The trip to Amrita was amazing! It was truly an event to be present at, and hence I logged it all :P
So here's the log, present day by day, written on the spot! (It starts from day 2, and there's nothing for the return journey either, but the rest is right there)
Day II - Bangalore City
As you enter bangalore city (en route to Bangalore City Junction), the first signs that you've reached are the skyscrapers. There they are, amidst dense tree-growths, somewhere on the outskirts, high rising skyscrapers. And after the 40 hour journey, the sight is a relief you can't imagine. The four of us just sat there, looking out the window, as the city slowly began unraveling itself. A few things you notice as you look into the first view are that you've begun seeing coconut trees. The next, is the buildings. There are so many colors on the buildings that it's amazing. You'll see vivid colors of blue, green, orange, yellow, red, brown, etc. which make the city look so beautiful at first sight. Next, as Ankit pointed out, the city looks very organised. The first sights of the city really pump you up and give you a nice feeling inside.
We reached the station perfectly on time, and then I and the rest separated, because I went to my Uncle's place and Ramjot, Ankit and GG went over to the guest house they had booked. You'll have to find out what they did on the day from them, because there was minimal interaction between us during the day.
So there I was, leaving the station in my car, and the thought that really struck me was, "Welcome to the Indian Silicon Valley". It's a feeling so marvelous, you wanna smile all the time. This city is the place to be if you've got plans to really go far in my field. The roads are well built, and there are cars of all sizes, so for the first 15 minutes it was almost as if I was still in Delhi, apart from the perfect weather of course. Bangalore is a little hot (around noon) for my liking, but that's about all I can say against it so far. You finally start feeling that you're not in Delhi once you hit the road signs. Telegu and English! Somehow, the people are surely a tad darker, but on the main road, you really couldn't tell that you were in South India till you read the signs. Then the South Indian feel begins to settle in. Along the road, you'll see a coconut stand every now and then (at least along the routes that I took). I saw the High court of Bangalore, and across the street was the Vidhan Sauda (or Sabha, kind of obvious). The place is crafted like a temple. In fact, I'd say it's crafted much better than many of the temples I've seen, and it looks absolutely royal. It's the sort of palace that you read about in stories where the grandest of kings would stay. They've cloned the main Sabha for another office right next to it, and the two buildings together look awesome together.
There's a lake as you continue along the road, where the army has it's mess, along with several other associations. Apparently the army often has boating events (races), drills, etc. in the lake. Finally, when I reached my Uncle's home, it felt a bit like I was in Gurgaon, what with the high rising towers and flats. The offices of various companies here are awe-inspiring. The buildings have taken that futuristic look that you see in Star Wars, minus the floating fountains or the aliens or the lightsabers. If I work in a place like these offices, I'm sure I wouldn't mind becoming the workaholic that IIIT-D is turning us into. The buildings really make you feel like you've stepped into a place of cutting-edge technology (I'm sure that there wasn't any such technology in there, it's just that the architects have done a really cool job with the colour schemes and the designs).
After I entered the house, well, there's the normal everyday life going on, you meet your relatives, smile/laugh/tell jokes, eat, sleep, go out for lunch (the markets here are pretty gorgeous, but nothing really new about it, and I unfortunately didn't go to any malls, so I've got nothing interestingly new to say about that), sleep some more, game a little, and get through the day in a homely manner. And then came evening, when I had to leave the city to go to Coimbatore. I got dropped off at the station where the rest of the guys and I met up, and we moved forward in our journey, on the Gareeb Rath to Coimbatore. The only regret I have is not staying in Bangalore longer, because I'm dead sure that I would have loved at least another couple of days of watching how the city has made itself so pretty and so majestic, even while you can eat daavs on the roadside at almost every corner.
Day 3 - Entering Coimbatore
There's something very interesting about the Garib Rath. It's not as bad as the name sounds; it's actually much better in quality than the Rajdhani. Maybe it's the new carriages (produced somewhere in Punjab, as instantly pointed out by Ramjot), maybe it's the colours (orange :O) or maybe just the crowd we met in the train (sure, there were a lot of semi-nude South Indian pandits, but that's not what I'm talking about... The people in South India are actually very friendly, contrary to popular warnings). Either way, the AC was much more powerful than the Rajdhani, and we ended up repenting not having blankets to keep us warm through the journey. I slept for most of the journey, but eventually woke up to have a nice sesssion of RON with Ramjot (2v3 Easy, we won, mind you)(showed great progress from Ramjot in the game, he didn't get PwneD instantaneously, but instead actually defended his "Space Program") (OMG, yes, Ramjot built that!) with about a dozen fighter jets (Yes, OMG^2, he built airbases) and annihilated one of the players to a great extent. Sure, he needed a little help in taking over the capital, but baby steps, please!). We finally went out of the coach to stan in the warm 'middle areas', leaving GG to freeze his feet off while we discussed how Ramjot used to think all the trains go to Ludhiana (he actually did, you can ask him XD).
