Pratik Poddar

13 states and 3 union territories visited this year :) I've been to 72 cities in 9 countries Asia Hong Kong (SAR): Hong Kong Island India: Agra India: Ahmadabad India: Anandpur India: Anandpur Sahib India: Badarinath India: Bhakra India: Chandigarh India: Chennai India: Chidambaram India: Colangute India: Delhi India: Faridkot India: Gangotri India: Goa India: Haridwar India: Hyderabad India: Jaipur India: Joshimath India: Kanchipuram India: Kanniyakumari India: Kedarnath India: Kolkata India: Kot Kapura India: Kota India: Kumbakonam India: Madurai India: Mamallapuram India: Mumbai India: Mussoorie India: Nagercoil India: Nangal Dam India: New Delhi India: Panaji India: Patna India: Patna India: Pondicherry India: Pushkar India: Ranchi India: Renigunta India: Rishikesh India: Rudraprayag India: Srirangam India: Srisailam India: Suchindram India: Thanjavur India: Thiruvananthapuram India: Tirumala India: Tirupati India: Ujjain India: Uttarkashi India: Vishnuprayag India: Yamno

(I am no professional. This review is just my understanding of theatre embedded into reviews by popular critics :P Not 100% original) Date: 17 Oct 2010 Place: Prithvi Theatre Play: Aaall Izz Well With Shuturmurgh   Direction: Ramesh Talwar Cast: Aasif Shaikh, Bharat Kapoor, Rakesh Bedi, Vignesh Sinkar, Prashant Padale, Akhilendra Mishra, Kuldeep Singh, Rashmi Sharma, Manju Sharma Length: 2 hours Main Theme: When Ostrich is surrounded by enemies, it buried its head and neck in sand and pretends that there is no ememy outside, pretends to be unaware of its bosy outside the sand. In the play, Ostrich or Shuturmurg is referenced many times, representing humans today. The play is an answer to current issues like CWG Corruption, Elephant Statues in UP and Vidarbha Farmers. Story: The story starts with a king of ShuturNagri and his three ministers. Then there is the common man, a naive wife, a hunger stricken maid and a reformer. The king of this land has only one obse

(Update Dec 20, 2010: Some new ones added. Credits to Prashant Soni) Recently China airports were closed due to heavy fog, later it was discovered that Rajnikant was smoking in India! Rajnikant did his KG from seven different places, today those places are known as IITs! Government of India pays tax to Rajnikant for living in India! Definition of Solar Eclipse: When Rajnikant stares at Sun with anger, sun hides behind the moon. This phenomena is called solar eclipse Think about what would have happened if Rajnikant was born 150 years ago? British would have fought for independence Why do Earthquakes occur? Because at that time Rajnikant's mobile is on vibration mode Why did Rajni buy an acre of land with 4 wells on wach corner? To play carrom.. Before Tom Cruise, Rajani was approached for the movie Mission Impossible, but Rajani refused as he found the title insulting. Rajnikanths next project. Titanic in Tamil. Climax revised. Both survive. Rajnikant swims across

My first post after joining my job!! \m/ \m/ Its not about job.. Its about convocation.. The official links ( Link1 & Link2 ) say: The Convocation Day marks the culmination of a students academic life for which he has striven so hard. :P Before beginning, apologies to all my friends whom I could not meet during convocation as I had fever! :( Nevertheless, went to the stage and got my degree and a convo pic :P \m/ \m/ Now the serious point.. As the Chief Guest speech, we should have got something better. Now, I can't help but compare Steve Jobs' and Oprah's speech to Stanford's graduating students and Bill Gates' speech to Havard graduating batch to the Aerodynamics Lecture we had. We should have got a better speech if not a better chief guest. :( Who chooses chief guests anyway? Thoughts on impeachment?

