The Fridge Key

I dont know how much impact this will have on my grades, but i hope it does not, for we did this misdeed last year! 

Third year, for many reasons, was one of the most memorable years in college. Especially the 6th semester. Probably, it was the first time we didnt have that much load on our shoulders, or maybe the subjects were easy, or even maybe for the fact the I managed to score an 8 point grade after two wretched semesters made it all the more special. It was the time that the bonding in class was at its best. I had made some incredible like minded friends by that time. So its not surprizing that we ended up doing what I am going to narrate. 

It was a typical March afternoon, probably the last week-sometime between 3:30-5:30, EM practical, with Babya conducting the practical session. March in Pune is bad, and in a closed 20x20 room filled with an assortment of CROs and other measuring instruments,  with just a single ceiling fan operating, and a ban to switch on the AC, it gets even worse. Heat, sweat and practicals had drawn us to madness. To make the matters worse we had run out of supplies for water, and if we needed to get them, we had to climb down two flights of stairs and back up again. Who has the energy to do all that at the end of a tiring day! Nevertheless we did go down to get two waterbottles filled up, but to our sheer disappointment, the water was as hot as the weather outside. Something Cool was the need of the hour.

Fortune, was on our side. The EM lab has a refrigerator.  So, we decided to cool our water bottles and have something cool to drink later. When we opened the fridge door, to our delight, there were 5-6 bottles of cold water, which we immediately set about consuming, and were promptly told off for doing so. Angered at the fact that we were told off for drinking cool water, and were prevented from cooling our own bottles, we plotted a revenge.

As it happened, we conducted an extra practical for ourselves to get the lab assignments out of the way a couple of days later. Now, that day, me and my partner in crime from my lab sessions- Krishna, observed that our friend Babya had left the key on the refrigerator lock. A devilish scheme tool place, and we came up with the conclusion that if we cannot drink cold water, nobody can. So, when nobody was observing, me and Krishna quickly locked the fridge and hid the key, initially in Krishnas pocket. When we did finish performing the practical, we left silently, taking the key with us.

Now, the summer heat got to Babya, and he wanted to have a drink, but could not open the fridge as we had locked it! He was livid. He told off the remaining people from our batch and demanded where was the key. He knew that we had left. So he called us back to the lab, and told that he is checking all bags and pockets for his fridge keys. we needed a place to hide the key somewhere. So Krishna came up with a solution. the key was put on his sandal underneath his foot, and off we went to the lab. We got searched, and still the key could not be found. So we acted to show that we didnt have it by helping search for it. We literally lifted the fridge to check if it was underneath the fridge, checked under all desks, tables, chairs everywhere- but no sign of the key. Babya who was flustered by his thirst by now, told that this was a serious issue and would be reported to the HOD. (who is scared of action taken on a prank!)

We were told off, and then let go. Next day I think it was RDJ who came and told off the entire class for stealing the keys. Here, playing mafia came in rather handy. I was totally able to pull off the fact that it wasnt with me, and I was not associated with this crime! The same applied for Krishna, although he doesnt need mafia practice. 

We kept the key with us for atleast 3 days. the 4th day was the April fools day. So, on that day, we decided to return our key anonymously. We put a sign saying april fool on it, and put the key in the lock of the Lab door. Somebody saw us putting the key there, but fortunately, did not report it. The next time we went for the practical, Babya was gleeful that he had found the key. He told that it was just misplaced probably, and he found it(as if..), and no action will be taken. So, the key was back, everyone was happy, me and krishna were let off for what can only be described as the most vadheev prank that Ive pulled off. 

It was fun! More fun than hiding Gandhalis Dio. More fun than we have had on the Boat club at times. Probably not that much fun as I had this semester doing vadheev pana with MadB,Ketki,Teja and Alok. Still, it was one of the best pranks that can be played in college. Juniors, it is your time to fill in my shoes now that I am graduating soon!

Krishna- Half the gang.

Chinmay- The other half of the gang.

Key- the one we kidnapped.

Tatyarao

Of all the meaningless commenting, chitchat and time pass that goes on on Facebook, once in a while, something amazing crops up. Recently, a friend of mine posted a clipping from the Marathi talk show "Khupte tithe Gupte". The show is aired on the Z Marathi network, and is conducted by the famous pro-rock Marathi artist Avadhoot Gupte. But, this episode was very endearing, and was one that really made me think, about myself, and my duties to my motherland.

The concept was that in that particular segment, you can call whoever you want to call. People tend to call the person with whom they had a fight to patch up, a long lost friend who they havent met in ages etc. But not this guest. He himself is a very accomplished actor, and someone I have had tremendous respect for, after meeting him and spending time with him at back stage during the Chitpavan Mahasammelan. Yes, I am talking about Sharad Ponkshe- a firebrand of an actor who has portrayed the role unforgettable role of Nathuram Godse in what is a memorable play, but sadly criticized by our ruling party and its ideology less followers, Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy.

