[{"content":" I think the best December of my life is behind me. Life is never again going to present me an opportunity to roam around the country, engage in my favourite activities with my crew, while being completely carefree.\nMaybe, even if it does — miraculously — I won\u0026rsquo;t be 22 again.\nWinter of 2025 was a big bucket of memories. Here are some splashes…\ntwenty second My birthday party was a heavy dinner at Lauriat, the most premium dining experience IITG can offer, with four of my close friends. This outing was a much-needed break, given that it was only a week before Day 1 placement interviews. At that time, companies were rolling out shortlists almost every other hour, and the unemployed would throng to that one poorly managed spreadsheet to check their fate\u0026hellip;\nNavi\u0026rsquo;s shortlist arrived while we were there, peacefully sipping our mocktails. My name was on it — my friends got excited — me, not so much. It is always good to have one more interview under your belt, but that company was anything but aspirational for me.\nA loud knock woke me up the next morning. It was Shreyansh, just returning from an assessment.\n\u0026ldquo;Tera Google me naam aa gya.\u0026rdquo;\nI was elated. Before the placement season had even begun, I had been targeting Google, and this shortlist was one step closer to achieving that.\nfifth I had three shortlists for the first interview slot (0000 to 0600): Google, Navi \u0026amp; Meesho. My plan was to give Google\u0026rsquo;s first round and then move on to Meesho. Who cares about Navi?\nThe first round at Google went flawlessly, and it was immediately followed by the second. I didn\u0026rsquo;t go for Meesho because that wasn\u0026rsquo;t my first choice and I just wanted to be done with Google\u0026rsquo;s process and get the potential offer as soon as possible.\nMy performance in the second round was okayish. \u0026ldquo;You need to clutch it, c\u0026rsquo;mon!\u0026rdquo; I told myself as I headed for the final round after a short 15-minute break, during which I had inhaled some bananas.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t feel like talking about my third round. It was abysmal.\nI was done with the Google process by around 0400. Meesho, AmEx and a few others had already extended offers by then, and some of my hostel mates were already placed. I was sorry about my situation, but seeing my friends succeed was a pleasant feeling.\nThe Navi representative was asking me to show up for their interview and, since I had nowhere else to go, I went. The sun was already up by the time I was done with their first round and I was completely lethargic by then. My brain struggled to function and I just wanted to get the hell out of those corridors. I started bombing the interviews to allow them to throw me out early\nInterviewer : I see that you don\u0026rsquo;t have any web development projects. You do realise that you\u0026rsquo;d be working with web stacks extensively in this role. Are you even slightly interested in this domain?\nMe : If I had found it interesting before, I would have explored it and there would\u0026rsquo;ve been a project or two on my resume.\nI came back to my room at around 0700, unplaced. Things had not turned out the way I had expected. My friends were expecting me to clear the Google rounds — they felt I deserved to get in. I could sense the worry in their voices when their calls came in at around 0600.\nI slept for an hour or so, stuffed some more bananas, and was back on my way to the battlefield. \u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s gone is gone — it\u0026rsquo;s time to focus on the next point\u0026rdquo;, I told myself.\nThe second slot began and I found myself eliminated from two companies within a matter of hours. My brain had stopped functioning. I was not able to comprehend anything the interviewers were asking, let alone solve the problems — the sleeplessness was hitting hard.\nBlackrock representative called me for the interview so I went there to try my luck. Two rounds of very open-ended discussions followed. Questions as random as \u0026ldquo;How would one explain the concept of multidimensionality to a five year old kid?\u0026rdquo; were asked while I was waiting for actual problems to solve. There was a hubbub near a desk hosting two HR executives — the natural next step after I was done.\n\u0026ldquo;Are you giving out offers immediately?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s your name?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Udit Jethva\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Wait, Udit, it\u0026rsquo;s looking positive for you \u0026hellip; Congratulations! You have made it to an offer!\u0026rdquo;\nIt was around 1230 now. My mind was exhausted to the point that I could not process any feelings. I managed a weak smile, shook some hands, received a goodie box and headed out, calling my Mom on the way. Jatin, who had made it to AmEx a few hours earlier and was already in his casuals, was the first one to spot me with a Blackrock-branded box.\nA new message made its way to our hostel group chat: \u0026ldquo;Udit — Blackrock — Sorted!\u0026rdquo; Endorphins spiked as I scrolled through my unread messages to the news of many more of my friends getting through.\nI crashed back to my room. Udbhav ordered pizza for my lunch. I slept till evening.\nIt was over. I had survived IIT placements.\nfifty eighth trip It was the first dinner with my tennis teammates and coach after the interviews. Sir remarked that it had been a while since he had last seen me this relieved. I went on to narrate my story, and the precarious nature of the affair was enough to stress out the sophomores, especially Idhaa. Sir, on the other hand, now expects insider trading tips once I join.\nDays until our flight to Chennai were mostly about practice drills in the evenings and good mess food, courtesy of the sports board. One Saturday was an exception, though — we went out for Zootopia 2, discovered it was Sibi\u0026rsquo;s birthday, had a scrumptious meal with a diverse array of drinks, wolfed down a dozen brownies and cheesecakes paid for by our fake five-star reviews, went to the ghat, drank some more, shared a few stories, danced like no one was watching, and finally called it a day.\nAround a week later, after a three-hour flight in the morning, we found ourselves outside the domestic terminal at Chennai Airport. The rough plan for the day was to roam around the city and somehow reach Tirupati by evening. Sibi, as expected1, took on the role of our guide for the day and first took us to the underrated — and hence, cleaner — Besant Nagar Beach\u0026hellip;\nYears had passed since the last time I had been to a beach — in fact, I had forgotten what it felt like to be at one. We spent hours getting washed by the waves in the windy weather, bought a few Bisleris to flush out the sandy aftermath within our clothes, had a refreshing tender coconut, and then went for lunch\u0026hellip;\nDuring this time, we had figured out that we could catch an evening train to reach Tirupati. When we reached the station, it was easy to spot a few other contingents showing up for the events at IIT Madras. We got onboard the train and bid adieu to Chennai by sunset.\nSince it was a short two-hour ride, we did not bother going beyond the general sleeper ticket, and that \u0026ldquo;cost\u0026rdquo; us in a different manner. We were expecting to relax a bit after a long day and maybe play a few games to pass the time; however, fate had other plans\u0026hellip;\ngod save indian railways The organising committee was supposed to receive us at the station but they got busy picking up another contingent and asked us to wait an hour. It is difficult to be patient when you are desperately in need of a good dinner and a comfortable bed to crash into. We hired an SUV and began the final 30 km stretch to the campus.\nIf I remember correctly, it was around 10 pm when we reached the front gates, which were in the middle of nowhere. We picked up our IDs, logged our entry, and entered the premises. We (boys2) finally reached our allotted hostel at around 10:30 pm. A banner sporting the mascot, Tejas, was hanging near the doors\u0026hellip;\nIIT Tirupati welcomes you to the 58th Inter IIT Sports Meet\ntirupati The first task after arrival was to get some food. We tried seeking some help from the volunteer who had shown us the way to the hostel from the main gates.\n\u0026ldquo;The mess has closed now, but there are some refreshments in your room.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;What refreshments?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;One paper boat and a choco pie\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;\nWe were pissed. We did not even try to hide it.\nThe volunteer sensed it and comforted us by saying that they would get food delivered from a not-so-nearby restaurant and asked us to place an order. We headed to our double-occupancy rooms on the ground floor — decently spacious, with comfortable beds, basic toiletries and, of course, Wi-Fi\u0026hellip;\nExtremely sound sleep followed after a cold shower and a not-so-great dinner.\nIt was a string of inconveniences and disappointments right upon arrival, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think I can complain about anything that followed after that3. Food-wise, the mess blew past my expectations: \u0026ldquo;It was perfect. Perfect. Down to the last minute detail.