(From pluggd.in and TOI ) We will have a new symbol for Indian National Rupee today. The Union Cabinet will today decide on the symbol for Indian Rupee, a privilege (unique identity) available only to major currencies like dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen. The proposal, said to be prompted by the growing influence of the Indian economy in the global arena, involves a shortlist of five symbols (finalists above) for the Indian rupee drawn up the finance ministry, reflecting the Indian ethos and culture. 1) The symbol should be applicable to standard keyboard 2) The symbol has to be in the Indian National Language Script or a visual representation 3) The symbol should represent the historical & cultural ethos of the country as widely accepted across the country I think fourth one should be he winner. Both Devnagri and Roman script of Rupya and Rupee are visible in the symbol. The first and the second symbols definitely do not stand a chance. Go India Go!

Aamir, 2008 - Raj Kumar Gupta Black Friday, 2006 - Anurag Kashyap Bombay, 1996 - Mani Ratnam Mithya, 2008 - Rajat Kapoor Mumbai Cutting, 2009 - Various Mumbai Meri Jaan, 2008 - Nishant Kamat Page 3, 2005 - Madhur Bhandarkar Salaam Bombay!, 1988 - Mira Nair Satya, 1998 - Ram Gopal Varma Company, 2002 - Ram Gopal Varma Sarkar, 2005 - Ram Gopal Varma Sarkar Raj, 2008 - Ram Gopal Varma Slumdog Millionaire, 2008 - Danny Boyle Tum Mile, 2009 - Kunal Deshmukh 26th July at Barista, 2008 - Mohan Sharma Chandni Bar, 2001 - Madhur Bhandarkar Watch them and then you will say "I love Bombay" :) Can you suggest more movies? As of June 20, 2010.. I have not seen Mumbai Cutting and Tum Mile (WTF? How could I miss them? :( Both released just before placement season. :() First thing to do when I reach IIT now. Also find a Weird Things to do in Mumbai List here: http://pratikpoddar.blogspot.com/2009/12/weird-things-to-do-in-mumbai.html

I've been to 47 cities in 9 countries Asia Hong Kong (SAR): Hong Kong Island India: Agra India: Ahmadabad India: Badarinath India: Chennai India: Colangute India: Delhi India: Gangotri India: Goa India: Haridwar India: Jaipur India: Joshimath India: Kedarnath India: Kolkata India: Kota India: Mumbai India: Mussoorie India: Panaji India: Patna India: Patna India: Pushkar India: Ranchi India: Rishikesh India: Rudraprayag India: Ujjain India: Uttarkashi India: Vishnuprayag India: Yamnotri Europe Austria: Hellbrunn Austria: Salzburg Austria: Werfen Belgium: Bruges France: Etretat France: Marseille France: Montpellier France: Nice France: Paris France: Versailles Germany: Dachau Germany: Munich Germany: Munich Monaco: Monaco Netherlands: Amsterdam Netherlands: Rotterdam Switzerland: Engelberg Switzerland: Interlaken Switzerland: Lauterbrunnen Switzerland: Zermatt   Get your own widget GeckoGo   This is as on date June 15 2010. For latest updates visit http://www.geckogo.com/profil

Just uploaded some photographs of my 14 Day Trip to Haridwar, Yamunotri, Gangotri, Mussoorie, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Rishikesh on facebook. Along with doing some good work, visiting some temples, enjoying nature and having some interesting philosophical discussions, I tried to learn some photography as well. Link for the photographs is here I will use this space to cheer for the Uttarakhand Government for the great tourism development in their state. Looks like the economy of the state is driven by tourism, at least in these 4 months. http://www.gmvnl.com/newgmvn/ shows the great work that they are doing. However I still do not understand some things. I am hoping that a localite would read this and answer. 1) Why are "Prayags" (Meeting point of two rivers) not developed as tourist spots? Two rivers, one grey, one green in colour meet at a point and form a beautiful scene. I could capture one of the prayags out of the 5 great prayags forming the Panchprayag. I am sure go