Eventually we took our baggage and stood in this middle area for quite some time, and the cool Coimbatore air was simply wonderful. Coimbatore station was pretty decent, and we made our way to the pickup car, and then the institute in about 45 minutes. The institute is grand. Amritapuri can certainly boast about it's large campus, and the well managed status of the hostels and the buildings. We failed to see any lacking in their' hospitality, as we were allotted a room and went off to sleep (again). The best thing about the day was definitely the food. I was looking forward to a South Indian experience, and I was not dissapointed. It was delicious, and all of us overate in all the meals. The only things that we needed and couldn't get our hands on was an internet connection, for our "cheat sheet". We were able to get over it after GG lost a lot of his balance (unforunately, it wasn't too much to begin with, but he still had 3 bucks left, w00t). On the other hand, we lost miserably in RON in a 3v2 moderate, i.e. Me+GG+Killer v/s 2 Mod Comp. Maybe it's a little sad, but that's what happened. And then we noobed a little more in trying to convert the pdf into a file with our team name, etc. In the end, we were forced to just write this info by pen (sad)(Yes, we were the ones who went to ICPC for "Nationals" o.O).
The night ended with a triple-threat match, me v/s GG v/s Killer. Not joking, really. The winner : None. Me and GG were in a stalemate, losing our entire armies on each other, and we realised that Killer could do some serious damage, so both of us took a ceasefire and took Killer out of the picture. Then, after waves and waves of attacks from GG and defense from me, which ended in both our armies being obliterated almost completely, we decided that neither of us was going to win the match, and hence the draw (poor Killer got slaughtered in the middle for no reason... poor guy).
Day 4 - The semi-live
The morning began with us oversleeping, almost missing out on our breakfast o.O
Apart from that, there was the registration (iiitdx is missing 2 members and ocxorg is missing 1? How overconfident) (Varun was to arrive later today), the ICPC inaugural ceremony (even the teachers in the front row fell asleep during this one, literally) and then the first semi-live. Ramjot decided he preferred bathing over the semi-live (yes, we ARE giving nationals here folks!) but luckily Gandhi arrived just in time for the semi-live. The two of us gave the semi-live, and came in at rank 28, and we were (literally) not even trying. That gave us something of a basic morale boost, so we decided to celebrate. We checked out a new canteen (cheap stuff here, really!) and scouted the basic region (me and Gandhi have a pretty decent Radar system together, and uptil now I didn't have anyone to scout with hence my radar was for the most part unused). The definition Gandhi gave for the campus life (basically our targets) has to be censored for public view, but the fact is true : the potential in this campus was basically crossing the DQ threshold.
Unabashed by the complete lack of P&E, we decided on a target, and eventually (and without any stalking, Scout's honor) we narrowed in and made "The Move" (Ooooooh!). Ankit, GG and Ramjot were completely supportive, declaring that we would make fools of ourselves, get slapped, etc. but Gandhi managed to bag a phone number within half an hour (OMG) which established that we were not as lost we thought we could be. Plus after some basic plans for the next day, we bade them goodnight, returning to the boys hostel to meditate on the recent happenings and it's consequences. Also, we had some daav (Rs. 8/- per)(told you it was cheap) which had a lot of malai in them plus we got internet access for a few hours over WiFi, so I managed to catch up a bit on RuneScape :).
The night ended with our ceremonial RON match, 3v2 Moderate, and we lost (again) but our performance had improved to a great extent and we realised how we could defeat the computer the next time around. Then we decided to turn in; the final live is tomorrow! :O
Day 5 - ACM ICPC
We woke up an hour or so before the competition, got ready, put on our contestant shirts and went over to the Labs for the competition, a little fired up for it. Long story cut short, we solved 5 questions, out of which 3 gave us TLE and one gave us "Wrong solution" even though the logic we used was the same as the one given in the solution later. Argh! We got the fricking logic right, we got it working in the test cases... What more can you ask for?
Anyway, it was around 3:30 into the competition (5 hours total) that we were so frustrated we sort of sunk into irony and depression at the complete lack of a freaking decent submission. With hindsight, I think we did pretty well anyway, seeing as we still performed better than many here, and FU, we made it to nationals, FTW!!
The rest of the day was spent in trying to get over the performance, drinking daav and playing RON. The team without the coach or any formal training, sitting the room going nuts. And we eventually felt pretty okayish, so it's all good. The experience counts, blah blah blah. And next year, things will be different (feels good to say that XD). Ooty trip starts at 4:30 in the morning so we're not gonna sleep tonight, and we'll probably sleep tomorrow/in the Rajdhani day after.
And the food is still freaking awesome, so are the Daavs!