\u0026rdquo; The campus did not have a great deal to offer except four newly-built hard tennis courts, a cosy amphitheatre near the boys\u0026rsquo; hostel and deserted rolling roads wider than those in Guwahati. The weather was pleasant — warm in the daytime but soothingly cool in the evenings — and the surrounding hills composed a scenic backdrop for the matches\u0026hellip;\ntournament \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;ll be the water boy\u0026rdquo; - Sir\nAfter years of failed trials, I had finally made it to the team in my final year, as the third player. You don\u0026rsquo;t need a third player to fill the matchups in the tournament because every matchup consists of two singles and one doubles. Sibi and Pranav were going to be our aces and, to be honest, I didn\u0026rsquo;t expect to get onto the court for any match. I was prepared to be the water boy.\nBoys had Kanpur, Gandhinagar \u0026amp; Jodhpur in their group, while girls had Kanpur, Hyderabad \u0026amp; BHU. Kanpur was common to both.\nTeam IIT Kanpur was an absolute unit. Both of their teams were rock-solid, and the boys were defending that year. Girls\u0026rsquo; tennis throughout the tournament was haramball4, except for that one girl from Kanpur who was the only one playing the game the way it was supposed to be played.\nmatchday 1 Boys had their first match against Kanpur and, as expected, were defeated in straight matches. Sibi and Pranav, while great players, were inexperienced at the Inter IIT level, and Kanpur\u0026rsquo;s experience showed in their game. That day, the girls had their match against BHU, which was a walk in the park.\nmatchday 2 Boys were up against Gandhinagar next. This was a virtual knockout match because it was apparent that Jodhpur was going to get \u0026ldquo;belted\u0026rdquo;5 by everyone and Kanpur was going to belt everyone else in the group. Sibi had picked up an injury from his singles against Kanpur, so Pranav was going to play the first singles.\nGandhinagar\u0026rsquo;s player was consistent — he knew how to rally well, keep the ball in play, and go for winners at the right moment. He was almost on par with Pranav in terms of skill, to be honest. It was going to be a good match.\nIf I remember correctly, Gandhinagar had taken the first two games of the first set and were leading 2–0. Pranav stepped up then and, after a great fight, the set concluded 6–4 in our favour. Things were looking good in the second set as well, until that damned game when Pranav was serving — there were at least ten deuces. Tennis serves are physically exhausting to execute, and one could easily notice that Pranav was running out of steam as the game progressed. He eventually got broken and was never able to recover in that set. Second set: 4–6.\nIn the third set, the match was neck and neck as both players had resorted to haramball tactics to conserve energy. It was not a delight to watch, but I enjoyed screaming and cheering at the top of my lungs. The final set\u0026rsquo;s scoreline eventually evolved to 5–4 with Pranav serving.\nThe match had attracted attention from everyone on the courts at the time, given how close it was, and the crowd had now grown beyond just the Gandhinagar contingent and us. The Kanpur boys\u0026rsquo; team was nearby, betting on who was going to make it. I remember this game very clearly. Pranav was trailing 0–40 and it looked like the set was going to be extended. Then came three cracker serves — absolute bangers. 40–40. Deuce.\n\u0026ldquo;Bhai crazy clutch mara hai\u0026rdquo; - some guy from Kanpur\nTwo more points followed and it was boys\u0026rsquo; first match win in the tournament. Gandhinagar\u0026rsquo;s second player was not as strong as their first; the doubles match was wrapped up easily.\nGirls\u0026rsquo; next match against Hyderabad was a must-win as well. Similar picture in their group: Kanpur would belt everyone, BHU would get belted by everyone. Hyderabad had only one player who knew her groundstrokes; the second player lacked basic fundamentals altogether. We knew that we were going to go through — the question was whether in two matches or three.\nIdhaa has the potential to beat the heck out of every girl who was in that tournament. She is physically superior and her technique is sharp. It\u0026rsquo;s only she who can stop herself — and that is exactly what happened. She gets nervous on courts, very nervous. She\u0026rsquo;d blow up a single point and her entire game would collapse, as if she forgot how to play.\nDuring the first singles against Hyderabad, everyone was continually shouting from the sidelines, trying to keep her morale up in difficult moments. She tried her best but eventually lost. However, the girls got the doubles after exploiting Hyderabad\u0026rsquo;s weak link, and then Krishna sealed the victory in the deciding singles match.\nMore or less, both teams had made it through the group stage.\nmatchday 3 Now, Jodhpur were an easy opponent and Sir wanted to rest Sibi for the quarters. It was finally our turn — the third and fourth players would finally make some good use of their racquets. We had two options:\nPranav plays the first singles and Hans/Me or Pranav/Sibi for the doubles.\nHans plays the first singles and Pranav/Me or Pranav/Sibi for the doubles.\nWe went with the first option. The Jodhpur player was an easy haramball merchant and Pranav got the better of him in straight sets. Hans and I were up next. Now, we are both decent players, but this was the first time we were stepping on the court after that short practice session on Day 0. We lacked rhythm.\nWe started off well and took a 4–2 lead in the first set. Then it went catastrophically downhill. We were missing volleys, our groundstrokes were going out or into the net, and nerves caught up with us badly. We lost fucking ten games in a row. Final score: 4–6, 0–6. I feel ashamed of myself writing this, but yeah, I now have a 100% loss rate at the Inter IIT Sports Meet. Hans has three more attempts ahead of him — he\u0026rsquo;ll do better, I\u0026rsquo;m sure.\nThey gave us one bagel and Sibi returned them two in the deciding singles.\nAfter the match, we discussed that option 2 might have actually won us the matchup in straight sets.\nGirls had their final group stage match against Kanpur. The Kanpur girl, who was easily the best singles player in the tournament, took down Idhaa in the first match effortlessly. For doubles, Kanpur\u0026rsquo;s second player was not as strong as the first, but she knew how to keep the ball in play. Also, during the match, Idhaa and Krishna got into a dispute, which didn\u0026rsquo;t help either. Kanpur beat us, as expected.\nquarterfinals Girls vs IIT Madras\nEveryone who was present at the meet, including the coaches and officials, detested IIT Madras. Here\u0026rsquo;s why.\nHowever, their girls\u0026rsquo; team, though \u0026ldquo;mutant\u0026rdquo;-powered, was like any other girls\u0026rsquo; team in the tournament. They were beatable. It was the quarter-finals and Sir did not want to bet on Idhaa this time, so Krishna played the first singles.\nIt was a good match, even though the scoreline suggested otherwise: 2–6, 2–6. Krishna gave her absolute best. \u0026ldquo;I like what I\u0026rsquo;m seeing here, bro.\u0026rdquo; I remember Sibi mentioning this as we watched from the sidelines. The reason she lost was that the opposing player was tactically superior and was able to exploit Krishna\u0026rsquo;s limited agility with drop shots. During this match, I also remember participating in a fun cheering 1v1 with a Madras guy, and I also recall that the chair umpire was an asshole6.\nThe doubles began, and once again, Idhaa\u0026rsquo;s game started to crumble. The match was swinging in Madras\u0026rsquo; direction, but out of nowhere, Krishna twisted her ankle — badly. She removed her shoes to reveal a swelling the size of a potato. She was unable to walk after the limited medical timeout, and the team had to concede the match.\nNo one wants a match to end due to a player\u0026rsquo;s injury, but that is how girls\u0026rsquo; campaign ended.\nIt was an improvement in position from the previous year, but our team — especially Idhaa — is full of untapped potential, and I know they may well win a medal or two in the coming years if they work at it throughout the year. I even got Idhaa to commit herself on camera to putting in extra hours on the court, provided she bags an internship.\nWe spent the next hour or so at the courts while Krishna received preliminary treatment and underwent check-ups. That night there was a gala dinner, so all of us dressed up and made our way to the venue. As we were leaving, we overheard that the quarter-final doubles between the Delhi girls and the Kanpur girls, which had started 6–0 in Kanpur\u0026rsquo;s favour, had somehow reached a deciding tiebreak. We switched on the live stream to witness peak haramball — haramball that would put Simeone and Arteta to shame.\nUnluckily for Kanpur, Delhi took the doubles and forced a deciding singles. Delhi had deliberately wasted Kanpur\u0026rsquo;s best player in the first singles by pitting her against their weakest. Delhi\u0026rsquo;s best player played the decider and was good enough to win it for the team.\nIt was an upset. Kanpur girls were out.\nBoys vs IIT Delhi\nDelhi\u0026rsquo;s main player, Vaibhav, had a forehand that tested the limits of the tennis ball — give him a ball at the optimal height and he would punish you. Sibi had a game plan in mind: slice, slice, and slice. A lower ball would mean he would have to compromise on speed to get the ball over the net.\nThis battle of two very contrasting playing styles was pure cinema. People from Roorkee, Bombay, Kanpur and a few others joined as the match unfolded. They were calling it the best match of the tournament so far. After two sets of brilliant tennis, the match was level: 4–6, 6–3. We had also developed an off-court rivalry with the ear-splitting cheerleaders of IIT Delhi (their girls\u0026rsquo; team).