Official Students’ Newspaper Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

30 October 2011 . Volume 2 Issue 2 . 12 Pages

moremoreThe Matrix03 The first-years compare their life to the

movie Matrix. If it doesn't make sense, you are not a first-year.

featurefeature

"Dhanak 2k11"The rainbow, before we reached the leprechauns

TSR's first editorial : It's a Small WorldAn attempt to make sense out of nonsense

06

World News08 A brand new section where you get the

all-you-should-know dose of informa-tion in one place.

n & m's food guide11 Our in house culinary enthusiasts re-

view the handful of eateries in this city.

Valiamala: It’s been long since the last issue, a lot has happened dur-ing this time but Dhanak certainly deserves to be the cover story. The end of all good things does need a special mention, doesn’t it? Dhanak was good.

The opening ceremony, quite unexpectedly, attended by many IISTians, was the best one could ask for. Although, Mr. Yesudas not singing was a big disappoint-ment, especially after the trailer he gave while sharing one of his numerous anecdotes with us. And a man like Soorya Krishna-murthy who had the determi-nation and courage (and other things required) to follow his heart after 27 years in ISRO was very much welcome at IIST.

Thanks to Mr. Yesudas, the open-ing ceremony closed an hour late, and the faculty-events could not take place. Though the events had been postponed to Day 4, no one showed up. It was very disheart-ening to see two very enthusiastic professors come and reawaken the batsmen in them by practic-ing in the net, only to leave half an hour later, because there was no one to play with.

The highlight of the second day was Lord of the strings, which was woven around the mime competition, thanks to an awe-some time table. Outside partici-pation was more than last time. Also, duly noted, a certain coor-dinator was overly happy about

the event being ‘mega’ as the participant bands had praised IIST and the fest on their face-book pages. Well, why wouldn’t they? They won, it was the money speaking, frankly. A sub hundred lump of frenzied students has finally started classifying for a crowd. There still is a rock band circle who probably will never participate in Dhanak, thanks to Dhanak 2010. In a quizzing ses-sion that finally got IIST into the Trivandrum quizzing circle, Prof. Vijay Kumar surely was a rock-star.

“For a successful technology, re-ality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature can-not be fooled.” Richard P. Feyn-man said, during the investiga-tion of the Challenger disaster. As the institute and the students both aim for higher ‘outer col-lege participation’, what needs to be understood is that if the insti-tute is a home to students of four academic years who competed in national level examinations to get here, there would be no dearth of talent. Thus, the flexibility of prize money to favour non-IIS-Tians and our inability to take a stand to make things undisput-able, were seen more as an insult.

Day 3 was KAASH day. With a strong bass base and each mem-ber being very talented individu-ally, the band clearly left a very good impression. Although the connection was not as strong as Faridkot’s, KAASH scored on sad

Continued on page 02

.For internal circulation only.

Chetta po12 Snap of the month

No Argumentaaa, V for Venkata!

news02 News

Editorial BoardThe Sounding Rocket

Shashank STanveer AliAnkesh MishraNavjot SinghSiddharth Srivastava

02

single boys who claim to have had their hearts broken, in one stage of their lives or the other. With KAASH being the most liked band on Reverbnation, IIST can proudly say we called India’s top band for our college festival. No offence, better bands!

Gully cricket and street soccer brought in some quality night time action, with certain female players playing even better than (certain) TSR editors. The final day, being a Monday, proved to be most une-ventful. IIST didn’t exactly turn out to be IIT Bombay (sorry coordina-tors!) and Dhanak didn’t turn out to be Mood Indigo: the two food courts idea just didn’t work! On day 4, evacuation was sad, like the demise of a great company. Shut-ters down. Packing up. The sun beating down hard. The not at all funny wannabe comedians.

All in all, Dhanak was a pretty successful event given the time constraints. Flaws, many. Les-sons, more. And as to what hap-pened once we reached the end of the Rainbow, a facebook status summed it up very well: “Whose brilliant idea was it anyway?”

Continued from page 1

Dhanak 2k11.. echoes

Flying SR to be launched soonAs October draws to an end, we still haven't spotted the flying rocket in the skies. We are informed that the safety committee has stayed the launch citing absence of fins which would provide roll. Accordingly, the fins are being changed and the launch is expected to take place in late No-vember or early February.

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Convocation?The IISTians are wondering whether there is going to be a convocation at all this semester. There is the occassional remark that the college in order to save money is planning to combine the con-vocations for the 2007 and 2008 batch. The 2008 batch also has the headache of the farewell, when they have to loos-en their purse strings.