Day 6 - Ooty :)
We didn't sleep the night, and made our way to the bus (dark o.O). Eventually everyone nodded off to sleep (excluding me for as long as I remember)(Duh, then I nodded off too). We woke up for breakfast, in a nice little clearing surrounded by palms and coconut trees. And people "downloading" (Ask Ankit) in-between them. We had daav (yes, again) (I could be addicted >.<) and as a result the horde followed us (we boosted the local economy!) :). Then followed another few hours of sleeping in the bus, when we realized we were off-course and we wouldn't make it to the promised waterfall, so we just took the first boating site we could and rested there for an hour. Ramjot had a little war with members of some local clan (they belonged to the local monkey community and were calling Ramjot the outlander, and he expressed his superiority in their' own language, with actions that they could understand perfectly) (The little monkeys were left gaping in awe, ask GG or Ankit to confirm, this is NOT a lie :O). Oh and we didn't pay at the pay-and-use restroom, much to the delight of Ramjot (saved 2 bucks!!!)(party!!!). Captain Ramjot steered our boat, and we (somehow) made it alive out of the waters with quite a few good pics.
Next came some spot where a lot of movies had been shot (you could see Rajnikanth's footsteps in the grass) and we took a load of beautiful pictures there. We went to a high spot and then ran all the way down a hill sliding lefwards, trying our best to not run headfirst into some trees (Rajnikanth had used them for stunts and now they would never break). We just managed to keep somewhat on track speeding downhill while avoiding the obstacle course (courtesy local horses). That run was something one should definitely experience at least once in their' life.
We had lunch next, at a local hotel, and then went to the botanical gardens. These gardens were a truly awe-inspiring sight, with such wonderous and colored trees that we stopped and clicked most of them. The trees were huge, with trunks so big you could fit Peter's entire band in them and have room left for Tink (That's peter pan and tinker-bell for the under-privileged). It was really beautiful there, a perfect spot to come to for relaxing your stress away. Then we returned to our buses, and were taken to Coimbatore city, and left free to have dinner. After dinner we returned to the hostel for our last night and last games of RON and Endwar in this campus (at least for this year).
Day 7 - The Beginning of the End
I got up at around 6:15, oversleeping by more than an hour (guess that's what happens when you stay up about 2 hours later than planned O.O). The cab was expected at 6:20, and if I didn't do any of my "Freshening up" it was unlikely to get a chance for the next 48 hours or so (Jejus!)(Yes, I didn't really need to say that, but you bet I wanted to XD). Everyone hurriedly got ready, and we were downstairs, searching for the Taxi which should have been leaving about 15-20 minutes earlier. And there it was : the complete lack of a taxi! Our train ws due to leave at 8, mind you, and we had no conveyance. There began one of the most interesting covert operations I have ever been on in my life. Ankit quickly took the role of scout, and found the warden (who was, interestingly, picking flowers next to a "Do not pluck the flowers" board at 6:55 in the morning). Luckily, he quickly called for a taxi, and two minutes later we notice a taxi coming up. We quickly took it, and sighed with relief (wait for it) till we reached the institute gate. Now here's an interesting fact : Just at the institute gate there is a train track, with a roadblock. Murphy decided to get all "I told you to always be prepared" and had the block come down just as we reached the gates. Still not satisfied, he also gives the rear-wheel of the taxi a flat. The driver noticed it when some (faggy) b**** comes up and points it out. Out came a stepney and a jack : he was gonna change the wheel! We're late, and this driver is gonna change wheels! Witless, we were waiting there till another taxi comes up from behind and tells us that he was called by the warden. I silently tell Ankit to start off, and Ankit instantly starts of with "Yes! Yes! Warden!" and climbs out the car. We all get down, and abandon ship asap with luggage into the new taxi. I had no idea whether this was the correct taxi, but we had a taxi and a way to the station. The block rose just as we settled into the new taxi, and I began to tell the driver to rush as fast as possible. Luckily, it seemed that the new driver was very helpful, or that he really liked NFS. Either way, we rushed at top speed (for a Maruti van) to the railway station. We made it there at 7:57 for a train that left at 8:00, with no idea about the platform to go to and no way to talk to the people around (Tamil/Hindi/English barriers). The first thing that came to my mind, as the cab entered the railway station entrance was, "Guys, welcome to real life Black Ops. Missions starts now!". We all jumped out of the car the second it came close to a halt, and got our stuff and literally ran. Ankit (scout, remember) quickly deciphered that the station was the 3rd, and we ran at full speed to reach and climb the train. An early morning with IIITD students : NFS and Black Ops :P.
Within the train, the first attendant who came to us addressed Ramjot first, saying "Paaji, tussi kitthe jaa rahe ho?". My eyes nearly popped out of my head, and then the rest of us burst out laughing. We ate dosas and Idlis for breakfast, then I went off to sleep for most of the remainder of the journey.
Most of the stuff after this was pretty basic : we didn't have any usable restrooms for the next 48 hours or so, but we managed to learn how to defeat 3v4 Tough Computer in RON, and we played games to take our minds off our bodies (which were demanding quite a few things, and were denied)(Yeah, you definitely didn't wanna hear that XD).
We finally reached Delhi, and from there made our respective ways home, bringing to an end the trip that we had been awaiting for so long.