\n\u0026ldquo;If she doesn\u0026rsquo;t stop then I am going to pop that bitch off.\u0026rdquo; - Idhaa\nThe final set was as intense as the previous two — a close fight, but it swayed Delhi\u0026rsquo;s way, 3–6. The doubles match started on a poor note, with Delhi leading 3–0. I should also mention that at this point, Sir was not with us. He was in the city with Krishna for a hospital check-up. I did my best to give tips to Sibi and Pranav as the first set slipped away, 2–6.\nHowever, they found their rhythm in the second set and Sir had also joined us by then. Both pairs were playing almost at par with each other, but our boys edged them slightly, and though I don\u0026rsquo;t remember the exact scoreline, we had a set point. We did not convert it, unfortunately. Eventually, it reached 6–6 — time for a tiebreak. We started well in the tiebreak but could not see it through.\nDelhi took the doubles 2–6, 6–7, and with it, the semi-final slot.\nIn the end, though we were returning empty-handed in terms of championship points, Sir was proud of the performance the team had put up. With the experience Pranav and Sibi had gained over the week, I am fairly confident we have a real shot at the podium next year.\ntimepass After we were out of the draw, we joined a nearby trek organised by the volunteers the next morning and then spent most of the next two days spectating. The first singles of the Kanpur vs. Bombay semi-final was a legendary match. Talk to me if you want to hear about it — I am incapable of doing it justice in mere words. Eventually, Kanpur took the overall matchup and advanced to the finals against the doubly \u0026ldquo;mutant\u0026rdquo;-powered IIT Madras.\nWe went to the finals to cheer for Kanpur, but unfortunately the mutants got the better of them without breaking a sweat. Everyone felt for Kanpur boys. Their team deserved nothing less than the top spot on the podium. An eerie silence had blanketed the arena when Madras clinched the match point. No one cheered for them. I suppose the silence was to mourn the violation of the spirit of the Inter IIT Sports Meet. On the girls\u0026rsquo; side, Madras had beaten Delhi in the finals the day before, taking the seventh7 match point of the game.\nThough most of our time was spent at the courts and resting in our rooms, we did find ways to make our time more memorable. We spent time together in the common room playing Spy, danced till the end of the gala night unlike everyone else, played Contact and Truth or Truth on the last night on the amphitheatre stage before some dogs went wild for Sai and garnered everyone\u0026rsquo;s attention.\nSo, did I enjoy that week in Tirupati? The answer — well, it depends8 — just kidding. I will cherish the time spent with these people forever\u0026hellip;\nthe team : me, Sir, Sibi, Hans, Idhaa, Anika, Krishna, Sai, Pranav (top to bottom, left to right) eighth I took a late night cab directly to Chennai airport from the campus, accompanied by Sai, and boarded my flight to Kanpur. The final stint of my winter was here\u0026hellip;\nIt was time for the Quiz Cup at the Inter IIT Cultural Meet, one last time.\ncantonment After spending a week in temperate Tirupati, Kanpur\u0026rsquo;s cold was hitting hard when I arrived in the afternoon. I reached my room where all the \u0026ldquo;uncs\u0026rdquo;9, except Shreyansh, were supposed to stay. The bedding took up most of the room\u0026rsquo;s space, and the rest was filled with our scattered luggage. I buried myself in the sea of blankets for a much-needed nap.\nThe organisers had foolishly not arranged mess services on Day 0, so all of us went out together for dinner. Moving around IIT Kanpur\u0026rsquo;s campus felt like time-travelling to pre-independence India. The buildings, their architecture, the whistle-equipped security personnel who acted like entitled British officials, the dusty atmosphere and the overall vibe of the place felt very archaic. This did not mean that the campus was stripped of facilities — it had a fucking gas station inside.\nWe went to one of the very few places open to participants before the event: the open-air theatre, which also happened to have some decent food joints. After the gang feasted on shawarma biryani, we camped on the topmost stairs and started playing the OG quiz club game: Contact. Hilarious conversations spilled out as the fog around us grew denser by the minute. Dear Thapki, we still remember you \u0026lt;3\nchase Our track record at the Cultural Meet was anything but impressive. So, the way these quizzes work is that each institute brings six teams of three members each, totalling around a hundred teams which compete in the prelims, of which the top 8 or top 10 (depending on the quizmaster) advance to the finals.\nWe struggle to qualify for the finals, let alone claim a podium finish or win the quiz. The year before, in Patna, we managed only one qualification across all six quizzes. We\u0026rsquo;d often miss the cutoff by the slimmest of margins due to careless mistakes — failure was a familiar acquaintance to all of our members.\nEvery year, we\u0026rsquo;d hope for the results to change, even a bit.\nThis year was no different.\nchances There were seven quizzes in this year\u0026rsquo;s edition and the venue for all of them was this ginormous lecture hall which looked a little too new for the building it was in\u0026hellip;\nmic testing tlc The first quiz of the event was TLC (Travel, Living \u0026amp; Culture). We had built a reputation among all the IITs as the \u0026ldquo;TLC people\u0026rdquo; because it was a new addition to the catalogue of quizzes and we had never failed to get qualifications in it at past inter-collegiate events10, while mostly failing to qualify elsewhere.\nI was paired with Joyeeta \u0026amp; Kaustubh. Now, we were not the A-team, but we gave it our best — it was an enjoyable set which had its 26 answers in alphabetical order. We scored around 17, as far as I remember. When we all came together after the answers were displayed, two of our teams had strong scores of around 22 and 22.5.\nAfter everyone had tallied their scores, the most nerve-wracking part of any quiz arrived: had any of us made it through? All the institutes would send one mole close to the volunteers compiling the results to sniff out any information about the cutoff. Baidurya\u0026rsquo;s small frame allowed him to squeeze through crowds easily — he was our guy.\nThis quizmaster was going to take the top 6 directly to the finals and conduct semi-finals among the next 8 teams, so we were hoping for at least one team to get through. \u0026ldquo;Cutoff 23 lag rha hai\u0026rdquo; — the initial report had spoken.\n*Instant Depression*\nOur faces drooped, but we asked him to check again. We stood there in silence as Baidurya disappeared into the crowd. He emerged a few minutes later.\n\u0026ldquo;Dono teams ka ho gya.\u0026rdquo;\nFrenzy followed. Never in the history of our club had two teams qualified in the same prelims. Though it was not the finals yet but only the semi-finals, it was a victory in itself. We cheered with wide grins as our teams\u0026rsquo; names were announced. I headed out for lunch just after the results were declared and was not there to watch the semis.\nI was about to return to the hall when a message popped up on my phone.\n\u0026ldquo;Both teams into the finals\u0026rdquo;\nHistory was made. Our club had struggled to get even a single qualification, and getting two spots out of ten was something we couldn\u0026rsquo;t have imagined before coming here. It was an unbelievable start to our campaign. Finals began, and they played well, finally placing 6th and 9th. We did not complain; we had already matched last year\u0026rsquo;s performance. It was only upwards from here.\nhelm HELM stands for History, Etymology, Language and Mythology. This was the first time this quiz was being hosted at the Cultural Meet. We had a strong lineup in our A-team — practically nerds in these areas. We were expecting them to qualify, at the very least.\nHowever, the quizmaster turned out to be a dumbass. He did not know what to put in a HELM Quiz and just put in whatever he felt like.\n\u0026ldquo;What is history, anything which happened two seconds before is also history if you think about it.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Wait, WTF dude?\u0026rdquo;\nThis quiz set was going to be a disaster, and I could tell immediately. As we (me, Divyam, Lalitya) went through the questions, we realised these questions were not suited to our A-team because they lacked knowledge in India-related trivia, of which the set had plenty.\nOnce the prelims were done, we all agreed that the set was anything but a HELM set. After the scores were tallied, our A-team underperformed as expected. However, the B-team (Yash, Ishana, Rachit) had scored a hopeful 22 — they ended up missing the finals spot by a single point, with no semi-finals this time.\nAnother \u0026ldquo;honourable mention\u0026rdquo; to add to the belt.\nWe were disappointed because a few avoidable mistakes had been made, but we also knew the set was poor and we had simply been unlucky with the quizmaster.\nindia Expectations were extremely high for the India Quiz, because of our new recruits Kaustubh and ADC bhaiya — who we believed were capable of pulling through the prelims single-handedly. Imagine pairing these two with Lalitya, who had established himself as the best India quizzer in our club.\nTo put it simply, they were the Galácticos of the India Quiz.