XYZ of Trust and Betrayal

Have you ever been betrayed? Has anyone ever broken your trust? Have you ever confided into someone who gave you away? Has anyone been leaking your precious secrets?

Maybe yes. Or maybe you never came to know. Or maybe you always overlooked it due to some vague reason. Trust, faith, hope and consistency are just four words in the English dictionary but I guess the four corners of the square that completes your confidence in a person – may it be family or friend. I’m not much of a mathematician but I inferred something from what all I have studied. Life is like mathematics:

Step 1: We trust someone for the first time. Why? No reason. It’s an assumption which will be proved correct or contradicted according to the variables involved.

Step 2: Now that you have assumed you trust the person, you have faith in the person. And yes you tell your secrets and ask your questions. You assume you are sure that the person can be trusted and you have faith in him/her.

Step 3: All right..! Hit and trial sure does work here too. You do a little back bitching about the person and interpret the reactions. Either ways your final solution is not much affected. So hit and trial is just to validate step 2. Move ahead. Ok. You assumed you trust the person and hence in turn you have faith in him/her. (One concept yet to be introduced in mathematics is – emotions). You now hope that the person will not contradict your assumptions. This is an important step and cannot be overlooked. So you take your time and observe the persons behavior.

Step 4: Life may be like mathematics, but I must remind you that the time taken to solve the problem is totally different in both cases. So assuming you have spent considerable amount of your time in completing the above steps, you encountered some fallacies. A tool called self judgment is used here. Being professional students I expect you all to have well developed brains and know how to use it (and I would not be wasting any time to explain the same). So you use this tool to interpret the fallacies. Once you are satisfied and agree to proceed, you can finally see that you are closer to the solution.

Step 5: If you have successfully completed the steps then you can confidently say that there is consistency between you and the person above mentioned in the problem. Congratulations. You get an A grade in life problems.

Ha.! If only that were so simple. Till step 3 everything is smooth. Come the step 4, yes there comes the fallacies. You thought that the variables are just variables. Ha ha. Yes they sure are variables but alive and walking variables just like you, each having an individual set of brain to further complicate your already complex problem. Step 3 was not as helpful as thought. You back bit remember. Like you are solving the problem for some person similarly some person is solving their problem where you are the ‘person’. There you go. Once they reach their step 3, there is stuff about you (fake or true) spreading like wild fire. Though fake or true was mentioned in brackets, it is the most significant thing in the previous line. Iff the wild fire is fake you can proceed like before and be fortunate enough to reach step 5. Again congrats!
But wait. If it is true, you know who did it. Correct.! Here the results from the ‘self judgment’ are not so pleasing. Your assumptions are totally contradicted and as it is said “tera to katta ho gaya”. For this situation there is another step:

Recovery step: Forgive.! Try again. Maybe you screwed up the solution.
Nah…! I would never go for the recovery step. Or would I? Should I.?

Finally I would say you are the judge of yourself. And you are the student and teacher of this problem of yours. There will not be any mentor solving this for you. But if you are damn sure about the solution then just take a deep breath and say “It’s life man, had to happen.!” Forget it and move on. If it’s tough to move on, don’t worry time never stops - it will make you move on.

That’s what I call the X.Y.Z’s of Trust and Betrayal….!

First Robotics (out of station) trip - (29th-5th Jan 08)

Our experience in IIT-Kgp was one of the most amazing and lovely one ever. It is the first time I ever went on a trip alone all by myself. This trip meant a lot to me. I started of with a partial fever and bad health. But the care and support of our seniors and of course the chilled cold drinks (reverse treatment) cured me completely.
In Kgp (not to brag) we were the only team amidst the first years who could qualify the prelims. So once qualified we moved on to further show everyone what we were made of. We qualified into the top 16 then knock out matches narrowed down to top 8 then top 4 and then finally top 2. We came 2nd in this event. The event was a nail biting one. Final round was a best of three round and we gave our best. It was amazing.
Day wise program:

Day 1 (29th Jan 08):

We left from New Delhi Railway station at 10:35pm. I had 100F fever all night and next day morning too. Food from home was apt and supplies were good.

Day 2 (30th Jan 08):

Morning was chilly. We are still in the train. 4th yr senior’s home town is crossed. Supplies refilled. Day was long. Journey was tiring. Still fever was bad. I tried to act normal. At night we were sleeping and suddenly were woken up because Kgp station had come. We packed in a hurry and were lucky to get off the train in time.
In the Kgp campus it took lots of time to get accommodation and once we got it, we settled ourselves and slept in peace.

Day 3 (31st Jan 08):

Day was free. Registration for respective events was going on. We realized that campus was BIG and we had to walk a lot to the vikramshila – place where the robotics events were being held. Entire day was spent in fixing and assembling our robots. We ate in a small dhaba which was good. Night was late because our practice time slot was really late.

Day 4 (1nd Feb 08):

The day has come. Our first prelims event was held today. We were partially scared and excited. All those mixed emotions and the pressure was emanating from us. With lots of courage we completed the event in a very decent time limit. We qualified the event with pride and entered the top 16 out of 100 participants. Next day was not going to be easy. Competition was tough (I mean that’s what we thought at this point). Anyways we slept early.

Day 5 (2nd Feb 08):

Event was to be held at 9am but as usual it got delayed. At 1pm we finally presented our robots on the arena and wow!! the event was amazing. We cleared the event in a very short time and with great perfection. We were happy. We went back to our room to change and freshen up. But alas! Something had to happen. We qualified in to the top 8 and I received a phone call that our event is now and if we did not come in 2 minutes the other team would get a walk over. Like mad dogs we ran to the arena and were in time. But no, this was not enough. The structure to be built was a surprise one and man it didn’t seem easy. We thought that this was going to be our last event, so with lots of confidence (negative) we performed. As they say “best bot has to win”… We qualified into the top 4 and this was finally enough for today. This night we did not sleep as we were trying to improve our robots. I slept for 2 hours.

Day 6 (3rd Feb 08):

The semi-finals and the finals were held today. In this event we had all the JIIT participants at our arena giving us amazing support. Some luck was with us and our opponent robot’s wheels dismantled and yippeeee!! We got into the finals. The finals were held right after the semi’s. We had to build a structure and the structure whose height was greater won. The round was a best of 3 round. We won the first the opponents won the second. And oh my god the event was getting better. There was shouting, screaming and our fingers were getting sweaty. We placed a block they placed a block we placed another so did they. Damn! It was so close. We almost won. But… eh!! They took this one.
This was the one and only match we lost in the entire event. But we were happy. We jumped with joy that we won at IIT-Kgp. It was amazing. Our shirts were filled with graffiti from our beloved friends and seniors. We call it “college ka pyar”. We roamed around a bit. Saw the campus and slept early.

Day 7 (4th Feb 08):

Early in the morning we got up and got ready for the station because we had to catch a train for delhi from hawrah. We reached the station and boarded the local train. Scheduled time was 3 hrs. We spent most of the time sleeping. At hawrah we went directly to the station and reserved a place for ourselves. next we ate something and then went to see the hawrah bridge. Back again at the station I slept a little and finally it was time for the train. We safely boarded the train and were on our way home….

This was my first and most amazing trip for robotics. It has become one of my biggest achievements and greatest experience. I look forward for more such trips. Till then bbye..!!!

Cheers to my group -STRATEGISTICALS..... Rock on..!!