
made a name for herself as an actress
BITSians who did not take the with her debut in Five Star.
well-traveled path also did
extremely well. Mahesh Last but always the most important
Ramasubramanian won an Oscar achievement of all, our beloved alma
BITSians won accolades both as
for Shrek. A BITSian music mater was ranked third in India in the
entrepreneurs and corporate director, Aravind (of Aravind- India Today ranking of engineering
executives. Vinod Agarwal of Shankar) produced a major colleges finishing at the top in both
LogicVision, was named academic input and curriculum.
chartbuster in Tamil. Mani
“Entrepreneur of the year” by Shankar made one of those rare
Silicon India. Ten other Bollywood hits in 2002 called “16
BITSians were on the Silicon Go BITS ! ¦
BITSIAN Companies in the Silicon India 100
Company BITSIAN Position Category
Nuware Venk Krishnan Founder/CEO IT Services
Intruvert Raj Dhingra VP of Marketing Networking/Communications
Velio Vijay Parikh BoD Networking/Communications
Axiowave Mukesh Chatter Founder/CEO Networking/Communications
Pinnacle Systems Ajay Chopra Founder Semiconductors /EDA/Hardware
LogicVision Vinod K. Agarwal Founder/CEO Semiconductors /EDA/Hardware
Cradle Tech Satish Gupta Founder Semiconductors /EDA/Hardware
NetScout Systems Ajay Singhal Founder/CEO Software/Internet
Exemplary Software Ravi Krishnamurthy Founder/CTO Software/Internet
Informatica Diaz Nesamoney Founder Software/Internet
Sierra Atlantic Raju Reddy Founder/Chairman Software/Internet
Excerpts from BITS Director’s welcome message on the BITSAA website
Dear BITSian:
You are a member of this extraordinary global family, a network of BITSians with
tremendous intellectual potential and technical abilities. Many of you have reached the
pinnacle of your careers thousands of miles from home. As a group you have started
world-class companies, won critical acclaim in academics, written books, won awards from
US corporations, universities and institutions, and donated generously to many noble causes for the
United States, and especially for India.
…On behalf of the Institute I extend a personal invitation to each one of you to revisit Pilani, to meet and
greet your old teachers, to share your experience and wisdom with our current students, faculty and to
work with us to create a bigger, more powerful, and more dynamic world class Institute.
Regards
Dr. S Venkateswaran
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 6Business News
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
BY THE SANDPAPER N EWS TEAM
BUSINESS NEWS
April 23, 2003: Rajiv Maliwal, a Marlborough-based networking India's highest paid professional CEO, and
Managing Director of Sabre Capital, company that makes equipment for No. 8 overall.
announced the acquisition of core carrier and service provider
Centurion Bank by a group of backbones, has closed a third funding December 12, 2002: Ajay Chopra,
Investors led by Sabre. Rajiv is the round worth $45 million. Investors Founder and Chairman of the Board of
former CEO of ANZ Investment included Argonaut and Pinnacle Systems [NASD:PCLE] is
Bank. Sabre was founded by Rana Gainesborough. Axiowave Chairman profiled on the cover of Silicon India in
Talwar, former CEO of StanChart. is Ray Stata, founder of Analog article titled "I Edit, I Store, I Stream".
Devices and co-founder of Nextabit
April 22, 2003: Ramesh Harjani, with Mukesh.
November 9, 2002: Vinod
co-founder of Bermai, has been Agarwal,
selected as one of the most January 16, 2003: Cradle Founder,
influential technical authors over the Technologies, a next -gen silicon chip President & CEO
last 20 years by the International company co-founded by Satish of LogicVision
Conference on Computer Aided Gupta, with Suhas Patil as Chairman, [NASD: LGVN]
Design (ICCAD). raised $11 million in Series B-1 is named Silicon
financing from Charter Ventures & India 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year
April 21, 2003: Epicenter Smart Technology for the IPO of LogicVision.
Technologies, a leading call center Ventures. Cradle also
in India promoted by K Vijay Rao, named Arthur Chang,
veteran of two IPOs October 8, 2002: Manish Sood's Salient
with investments from Infinity Software is named in the Houston 100, for
Ventures & Gary Wendt Capital (Parallan Computer
and Solopoint) as the being the 69th fastest growing company in
announced that it would list within the Greater Houston region.
18 months. Kotak Mahindra is new CEO. Satish
raising $20 million for the company. assumes the role of
VP, Business July 2, 2002: Hostile takeover attempt of
Development. The firm has raised $41 Intelligroup [NASD: ITIG] defeated. The
April 7, 2003: For the first time in million to date. takeover was attempted by Ashok
its history, commercial and Pandey, former CEO and shareholder.
industrial property insurer FM The current CEO is Arjun Valluri.