\nI was sitting this one out, along with Kirhen and Bhagawati, since I was no \u0026ldquo;Dhurandhar\u0026rdquo; in India quizzes. We were on standby for the group chat to light up. It was taking longer than usual. \u0026ldquo;Maybe the set is long.\u0026rdquo; Tushif called back after seeing the missed calls. The set was indeed long — the round had just ended and they didn\u0026rsquo;t even have their scores yet. He said he\u0026rsquo;d update us. Minutes passed, and the three of us headed to the hostel canteen to grab some tea.\nI think my phone was on silent, because it didn\u0026rsquo;t ring, and Kirhen was already on his phone. He was sitting right in front of me when he blurted out, with an awestruck expression\u0026hellip;\n\u0026ldquo;They topped the prelims!!!\u0026rdquo;\nI was stunned. Out of words. Holy Cow. Wow. What on earth had just happened? All of a sudden, that coveted Inter IIT podium didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like such a distant fantasy. They might actually pull this off. Kirhen and I waited patiently in the hostel and got busy preparing for SBT the next day. I called for updates after an hour or so.\n\u0026ldquo;Bohot kharab chal rha hai. Baad me baat karte hai.\u0026rdquo;\nTeams like Madras, Bombay, Delhi and Kharagpur were regulars with decent experience in Inter IIT Finals. For us, going into the finals as prelims toppers was an astronomical change; something no one would have predicted in their wildest dreams. The most experienced member of our Galácticos team was Lalitya, a sophomore. It is an enormous amount of pressure when people expect a great deal from the team and you are effectively in charge of making the difficult calls on whether to pounce or not.\nThey finished 9th — out of the points.\nThey looked dejected when we regrouped in the canteen. This team has potential. The results will follow. I am sure of it.\nchaos sbt Finally, it was my turn to be in the A-team (me, Divyam, ADC). At the last Nihilanth, (me, Divyam, Kirhen) had missed the finals by a single point. This time, we wanted to get over the line.\nDivyam and I have teamed up on multiple occasions and we know how to present ideas and brainstorm with each other. ADC bhaiya, on the other hand, was something of an extension to our pair. This was the first time the three of us had sat together, since I had to leave for the Sports Meet before our practice drills were in full swing.\nWe ended up with a score of 21 after the prelims. Before we got any intel on the cutoff, we knew this was going to be on the edge. The cutoff came in at 21, with 5 tiebreaking stars.\nWe had 21 and 4 tiebreaking stars.\nI was genuinely heartbroken, because I knew that realistically I would never again get a chance to sit in an Inter IIT semi-final or final. There was also a blunder on my part: I wrote the answer to one question as \u0026ldquo;Blockchain Beach\u0026rdquo; rather than the more commonly known \u0026ldquo;Bitcoin Beach\u0026rdquo; and all our other teams had got that one right but us. I was pissed at myself and just walked out of the hall.\nmela After the trauma8 of the MELA Quiz the previous year, a comeback was needed to banish the ghosts of the past — especially for Shreyansh and Yash. I teamed up with Divyam and Akif and, from the very beginning of the prelims, Divyam and I were simply enjoying the game — cracking jokes and laughing at the made up answers of the questions we didn\u0026rsquo;t know. Apart from that, we thought a qualification was possible in this one as well, since even we as the D-team were getting a lot of answers.\nTurns out, we scored the most of all.\nAn ordinary score of 18 was the highest of all. Divyam was furious because, as Secretary, he is answerable to those above him who expect championship points from the club\u0026rsquo;s large contingent of 22 people, and the performance in this quiz was unacceptable. He stormed out of the hall in anger and I accompanied him.\nIt came down to the final day.\nsports A spot in the finals had long been overdue for Tushif. It felt somewhat like the way everyone felt football owed Messi a World Cup before 2022. I was in the B-team with Lalitya and Palash; A-team was Tushif, Divyam \u0026amp; Maulik. Major (QM) had announced before the prelims that this was going to be like a general round with a flavour of sports.\nMost of the questions were crackable, but some required exquisite trivia — like the fact that Louboutin is known for their red-bottomed shoes — knowledge that was clearly out of our A-team\u0026rsquo;s wheelhouse. We performed all right in the prelims, but all eyes were on Team A.\nThey had 23, after getting an easy question about Pankaj Advani wrong. We were at 18.\nBaidurya was sitting this one out, so we simply waited. Major stepped up to the lectern with a bundle of sheets. Only eight slots were available for the final. We had our fingers crossed.\n\u0026#34;The cutoff for the final was ...\u0026#34; \"The cutoff for the final was 24.\" \"There was one team which came very close with a score of 23. Divyam, Tushif and Maulik. 757-A. You're from..?\" \"IIT Guwahati\" \"Well done. Better luck next time\" general After the heartbreak of the sports quiz, we were attending the general quiz purely for the love of the game. No team of ours had come anywhere close to the general cutoff, so by the trend, we weren\u0026rsquo;t expecting anything. I was with Ishana and Kaustubh and I really enjoyed the set and my team was fun too. We scored around 23, if I remember correctly.\nDivyam, Medha and Kirhen\u0026rsquo;s team had scored a solid 28. We were not expecting anything, but getting through wouldn\u0026rsquo;t hurt. Major was opting for a semi-final format in this quiz — taking the top 7 teams directly, and the top 3 from among the next 10 semifinalists.\nBaidurya did his job and signalled a thumbs-up from the stage!\nThey were through. For the first time, I believe, one of our teams had made it beyond the prelims in Major\u0026rsquo;s general quiz. We cheered loudly as our name was announced — the club loves to celebrate even the smallest victories. The semi-final followed, and they performed well with some very impressive cracks. They finished 5th or 6th out of the 10 semifinalists, just missing out on the final.\nMy last Quiz Cup at the Inter IIT Cultural Meet was over.\ncamaraderie team acumen As we all came out of the hall to head for dinner, I took on my responsibility as an \u0026ldquo;unc\u0026rdquo; and made a toast about how things would only improve from here — because even though we had scored similar points to last year, the fact that we had qualified more than one prelims, topped one of them, and gotten two teams into the same final was proof of significant growth. All of us went to a pizza joint on campus to celebrate Rachit\u0026rsquo;s birthday.\nAmidst all the quizzing, there were some moments that will stay with me for a long time — especially that vivid late-night discussion that started with Aishwarya Rai and Sonali Bendre and somehow blew up to include likes of Mamata Banerjee. I also remember that peaceful lunch on one of those days, when we mocked some nukkad natak participants putting on a show of goofy moves, while sitting on the lawn stuffing Subway sandwiches.\nOn the last night, I was down with a cough, chest congestion and a headache, and my room had been converted into a theka to celebrate the end of the event. I shifted to where the third-years were staying because I had a morning cab to catch the next day. Though I had taken some meds before sleeping, I woke up at six in the morning struggling to breathe — the fog and dust had finally caught up with me. I also woke Dubey unintentionally with my sirening lungs. He was kind enough to accompany me to the hospital, where I got nebulised.\nI woke up later — just in time to catch my pre-booked airport cab. Though my breathing had improved, it was still a struggle to travel on a long connecting flight with a terminal change in Delhi.\nThe plane landed at night and I stared out of the window. It was finally over.\nThe most wonderful and most fulfilling winter of my life was behind me.\nHe is Tamil and did his undergrad from IIT Madras.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nGirls\u0026rsquo; hostel was like 1.5km from ours.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nExcept that Sir and I never got any good evening tea throughout our stay.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nRallies go on for 25-30 shots because both the sides keep on lobbing the ball high (\u0026ldquo;moonballing\u0026rdquo;) to keep it in and over the net which is a pain to spectate.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nas Pranav would have said it; stereotypical bangalorean english\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nTerrible line calls for both the sides and condescending behaviour.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nThala for a reason.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nA lot more can be written but how about you talk to me sometime if you\u0026rsquo;re curious.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nSlur for final yearites.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nNihilanth 2025 (Inter IIT IIM Quiz Fest) \u0026amp; Inter IIT 2024\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogposts/winter_arc/","summary":"I think the best December of my life is behind me. Life is never again going to present me an opportunity to roam around the country, engage in my favourite activities with my crew, while being completely carefree.\nMaybe, even if it does — miraculously — I won\u0026rsquo;t be 22 again.