The thing is, that instead of calling any of his friends, relatives, mother or any normal person, Sharad Ponkshe called Svatantryaveer Savarkar. The reason for calling was simple. It was a plea- a plea to a real ideologist, a freedom fighter, a selfless patriot who sacrificed everything he could for our motherland, and yet, gets heavily criticized, insulted and overlooked by our current government. It was an earnest request to instill his ideologies of "tyaag karne and ayushyacha hom karne". The video is available on the following
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t6b8jCarkg The acting is so real, so convincing, so moving, that I shed a tear on listening to this.

The video has got me thinking. And think deeply. The state of our nation is really appalling. People are embroiled only in earning shortcut fame and money. Its the unfortunate reality. If there is a sabha going on the life of Savarkar, and next door to it is an audition for roadies, the mindless youth (which i consider unlucky to be a part of) will ignore the path set by an inspirational person and attend the stupid roadies audition.

I wont say anymore-otherwise it will become a post which hammers the youth of today, which has a void when it comes to passion, love and sacrifice for the nation. I was on the verge of becoming one of these idiots for sometime now, but this video has reshaped me. Its reignited that undying love for the motherland, and a thirst to do something good and worthwhile for her, which will make her stand out. One thing I am definitely going to do, is that in future, if ever I go abroad for higher studies, I have every intention to come back, and implement what Ive learnt for the betterment of my country.

I know the path ahead is going to be full of hardships if this is to be done. But I have Savarkar in my heart, and in my mind. His guiding hand and influence can only be a positive. For support I have 4 lines from his own poem titled Maze Mrutyupatra, which is actually a letter written to his vahini, in which he calls her by various names including a goddess, a mother, a brave woman. Its a 25 stanza poem, so I wont post it completely, just the 4 lines from it that give me immense courage to tackle what is otherwise a hard task..

की न घेतले आम्ही हे व्रत अंधतेने

लब्ध-प्रकाश इतिहास निसर्ग माने

जे जे दिव्य-दाहक म्हणोनी असावयाचे

बुद्ध्याची वाण धरिले करि हे सतीचे!

Pune tithe Kharach kay une

Pune, to me, is the best city to live in this whole world. Its weather is awesome. Its not too big, so you can reach from one corner to other in at the most 45 mins when there is no traffic. The advantages are endless. However, what makes pune special is its people. Punekars have some unique and extremely odd habits that usually people from other places dont have. Say what you want, the Puneri sense of humour is something which is very unexpected.

Some of the peculiar things that have been noted about Punekar(I hate to call puneites- kasla ghaan vatata) is his reluctance to work in the afternoon.1-4 all shops will be closed, and closed with proud boards displaying shop will be closed as its time for lunch and sleep! There is a famous joke about this- once a shop (Specifically Chitales sweet shop(Nothing against you Inder and Nikhil- but thats how the joke goes) ) catches fire in the afternoon. The fire brigade comes to quell the fire, and the shop owner simply tells the fire fighters-" its time for lunch, please come back when the shop opens at 4!"

Then there is another weird habit of removing air from the tyres of vehicles parked in front of a gate. Punekars are extremely rude when it comes to parking issues. Offenders vehicles are often carried out by the Chor-gaadi (thief car - the Police truck). However it can be easily got back without any psychological trauma. at the most it costs 100 rupees. Id got back mine saying I only had 20 rupees with me! Ameya Abhyanar told the police he had parked his bike in the police station so it wont be picked, and got off for nothing! Anyway- police are tolerable. The worst people to handle in parking situations are those whose front gates get blocked. Dozens of old vadaas and buildings in the old part of the city proudly declare that "Air will be removed if vehicle is parked in front of the gate". A bolder person in Sadashiv Peth (my hub and hideout) proudly declared, "This is Sadashiv Peth- Puncturing offending vehicles is a routine job done here".
I was of the opinion that that view is restricted only to Sadashiv Peth. Howver, I saw the same approach taken by a woman whose car was blocked due to parked scooters on,of all the places, TEKDI. She was definitely short tempered. Hurling abuse at stupid morons "moorkha mula" who cannot park properly, she promptly went ahead and released all the air from the tyres of 4 bikes! The poor fellows must have had a hard time going down from the tekdi! nevertheless I could not stop laughing!



Then there is this craze of writing witty, sarcastic, snide and derogatory quotes pointing fingers at others which is the cherry on the cake. I guess no one else writes such one liners and witty insult lines better than Punekars- that too in shuddha marathi.  for those who want to see what kind of stuff is written, please click here or here. I wont write more. Im going crazy just reading some of those boards and notices!!

Pune is really a one of its kind city. The attitude people have here are unmatched. The love for the city itself is unparalleled. The love for traffic rules does not exist. Just a few things that makes Pune- Pune!

The Damned!

