THE PROJECT SCRAMBLE - II

After settling down in the room, the HoD called to a start the project presentations with a short speech:

"Today is the one and only day I will accept your projects. We have and will provide any resources for you to demonstrate your project. And each will be done within ten minutes. It is within these these ten minutes or never. And if you fail to present one, you will be stuck in this for hole for another year."

I guess I agreed with him on the 'hole'. Sitting amongst a very quiet class, I watched the project presentations begin. After half an hour, a mix of the following echoes were in my head.

"If this is a project, then I have hair on my head."

"Hah! So which website did you download that from?"

"I think you will hang around for another year."

"How can you call yourself an engineer?"

"Not even 5 minutes? Heh heh. A real small score for a real small project."

"Beeeeep. Ten minutes up."

"No wonder you didn't get placed."

"Didn't get the project? Its now or never. Get out."

"I just saw that ten minutes ago. Can't you even check if someone else downloaded the same thing?"

"We give you all the resources. And we will supply anything even now. It is YOU that is the culprit. OUT."

With such scornful remarks, our HoD sent one sullen face after the other out of the room. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, having left them underprepared and watching them underachieve. The news had just come in that the HoD was leaving on a holiday to the West Indies the next day. He would finalise the marks straight away and leave early. So that was why he was so uptight about the schedule.

Sitting amongst the others at the back, I was very fidgety about our chances of escaping today. Sure we had a couple of winners. But the way the students were being road-rolled, I just wondered.

Baksheesh, seated beside me, looked very calm and steady. All these insults out at the front didn't seem to affect him. Was there a girl beside him? No? Why was he so calm?!?

"Number thirty-seven and fifty-six", the HoD yelled. Gulp.

Baksheesh and I went to the low dias in the front. Facing the whole class can make anyone nervous. But not Baksheesh. He calmly took out the two circuits from the bag and placed them on the table.

"Sir, we have two projects today."

"Two? I th..."

"Yes. One is an instantaneous tester for AIDS and the other, a Brain to computer interface."

The room had a changed atmosphere within nanoseconds. Small murmurs spread all over the room. The HoD wasn't sure what he should do.

"Ok , start.", he said finally.

Baksheesh started, "Sir, this circuit you see here simply connects to you hand through a syringe and analyses your blood to declare whether you are HIV + or -". Some giggles surfaced in the background, presumably because Baksheesh kept saying 'you' to the HoD.

"For example, I use my friend here. Look how the green light comes on because he is free of HIV.", he said.

The pain wasn't much.The green light came on. I was 'proven' safe. It would have been a disaster had a red light flashed in front of the audience. But they all laughed.

"Explain how it works.", the HoD said.

Baksheesh then launched into a new language that he mugged on the way to college from a very fat textbook. It was probably beneath the HoD to say he didn't follow it. Actually, it was above him. The students in the back were only just coming to grips with our master plan. Well, Baksheesh's master plan.

"I don't believe this thing works. How can I be sure?", the HoD said.

"Ah, sir. We could test you." said Baksheesh. The room was filled with laughter. But it was totally risky and unnecessary.

"What is that supposed to mean?", asked the HoD threateningly.

"Well sir. I have this little sample of the HIV virus." said Baksheesh , pulling out a small bottle of a black smelly liquid and a syringe with a long needle. I didn't know he had brought these along.

"What do you mean?" , the HoD asked, still brash.

"Sir, we need the resources to demonstrate this device. You have to give us a subject to inject this and test it.", saying this Baksheesh slowly pierced the bottle and sucked the gooey liquid into the syringe.

“What do you mean ?”, the HoD asked for the third time. Its amazing how you can breath your own exhaust for so long.

“Sir, you will have to take this HIV yourself.”

"Do it to someone else.", the HoD said, warily shifting in his chair.

"Ok sir, you provide the resources. Find someone.", said Baksheesh moving the syringe around carelessly in his hand.

The game was slipping from the HoD, "Wh-why can't you feed the HIV itself?"

Baksheesh shook his head nobly, "The HIV is too weak Sir. It needs a subject to thrive and if you check with my description earlier, the circuit needs blood." he said waving the syringe menacingly. The way he said bllloooodd made even me a bit chilly.

"This is nonsense. We shall go to a hospital later and check this thing." , the HoD said.

It was my chance to chip in, "But sir, you said it was now or never".The entire room got filled with low voices of "yeah"s and "what say now"s. One particular voice clearly said "No double standards".

The HoD was thinking. He could never get anyone to be the 'subject' around here. I guess he also had to go pack for his W. Indies trip. Pushed into a corner, and almost no time left, the HoD caved.

"Er..Ok, son. Heh heh. I understand the circuit. Very novel. Keep it up. Now..what is next?", he said amidst a rising decibel of background talk.