\nWinter of 2025 was a big bucket of memories. Here are some splashes…\ntwenty second My birthday party was a heavy dinner at Lauriat, the most premium dining experience IITG can offer, with four of my close friends.","title":"winter arc of twenty-five"},{"content":"haha\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/cv/","summary":"haha","title":"Cv"},{"content":" Puzzles slipped into my daily routine pretty smoothly. I don\u0026rsquo;t remember how I got into this in first place and it continued growing on me, day by day, slowly and steadily. Here is a stat describing the gravity of my current situation:\nI solve 8 different puzzles1 every single day.\nIs this something to be proud of? Definitely not. Do I want to change it? Absolutely not ! It all started with Wordle back in Dec 2023 and I was also able to reel Tanush in it as well. We\u0026rsquo;d compete with each other (ik, sounds very lame) and discuss how we\u0026rsquo;d solved that day\u0026rsquo;s puzzle.\nOne afternoon, he comes into my room\u0026hellip;\nHim : Bro, let\u0026rsquo;s make a wordle bot. Me : *thinks* Yeah, let\u0026rsquo;s do it. Sounds fun.\nThen we spent a while discussing on how we can actually make one. Initially he had a very naive brute-force approach but I suggested him to have a look at this 3b1b video for some inspiration which I vaguely remember watching when the game was trending on twitter (sometime in 2021).\nI kind of faltered after this. It didn\u0026rsquo;t look challenging at all. Grant made it all look so easy.\nTanush would often bring this up in between our conversations, asking me when should we start and I kind of didn\u0026rsquo;t pay any heed.\n\u0026ldquo;this weekend\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;after that quiz\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;once we get GTA VI\u0026rdquo;\nThe string of excuses was long. However, all I needed was a little push.\nOn 11th April 2024, I lost my 89 day streak to the word LOUSE. With mere 11 days off a century, it was a devastating feeling.\nlouse for the lousy I had to solve this game now !\nDIGIT A few numbers about the game. @12953@ words are allowed as guesses; of these, @2309@ are possible solutions to a game. Why not all 13k can be answers you may ask. Well, how many of the words given below do you know?\n$$ \\text{ZOOEA, XEBEC, TYIYN, QOPHS, MYRRH} $$\nNo, this is not some gibberish which I made up, but are actual words which you can guess while playing the game. However they are not one of the possible solutions. (Imagine losing your streak to TYIYN)\nThe game can be played in two modes : Easy (you can guess any word) \u0026amp; Hard (you must utilise previous hints)\nAfter you play a word, you can get one of @3 \\cdot 3 \\cdot 3 \\cdot 3 \\cdot 3 = 243@ possible color combinations. This information will come in handy later :)\nDRAFT At first, I assumed that coding out the working and logic of the game shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be difficult and I should worry about the algorithmic part first. This is what I came up with:\nLet @G@ be the set consisting of all allowed guesses and let @S@ be the set consisting of all possible solutions. @\\forall g \\in G, @ get the corresponding color @\\forall s \\in S@ and then find @|S_{new}|@ based on hints in the color pattern Use the @|S_{new}|@ generate the distribution of the solution space. I understood that this was kind of inefficient but didn\u0026rsquo;t bother myself about it at that time and went to code out the logic. Little did I know, that would turn out to be a nightmare.\nYou may be thinking\u0026hellip; \u0026ldquo;how hard can it be?\u0026rdquo; Let me present you with a challenge\u0026hellip;\nHow will YOU assign colors when you have an answer and a word guessed by the user?\nThink about it. Construct some solution before scrolling down\nSo this was my first algorithm:\nGet the letter counts of each word as dictionary Assign Greens and Greys first Assign Yellows based on letter count The need to count letters arose because of the case of repeating letters. Words like @\\text{STASH}@ and @\\text{LEVEL}@ were causing issues otherwise.\nSo, I got busy coding out the logic and after I was done, it didn\u0026rsquo;t take me long to realise that\u0026hellip;\nIt was dead slowwwww\nIt was taking 5-6 seconds to process a single word. JUST ONE WORD !!!\nAt this rate I was not getting anywhere. Forget simulations, even solving a single game seemed a distant dream.\nSPEED As many of you might\u0026rsquo;ve noticed, the algorithm was a primary reason of the bot choking. It required @\\approx 2.5 ~ \\cdot 10^7@ computations 2 for a single word. Now, multiply that by @12953@\u0026hellip;\nThen, it clicked me. Instead of iterating over the solution space, then getting the colors, then dividing the solution space, I could\u0026rsquo;ve just iterated through all possible color combinations and then found the required distribution.\nThe computations for a single word were now reduced to @\\approx 2.8 \\cdot 10^6@. This was slightly better. However, there was still room for improvement in the mechanism to get @|S_{new}|@. I believe that in order to improve speed, you can make two fundamental changes to your program:\nImprove the algorithm (very taxing, you (most probably) won\u0026rsquo;t succeed) Store some data (consumes memory, but very easy) I, without second thoughts, went with the latter. I created dictionaries based on the color combinations.\ngreen_dict stored all the words which gave green for a particular letter at a particular position. grey_dict stored all words which gave grey for that word. posgrey_dict all words which did not have a particular letter at a particular position. These accelerated the runtime. I then utilised this momentum to create a ginormous (623 MB) matrix, which stored all the words which gave a particular color pattern with a particular word. In short, once loaded, this matrix can return the whole set of words which satsify a particular condition in @O(1)@ time.\nNeat.\nSCORE I had the word-color pattern distribution on me now, which meant that I can know the exact number of words (the \u0026ldquo;split\u0026rdquo;) my solution set will be reduced to if I play a particular word and it shows a particular color pattern.\nSo how do I use this to pick up the best words? I stuck with two strategies:\nMin-Max : Minimise the worst case split. Avg-Split : Minimise the average split size. And these were the simulation results (Hard Mode with @\\text{RAISE}@ 3 as starter): $$ \\begin{array}{|l|l|l|} \\hline \\text{Algorithm} \u0026amp; \\text{Success %} \u0026amp; \\text{Avg. Moves} \\\\ \\hline \\text{Min-Max} \u0026amp; 99.437 \u0026amp; 3.658 \\\\ \\hline \\text{Min-Avg} \u0026amp; 99.350 \u0026amp; 3.633 \\\\ \\hline \\end{array} $$\nAnd these were the Easy Mode sim results:\n$$ \\text{computationally challenging !} $$\nYeah. Ironically, Easy Mode is tougher to simulate than Hard Mode. The reason for this is that in Hard Mode, the set @G@ reduces in size with each subsequent move, whereas in Easy Mode, it stays the same (all @12953@ words). This put a speed bound and each game was taking, on average, 30s to simulate in Easy Mode (which is not desirable when you have @2903@ words in queue !)\nFLAWS The bot I have made is far from perfect.\nTARDY : Unable to simulate easy mode BULKY : Thanks to that nasty matrix GREED : Optimises on the next move, rather than the whole game. If anyone\u0026rsquo;s interested, here is the code repository : Mind-Your-Wordle\nI will continue working on it because this is far from finished.\nADIEU Here is a fun comic by @tomgauld :\nNYT : Strands, SpellBee, Connections, Wordle, Letterboxed, Mini; LinkedIn : Crossclimb, Pinpoint\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n@|S| \\cdot 5 \\text{ (to get the color)} \\cdot |S| \\text{ (words in } S \\text{ matching the color)} : 2309 \\cdot 5 \\cdot 2309 = 26657405 \\text{ (worst case)}@\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nI tried the same with @\\text{PLATE}@ and the results were better. However that was not the recommended starter according to my bot !\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogposts/wordle_bot/","summary":"Puzzles slipped into my daily routine pretty smoothly. I don\u0026rsquo;t remember how I got into this in first place and it continued growing on me, day by day, slowly and steadily. Here is a stat describing the gravity of my current situation:\nI solve 8 different puzzles1 every single day.\nIs this something to be proud of? Definitely not. Do I want to change it? Absolutely not ! It all started with Wordle back in Dec 2023 and I was also able to reel Tanush in it as well.","title":"raise \u003e adieu \u003e pzazz"},{"content":" 🎵 One pendrive is all it takes. Storing a bunch of me. 🎵 - Dua Lipa\n1.5 Gigabytes. That is the space that your entire genome sequence will take if stored on my phone. (yup, that\u0026rsquo;s it) Seems so counterintuitive that the amount of information present in a 2-minute video is much more than the information which defines your entire physical appearance.\nInformation is all around us. I believe that the reason mankind is on top of all species on Earth is because of our ability to crunch the information around us and make meaningful deductions from it.\nThe sky is blue 2 + 3 = 5 The CS245 Professor sucks Pretty much everything happening around us will count as information. In short, it\u0026rsquo;s an information overload out there. So how do we organize it all? What exactly is \u0026ldquo;information\u0026rdquo; in mathematical terms? Why should we even care? (You don\u0026rsquo;t need to, ECE majors may take up Information Theory Elective though)\nwhat really is information? What\u0026rsquo;s the smallest piece of information that you can get? Well, the answer is:\n\u0026ldquo;Is it true?