Global has been named to the January 14, 2003: Under the very
Fortune 1000 list of America's able leadership of Dr. RK Arora (the
largest companies. In the April 14, Executive Director of Pune based May 6, 2002: Walden International and
2003 issue of Fortune magazine, Center for Development of Advanced International Finance Corporation invest
FM Global debuts at No. 697 based Computing or C-DAC), India is about $3 million in Webdunia. CEO, Vinay
on its fiscal year 2002 revenues. to launch its fastest supercomputer to Chhajlani, Founder & CEO, positioned
FM Global. Shivan S date - the PARAM Padma. Webdunia as the world's first multilingual
Subramaniam is Chairman and portal company and language technology
Chief Executive Officer. January 12, service provider.
2003:
January 25, 2003: Two BITSians Viewceler, a April 12, 2002: Two BITSians, Professor
are named software startup Vijay Charu and Shashank Garg are
amongst the 11 founded by Diaz amongst team that wins the First Dewang
hottest Nesamoney, Mehta Award for IT Innovation, for their
dealmakers in IT former President invention of the Simputer.
Services and & Chief
Software by Operating Officer March 21, 2002 Planar Systems Inc.
Business Today. of Informatica, announced it has [NASD: PLNR], acquired Dome Imaging
The article names raised $6.5 million in Series A Systems Inc. of Waltham, M A for $61
Rakesh Hukku financing from Lightspeed Venture million. Balaji Krishnamurthy is
(left) of i-flex and Vivek Paul of Partners and Bay Partners. Chairman, President & CEO of Planar,
Wipro. based in Oregon. ¦
January 3, 2003: Vivek Paul,
Chairman of Wipro Technologies is
January 21, 2003: Mukesh
Chatter’s Axiowave Networks Inc.,
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 7Masala & Spice
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
Anu Hasan stars Padmini Chettur, Masks" (1994), "Brown"
in Run, another award winning (1994), and in the same year,
hit movie international with Krishna Devanandan, the
dancer and duet "Unsung." With
"Soliloquy" (1996) and
"Run" ran to packed choreographer "Fragility" (2001) she
houses: The Madhavan
developed choreographic
starrer "Run" played to
pieces for a larger number of
packed houses in the
dancers. Padmini Chettur's
south. Anu Hasan (’89
dance and choreographic
Physics / MMS) plays
works have been shown in
Madhavan's sister in the
numerous forums in Indian
movie and here is what
and abroad. Both the India
one reviewer had to say
government and the UNESCO
about her role – "Anu
have honored her with grants.
Hasan looks beautiful and
Padmini's latest work
dignifies her role. Anu
"Fragility" - a co-production of
leaves a lasting
If you were in Pilani Theater der Welt,
impression. The dilemma
between 1987 and 1991, Schaubühne am Lehniner
of a woman when her
you will certainly Platz, Berlin and Théâtre de la
husband and brother are
remember Padmini Ville, Paris, received rave
at loggerheads, her
Chettur. PC, as she was reviews in Europe. ¦
happiness when they
finally become friends known, was in several EDC
and her concern for the plays and was a core Mani Shankar,
family…Anu Hasan Backstage member. movie director
comfortably delivers the scores a hit with
Masala
performance.” Hindi film 16
December
BITSians who were on
&
campus between 1988 Mani Shankar ('78 Chemical),
and 1993 remember Anu has been making short
Hasan in some of the EDC movies, music videos and
Spice
productions of the day documentaries for many
including "Fiddler on years via his Hyderabad
the Roof" and based production house called
Bhairav Films. In 2002, he
Trained in Bharatnatyam, got his break on the big
Padmini (87 Math) never screen - Mani Shankar's debut
looked for a campus job Hindi feature film, ”16
like most of us, nor went December” was a surprise
for a dual. Instead, she hit. The movie was an
joined the Chennai based iDream production released
dancer- choreographer - by Columbia Tristar and
Chandralekha. While starred Milind Soman and
working with the model-
“Spartacus." When not
Chandralekha group, turned-
busy with movies, Anu
Padmini has developed her actress
Hasan runs her BPO
own identity as a soloist Dipannita
company in Calcutta. ¦
and choreographer. She Sharma. ¦
choreographed and danced
the solo pieces "Wings &
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 8Cover Story
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
Featured Article
BY VENU PALAPARTHI, ANUPENDRA SHARMA & MUKUL C HAWLA
BITSCONNECT: THE $1.5 MILLION
ALUMNI P ROJECT TO MAKE BITS #1
6,000 PCs distributed across campus, including libraries and
Around 8:30 am on a Sunday morning, 10 cars drive into the Halls of Residence, there is no difficulty in global
empty parking lot of Building #6 at Cisco’s offices in San communication and research; and for the really enthusiastic,
Jose. While the residents of this northern California city are some of the facilities are available 24 hours a day. A wealth
still under covers, a conference room in Building #6 is filling of application software is available for use on these
up, buzzing with talk and activity. At the same time, people machines. For those with demanding computer
in other cities and time zones around the US are pulling off requirements, there are a number of specialist facilities, the
roads, excusing themselves from brunches, returning from the flagship being the local visualization supercomputer, which
gym, dialing in one by one to a conference call. is used for compute intensive and data intensive tasks….”
