After a long long time, I’ve finally had the time to post. First, the submissions held me back from posting. Then Jensen accidentally installed a virus on my laptop, rendering it useless. By the time I fixed it, it was Diwali and my house was filling up with relatives and friends everyday and blogging in their presence can only be described as uberlame.

Anyway, before I begin I’d like to mention some things. Firstly, read the entire post. I’ve added interesting GPS links in some places. I’ve also created 2 albums on Facebook sorted in chronological order, so check them out in order instead of viewing random photographs. And finally, please comment on this post or on the pictures on Facebook.

Day #1 : 15-Oct (Departure from Dadar T.T.)

It was pretty chaotic at Dadar T.T at 8.30pm. The train was scheduled for 9.30pm. I reached on time there and found half the people already in their respective coaches and the other half just roaming around and buying stuff for the journey (chips, water, playing cards). Inderveer, Sandesh and Vineet were ensuring that everyone had arrived and everybody else was pouncing on them to request a change in their seats.

I wasn’t happy with my seat in S1 (don’t even get started on the reservation process) and I wanted to be somewhere in S6 or S7. Luckily, I could trade my seat with another in S3 and that got me a little closer to my eventual goal. After all, spending 24 hours in a train isn’t a piece of cake.

I met Ashwini, Binsy and Gang and decided to park my luggage with them. Now that my luggage was secure, I could afford to move towards S6 and S7. I went there and tried to find familiar faces and spoke to people for a little while. When I left S7, I saw inderveer and I informed him about my seat change. At the same time, the train started and so both of us ran and managed to get on the train.

Being in 2nd Class Reserved Compartment for the first time, I had no idea about the guys who travel on RAC (Reserved against Cancellation) tickets. These guys took up the enter aisle and slept out there. I had to manoeuvre around them every time I wanted to roam around. I noticed that there were no ’aisle-occupants’ in S5-S8 which made sense as the AC compartments were after S8 and the General Unreserved compartment was before S1.

Being the first day night of the trip, nobody slept in the train, except some of the staff members. That made it very difficult for us to play pranks on people that night, but no worries, everyone was down and out by 9-10 am the next day . The usual trouble-makers were also present. There was one man who kept on standing next to the girls and kept staring at them. Later, he was joined by 2 more people but we managed to throw them off to another coach and let somebody else handle them.

Inderveer and me used to get off on almost every station thinking that the train would stop for about 2 minutes (as mentioned in the schedule) but had to run back to catch the train every time as it hardly waited for 30 seconds. No complaints though, it was fun. It was even more awesome to walk on a platform where we were the only ones on it.

What sucked about the train was that there were no sockets to charge cell phones and so it became pretty clear that by the time we would reach Bangalore, everyone would have dead batteries.

The night was fun and almost everyone stuck to their seats and socialized with the people around them because of the RAC guys, and hence got to know them pretty well.

Day #2 : 16-Oct (Mugged by a Eunuch plus Arrival at Bangalore)

In the morning, every RAC guy was up, so it was relatively easy to move around. The rest of the day was again spent in talking to different people and playing antaakshiri (especially the I.T. guys). Some people stopped playing cards when they heard that Ashish was fined 100 bucks for playing cards in the train.

An hour before noon, we had one of the weirdest experiences ever and everyone from XIE was affected. A transsexual entered my coach (S3) and started begging for money. I was playing cards with Inderveer, Bhavesh and Ashwini and Gang. We made the mistake of assuming that he/she/it was begging, not realizing that he/she/it was demanding money from us. He/She/It started touching us (yes, whatever filthy thought you’re having, that’s what happened ) and asked for cash. Someone had the balls to say that he didn’t have change to which he/she/it replied: "It’s okay. Give me notes and I’ll give you change"

I had over 1K in my wallet and for obvious reasons I didn’t want to take it out. Unfortunately, he/she/it wasn’t gonna let me go unless I gave some cash. I told he/she/it that my wallet was in S8 to which she responded: "Fine, let’s go to S8." . I would have gone to S8 with her, but the cops and the T.C. had conveniently disappeared at the time so I decided to stay put. Luckily for me, I remembered that I got 10 bucks as change for buying tomato soup and I had kept it in my pocket. I gave that to he/she/it and relieved myself of being potentially sexually abused. The girls freaked out too but she refused to take cash saying that: "I don’t take money from girls." . Obviously, some man had ruined her life in her past. Inderveer flipped out when he/she/it started to touch him and he payed 10 bucks too. After watching Inderveer lose it, everybody else lost hope too and payed. I told Inderveer to remove the Kirpaan and use it as self-defense but he said it takes a while to take it out from the cover kept under his shirt.

Anyway, being the freakass I am, I followed her as she walked towards the other compartments and I witnessed some shocking moments:

• Harshad being slapped left, right, center (literally) and having his nose pulled.
• A 1 buck coin thrown back at the guy who gave it. (Weirdly, she took a 2 buck coin)
• Saw people freak out and run in the opposite direction LOL. Some people got off at the platform and got in the previous coach.
• Saw people being touched a lot more than us, and they payed 50 and 100 bucks.
• He/She/It flashed in front of Gilroy, Neil and gang.