\u0026rdquo;\nIs the sky blue? Is it grey? pink? Turns out the atomic unit of information is indeed a simple Yes/No question, or in other words, a binary (0/1) question.\nEvery piece of information is composed of bits. LITERALLY EVERYTHING.\nThe characters that I am typing in right now are all decoded numbers; numbers which are all binaries under the hood. The grey color that you\u0026rsquo;re seeing in the background is actually RGB (29, 30, 32) . . . and the list can go on.\nquantifying information Here is some information (a fact actually):\nShreya Ghoshal eats 100 Taylor Swifts for breakfast.\nSo how informative is this? Are there any tools apart from language which can express the scale of information? How will the extremes of \u0026ldquo;no information\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;maximum information\u0026rdquo; look like? Is there a mathematical approach?\nConsider these two images:\nNow intuitively, one can say that the first image has little to no information. . . it\u0026rsquo;s just yellow. Whereas, the second image has a lot going on; multiple colors, all dispersed in a random manner (a lot of information?). Let\u0026rsquo;s take another example.\n1. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 //rep(0) 2. 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 //one 1 in every 4 bits 3. 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 //wtf We have 3 channels transmitting binaries. To fit in an analogy, we can say that the first image corresponds to the flat first channel and the second image corresponds to the noisy third channel. So can we say that \u0026ldquo;information\u0026rdquo; is linked to randomness? The greater the unpredictability, the greater the information?\nThe second channel is striking a balance (moderate information). It\u0026rsquo;s neither completely predictable nor completely unpredictable. It may correspond to this image:\niykyk Now some of you might claim that the image above is the most informative of all. I agree. This is because we humans will find meaning in things which are moderately informative (I am using the mathematical meaning of information). In short, nature loves balance.\nIt is understood that information is related to randomness or a more scientific term will be: Entropy\nentropy? The entropy @H(X)@, measured in bits, of a random variable @X@ with probability mass function @p(x)@ is given by\n$$H(X) = -\\sum_{x} p(x)\\log_{2}{p(x)}$$\nThe entropy of the result of a coin toss is 1 bit, whereas that of a die is approximately 2.58 bits. Entropy measures, in a sense, how \u0026ldquo;chaotic\u0026rdquo; a particular event is. Reverting back to our images, we know for sure that every pixel in the first image is yellow or in mathematical notation: @p(x) = 1@ for all @x@ which gives us @H(X) = 0@. Simply put, a highly predictable event will have low entropy, an unpredictable one will have high entropy.\nThough it\u0026rsquo;s majorly focused on data transmission and communication channels, the concepts of information theory find their applications in almost all fields. Consider this example:\nSuppose that we have a horse race with eight horses taking part. Assume that the probabilities of winning for the eight horses are @( \\frac{1}{2} , \\frac{1}{4} , \\frac{1}{8}, \\frac{1}{16}, \\frac{1}{64}, \\frac{1}{64}, \\frac{1}{64} , \\frac{1}{64})@ and you are tasked to transmit the information about the winning horse using binary code. How will you do it?\nThe naive way to do this will be to use 3 bits to transmit the message. However consider these strings:\n$$ 0, 10, 110, 1110, 111100, 111101, 111110, 111111 $$\nThe average length of strings in this case is just 2 bits which is also equal to the entropy of this event. Coincidence? No. It can be proven that the value of entropy is the lower bound for the average length of strings required. This also explains the fact that the Morse Code for the most frequent letter i.e. \u0026rsquo;e\u0026rsquo; is the shortest.\nInformation Theory goes much deeper than this.\nHope you found this post informative (even a bit would do).\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogposts/a_bit_of_info/","summary":"🎵 One pendrive is all it takes. Storing a bunch of me. 🎵 - Dua Lipa\n1.5 Gigabytes. That is the space that your entire genome sequence will take if stored on my phone. (yup, that\u0026rsquo;s it) Seems so counterintuitive that the amount of information present in a 2-minute video is much more than the information which defines your entire physical appearance.\nInformation is all around us. I believe that the reason mankind is on top of all species on Earth is because of our ability to crunch the information around us and make meaningful deductions from it.","title":"a bit of information"},{"content":" You must let go of your fear of being cringe in order to be free - Master Oogway\nFirst of all, I didn\u0026rsquo;t really expect these many questions to pop up in that inbox because personally, I never really cared about these \u0026rsquo;ngl stories\u0026rsquo; and ignored them.\nMany of you did just that, so, congratulations!, you are a sensible individual\nFor the people who posted :\nThank you, you are awesome, is bakch*di me mera saath dene ke liye dhanyawaad !\nThe questions I received can be divided into 4 broad categories:\nQueries about my college academics Queries about my relationship status bore generic sh*t I will try and answer all of these in a fluid manner.\nMany of you wanted this, so here it is :\nMy CPI (2 Sems) : 8.53 Projected CPI (3 Sems) : 8.20 - 8.57 You may leave now.\nI am going to be honest over here. I struggle in my academics. I find it challenging. Things can be challenging in two ways :\nSolve this math puzzle | Memorise Laplace transforms Solve this CP problem | Write code for a priority queue Run 5k in 30 mins | Go get milk from the nearby store I don\u0026rsquo;t know how some people got the notion that I don\u0026rsquo;t score well because they think \u0026lsquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t care about my CPI\u0026rsquo;\nFact : I care about my CPI (atleast used to)\nBut, as I explained above, I don\u0026rsquo;t feel like putting in the efforts because the pull I get towards the subjects is completely out of fear (of low marks) rather than fun.\nI came to the third semester with a ton of motivation because this time, the courses were (supposed to be) interesting. I also put in a lot of effort this time but my result/effort ratio was woeful and I slacked off towards the end.\nAlso I want to rant about the useless profs we got this time who made interesting stuff like Data Structures and Probability boring. And guess what, they are returning in 4th sem (x _ x)\n\u0026ldquo;Bandi pati?\u0026rdquo; , \u0026ldquo;Do you like any girl\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;Any crushes ?\u0026rdquo;, etc. My reply to the equivalence class of these questions:\nI used to like a girl. Now, I don\u0026rsquo;t like any. The number \u0026lsquo;1\u0026rsquo; is scared of my singleness\nMy DMs are open to girls who can spell Massachusetts correctly !\nThere was also someone, who wanted to ask about ML and stuff. Buddy, though this article is written with \u0026lsquo;monospace\u0026rsquo;, I am not discussing it here. Maybe in another blog post ?!\nSomeone was like, yeh faltu kaam karne ka motivation kaha se aata hai?\nAs you can see, I just wanted to test out my blog site and needed some content for the first post.\nCheesy One Line Q/A: Last girl you texted : Instagram user Last thing asked to ChatGPT : give me a single word which means \u0026ldquo;not returning the borrowed money\u0026rdquo; Last novel : 13 Reasons Why Secret I kept from my parents : Half of my life I obviously filtered out all the generic questions, which would\u0026rsquo;ve made the post long and boring (just like the movies these days)\nCiao.\nEDIT : If you happen to view this anytime after I posted it. I am not this cringe irl. Trust me!\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogposts/ngl/","summary":"You must let go of your fear of being cringe in order to be free - Master Oogway\nFirst of all, I didn\u0026rsquo;t really expect these many questions to pop up in that inbox because personally, I never really cared about these \u0026rsquo;ngl stories\u0026rsquo; and ignored them.\nMany of you did just that, so, congratulations!, you are a sensible individual\nFor the people who posted :\nThank you, you are awesome, is bakch*di me mera saath dene ke liye dhanyawaad !","title":"ngl, it was fun !"},{"content":"hey there !\nwelcome to my lounge. you can call it (u_d) baba ki gufa ! it\u0026rsquo;s an online space where i express myself freely\u0026hellip; because I don\u0026rsquo;t expect a lot of visitors like you. now since you stumbled your way over here, how about you explore around. you know, press some buttons, click some links, read some stuff which i\u0026rsquo;ve put up; you may like it or maybe not (highly probable). i\u0026rsquo;ll be elated if i discover you took your time here. quick intro : a tall gujju guy without generational wealth figuring out life at 22 currently a math senior at iit guwahati. i find myself involved in a lot of activities at the same time which has led to one of my friends calling me the hobby whore. really like this nickname because it sounds like a cheap slang for a polymath.