All these people have two things in common. A degree from This sort of infrastructure is de rigueur for universities in the
BITS and a mission called BITSConnect. developed world, but at Pilani, you have to line up to sit in
This is the 25-strong BITSConnect core group consisting of front of a PC to send an email. With the completion of
Marketing, Finance, Fundraising and Project Execution BITSConnect, BITS will soon be able to cut-and-paste the
teams; a remarkably cohesive group consisting of three paragraph above in its own brochure.
generations of BITSians disbursed around the US. The group
is in pursuit of one goal – to design, fund and maintain one of
the finest networks of any university campus in India.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
√ Connects the Institute, hostel rooms,
library, staff quarters and guest house
√ More than 20 kilometers of cables
√ 2-4 Mbps WAN connectivity
√ 4000 voice-grade 10/100 access
points over a Gigabit backbone
√ Staff House connectivity through LRE
(Long Range Ethernet) & Wireless
√ Wireless Access (802.11b) at SKY and
the Reference Library
√ NMS, Router & Hardware Firewall
√ VoIP Phones
√ Voice-management Software The story in fast forward >>>
How did it all happen? Here is the story in fast forward.
State-of-the-art elsewhere is the new status BITS Director, Dr. Venkateswaran visited the US in late
quo at BITS summer last year. At the offices of Cradle Technologies, on
In 2003, life without the internet is unimaginable on the morning of September 7, he presented a small gathering
university campuses. A major university website describes of 22 BITSian movers and shakers with his wish-list for
its network: Pilani. At the top of this list was connectivity. BITS wanted
state-of-the-art, and nothing less would do. It had some
“The campus-wide network, including (all) University Halls funds that it was saving, but these funds would not be
of Residence, provides the backbone of its service, with high- enough.
speed access, not only to University information, but also to
national and international networks. All students have Prem Jain galvanized the team into action. Pulling in two
unlimited access to email and the Internet. With more than BITSians at Cisco, Deepu Rathi and Mukul Chawla, the team
started brainstorming how Cisco and the BITS alumni could
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 9Cover Story
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
help implement the network. All the 22 movers and shakers program, interviewing Vivek Paul, Satish Gupta and Prem
jumped on the bandwagon. Jain about BITSConnect. A number of stories are expected
to follow.
By November, a project team was formed, and activity
shifted into high gear. Prof. JP Misra of BITS scoped out the They say the first million is always the hardest
requirements. Mukul spent two weeks in Pilani and at the Although the first $400,000 came easily, collecting the next
Cisco offices, surveying the campus and putting together the $300,000 will be a lot harder. The larger donors are all
network design. The cost, a daunting $1.5 million. With tapped out. It is time for grassroots giving to kick in. There
vendor subsidies and Pilani’s savings, the alumni target was are over 3,000 BITSians in the US, and approximately 7,000
$750,000. And BITSAA had 9 months to raise the money. alums are now connected online to BITSAA yahoogroups
around the world. Most major chapters have been organized.
By January 2003, the RFP process was launched. Bids from
Our goal: To get each and every one of these alums to
vendors were evaluated by Prof. Misra and his team in a
contribute something, however small. The fundraising focus
marathon overnight session. The core team picked Cisco,
has shifted to the rest of the world. Ajay Madhok and Rohit
Wipro and Amp (Tyco) as the leading vendors.
Sah (Delhi), Subodh Mittal and Vikram Sah (Bangalore),
The entire network was finalized in one 9-hour sitting by Dinesh Mirchandani and Aashish Bhinde (Mumbai) and
BITS professors, JP Misra and Rahul Banerjee, working with Ashok Agarwal are coordinating fund-raising efforts in India.
Wipro and Cisco engineers. Naagarji’s kept a constant supply Coordinators have been pulled in for chapters around the
of tea and samosas going through the day. At the end of the world. BITSConnect has become a global agenda.
day, the BITS Deputy Directors hosted a dinner for the team.
With our high per capita incomes and a 30,000-strong alumni
Mukul convinced the Cisco and Wipro teams that the dress
body, the BITS alumni body represents the purchasing power
code for dinner was business casual, and was shocked when
of a small country. But most BITSians have never given to
the hosts showed up looking resplendent in their 3-piece
their alma mater, since BITS, like most Indian universities,
suits. BITS obviously took the project very seriously!
has never asked its alums for anything. It’s not a unique
Timing is everything situation to BITS. When former IIT Mumbai students first
In sync, BITSAA International obtained its 501c3 tax-exempt started raising funds for their Institute five years ago, they
status in February. BITSAA International had gained had to go through a process of educating their alums, getting
considerable traction, opening up new chapters and them used to the idea of donating money on a regular basis.
galvanizing alumni around the country. BITSConnect fell as It was a process of ushering in a change in attitude. We’ve
a perfect mission for enthusiastic alums. It was a call to experienced first-hand the generosity of BITSian giving, and
arms. Passions were high, and the iron was hot. believe that this transformation to pro-active donations is
BITSConnect fundraising teams were pulled together from all already happening amongst our alumni community.
over the US. Fundraising shifted to overdrive as the top 100
BITSians were identified. The goal was to raise enough
A Message From The Director
Dear BITSian around the world,
money to make the first payment within 30 days. The target
was easily reached and crossed, thanks to the superb efforts
We have jointly embarked on a
of the fund-raising team leaders, Roop Jain and Karthik mission to give BITS the most
Krishna. Alumni pledges totaled $430,000 by the beginning advanced network infrastructure of
of May . The Finance team of Jayan Ramankutty, Sandeep any educational institute in India.
