Surprise Presentation at Manipal

It has been 6 years since I graduated from Manipal. I studied at the School of Information Science where I did my Masters in Embedded and Wireless Technologies. Suddenly One day I got a call checking my availability for a guest lecture. As I interacted more with the lecturer there, I learnt that I would be addressing Masters students in cloud computing department.

I have been back to college several times after graduation. One time I have even gone back and given a live presentation on USB Device drivers in Linux. But this time it would be different because I was taking my wife along who had not seen Manipal college before.

I asked an intern in my department who used to frequently run his workloads on the cloud, so that he would serve 2 purpose:

1.       As he was an intern from another college, he could relate better with the students
2.       As he had used cloud infrastructure, he could talk about topics more relevant t the students

However, when there was just 2 more weeks for the presentation, I learnt from him that he had an online exam on the day just after the presentation and since his grades depended on it, he would not be able to come with me to Manipal.

Fortunately, by this time we had got the syllabus copy of the cloud computing department which had lot of elements of DevOps and Cloud Infrastructure setup.

I approached a colleague Vijay from my department who had 13 years of experience in DevOps and infrastructure development. He gladly agreed to the opportunity and accompanied me to Manipal.

Our faculty were happy that there was 2 of us coming form the industry to talk to the students.

As roads had been damaged due to rains, our bus reached Manipal at 8:45, instead of 6:10 as booked with the travels. We quickly got ready and reached college around 9:30 and began the presentation.

For the 2 weeks of preparation, we had believed that we would have to share the 3 hours allotted on that day among ourselves. But just before departure, we learnt that each of us were presenting to a different set of students, so we carried separate slides to our sessions.

[Day 1]:

My presentation was to a batch of Embedded System and Automotive Embedded Systems Engineers and my class contained 86 students. 

The presentation topics were:

    1)     How to score more marks
    2)     Difference between MNCs and Startups
    3)     How to go about a job search
    4)     How to be a more effective software professional

In the middle of the presentation, I planned a Notepad++ Macro feature demo. The demo got a good response.

I gave 1 minute gap between topics and then once my slot was over, opened the floor to Q&A. It was a good learning experience. Since Vijay’s time slot was slightly more, I went to the same room as Vijay to hear his presentation.

Both me and Vijay were given mementos for presenting at the college. We collected feedback regarding our presentations and spent some time talking to different lecturers who had taught me.

From the college we went to Pai Tiffin for lunch. 

From there we went to Manipal’s Anatomy and Physiology museum. Then we went to the adjacent Manipal canteen to enjoy some waffles in the evening.

When we were about to leave the canteen, a procession of students participating in the Keli fest also arrived at the venue. We joined their procession till Syndicate Bank Golden Jubilee Auditorium. The Keli fest is organized by the Malayali community at Manipal. 

It was a good experience to watch students perform all their stage acts, dances, dramas, standups, musicals, beat-boxing, instruments and other performances. The whole fest was filled with lot of energy and we absolutely enjoyed the whole show. We stayed there from 5:30 to 10:30. Then we had dinner at Dollops Restaurant and went back to our Room from there.

[Day 2]:

We got up early in the morning and walked to Manipal Lake. Our stay was arranged in NBQ Valley View flat. The flat had an amazing view from the balcony, where we could see greenery till the horizon among which fog could be seen raising from underneath.

Then we walked around the lake for 2 rounds and walked back to the Hotel.

After having breakfast, there was some time left, so I joined the students playing basketball.

As there was some free time till lunch, I took my wife around Manipal college and showed her around. I took her to the architecture department where we saw different designs of staircases, ramps, balconies and other architectural shapes.

From there I took her to Manipal College Library building, then to the Innovation building. From there I took her to the Chemical Engineering Department where my brother had previously studied. From the Chemical engineering department, I took her to the campus central cafeteria, which has a very appealing design. There used to be a basketball court in front of the cafeteria, but now there is a circular open air theater surrounded by shops on the semicircular periphery.

As we had to take a night bus back to Bangalore, we slept in our hotels in the afternoon.

In the evening we had snacks at the NBQ mess and went to Manipal endpoint. We had an amazing sunset viewing experience at the end point.

Later we gathered all our belongings and walked to Tiger Circle across Kasturba medical College’s entrance. We had dinner at Pangala restaurant and left back to Bangalore.

We hope that the presentation in Manipal has helped the students and Faculty.