\ncheck out these quizzing sets by a very mid quizzer (me). sci-echo : my very first quiz co-hosted with Shreyans. people rated it \u0026ldquo;way too nerdy\u0026rdquo;. athleticism : hosted one for the inter-hostel competition. people said i improved. a few drilling bits : nihilanth \u0026amp; inter iit cult meet practice sets my evenings are spent chasing a yellow ball and putting it across the net. proud #federerpaglu help me find great music, great cinema, great tv, great paperbacks. i like to nerd tf out ! पेल pail list : 🪣 subscribe for the lore of the name. any random recommendation, chat or reel is always welcome on my instagram dm.\nciao.\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/message/","summary":"hey there !\nwelcome to my lounge. you can call it (u_d) baba ki gufa ! it\u0026rsquo;s an online space where i express myself freely\u0026hellip; because I don\u0026rsquo;t expect a lot of visitors like you. now since you stumbled your way over here, how about you explore around. you know, press some buttons, click some links, read some stuff which i\u0026rsquo;ve put up; you may like it or maybe not (highly probable).","title":""},{"content":"Greetings!\nI am currently a final year undergraduate in Mathematics Department at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. My academic interests lie in subjects of machine learning and topics in theoretical computer science. I was previously associated with Adobe as a summer research intern and will be joining Blackrock as a technology analyst this year. In my free time, you might find me playing lawn tennis, solving puzzles, building something for the fun of it or straight up procrastinating.\n","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/message_upsidedown/","summary":"Greetings!\nI am currently a final year undergraduate in Mathematics Department at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. My academic interests lie in subjects of machine learning and topics in theoretical computer science. I was previously associated with Adobe as a summer research intern and will be joining Blackrock as a technology analyst this year. In my free time, you might find me playing lawn tennis, solving puzzles, building something for the fun of it or straight up procrastinating.","title":""},{"content":" visit vienna with someone and check out that listening booth watch interstellar on 70mm IMAX attend the championships wimbledon go on a month long road trip attend the monza grand prix watch hans zimmer live hit 1600 on atcoder go skydiving attend the olympics 25 uploads on my creative dump attend a match at camp nou read the bhagavada gita attend roland garros cover the mont blanc trail attend the abba voyage show own a rolex learn to play the guitar attend a fifa wc final own a porsche post 25 blogs on this page read the bible design an original origami model 1k watched movies on letterboxd travel on a cruise ship attend the australian open create an animated short film hit four aces in a row in a tennis match go for pub quizzing in london organise an online puzzle hunt read the quran learn a foreign language ","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogposts/hundred/","summary":" visit vienna with someone and check out that listening booth watch interstellar on 70mm IMAX attend the championships wimbledon go on a month long road trip attend the monza grand prix watch hans zimmer live hit 1600 on atcoder go skydiving attend the olympics 25 uploads on my creative dump attend a match at camp nou read the bhagavada gita attend roland garros cover the mont blanc trail attend the abba voyage show own a rolex learn to play the guitar attend a fifa wc final own a porsche post 25 blogs on this page read the bible design an original origami model 1k watched movies on letterboxd travel on a cruise ship attend the australian open create an animated short film hit four aces in a row in a tennis match go for pub quizzing in london organise an online puzzle hunt read the quran learn a foreign language ","title":"before i roundhouse kick"},{"content":" competitive programming companion Created a terminal-based Python application designed to serve as an assistant during online programming contests on AtCoder and CodeForces with features such as directory management, test case validation, rank tracking \u0026amp; automated submissions. wordle bot Developed a Python-based Wordle solver, employing greedy algorithms, while evaluating various strategies such as minimizing average and maximum values of the word-color pattern so as to optimize moves required to win achieving 99%\u0026#43; success rate. ","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/projects/","summary":"competitive programming companion Created a terminal-based Python application designed to serve as an assistant during online programming contests on AtCoder and CodeForces with features such as directory management, test case validation, rank tracking \u0026amp; automated submissions. wordle bot Developed a Python-based Wordle solver, employing greedy algorithms, while evaluating various strategies such as minimizing average and maximum values of the word-color pattern so as to optimize moves required to win achieving 99%\u0026#43; success rate.","title":"projects"},{"content":" raise \u0026gt; adieu \u0026gt; pzazz 08.07.24 a bit of information 30.03.24 ","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogupside/","summary":" raise \u0026gt; adieu \u0026gt; pzazz 08.07.24 a bit of information 30.03.24 ","title":"writings"},{"content":" winter arc of twenty-five 03.03.26 ","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/blogmain/","summary":" winter arc of twenty-five 03.03.26 ","title":"કથા"},{"content":" 2026 24/03, 1907 hrs Two mfs walking down ... Two mfs walking down the streets of IIT Guwahati.\nThey have been unlucky in love since forever. They are down a few drinks. They have already brought their inner Jagjit Singh out. Here's what they discuss.\nYour heart is a muscle the size of your fist Keep on loving, keep on fighting And hold on, and hold on Hold on for your life - Ramshackle Glory The one who's in love always wins. It doesn't matter if you get your heart broken.\nYou're living. When you're feeeling, you're alive.\nThe sun doesn't care whether the grass appreciates its rays, it just keeps on shining. - Ethan Hawke 15/02, 2150 hrs Getting featured on the meme channel ... Getting featured on the meme channel with the caption \"generational aura loss\" and a loud \"FAAHHHHH!\" in the background was not on my final year bingo card.\nIt was the season of inter hostel quizzes. One last time to get the best possible points for our Manas hostel. It was the second day of quizzes after we had finished 3rd in both the quizzes on the first day. MELA and Sports quizzes were scheduled for that day along with my topology quiz!\nI was busy studying for the topology quiz in the morning when Shreyansh arrives out of nowhere. \"Bhai, story laga de. Open challenge to all hostels. Sports me apne ko koi nhi hara skta.\" Now, this sounds very cocky but the odds were heavily in our favour. It was confidence, not overconfidence. We posted the stories on our Instagram. But then, of course, the unwanted plot twist. We finished 3rd. By the slimmest of margins. It was four bronze podiums across all four quizzes. T_T By night, the quiz club group chat was brimming with roasts hurled at the three of us. Even alums did not spare us. If that was not enough, someone got it posted on the IITG meme channel. Anyway, a fun story to recall when we get those sudden nostalgia hits years down the line. 2025 04/12, 1115 hrs The group chat got ... The group chat got pretty creative on this one random day, cooking up pornographic movie parodies. Here are some of the good ones. Enjoy ! Edging till Tomorrow Curious Case of Benjamin's Butt In Diana, Jones Fill Bill WhipAss Everything, Everyone All At Once Saving Ryan's Privates The Devil Wears Nothing Monty's Python in the Holy Grail Ben Whore The Pursuit of Happy's Ass 04/10, 1409 hrs A short trip ... A short trip to home and back in four days; felt like a lucid dream. Decision of making this trip was as impulsive as it gets; as expensive as it gets. But fuck the bucks, it was so worth it. Surprising my mom, crashing my friends' get together dinner, garba nights, early morning coffee \u0026 chats. The list is long. Though time went by like a breeze, it certainly felt a lot more than mere four days. A certain episode during this time also made me realise that the universe is way too chaotic, you are in way less control of things around you than you think you are. I guess this is what some people refer to as \"God\". I'd rather prefer the words fate or destiny. I watched Stand by Me last night. Now, I miss my friends. Now, I feel like having some beer at a random pub quiz in London. 31/03, 1608 hrs Whoever coined the word ... Whoever coined the word \"shitfaced\" deserves an award. That is such an accurate depiction of the abysmal state you end up in after a horrible drinking session. I am speaking from personal experience here. I am done with liquor. It's not like I used to drink before. It was my first time, and the experience was anything but pleasurable. The high of losing consciousness and being able to blabber out whatever you want without second thoughts feels great until you find yourself rolling in the sand, puking like hell everywhere, with your head bobbing like a loose, shaky bolt. Keys lost. Clothes and hair muddy. Odour worse than shit. I wanted to get rid of that ragamuffin body, put it in an imaginary giant washing machine, and then wear it again. Thanks to my friends, I ended up in my room, unharmed and still in possession of my phone. I was grateful, but guilty. I would call it a canon event and move off this now. They are right about Drinking is injurious to your health. 