Arora and Anita Agarwal tightly monitored the budgets and This is one of many steps BITS is
taking to make us not just the
the funds coming in. leading engineering school in the
country, but in all of Asia. I urge all
With the launch of Phase I, BITS has become the hub of
of you to demonstrate the energy,
activity. After a brief delay due to the truckers strike in India, enthusiasm, creativity and team
work is in full swing. Workers are digging up the campus, spirit that makes BITSians so unique, and BITS such
and vendor engineers are crawling all over campus. The a special place, in making BITSConnect an
excitement is palpable. The personal involvement of Prem outstanding success. We look forward to your
support.
Jain at Cisco and Vivek Paul at Wipro assures us of senior
management attention to this project.
Regards
BITSConnect marketing, led by Satish Gupta and Venu
Palaparthi, kicked off a big PR campaign globally, and soon Dr. S Venkateswaran
big media started to pay attention. Times of India and Director, BITS Pilani
Economic Times picked up the story. India Post ran a TV
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 10Cover Story
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
Why does BITS need this network? real-time video broadcasts. A third (Vivek Paul) made India
We can think of four reasons. into an IT outsourcing powerhouse. From semiconductor
design to plasma screens, BITSians are running some of the
Firstly, our students. We are ushering in the beginning of an most successful technology companies in the world. These
information revolution at Pilani. That favorite line “couldn’t BITSians feel strongly that their alma mater played a key role
get a computer at IPC!” will no longer be a valid excuse for in their much-publicized success stories. They understand
late submission of computer based assignments. Old test and recognize the power of the network. So even as BITSians
papers and solutions will no longer be the privilege of the dream high-tech, BITSConnect is really a dream-come-true
“ghotus.” Lecture notes will be on the net. BITSConnect will for alumni who have waited very long to give back to BITS
provide connectivity to Institute servers from all hostel and their beloved professors.
rooms, faculty and staff quarters, faculty offices, and
classrooms via a gigabit backbone. This will result in greater
TIMELINE
access to academic coursework, ubiquitous computing access
on campus, wireless access at many campus locations, web- July 2003: Completion of Phase I
based learning, tele-teaching, IP telephony (in all hostel Complete Campus backbone, Staff Quarters,
rooms – go figure!) and IP video conferencing. The students Institute and Guesthouse network
will be free to communicate with and learn from the world
outside Pilani. With 163 BITS alum professors. 30,000 Dec 2003 : Completion of Phase-II
alums. The classroom will be so much bigger. Complete wiring of all Bhawans
Secondly, India Today’s 2002 rankings rated BITS rated 1st Today’s leaders are training the next
for curriculum and academic input but only 4th in generation
infrastructure. Overall, we ranked 3rd, but who wants third! The vision shared by the alumni is that BITS needs to prepare
BITS’ ratio of users to computers is 12:1. BITS is among the its students to be leaders tomorrow. Leaders need to be
select few schools in India that has a supercomputing facility connected to the outside world, to alumni, to each other.
but access to these resources is very limited. Besides, Communications will allow communities to learn together,
according to an AsiaWeek survey done in 2000, BITS was faster and make future generations of BITSians more savvy
ranked only 19th in Asia amongst engineering schools. We and worldly-wise. BITSConnect bring us a step closer to
can certainly do better than that! IIT Mumbai and IIT achieving our collective vision.
Kharagpur have completed or are in the process of
completing their network upgrades. We’ve designed The back of this magazine contains a pledge form. If you fill
something more cutting-edge. This is our peer group and we it out and send it in, you’d be guaranteeing that not only will
have to stay competitive. BITS have a future; it will become a brand that you will
always be proud to be associated with in your lifetime.
Thirdly, Distance Learning. A little known fact amongst
alumni is that BITS is India’s # 1 school in distance learning, We’ve got to go now. Its 8:00 am on Sunday morning in the
both in terms of quality and market share. Through the Valley, and some of us have a conference call to attend. J
Distance Learning Program Division (DLPD), BITS confers
degrees to hundreds of engineers at Wipro, Infosys and other Excerpts from BITSConnect In The Media
top -tier Indian IT companies. This brings in a significant
chunk of revenues at BITS, helping us subsidize the
education for the students residing at BITS and allowing us to
compete with comparable schools that have budgets are over May 17, 2003: Alumni get back on the rolls. Over
Rs 100 crores a year. It’s an executive education model that the past few months, BITS alumni world-wide have
is very successful at US universities. To significantly come together to work on funding a [$1.5 million]
improve the product offerings, BITS recently started Virtual project at their alma mater…
University, a program to create and deliver high-quality
digital audio, audio-visual and video programs to the DLPD.