(Part1)

(Part2)

Mathematics of an Exam

Guess what. I am nearly done with another set of exams. No matter how much you try to shoulder arms at them, they make you go on the back foot and defend. Now that Im done with the theory exams, I am freely able to punch my practicals through the covers! No worries. My timing in the practical viva is as immaculate and as elegant as those of Sachin Tendulkar on the field. (Forgive me for a cricket like opening, but im watching India thrash NZ by Innings and some runs, so the effect rubs off..)

Now then, coming back to the point, as this was my 7th semester in the college, I have given a total of 14 exams plus a number of 10 mark tests. A large enough sample size has been generated through the experience of me and my friends to draw out the following conclusions about the time near to exam. These will be known as the Datar-Devi Approximations, after its researchers, Datar and Devi.


To start of with. Let 'T' be the time left for an exam. This is usually about 2-3 days for a typical COEP paper, for which one can actually study. For simplicity we shall assume that T is a rectangular distribution. from -T to 0.
However, we never start studying at the start of the rectangular function. Studying is a statistically boring process. We usually start our studies at an arbitrary time instant H, after -T. Again, this will be a rectangular distribution over T.

Now, as it is statistically observed, attention span is dependent on H. let Asp be the attention span.

 

This will give you the attention span that you will get, depending on when you start studying. This is a critical factor for getting good marks. ideally, toppers have H close to T.

The second important point that is under consideration is Number of calls you make asking your friends "How much timepass you have done?" this can be denoted by N(h). Number of calls before exam are way more that those on ordinary days.
N(h)=e^2kh.. k= Phony constant. the derivations for above terms are extremely complex and is beyond the scope of timepass. So, it has been left to the Chinese to come up with the proofs for the same.

The third important factor is time you end up swearing at and cursing your Professors. Now, as the trend is, we curse our profs as being useless and incompetent much more during exam period than normal.This analysis is extremely interesting, and thus, has been discussed below. Now, not all professors are bad. some are actually superb. so lets have a sample size of N professors.
Let us consider r activities- such as teaching, setting papers, fluency in speech etc.
let 'p' be the probability that the teacher is good.
so, (1-p) is the probability that the teacher is rubbish.
then, assuming a binomial model and taking average over given number considered, we can say that the swearing coefficient is






The fourth point considered in this treatise is based on pure statistics. The point is know as Chinmays attraction law. "As exam time nears, in D Days, your feelings towards an arbitrary girl goes on increasing to the exponent".Here, γ(gamma) is the attraction probability. γ is dependent on several factors such as the nature of the person, the college where he is studying etc. If γ is the attraction probability, then, the attraction coefficient can be given by  




However, in colleges like COEP, as there are very few good looking girls, and the fact that the college is filled with nerds, γ is negligible. So taking a Taylor series expansion, and ignoring higher order terms of γ ,
we can say,

The next important point is concentration span. You tend to concentrate very little while studying. breaks are frequent. Let B be the number of drinks/snacks break you take in between a span of 3 hours- a statistically important variable as all papers are 3 hours long. Then, concentration span, CSmax will be:
CSmax= 3hours/B.
Usually this value is quite low, owing to the statistically high value of B (12-15 in normal cases).
The analysis of B is also again very complex, and has been left to the Chinese.
One thing we know for certain is that CSmax is inversely proportional to t, the time before exam.

The next factor is the ratio of useful study to time spent on Facebook. This is called as the phace inverse ratio.

Now, PIR= (T.i.m.e.o.n.a.b.o.o.k/T.i.m.e.o.n.f.a.c.e.b.o.o.k.).
cancel the common terms in the equation, we get,
PIR=(1/face)

It has been statistically proven by the likes of our peers Shriram Kardile and Sahil Patwardhan, that time spent on Facebook is roughly 5 times the time spent on reading a book.
so, it can be concluded that PIR=(1/5)
(from their publications Facebook is more fun that studies. Kardile,Patwardhan and Datar.)

Ok, so I  guess these many factors are enough to formulate the time remaining for the exam T.
We can conclude, that T, the time to exam is directly proportional to:
1)Attention span
2)Swearing time
3)number of calls
4)coefficient of attraction
and is inversely proportional to
1) Concentration span.

Thus, we can mathematically conclude:

Introducing the constant of proportionality, the PIR to the equation to get rid of the proportionality sign and substituting the values for respective coefficients, we get

  Thus, finally we have arrived at the examination formula.

Original research carried out by:
Chinmay A Datar
Anant M Devi.
Helping Hands:
Sumedh Dhabu
Virendra Kakade
Abhishek Ambede.

References:
Probability and Random Processes
-Stark and Wood. (3rd years, see, its not that bad a book. has many useful applications afterall)
Why facebook is better than book
-Sahil Patwardhan, Ajinkya Rao
Facebook to book ratios
-Shriram Kardile.

We thank all our friends for supporting us throughout the research, and are hopeful that our efforts will be awarded at the IEEE conference of vadheevpana.
-P.S- mathematical errors have been deliberately introduced to hide original equations and research.
-Authors.