Baksheesh turned to hold the other circuit. He whispered to me, "Son!? More like BAAP."

I tried not to laugh as he held up another circuit in the air that generated much noise in the back. Dangerous things. The room fell silent.

Baks showed a sharp, silvery, spike in the air. I said, "This plug has to go into a spine, from where it finds its way to one of your lobes. The other end goes to a PC and echoes your thoughts on the screen. For this, sir, we need a subject again."

Everyone in the room including the HoD, realised it was game, set and match. Silence reigned for a few seconds. As the secretive whispers emerged in the room again, Baks made uncomfy eye contact with the HoD. But it couldn't last. The murmurs it seemed were tugging at the HoD to say something.

Finally, the HoD shrugged. He got up and walked towards us. I saw something in his eye that showed he wasn't very angry. On the dias, he turned to the class and said, "The marks will be put up in half-an-hour. I won't be able to see anymore projects. I trust all projects have been as eye-opening as these here."

With that, the class almost erupted. Only almost, because it was so damn unlike the HoD to let someone off the leash like this, no one expected it. The HoD turned to me and Baks, "Thank you."

Half-an-hour later, the marks were put up on the notice board. Everyone got above 45 on 50. Every dude in the class came up to us and gave their profuse congrats. All of them looked at us thankfully and in admiration. Thinking back on the way the Head said thanks, it sounded like.. maybe he understood the state of college education today. Maybe he realised where the blames really need to go. Maybe the cheek with which they withdrew their offer to NGNS is striking his conscience. Maybe, the one multi-contextual word that fits here is denial of service.

On our way out of the college, I congratulated Baksheesh.

"How do you do it Baks? How?", I said, full of pride.

"Just like that." Baksheesh smiled.

"Our escapades have been just phenomenal. I'm awed. Where do you get the inspiration Baks?", I asked earnestly.

"Maybe," Baks said with a twinkle, "its your writing."

So you now know that nothing materialised from the princi's offer to NGNS. The management politely asked NGNS to "skip the exercise" and said that the principal had "clearly taken leave of his senses and may be kindly excused for the goof up". NGNS maintains that they are ready for the 'exercise' if ever the college reconsiders it.

THE PROJECT SCRAMBLE - I

"Tomorrow is the last day for project submission. If you don't do it, I will fail you and you can hang around another year."

With these I've-got-you-now words, our smug HoD plunged the class into a deathly silence. Everyone had forgotten about this. No work throughout the semester. No escape to a cinema hall. And now, as the old bore left the class, I realised that the day before the day was inescapably here.

My best friend since childhood, my partner in pain, my ever faithful companion Baksheesh, seated right next to me, looked at me and said,

"I'm hungry. Can we go to the canteen?".

This was just another of those thousands of moments over the last few years when I wanted to give a face-disfiguring slap to Baksheesh. He never ever reacts proportionately to a situation. And I've been taking in all his anomalies since his childhood.

"Ass. We need to get the project done."

"So what yaar? We'll do a nightout at my place."

In theory, a nightout is where the impossible can be done. Yes sir. Someday, you might hear that "Rome was built in a nightout" or a movie like "Around the world in a nightout".

"Fine but no distractions today", I said in a sincere voice.

"Ok. Can we just pick up a movie along the way. I will need it to stay awake through the night."

Baksheesh, my best friend, is a born vacuum. But he is a stable vacuum. He can do nothing right...but at the same time, nothing wrong. He definitely wasn't wrong being born in a crorepati's family for a start. But you have to wonder why Baksheesh didn't get even 1% of his bigshot scientist-father's brains.

But if myself and Baksheesh managed to stay out of all the blues, the trauma, the temptations and the mobbings through these four years, it is thanks to him. So, I just do things in his company knowing his protective coating is arounda me too. But don't be fooled. He is as much a danger to be with as to be without.

Later in the evening, after a short stop over at my house (which is a couple of lanes from Baksheesh's huge four storey mansion), we went to his place. We panted up the posh and polished teak staircase, through all the richly decorated floors, and into his room on the third floor. It had a large bed , understandable for someone of Baksheesh's size, an indulgent looking wardrobe, a large TV with an XBox connected to it , a powerful and wasted PC by the window, and an unused teak study table in the corner. I think his text books were donated to some library. After assembling some paper, some glue, some cardboard and sketch pens, we got down to work. Wait, this is the digital era. I just switched on his sleek computer. Baks took the paper.

Ofcourse the situation was close to hopeless. Here's how: I started something two months ago with the intent of presenting it as my project. It hasn't been touched since. There is no way in hell it could be done tonight, because in practice, nightouts are about prank calls and snoring away to glory. However, under this end-of-semester pressure, I still had the Baksheesh factor. I was always saved because he did something so insightful and yet so simple to bail us out from disaster. I could recollect a dozen events, but I think I'll keep them for later. So, confident of yet another spectacular escapade, I started thinking.