The new network will allow us to deliver media-rich content
to the 7,500 students, maintain that competitive edge, and
stay ahead of the pack. March 27, 2003. Its payback time for the alumni
of BITS Pilani. The IITs have long being nurtured by
There is a fourth reason. We BITSian alums need a mission. alumni funding. Now it’s the turn of BITS to lean on its
A BITSian (Sabeer Bhatia) invented e-mail as we know it students. In short its payback time…
(Hotmail). Another BITSian (Ajay Chopra) revolutionized
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 11Cover Story
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
BY PROFESSOR RAHUL BANERJEE, D IRECTOR, CSD
THE IMPACT OF BITSCONNECT ON PILANI
There are three areas where BITSConnect will have an BITSConnect will allow real-time multicasting of lectures in
immediate benefit for BITS, as outlined below. an interactive mode. For this purpose, the campus has already
the Cisco IP/TV facility in place that allows Live Delivery of
the lectures over the Intranet, capability of Video-on-Demand
BITS Virtual University and Scheduled Video Multicasting for on as well as off-
To make Internet-enabled learning possible, the Centre for campus students of BITS.
Development (CSD) has launched the BITS Virtual
University. Virtual University shall assist the Distance This will “virtually” reduce the student-teacher ratio on
Learning Programmes Division (DLPD) in providing campus, allow more lecture notes to be placed on the
improved educational support to over 7,500 students off- institute’s intranet for reference since already this is being
campus. This is a significant source of revenue for the done for a few courses across disciplines. Lastly, tests and
institute. BITSConnect has resulted in a move to significantly assignments may be administered and submitted online. ¦
upgrade our server farms, which drives far superior
performance of the Virtual University in terms of delivery of The Power of the Network
text and audio-visual course content. The external bandwidth
has recently increased to 2 Mbps and as the demand In 1992, I stood up in front of my thesis panel with a 5 ft by 4 ft
increases, the network will allow it to go up to 4 Mbps. chart with the results of my thesis. I had crunched about 10
years worth of time-series data for 50 companies listed on BSE
Wide-Area Research Collaboration after securing permission to use PS Division’s only PC. This PC
BITS has already made its mark in the field of was important because it had SPSS - a statistical software. I had
internetworking research, development and deployment and
painstakingly copied the data from print publications into a book,
has several firsts (about ten) to its credit, specifically in the
area of Internet Protocol version 6 (better known as IPv6). and then stayed up many nights at the PSD, laboriously inputting
IPV6 HAS over twenty-two international collaborators, the data as the PC was almost continually used durin g daytime.
including BITS. Of course, the thesis didn’t amount to much from a GPA
perspective, but it was certainly one of the first uses of statistical
BITSConnect shall enable BITS-Pilani to be the first ever
Indian University to have a fully IPv6-capable Intranet. Also, software for academic research in Pilani.
once the adequate bandwidth is added both internally and The following year, I joined an MBA program in Texas, and
externally, the Institute’s could join the Internet2 initiative as
worked on a similar project. From my dorm room, I downloaded
part of a nation-wide research network that in turn shall be an
MoU-partner to the Internet2. all the economic data from a Thomson terminal, then ran the
tests using SAS, another statistical software.. I completed my
BITSConnect will thus enable quality collaborative research
analysis in less than a day.
for some of the cutting-edge research in Computer Science
like the on-going “BITS Multimedia Operating System At Pilani, I think I impressed my professor with the qua ntity of
Project”, and Ubiquitous/Wearable Computing. data I managed to transfer to a PC. At Texas, I was reviewed on
Naturally, with the increased WAN-link available now, the the quality of my analysis.
improved campus infrastructure provided by the
BITSConnect will also enable inter-BITS (across Pilani, Goa That’s when I realized how far behind was BITS in its
and Dubai campuses), intra-BITS, inter-institute and inter- infrastructure. If only we had the BITSConnect network back
industry collaboration on research projects. then...
- Venu
Hybrid delivery of Campus Education
BITS has developed a framework to deliver courses on the
web along with the conventional method of classroom
teaching. The framework envisages archiving classroom
lectures in audio-visual formats that can then be replayed by Need More Information on BITSConnect? Visit
the student if and when he wants to. www.bitsaa.org
The facilities include the internal interface of the BITS- For more questions regarding BITSConnect, visit the
Virtual University for on-campus students through the website. Here you can watch a recording of the India Post
“CampusBuzz” and “IntraBITS” portals as well as an internal TV interview, watch an audio-visual presentation of
interface to Faculty of the institute through the on-line Course BITSConnect, and read about the latest updates. Or send an
Management Tool (CMT). email to bitsconnect@bitsaa.org if you have any questions.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 12Cover Story
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
project. I feel much more
Shyamoli Banerjee,
Trustee, BITSAA connected to BITS today
because of this project and
International
the people involved in the
I see this as a great project than when I was in
opportunity for all who Pilani. This project is
care about higher guaranteed to succeed and I
education in India to will assume we will have
contribute to the more exciting projects down
development of a world- the line.