I wrote a post on purpose of life a few day back. I had some interesting discussion and I am revisiting the post. Some revelations: 1) Life does not have a purpose. Anything created does not have a purpose. Creator has a purpose. So, The creator of life has a purpose. 2) So, the purpose of life is the purpose its creator (God) would have while its creation. Any guesses? 3) As far as I can guess, God would have wanted us to live in such a way that we do not disturb god's world. We help it grow. We help it continue. We help it evolve. We improve the world. 4) So, Purpose of Life would be Help those in need Reproduction Be happy and make others happy Make the world a better place to be in Change the way people live their lives, hopefully in a positive way 5) In Hindu Dharm, there are three types of Rin which must be paid off before one's death: Dev Rin, Pitra Rin and Rishi Rin. Dev Rin is paid off to Devtaa by doing Yagya; Pitra Rin is paid off to Pitar (ancestors) by

Read about this concept in Ignited Minds by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam but I could not appreciate it until a discussion that I had in a beautiful swiss cottage on a beautiful hill in God's own place Uttarakhand :P Some of the ideas in the post are original. I have absolute faith in the idea and if you do not agree with me, I will love to have a discussion. :) Dr Kalam identified five important areas to transform India. These are: 1) Education and Health Care 2) Agriculture 3) Information and Communication 4) Infrastructure 5) Critical Technology Pramukh Swami Maharaj of Swaminarayan Sanstha at Ahmedabad suggested a sixth dimension: 6) Spirituality I did not appreciate the sixth point that why do we need spiritual development for development of the country.  But indeed, we need spiritual development. Spiritual development would comprise of the basic human quality to differentiate between good and bad, right and wrong, God and Satan. Spiritual development would include not ch

Finally its over.. Passed all courses.. I always wanted to write this post.. Its not at all interesting.. But I always wanted to do the analysis.. Some not so well known generalizations of CPI: (which I have heard in the last 4 years) My mentor, brother, friend, senior (all in one) told me before even I came into IIT, "CPI badhegi nahin giregi.. shuru mein acchi maar lena" First year second sem... may of us are in the false impression.. "Abe wo to main padhta nahin hoon.. main padhta to main bhi dassi hota.. its just about choice" . Bull shit statement hai.. Main kitna bhi padh leta 9.5 nahin hota.. ya phir main itna padh hi  nahin sakta tha ki main 9.5 le aaoon.. Second year first sem.. "Ya to CPI le aaon.. ya CG/Manager Ban Jao.. Ek hi baat hai" .. kfh? kitna stupid statement hai.. Third year second sem.. "CPI important to hai.. saali companies ko kaun bataye ki CPI basis par shortlist na kare.. us nehli se jyada CS to mujhe aata hi hai&

Commencement Lecture by Prof. Satish Rao, University of California, Berkeley. (Congratulations! Letters and Sciences, Computer Science Majors, Class of 2003) Link shared to me by Giridhar Addepalli, Senior Software Engineer, Yahoo! Banglore & IIT Kanpur Alumnus. Enjoy! -- John Henry was a steel-drivin man. John Henry worked on the railroad, he drove steel. This consisted of driving a metal spike into the rock with a hammer. John Henry was the greatest of hammerers, as well as the best of gamblers, the biggest of drinkers, nastiest of ghters, and the best of lovers. He was born to the railroad. When he was a baby, he told his momma that he would die with a hammer in his hand. More importantly, its how he fed him family. He worked on a legendary connector in West Virginia, which is a long tunnel in a mountain connecting two sections of track. It took years and hundreds of men to build. One day, a man brought a steam engine to the tunnel and said it could drive steel better