After a while, I got bored and returned. Later I heard that he/she/it was playing antaakshiri with the staff. I couldn’t believe it and I dashed straight to S8 where the staff were staying. I asked Meera Ma’am and she confirmed the news and even added that he/she/it danced for a little while. WTF!!!!!

The day continued as usual, with people clicking pictures of themselves and the awesome countryside that we were passing through. We reached Yashwantpur at around 8pm and were transported to our hotel (TAP Gold Crest) in a super-huge, slick bus. Twenty minutes later, we were there. The Hotel was awesome, it had clean and spacious rooms, noiseless AC, LCD TVs and even Wi-Fi Routers which offered free Internet Connectivity at 512 Kbps.

We had dinner, made a few prank calls (Hi, I’m calling from the reception…blah…blah..), watched TV, had a long chat with the room-mates and slept. Oh yeah, out here only two people shared a room adding to the sleeping comfort (I meant space-wise you perverts )

Day #3 : 17-Oct (Industrial Visit)

We had to wake up at 6am as our bus was leaving at 7-7.30 am for the industrial visit. Everyone had dressed in formals for this day. (As for me, Jeans and shirt tucked out is how I roll).

The gang was split up and sent to different industries. Computers and IT went to ITI, Bangalore while EXTC went to Titan Watch Factory in Hosur, Tamil Nadu (They have interesting incidents to narrate about the problems they faced while moving from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu).

ITI was amazing, to say the least. Our tour guide was amazing, he showed us everything right from the mechanical assembling to the electrical and electronic part where we saw how the components on their custom mother-boards were placed on-the-fly, soldered and tested automatically on a mini assembly line.

The guys visiting Titan also had fun watching the intricacies involved in making a watch.

ITI and Titan visits took too much time and hence we had to cancel our visit to Earthquake Research Centre, so me moved to our next spot: IISc, Bangalore.

The campus of IISc is very calm, spacious and peaceful and we had lunch on their insect infested garden/lawns. We then entered the section of Advanced Computing and one of the professors was our guide. To our surprise, he started telling us about the study programmes offered there. He told us that there was a 2 year course and was listing subjects in each semester, to which everyone gave a WTF look. He then took us to two students who were working on a project and they started telling us what they were doing and boasted throughout. (They were working on something where a TV could play media from a laptop wirelessly…poor fools didn’t realize there’s already a way to accomplish this) I was too bored to point out their flaws (thanks to the prof) so I just walked out of the building. To my surprise, I was joined by 30 other people and we walked back to the bus. It was then I realized why a friend of mine told me "never to visit an educational institution for a IV".

The others who stayed on saw a computer which used 8-16 processors in parallel. The prof then told them that "today’s desktop computers are faster than this, but this one uses processors in parallel." . Hmm…

I was looking for an area where people were working on Distributed Computing but sadly I couldn’t find one. So much for Advanced Computing.

By the time we reached the bus, the EXTC bus returned from Hosur and we wished them luck for the boredom that lies ahead for them. After they were done, we moved straight to Mysore.

The Bus journey was fun. We were all seated on the last 3 rows and were playing an addictive card game called "Asshole" which was claimed to be created by Ashish himself. I didn’t care who took the credit, it was so addictive that we played for 4 hours straight till we reached SK Continental, our Mysore Hotel.

We knew the Hotel sucked beforehand, but this one set a new standard far below our already low expectations. One window had a huge beehive, the rooms were so-so, food was terrible and water was really hard. I set off to find a store to buy a bottle of water and came across a few beggars. Those guys kicked me when I didn’t give them money and got a friend of mine on the balls for doing the same.

That’s something that sucks about Bangalore and Mysore. Their beggars aren’t as ahem…well-behaved (lol) as those in Mumbai.

The same night we got complaints from many rooms reporting Bed Bugs. This pissed off Prakash Sir (esp. since he was also a victim) and after making a few calls, we decided to leave for Bangalore on the next day itself (According to our itinerary, we were supposed to spend an entire day in Mysore).

Day #4 : 18-Oct (Sights and Sounds in Mysore)

The next day we left for sight-seeing and saw Chamundi Temple, Mysore Palace, Nandi, Sandal Handicraft Shops, St. Phelomena’s Church and Brindavan Gardens (yeah, we saw the light show) in order. Only 7 of us took a boat ride at Brindavan Gardens. Nobody knew about it I guess.

We then left Mysore and headed straight towards TAP Gold Crest Hotel, Bangalore. Once there, we had dinner and hit the beds. This time around, rooms had to be shared by three students.

Day #5 : 19-Oct (Sights and Shocks in Bangalore)

Since we had nothing planned for the morning (We contacted Earthquake research centre, but they were busy) we were allowed to go wherever we wanted until 1.30pm. As usual, the Bangalore auto-rickshaw drivers love to fool tourists and so they told everyone that only one mall was open and everyone else went there only to realize that it was the lamest mall ever. I had friends in Bangalore so I called ’em up to find out that Garuda Mall would be a decent location to hang out. We took two autos to the place and again as usual, rickshaw-drivers never run by the meter. Once we reached, the rickshaw charged us 120 bucks. We couldn’t believe he was charging us that much and since I spotted a cop nearby, I walked towards him. What follows next is the exact word-to-word conversation I had with the cop.