Vivek Paul,
class infrastructure for Ajay Chopra, CEO, Vice Chairman, Wipro Prem Jain, SVP, Cisco
one of India’s primary
Pinnacle Systems Systems
technology institutions. BITS provides Wipro’s
This infrastructure will Expanding connectivity software engineers with the As an alumnus of BITS (class
serve tens of thousands of means expanding the best distance learning of 1973), I am delighted to be
students over the next horizons of BITS program in India. With the to be part of this endeavor. A
several years. What better students to beyond the new network, BITS will have core team of BITS alumni at
way to impact the future confines of BITS oasis. the ability to tremendously Cisco began developing a
of thousands of young Think of the improve the quality, breadth plan for helping BITS
minds! productivity and depth of its course achieve its goals for an
enhancements that BITS offerings, and remain the advanced campus network
students and faculty will market leader in distance infrastructure and it is
enjoy with this learning in India. gratifying to see the entire
infrastructure. BITS will chapter network working to
leap into the next Dr. Inderpal Bhandari, see this achieve fruition.
generation of
educational institutions
CEO, Virtual Gold Dr. SP Kothari, MIT
with broadband BITSConnect has the BITSConnect is a fine
capabilities unparalleled potential to greatly enhance example of providing
at other Indian the quality of education at tremendous tangible benefit
educational institution. BITS. It will enable alumni to the BITS community and
Sabeer Bhatia, Co- and others to involve BITS thereby helping it advance its
Founder, Hotmail Mukesh Chatter, students in cutting-edge core educational mission. I
CEO, Axiowave research and software proudly support the project.
Having studied at
some of the finest development, a prospect I
The proposed campus-wide Yogesh Vaidya, CEO,
institutions in the look forward to.
network infrastructure will Software Technology
world such as be the best among all the Group
CALTECH and top academic institutions
Stanford, after my anywhere in the world and By bringing world-class
brief stay at BITS- will immensely benefit connectivity to every student
Pilani, I find that the everyone for years to and faculty member, we are
difference between come! ensuring that BITS students
these Universities and and faculty remains not just
BITS-Pilani is student Dr. Krishna Saraswat, current, but cutting edge.
access to laboratory Stanford University
facilities and Preetish Nijhawan, VP,
computing resources. This is an extremely well- Jayan Ramankutty, BMC Software
BITSConnect is a coordinated worldwide SVP, Cypress
effort spanning five It is wonderful to see BITS
gigantic step in the embarking on a project that is
decades of BITSian alums BITSConnect is more than a
direction of bridging more ambitious than most
Gigabit Network. It is the
this resource gap. I graduating from the early
culmination of the confluence others in the country. The
strongly believe that 50s to the late 90s. It access to instant information
of all the aspirations of BITS
it will move BITS illustrates the tremendous will result in huge
and BITSAA of the past by
closer to its goal of passion that our alma productivity gains for both
the present for the future.
producing the highest mater evokes in our the students and the faculty.
quality of engineering alums irrespective of Having wireless access in
graduates in the Roop Jain, CEO,
when they graduated from Skylab would sure have
world. AARCEE
Pilani. helped me to be much more
It is such a great pleasure to productive.¦
be part of the BITSConnect
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 13Nostalgia
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
Featured Article
BY SUHARSH D EV BURMAN
ON THE ROAD TO
PILANI
Three batch mates take a delightfully funny
journey back to the Vidya Vihar campus after
many years…
Burman (left), Mirchi (Center) and Misra on
the Horseshoe
picked up another friend (who had anywhere and have our first break at
“A ten point agenda?!?” I lived a hostel life at BHS, Pilani
and generally knew about the
Pilani itself. Misra was avidly
shooting the local scenery from his
nearly fell off my futon (which BITS life as well during the 80’s), vidcam and the background score was
is hard to slip out of if one has and were off. Freshly brewed inter-sprinkled with the likes of good
lounged on one). “You have an coffee (from the thermos packed ole tunes from those good ole years,
agenda to cover during this trip! by my ever understanding wife) plus some new stuff like Dave
OK, what would be some of made the rounds inside the car, as Matthews, Morcheeba etc. We
those must do items on your the CD player exploded into Red reached Loharu and Mirch screamed
list”, I asked. “Parathas at Barchetta (Rush), which got Misra – Buggas, Jal T! We gotta have
Kapoorji’s (sorry he died – no into such a tizzy and he screamed another snap of us!!! Well, at least we
parathas), drinking in Nutan (not out the lyrics and his air guitar can have lunch, he protested – but
allowed anymore), Fried Maggi impression of Lifeson nearly better sense prevailed as the thought
& Chickoo shake at C’not (still knocking over the morning cuppa of the mouth watering fried paneer
there – yippee), chai n ciggis at joy all over my almost unused, maggi started wafting thru the
sky, samosas at Naagarji… “ hence nearly new, backseat. olfactory of our wonder years.