24/02, 1930 hrs Live commentary for ... Live commentary for MA373 : Financial Engineering midsem. Yes, this account was actually written during the exam hours. \"I am writing this in the exam hall. Why? Is it because I am done with the paper and they won't let me out? Nah. Long gone are those days. It's been 37 minutes since this exam started and I am overwhelmed by the new vocabulary which I am encountering for the first time in my life.\" Yeah, I didn't study. I hate this course. \"Delta, Gamma, Hedge, at-the-money, forward start, up-and-in. These words play a cacophony in my head as I read through. Where is the math? Is this what this is about; memorising weirdass financial contracts and how they work? The physics paper next to me looks much more inviting; much more mathematical. I suppose I should've majored in physics.\" Actually, their courses do get much more interesting than most of my courses. I remember my friend asking my help on some tutorial problem which required really good application of probability. Physics is cool. Might major in it in some other life. \"I guess it's time to meditate. Yeah, meditate. Meditate as my peers scribble their way through sheets and I just stare into nothing. Helpless. I just realised I have just filled one side of a paper and attempted only of worth 5/30. This is a new low, even by my standards.\" On a serious note, I need to buck up or else I am repeating this course... 19/02, 2135 hrs I write this while I ... I write this while I lay in my sheet-less bed, snuggled well in my blankets. You would've surely played one of those endless runner mobile games like Subway Surfers or Temple Run. For the past 20-30 days, I've been feeling like one of those characters, just running ahead with no one actually chasing. Now, it's not like I've got nothing to do. I want to do a lot of things (by lot, I mean a lottt). Want to read and finish a bunch of novels. Want to read a lot about quantum computation, cryptography, fractals and revive my long dormant blog. However, I just find myself tired and busy playing online blitz chess (I am horrible at it), solving online puzzles, binging shows or the worst of all : doomscrolling. I used to waste time before as well but these days, that's the only thing I am engaged in. Productivity = @|0|@. I find it difficult to find reasons for this mushy phase. Maybe I am just being lazy (like a bear during winters). Maybe because I am approaching the end of my undergraduate life (only 10 more months on this campus) and need a breath of fresh air. Or maybe because the tennis courts are closed... 04/01, 1948 hrs Well the new year ... Well the new year literally started with WTF (atleast for me). I seriously hope that you had a \"happy\" new year. \"Bhai aaj ka kya plan hai?\" was bounced around our hostel with no one actually taking charge and it finally led us to spending the last few hours of 2024 watching the movie \"Agent Sai Srinivas Atreya\" online while stuffing burgers. All of us, sober. The next few days were not that great. The semester hadn't started in full swing and I just passed time doing nothing before I got hit with my seasonal bronchitis. I tried playing tennis but was gassed out in mere 30 minutes. A choking muscular grip tightened my lungs. My mouth wide open taking critical puffs of humid air in. I was down with my lungs sirening a rhythmic roar. I relied on a cocktail of syrups to improve my condition but that only helped me doze off during afternoons and I was left coughing at midnight. It got worse; a single flight of stairs was now enough to bring me to knees. I finally got a necessary dose of nebulization and am following a strict prescription. Hope to recover soon. Watching the third movie of the new year tonight... 2024 08/12, 2035 hrs With this, the 2024 ... With this, the 2024 Formula 1 season comes to an end. :') Supporting the Scuderia was one heck of an experience, and I look forward to more of the \"Holy Shit!\", \"Damn it!!\", \"WTF\", \"Let's fucking go!\" weekends and contemplating my life choices every now and then. We were left just a few points shy of the championship and it does hurt a bit. Leclerc pulled an absolute masterclass in Abu Dhabi and I really want that man to take the Drivers' championship next year. With Lewis coming in, even Contructors' can be ours. I feel sad for Carlos. Him being the P1 of the very first race I watched would always keep him in a special place for me. I wish him the very best of time in Williams (secretly want him to pull an Alain Prost). Well, the F1 lore continues. March awaits. 20/11, 1838 hrs Woh engineering hi kya ... \"Woh engineering hi kya jisme back na lage !!\" Memes like these show up on your Instagram feed. You chuckle a bit, or maybe not, and scroll away with peace, thinking, this won't happen to me. Well, that aged like milk for me. I am on the verge of failing a course this semester. I wrote the final today and for the first time ever, I am unsure of passing a course. There have been courses in previous semesters in which my performance was pitiful but never have I ever been shit scared like I am at the moment. To add to my woes, the supplementary exams are scheduled during the Inter IIT Cultural Meet in which I am supposed to participate in the quizzing event. So what went wrong? In retrospect, I feel that I understood the subject matter well but didn't study before exams and was horrible in execution during tests. My friends believe in me though. Tanush offered me to hedge on my final grade. I hope I lose my money. 28/09, 2334 hrs This amazing Netflix interactive called ... This amazing Netflix interactive called life. Yeah, I might be sounding a bit of a philosopher with this one but I guess one does need these kinds of \"mindpours\" from time to time. (Especially when you don't drink) What if you had a rewind button. At times, my soul goes on pondering about the road not taken. The what ifs?. \"Things could've been so much different\" But I guess this is what makes one feel alive. This uncertainity is what makes life worth living. Yes, we may regret some of our decisions made in the past but then that is what makes us, us. Those mistakes are not inkblots but beautiful strokes on the canvas of your character. The painting is taking shape, let the artist go wild ! 06/08, 2107 hrs It feels so great ... It feels so great to be back on the tennis court. After a period of dormant three months, my racquet was finally out of the cover. The internship season had driven me crazy. My entire summer was spent in front of the screen, either of TV or my laptop. Ahmedabad heat restricted my outings to a few. I was not able to get together with my friends until the very last day, that too with an excuse of giving a company's test together (we didn't cheat). After numerous tests, 1 waitlist and 3 shortlists, I finally made it to the other side (the sorted side). \"Your game looks really rusty\", said the newly joined fresher. My shots were going anywhere but within the lines; even launched one over the newly installed meshes. I was pissed with my game, but was extemely grateful about the opportunity to play after such a long time. Made me realise that we, humans, take so many little things for granted. 11/06, 1410 hrs Just finished watching Love ... Just finished watching Love, Death + Robots on Netflix. Here is the first tierlist I ever made in my life (because why not ;D) Not the best use of your summer break time but I was not able to help it... 24/03, 1145 hrs F1 is sick ... F1 is sick ! Yeah, even I am now part of the bandwagon of mad people enjoying “superfast cars going around in circles”. To be honest, that was what I thought about the sport earlier and I guess everyone off the grid shares the same notion. But we (F1 followers) know that the reality speaks different. I just spent 90 minutes of my Sunday morning watching the Australian GP and boy was it not worth it. Verstappen retiring in 3rd Lap, both the Mercedes’ crashing out, Sainz getting P1 after recovering from an apendicitis operation. . . Now, I am seriously looking forward to the next races. I am just new to the game so haven’t really picked a side to be loyal to but I guess I will be rooting for Ferrari this season. I hate it when a single player dominates the sport (The Joker, iykyk) 23/02, 1950 hrs Tomorrow is my Real Analysis midsem ... Tomorrow is my Real Analysis midsem which is 25% of my grade and am seriously under prepared. Probably not the best time to write on your blog but here I am. It seems that I am the worst when it comes to sorting one’s priorities. Maybe, the reason of this is the fact that I have to study “real analysis”. I have a love-hate relationship with pure mathematics. I mean I seriously enjoyed the lectures we had (though I didn’t get half of what the prof was talking about) because they were mentally stimulating and fascinating at times, but I guess the abstract nature of the subject is not my thing. My bad. As of now, looks like the second cipher of the semester is on my way ;) ","permalink":"https://u-d-ash.github.io/Bloggo/konton/","summary":"2026 24/03, 1907 hrs Two mfs walking down ... Two mfs walking down the streets of IIT Guwahati.\nThey have been unlucky in love since forever. They are down a few drinks. They have already brought their inner Jagjit Singh out. Here's what they discuss.\nYour heart is a muscle the size of your fist Keep on loving, keep on fighting And hold on, and hold on Hold on for your life - Ramshackle Glory The one who's in love always wins.","title":"પંચાત"}]