I started poking around sourceforge.net to see if there was something I could download.

Time flies when you don't know where you are going right? Around dinner time, I decided to do a review. I had listed a CRM , a testing tool, and a franchisee management program for download. I asked Baksheesh to show me what he had done. I expected some cartoons but he had mused some shocker ideas. My ideas were simply run of the mill. His ideas could mercilessly run over the mill. And any poor workers.

"Baksheesh, that isn't the way yaar. The HoD won't buy those ideas.", I told him, swaying on the rotatable chair. He really needed some orientation from me now.

Baksheesh theoretised "Look dude, even if you download those programs , you are not going to be able answer his questions. He knows these mundane things only too well. We should do something which will go over his head."

I stopped dead in my tracks. I stared in disbelief at this now former dumbass. "Over his head"? Why, ofcourse! This was a brilliant old ploy we always used in times of distress.

I always believed that if you are under-prepared, you should attack. Especially during vivas or lab exams. What I mean to say is that if you don't know the subject, rant away things which you know will go over the questioner's head. I shut down the computer, and took his paper in my hands.

Apart from some obscene ideas, when Baksheesh might have thought we were in an MBBS course, here are the results of his imagination.

Instantaneous AIDS tester (Finds out if you have AIDS, immediately)

Brain-to-computer interface (Connects the computer to your spine)

Predictive TV channel changer (changes TV channels automatically, perhaps irritatingly)

Laughing gas - applications in the future as a HR tool

Milkmaid - fuelling the world at less than 70$ a barrel
(Baksheesh loved Milkmaid so much, he thought even cars would run if you gave them some. Sounds cute does it? Try a roadtrip with him)

The great Indian rope trick (now using computer cables).

I stop here as after this the quality of his thinking started degenerating quickly. After a while of debate, we shortlisted the Instantaneous AIDS tester and Brain-to-computer interface. The criterion was "complication beyond practical verifiability", ahem, to use one's vocabulary.

Let us see, an AIDS tester? Baksheesh's father had a huge in-house laboraratory on the second floor which he used on weekends. That had a lot of things straight from a James Bond movie. Of course, we could take something by asking him, but we wouldn't live to use'em. He'd probably slaughter us twice, once for thinking about his lab, and once for not doing our project. We tip-toed downstairs carefully till we reached the lab at the end of the long granite floored lobby. Baksheesh opened the big , grey, decolamped door. Out rushed a small wind of chilled air. This large dark room was silent to the point of being eerie.

I remembered my childhood fantasies of fighting monster machines after watching Terminator 2. They were all imagined as taking place in this lab. It had grown since into something I am more intimidated by than to be taken on a trip.

Once there is someone in this huge lab, a sensor activates the lights and the air conditioners. As the tube lights blinked to stability, lo behold, once again I saw some really outlandish equipment. The silvery metal robots, the silent, blinking lights, a quite computer which was busy in some mammoth calculations, God knows for how long now...we could only see a few metres far as there were large machines down the room upto the end. The slow humming of the a.c. started, and we began looking for the cupboard where Baks's father kept all his basic circuit components. 'Basic' components for him wouldn't be in our range so we needed to look for some second rate place. Like his trash can.

We soon found a large covered trash can which was coated with a layer of black rubber for grounding. We silently started rummaging through it. Amazingly, Baks had kept his mouth shut so far. Maybe this room scared him too.

Let us see, an instantaneous AIDS tester? We only needed a syringe to your hand and connected to it, a complex looking circuit which flashes a green light if you are clean, or a red light if you aren't (and perhaps a "get well soon message"). The result was never going to be verifiable.

And so, in a short frenzy which lasted about 15 minutes, we found the components,wired'em up and screwed them together. Same for the Brain-to-computer interace which just needed some horrific looking sharp plug for the spine, and with it, a complex circuit being connected to the computer.

Within about half an hour of searching , sorting and testing, we got our two most original creations ready and blinking. What would I do without Baksheesh? We soon left the lab as carefully as we came in, and the lights and ac switched themselves off.

Back at his room, we assembled everything we needed for the next day. The circuits, some important looking books and other stuff. Baksheesh kindly ordered some pizza for us, which we finished very quickly. Just before I left for my house, at around midnight, we went up to the terrace. There was no other four storeyed building within a mile. The breeze was so enjoyable. Gazing at the standout airport in front of us, we felt awesome. The runaway was shining in the bright orange lights. As a plane started to take off, I felt rather proud to be there. Our HoD was a tough man to please and was mostly bent on troubling candis like Baks and me. And before us lay the the last test. But here was our last audacious retort.