Old stories, new g lories, pals, It was nearly 11 am and the gods
I smiled as I quietly slipped a
gals, good times, bad times, you started smiling as we crossed the
strip of Pudin Hara and some
know this, you know that, where railway line at Loharu on the final
Alka Seltzers into my tote
this macha is, who is in touch with stretch of our trip. The fog cleared up
without them noticing. Yes, this
whom, and the journey weaved its totally, the sun was out and even the
was the one trip we were all
way out of Delhi towards Rohtak. road improved ten-fold. The
looking forward to for some
The route taken was, speedometer suddenly shot to over 80
time. Been planning it over a
unfortunately, the familiar & the kmph after struggling to even reach
few months, across a few
much travelled by: Delhi – Rohtak 50 kmph during the first three
thousand miles with the help of
– Bhiwani – Loharu – Pilani (we quarters of the way. We knew we
a few hundred emails on varied
promised to seek the road not were on a good wicket now and
schedules of 3 men who bonded
taken on the way back). We were nothing was gonna stop us
over a decade ago and were
going back, Jack, doing it again! now…woooeyeaah!
deciding to revisit the starting
Wheels turning round and
line, where , as someone aptly Is everybody in? Is everybody in?
said – “the journey begins…” round…brought us closer and
The town of our re-birth was on the
closer as the excitement grew.
horizon and a sudden silence crept in.
Somehow, by sheer coincidence,
Misra (LA), Mirch (Mumbai) & Pahari loomed on the right hand side
we never got around to playing
I (Delhi) decided to go back to of the highway and the red flag on top
‘My Old School’ by Dan, even
BITS for a day to bask our past. of the mandir fluttered in the wind
though it was on the CD too –
6:30 a.m. on a cold foggy Delhi welcoming back the unsung heroes
wonder why?
morning of January 6, 2003, into the cocoon that cradled us into
three of us bundled into my car, The fog started clearing up after the guys we turned out to be.
Bhiwani as we decided not to stop Suddenly the huge iron campus gates
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 14Nostalgia
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
approached us with a bold BITS stay the same - as Geddy Lee 1 pm and hunger pangs started. We
emblazoned and the guards aptly put it. decided to check out the RBM, sorry
almost knowingly opened up the RB mess now, for some grub. We
Forget washing our sandblasted
automatically - just by seeing walked thru Ram Bhawan and
faces, we headed straight to where
the smiles on our faces. Hey, we discovered that the Bhawans were all
we spent the maximum amount of
were not the only ones you have now ‘8’ shaped from the familiar ‘E’
daylight hours in BITS – sky
done this you know, and we will of our times. The ends were blocked –
lawns. Grins abound as
not be the only ones doing this quite good for QT cricket as the
recognition dawned on Pappu’s
in the future too… tennis ball was now boxed in! The
same Alfred E Newman face.
loos – another shocker – tiles man!
Chais did the round
The loos were tiled. There were
as we sat on the
mirrors, solar geysers, doors coloured
amoeba but no
but those huge tiles really took the
ciggis. Not allowed
wind out of our sails. Mirch and
anymore! The new
Misra promptly went to their old
face of change.
rooms – knocked and woke up some
However Pappu
poor buggas to take a snap and vid
obliged us with a
clips. The amount of PC’s with the
four square from his
students came as a pleasant surprise
personal dibba and
too. Oh yes, we were aptly informed
refused to take a
that porn mags were a thing of the
single paisa for chai
past and now students exchanged PC
etc – still a
Pappu & Girdhari together ! hard drives overnight for
sweetheart! Couple of curious
‘entertainment’, as a LAN was not on
students kept gazing at the old
the insti agenda as yet. Technology in
11:30 am and we parked into the fogies as they became more and
BITS was finally raising its ‘head’ –
guest house we were surprised more vociferous with their antics
ahem - P2P reigned supreme.
to see it empty and even more and stories. One obliged us with
surprised to see renovations. the new registration booklet to see
Where were we to stay? Upon which prof was taking what What! Mal is a
asking the chowkidar, we were courses. A couple of recognizable
informed that a new guesthouse names, but mostly new ones and female bhawan!?!
had been built next door at the hajjar new courses – Aaah,
Laxmi Narayan centre and progress marches slowly on – at Malviya, the bastion
least the limbo of the Mitra years
ample acco was available. Phew
– as today was registration day was being washed away steadily.
of the senior most
and we had tried to book the
place by phone but to no avail.
Mirch brought up the agenda
items as we were sitting on a park
on campus was now
Luckily it was 2nd sem and not bench and eyeing little girls with donning iron gates
too many parents were around. bad intent… J
Promptly we shot out our ID
What! Mal is a female bhawan!?!
and walls and was
numbers, just like we were
sitting for the comprees, at the
What do you mean we can’t Meera Bhawan II.
enter!!! Another shocker –
registration desk and were told
Malviya, the bastion of the senior Cell phones also made a grand entry
that we could avail an ex- most on campus was now donning into the hallowed halls this year.
students discount of Rs. 150 on iron gates and walls and was Pilani was on the mobile network of
the normal rental of Rs 600 per
Meera Bhawan II. The female India. Was the cocoon crumbling?