Movies and TV Series have been an integral part of my IIT life. In last 3 years, I have watched more than 400 Hindi Movies and 150 Other Languages Movies (Telugu, Tamil, English, French, etc). Apart from being with 3-4 close friends, I enjoy spending time watching movies/TV series the most. Saw Friends, 24, Seinfeld, 2.5 Men, HIMYM, Hustle, BBT, Tales Pin, Duck Tales, Hannah Montana, Roadies with 100% loyalty and dedication. Just did some math to find that I have devoted approximately 2700 hours to movies/tv series now. That means, on an average I spend approximately 2.5 hours per day watching movies/tv series. :P Movies This Sem: Aamrass Ajab Prem ki gajab kahani Morning Walk London Dreams All the Best Rocket Singh 2012 Twilight Mujhse Shaadi Karogi 3 idiots (twice) Mirchi Its Hot De Dana Dan Akele Hum Akele Tum Julie Pulp Fiction Raat gayi baat gayi Saving Private Ryan Pyaar Impossible Do Knot Disturb Aao wish karein Ishqiya Money as Debt 2006 Good Will Hu

This is my last post from IIT as a student. We are graduating from the best engineering institute of the world. We are seen as among the smartest of the country. Since we are graduating now, I hope this post will help you mull over some of the basic questions which I have been thinking about for these 4 years. As an individual, we have our own problems and will have some throughout our lives (supporting family, paying off loans, getting a job, securing your job, fighting recession, divorce, death, market crash, business loss, health, health of near ones, etc). I agree that we have to take care of these problems first. But look at the bigger picture. Think of a person seeing us from an outside world. Did we meet the expectations of the world? Did we do what we expect out of us? By fulfilling expectations, I don't mean earning 100,000$ a year at the age of 22. I mean doing something "meaningful". Doing something that would be useful for the country/world/human race.. Le

4 years back when I was chosing which IIT to go to, which department to choose, I had no idea what computer science is. Primary reasons to join Computer Science: 1) I like Maths. CS is more mathematical. 2) Hacking 3) Gaming 4) Scope of Research :P 5) How Windows work? How can I make Microsoft Excel? Looking back. All the above reasons were "wrong". Yes CS is great. Its because of the great professors and some really really smart people it has got. Computers are amazing. I used to think how does it store information? Isn't it amazing that memory is nothing but a flip-flop. I used to ask myself what is windows? What is it exactly? Now I get it. How beautiful is the idea that windows is just allowing the other processes to happen smoothly. Its just helping our computer. How can someone learn so many things in 4 years? If you don't understand one course, you will not understand computers and so failure!! But everything in computer science is abstraction. This i

Blog post written my Ben Jones, from the MIT Admissions Office, in 2006. ( Original Link ) As you begin your college experience, and I prepare for my 10-year college reunion, I thought I’d leave you with the things that, in retrospect, I think are important as you navigate the next four years. I hope that some of them are helpful. Here goes… Your friends will change a lot over the next four years. Let them. Call someone you love back home a few times a week, even if just for a few minutes. In college more than ever before, songs will attach themselves to memories. Every month or two, make a mix cd, mp3 folder, whatever – just make sure you keep copies of these songs. Ten years out, they’ll be as effective as a journal in taking you back to your favorite moments. Take naps in the middle of the afternoon with reckless abandon. Adjust your schedule around when you are most productive and creative. If you’re nocturnal and do your best work late at night, embrace that. It

I have thought over this problem for hours and days. I am no big shot. I am no political leader. I understand that I am in no position to bring a big change. So, the answer is that all of us should change to make India a developed country. Fair enough. I reached this conclusion 3 years back. Now what? How can I contribute in my way? Any suggestions? I talked to many smart(er) people. Got some answers. But not complete. I think its still unanswered but most of my doubts are gone by the book "Ignited Minds" by APJ Abdul Kalam. This is not a review of the book. I am in no position to do that. This is just a compilation of the points I thought, points that came up in the discussions I had with a few seniors, discussion I had with my internship professor in Hong Kong, my lab mates during my internship at Paris and also the ideas from Ignited Minds. An attempt to answer the question on " How can people like me (young and educated) contribute to India's development? "