Delhi A 5 hour trip from the Airport with my wife

We reached Delhi Airport at 9:30 in the morning. Since our connecting flight via Air India was at 5:40 PM, we decided to go sightseeing from there. Both me and my wife had not been to Delhi earlier. Delhi is the capital of India and upon looking at Google map, we had decided to go to the nearby Aircraft Museum and get back to the Airport.

We took a ticket to Dhaula Kuah from where we agreed to pay an auto driver 130 Rs. to take us to the Museum. Upon reaching however, we found the museum to be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. So we explained our condition to the auto-driver and asked him to take us to some nearby place instead, as we were desperate to see some part of Delhi that day.

He agreed to take us to Gyara Murthy  (11 statues – with Gandhi Leading), Indira Gandhi’s House and India Gate to which we agreed. Upon seeing Gyara Murthy, we were somewhat disappointed because we have that exact same statue right in front of our house in Bangalore. Then we were disappointed even more when we learnt that it was maintenance day on Monday and hence Indira Gandhi’s house was closed as well. On our way to India Gate we enquired if the auto driver could take us to Connaught place, which we had heard from our sister who had been to Delhi with her friends to which the auto driver agreed.

"To the dead of the Indian armies who fell and are honoured in France and Flanders Mesopotamia and Persia East Africa Gallipoli and elsewhere in the near and the far-east and in sacred memory also of those whose names are here recorded and who fell in India or the north-west frontier and during the third Afghan war" - India Gate

Even though he had told us we had 1 hour to spend at India Gate, we could not think of what to do beyond 10 minutes of exploring the place. Then we headed to connaught place which we learnt was just like a shopping place we go to on weekends in Bangalore and quickly checked map again. Our driver then agreed to take us to the Jantar Mantar in Delhi, which is the most beautiful historical structure I had seen on this trip. Jantar Mantar is clean. Near each Instrument, there is a clear description of what the instrument does and what its purpose is in the measurement of time and space. We went from one building to another, and within 30 minutes covered all the monuments located there.

 Then we saw Madame Tussauds Wax museum just around the corner in the left. We stopped by the Wax Museum. Upon enquiring at the reception, we learnt that a web booking was 50 percent less than an in cash booking at the counter.

It was my wife’s first trip to a wax museum. I was happy to see her fascinate at the life like images of various Film Stars (Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Anil Kapoor, Will Smith, Leonardo De Caprio, Scarlet Johansen, Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor, Sunny Leone, Tom Cruise, Ranbir Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Marylyn Munroe, Shahrukh Khan, Kapil Sharma), Politicians (Gandhi Ji, Narendra Modi Ji, Dr. Abdul Kalam, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel), Sports Person (Sachin Tandulkar, Hussain Bolt, Mary Kom, Kapil Dev, Virat Kohli, Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Milka Singh, Christiano Ronaldo), Singers (Sonu Nigam, Asha Bhosle, Shreya Ghoshal, Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson, Zakir Hussain). The museum also has a kitchen like setting where a lady explains how was replicas are made, giving demo to children to make a replica of their hands.

We felt satisfied having looked at these attractions in Delhi. We stopped by some ancient Hanuman Temple near Shivaji Stadium. We ate Veg Biriyani and Parotha with Paneer Curry near the temple. We visited the temple after placing order. The temple had the dietees, Ram, Lakshman, Sita, Hanuman, Kali, Durga, Shani, Ganesh, Sai Baba, Eashwar, Parvathi, Dattathreya all in the same compound.

From here we departed to the Dhaula Kuan Metro station as agreed with the Auto driver. He agreed for the sum of 1100 as fee for the trip which we were glad to pay. We reached Terminal 3 in the airport at 2:45. Then we walked to the International Departure section which had beds besides waiting area where we rested for 30 minutes. We then ate Beetroot fries which were served at one of the stalls at the airport which cost us 162 Rs. It was nice to try something new at the airport.

We then departed at the scheduled time. Much to our surprise, Air India served us a heavy meal on our flight. Thus we completed a wonderful trip covering places near to the Delhi Airport in about 5 hours, and went back home satisfied with our trip.

Learnings:
In Hindsight, it might seem like we could have avoided wasting time by avoiding going to the places closed on Monday. But we are happy that we met this amazing Auto driver who volunteered to wait for us and ensured we had sufficient time to see each place. He took us around Delhi and empathised with our situation without taking advantage of us in anyway, for which we are truly grateful.