Me: (Knowing fully well how South Indians refuse to help when asked in Hindi) "Excuse me sir, I had taken a rickshaw from Minerva Circle to here and he is charging me 120 Rupees. Is that fair? (pun unintended)"

Cop: "I don’t know anything. Ask somebody else."

Me: "Huh? You’re a Cop. Could you speak to the driver at least?"

Cop: "I don’t know anything about rickshaw prices. Go ask someone else."

Me: "Okay, Fuck you then." (He was only willing to help if I asked in Kannada).

(If you find my dialogue inappropriate or offensive in spite of the amount of help I was offered by the cop, you Sir, are a complete retard)

I had heard a lot before about South Indian guys being stubborn and adamant about speaking their language but I never believed it until I had this experience. Nobody dares to complain to the government about this, but when something even of a smaller magnitude happens in Maharashtra, people start talking about their rights and crap. Unfortunately, unlike South Indian states, Maharashtra doesn’t show the finger when such issues are raised, it listens and the media/people take advantage of this.

Yeah sorry, I kinda drifted off topic. The incident was more putrid because it was a cop (a ’law-enforcer’) who refused help to a non-Kannada speaking person.

Anyway, luck was in my favour. As I walked back towards the rickshaw, the driver thought the cop was going to intervene and he immediately agreed to accept a fare of 50 bucks. (which was still too much, but what the hell)

We bought a few electronic peripherals as they were slightly cheaper here and ate at the food court.

For the return journey we were pretty firm with the rickshaw drivers and got back 40 bucks poorer.

Once back, we had lunch, boarded the bus and started our sight-seeing journey which concluded with Iskcon Temple. Here’s a tip for Bald Guys who plan on visiting Iskcon Temple, wear a cap at all times.

When I walked inside the temple, I was continuously pestered by monks who incessantly asked me to join the Hare Krishna Club or something like that. Usually I would’ve shown the finger or uttered a profanity but hey, I was talking to monks in a temple so a simple Thank You seemed appropriate.

As I kept exploring the temple, more monks kept annoying me until I wore my cap. At least one monk had the decency to ask me if I was from Bangalore, but the rest were annoying as hell.

It was a huge, beautiful and crowded temple and getting out in less than half an hour is almost impossible. I was one of the last few to make it back to the bus, and we moved towards Bangalore City railway station to board Udyan Express and conclude our trip.

Some of us who were on RAC for the return journey finally got confirmed tickets and although we didn’t get the seats we wanted, it was still a confirmed ticket. Besides, we could always switch seats with people later on.

The night journey was smooth.

Day #6 : 20-Oct (The Point of No Return)

Udyan Express took a different route compared to Chalukya Express and there were no miscreants on the way other than one dude who kept looking to flick some loose luggage. Luckily, we told the cops and they took care of him.

As we reached Lonavala and Pune, we could see that nobody wanted to return home. We took pictures of all of us together for the last time in this trip.

Some people got off at Kalyan, the majority at Dadar while the tiny minority got off at CST (including me). The CST crowd consisted mostly of those residing in Vasai who took a taxi to Churchgate and went home in relative comfort. Most of us were back by 8.30 – 9 pm.

Day #6 : 20-Oct (Back to our Mundane lives)

Submissions start in full swing and PCT Presentations begun and it kept us working to such an extent that we almost forgot the amount of fun we had in the IV. It also explains why I couldn’t write this post at that time.

The Missing Content

As you may or may not know, the IV was also loaded with interesting incidents of people fighting for rooms of their choice for obvious reasons and the like. People had fun and even fuddled beyond their capacities but unlike the B.E. students, these guys kept everything hush-hush, just the way it should be. Nice.

Here’s the additional stuff:

Prank Victims of the IV (Must See)

My Album of Bangalore/Mysore Pictures in Chronological Order (Please watch in sequence)

GPS Log Entire Journey from Bangalore Hotel to IISc Bangalore (with pictures)

GPS Log Portion of return Train Journey near Shahabad (with pictures)

GPS Log Midnight Walk near Bangalore Hotel (with pictures)

GPS Log Journey to ITI, Bangalore

GPS Position of TAP Gold Crest Hotel, Bangalore

GPS Log Bus Journey from Yashwantpur station to TAP Gold Crest Hotel

GPS Log Rickshaw Ride to Garuda Mall from Bangalore Hotel

GPS Log Portion of Bus Journey from Mysore to Bangalore

GPS Log Portion of Train Journey on way to Bangalore (currently at Londa)

GPS Log Portion of Bus Journey in Mysore

GPS Log Walking nearby Mysore Hotel

I’ll keep adding additional content and pictures from time to time.

Enjoy this post, and please add your comments.