Question to answer: Why do lots of IITians move towards finance? 1) Money: Finance companies pay way more than other companies. The average pay of a finance company is 1.5-2 times that of an average CS tech firm and 2-2.5 times an average non-CS tech firm. This probably is the single most important reason. More importantly the prospects of hefy bonuses which can surpass any salary in any industry. People flock to finance because of the riches/lores of traders/i-bankers who have earned a software engineer's lifetime salary in a few years. 2) No interest in Tech: Since most of us have the feeling that "acads to nahin hi hoga" or I am not born for tech, we have anyways narrowed down our choices to a few out of which most are financial services firms. 3) Analytical skills required:  This is perhaps the only field where they require analytical skills but do not pay much importance to your CPI. Proving that you are smart is more important than getting a hi-fi CPI. :) Th

I have been asked by many people about tips on JEE preparation. Thought writing this on the blog might help some aspirants. Best of Luck!! I gave this interview once and thought of making the transcript public on the blog. 1.What was you rank? IIT JEE 2006 - All India Rank 3 AIEEE 2006 - All India Rank 2 2.Which books did you follow during your preparations? Physics: 1) NCERT 2) Concepts in Physics by H.C Verma (Two volumes) 3) Problems in General Physics by I.E. Irodov 4) University Physics by Freedman and Young or Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick and Walker 5) Aptitude Test Problems in Physics by S.S. Krotov Chemistry: 1) NCERT 2) Numerical Chemistry by P. Bahadur or Numerical Chemistry by R.C. Mukherjee 3) Concise Inorganic Chemistry by J.D. Lee 4) Chemistry Principles & Applications by Sienko and Plane 5) Organic Chemistry by Solomons and Frhyle or Organic Chemistry by Morrison and Boyd Mathematics: 1) NCERT 2) Higher Algebra by Hall and Knig

Targets Set at some point or the other at IIT :) Target                                 Did or Not                           Comments CPI 9.00  No Whatever.. Ditch :P English No :( Guitar No :( Job Yes :) Maths Yes :) Dram Yes Did basic level. Ended it with an awesome PAF :) Weight Yes Went to a terrible state.. But getting back now. Lost more than 7 kgs now. :) TT Yes Can play at a very basic level and win against a beginner. Blog Yes +80 followers and +120 posts on puzzle blog Euro Trip Yes :) Swimming No :( Debating No :( Novels No :( Publication Ongoing I need luck!! :) Sent BTP work Finance Yes Did a basic level reading this sem :) Goa Yes 27th Feb 2010 :) GF No :(

Adarniya sabhapati mahodaya, atithi vishesh shikshan mantri shri R D tripati ji, maanyaniya shikshagan aur mere piyaaare sahpatiyo Aaj agar I.C.E aasmaan ki bulaaandiyo ko chhu raahaa hai to uska shreya sirrf ekinsaan ko jaataahai - Shri Veeru Sahastrabuddhe Give him a big hand. He is a great guy really. Peechle buttis saal se inhone nirantar is college mein balatkar pe balatkar kiye. Umeed hai aagey bee karte rahege. Hamein to aashcharya hota hai ki ek insaan apne jeevan kaal mein itni balatkar kaisi kar sakta hai. Inhone kadi tapaasya se apne aapko is kaabil bunaya hai. Waqt ka sahi upyog ghante ka purna istemaal koi inse seeke. Seeke inse seeke. Aaj hum sab chaatra yaha hai, kal desh videsh mein fail jayenge. Waadaa hai aapse jis desh mein honge waha balatkar karenge, I.C.E ka naam roshan karenge. Dika denge sabko jo balatkar Karne ki kshamtaa yaha ke chaatro mein hai wo sansaar ke kisi chaatro mein nahiii. No other chaatra. No other chaatra. Adarniya mantraji! Namashkar a

First 7 comic strips posted earlier here 8) :)