Java

During the last semester we were given a chance to do our final project at Amrita Research Labs(ARL). ARL is another division of our college and used only for researches. The decision of Dean to give final year students a chance to do their project at ARL was not very much pleasing to our faculties. They took it as an insult and thought Dean asked students to do their project at ARL because he had an opinion that the Faculties are not much goood in guiding the final year project.

So 90% of the class decided to do their project at ARL. It was their dream come true. My project mate was Varun (Lolan). Varun is a funny guy, slim like a pencil and highly inspired by Remo of Annyan (that time, it was the blockbuster) had decided to grow his hair and we always teased him. But it was not a good idea for me to piss him off as he was bit a techie.

So in the entire class, Me and Varun decided to the project in the usual conventional way, i.e in our college lab itself under guidance of Binu Sir. It was not because of the sincerity to faculties or anything, but the rules at ARL were very strict and we being the lazy bones, very well knew that we cannot follow the stringent and strict guidelines over there. Binu Sir was super pleased by our decision and our Batch Owner Br.Anand was highly impressed.

While the entire class was working till late at ARL for their projects, me and varun were playing cards at hostel, Arguing over Lalettan and Mammooka, Fighting for the centre page of Cinema Mangalam (A Not so good Malayalam Film Magazine). We were room mates at hostel and every night past 1 before sleeping he would ask me

"Balu, da namuk project thodangande???" (Balu, We have to start the project right???)

"aaa.... naale labil poi todangam" (Yea.,.. tomorrow we will go to lab and start)

But that tomorrow never happened. Either i would be in the nearby movie theatre or Varun would be in the Internet cafe trying his luck in Yahoo chat rooms.

It took 2 weeks for us to just think and decide what we have to do as a project. Lot of ideas peeped in like Library Management System for our College, Banking solution Software, Unique identification for students who use Labs blah blah and more blah.... Later we zeroed on the simplest and easy one. To develop a Game. It could be placed in the College Lab and students can make use of it during their leisure time.Also its emphasize the point that Studies are not the only thing that would happen in Lab.

anyways, It was fixed and our decision got approved from batch owner. Following were the days of googling. Googling for code, googling for know how, and googling for what not...

somehow 1 day before the D day of presentation,Varun managed to get the piece of code from here and there and we developed it. That whole night we both had spent in the lab and somehow finished it.

Presentation happened to the whole class and faculties. With all the teachers, Batch owners etc. I was sure that i would tell something blunder on the dias and was extreme careful in explaining each and every stuff. Whenever i came across a module which i had no clue or whenever i sensed from the mannerisms that the Batch Owner Anand Sir had some doubts, I would smartly escape by telling

"Further explannations would be given by Varun"

Throwing an angry look at me, he would blabber something whatever that came to his mind. Anand sir was our nightmare and he enjoyed screwing up the students. He really screwed up all those who did their Project at ARL by asking unearthly questions or really hifi geeky stuff. Girls who did their project at ARL broke down to tears when they couldnt asnwer him.

Me and Varun were scared, but at one corner of mind i had confidence that he wont attack us bcs we did the project at Lab itself and not at ARL. Dono from where, but whenever i get onto a stage or dias, i would have a great amount of self confidence. Even if i dont know whats in a module, i would tell something and cover it up. The questions for which i dont have an answer, i would tackle somehow. "Confuse if you cant convince" was my motto then.

Everything went well and we succcessfully finished the presentation. Anand sir dint attack us much but for whatever he asked, we had readymade answers. But before closure, Anand Sir asked a Question. A Very Simple one.

Why did you chose Java to do this project?

The Answer was Java is user friendly and more compatible than any other language. But i shouted on top of my voice blocking Varun

"Sir, We Selected Java to do this project, because BINU SIR Told us to do so!!!"

The class was Rolling on the floor laughing and even Anand Sir couldnt control his laughter. Varun was dumbstruck. I looked at Binu sir who was present in the Panel. He had a sheepish smile and few colors were changing in his face, Red..Yellow...Green...Blue..

[Written on December 29th, 2009]

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