night for a double room with a/c populace had grown leaps and
and heater n attached loo. bounds (quantity yes, but quality The mess – what a mess! Same dingy
However, in order to avail that atmosphere, same benches and huge
still was to be desired for – one
discount, we had to go to the student commented. Some things tables, same bartans and even the
insti, wait outside and seek you know, they can just never same mess servants, well aged, but
audience with RK Mittal, get still around. We were informed that if
change – ha ha). There is even a
him to sign the form and come girl student union president here – mess food was our fondness for the
back. Hmmn, the more the a first for BITS! Wow man, times day, then we had to go to Ashok/RP
things change, the more they as that was the official mess for
they were a changing…
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 15Nostalgia
Birla Institute of Technology & Science Alumni Magazinee
outsiders. The sight of a dirty classrooms were now 4 digit nos. have just one or two points of entry –
jhadu and pocha lying on top of and the classes and the labs, at maybe a GKW menace in the wings?
the table next to a table being least from the outside, still looked Or the loos?? Stopped at smiling
served just killed the scene for the same – dilapidated, unpainted, Naagarji for some samosa chat,
us and we decided to skip and in various stages of sprinkled with those fried peanuts and
another of Mirch’s agenda items decomposition. Some places we adrak chai. Mirch polished off some
and head to the safety of C’not. never visited during our times – Rabri with chopped bananas as well.
ref lib and the insti café behind the Aah the good life… Next stop - the
C’not – without Mooras! Audi were rude awakenings. The
Mould(y)ed plastic chairs and Audi was shut however we got to C’not – without
tables were everywhere. Blue
Moon, Golden Dragon, and
know that they have fixed chairs
now and smoking, drinking, and
Mooras!
Kamal etc etc. No mooras man! other toxins were not permitted.
People were frisked before
Mould(y)ed plastic
Kamal (Pappu/Kallu Kapoor
clan) had opened up a restaurant entry!!! Yikes. chairs and tables
at the fag end of C’not and their
old place was an techie corner
Out of the D block, we saw a
humdrum of activity on an
were everywhere.
with std/isd, fax, dtp,
typesetting, computer education
otherwise sacked out Monday, at Blue Moon, Golden
C block. Registration was on! IPC
type of thing. Decided to visit
his restaurant at night and to
was humming and we got a whiff Dragon, and Kamal
of the T in BITS finally. It was a
check out good ole Blue Moon.
computerized process. Too much etc etc. No mooras
Shikanji (Rs. 5, with Bisleri for
for Misra too handle who had to
our US friend’s delicate
capture it on video. A new
man!
stomach) and Fried Paneer Mandir.
building was also being
Maggis (Rs 20) made the
constructed next to the C block as
rounds. BTW, Midnight Beauty The temple - still so calm and serene,
well. Don’t know – Mgmt Centre
comes in 4 flavours now and is despite the rising cacophony of birds
maybe?
Rs 25. Sitting around we noticed on the trees lining the roads of the
an authentic Andhra food joint It was 3 pm now and a trip to the campus. Hey, we never got shat upon
doing brisk biz – apparently now temple at Pahari was next on the despite travelling down these memory
the gult and the illad (no malice cards. We drove thru Pilani town lanes. Oh yes, these roads now have
or ill will here, just revisiting ole and reached the bottom of the hill. names and road signs too! Some
jargons – wokay machha?) Trudged up the 250 steps and roads have no entry signs and there
communities constitute over reached the top to be greeted by a are one-way streets as well. Anyhow,
80% of the populace. Maybe dog first, then a Pundit. Caught we stuck around for the evening aarti
time to relook at the the still fantastic view, offered our and saw the beginning sem rush to the
normalization process eh Mr prayers, and caught our breath temple. We fondly remembered the
Diro? before heading down. Oh yes, two times there was massive rush at
Mirch had to stop at least 5 times the temple - at the beginning and near
Post lunch and no sack! Enthu
before he reached the top. And the end of sem – both for the same
was brimming in Misra’s bones.
promised to cancel this from his reason – God! Please help me get thru
We walked to Shiv Gangs and
agenda for his future visits… A this sem! And thankfully Saraswati
remembered all the naughty
brief stopover at BHS and its obliged us each time… We humbly
things that we never did! Hah.
hostel in town, a quick shopping acknowledged that fact as we lowered
The path to the guesthouse was
trip for a tie -dye bedcover for our heads and thanked her yet again.
locked but we were informed
home and we were back near the Our shoes were still there when we
that never hampered anyone.
campus gates by 5 pm. climbed down that made Misra happy
Drove back to sky – hey we
were up against time vs. agenda, Went to sky and sacked on the - he was seen lurking trying to find
and found good ole Giri as a lawns till the sun was going down. his old pair of rubber chappals that
hired hand to Pappu! Smiles and Went to Krishna bhawan for more were apparently whacked in his 3rd
Photo sessions. A psenti walk photo opportunities for the M & sem out there.
thru the still damp n dingy M bros. Also, hostels have iron
hallways of the insti followed grills blocking the downstairs A quick drive thru the campus
suit. We found that the wings facing outside now and all including agenda item Meera
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
MAY 2003 SANDPAPER 16You can also read