Conscientia 2012The fourth edition of Conscientia 2012 is reportedly to be held from 1st to 3rd of March 2012. The teams have been finalized and work has already taken off. A teaser poster, for creat-ing hype in other colleges, is ready to be printed and despatched. Drawing from the experiences in Dhanak, the new team hopes to make Conscientia bigger and better.Sports News

Due to absence of our sports cor-respondent Arvind Vairavan, sports news had to shrink to this. IIST Crick-et team squashes IISER counterparts with two outstanding maiden centu-ries from Shravan and Varun. Dream Destroyers defeated Legend Killers in an enticing final match to win ICL 4. In the interhouse Volleyball champi-onship, Krithika beat Akashganga in a royal way, as Akashganga's star player, Ankur Verma, was injured a day before the match.

ISAT 2012The IIST Admission Test is scheduled to be held on 21st April 2012. Online registrations will begin on 1st Novem-ber 2011. This time, the servers for the registration will be hosted by IIST it-self instead of ISAC, Bangalore. A step towards total independence for IIST?

Fresh 03

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us (that is, till the campus walls). You can see it when you look out your window towards H12 or when you read Mittal and Mittle just before the Electrical Quiz. You can feel it when you eat the “gourmet” meal at the mess... when you borrow someone else’s ID card to go to pothole-riddled D2... when you pay your five-rupee library dues. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. That you are a drone liv-ing in the middle of no-where. Like everyone else you signed into a bond-age of 9 years. Admitted into an institute that you cannot make sense of. A farm for your minds.

Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. (Because they won’t understand: “Kahaan admission lee?” ”IIST Trivandrum, aunty.” ”Accha! I didn’t know there was an IIT there.”) You have to see it for yourself. The Ar-chitect created the Matrix to tap the minds of 156 best (oops, second-best) minds of the free world to feed the Machine at the center of it.

Unlike some other second-rate ver-sions, we have two Agents: Smith and

Jones. (Guess which is which. Both wear glasses like their second-rate counterparts.) On the day after the Great Party at Zion (certain inhabit-ants would call it Hi5), all the fifth ver-

sioners decided to exercise their free will and step out of this construction. But, free will is an illusion, created between those with power, and those with not so much. Agent Smith mi-raculously appeared at H10 and belt-ed out his signature speech: “Good morning, Mr. Anderson (add fresh-ers’ name here).” It is a generally held belief that the Machine’s Harvesters (those who feed us with a daily dose of lectures) were pissed off after waiting half an hour for us. As a consequence, the Chief Harvester slapped a thou-sand-rupee fine on us.

The Matrix has another mechanism called continuous evaluation to keep the inhabitants in check and sedated to the world. Three months, twen-ty-odd tests, ten-plus assignments,

weekend labs along with an elusive programming code of 80% attendance have done that success-fully. (If you slept half-way through this arti-cle, you can blame it on that.) Draconian meas-ures like not allowing us in the hostels from 9 to 2 without “valid rea-sons”, not allowing us to play cricket on the street (this Matrix doesn’t care for a ground either), not allowing FB in the Inter-net Lab for more than

30 minutes, not allowing roof climb-ing, and most importantly, not allow-ing second helpings of the few edible things they cook.

Should we just take a red pill and go back to the real world? Not really, we like it here. (And besides, a red pill costs too much anyway.) Of course, we (being the self-appointed Oracles) are looking for a Neo to guide. And, maybe a Trinity too, but looking at The Ratio, that seems a bit too far-fetched. The fifth versioners hope they exist, especially Trinity...albeit for dif-ferent reasons. y

T H EM A TR I X

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions expressed in the above article belong to the original authors and do not neces-sarily reflect the opinions or policies of The Sounding Rocket and its editors.

bySOURAJIT DEBNATH

PRABODH KATTIABHISHEK BHAUMICK

Debut from the first-years, which gives a glimpse into their first few months at IIST

news04 News04Diwali

Diwali celebrations at IIST and elsewhere Valiamala, 26th Oct 2011: Diwali was celebrated with much pomp and fanfare in IIST. A few competitions were also organised. The fourth-years won the Rangoli competition with

their beautiful rendering of our na-tional bird. Although the rain played spoilsport on the diya competition, it underestimated the spirit of IISTians, who were back to decorating as soon

as the rains stopped. The fireworks display and the special dinner made it a memorable night. But for some, it would be memorable for other rea-sons. y

Poojappura: Some second year stu-dents decided to spend their Diwali in a worthwhile manner instead of burning it up in crackers or watching RA-ONE. So, after collecting funds separately from all students who were willing to contribute, they decided to go and light up the moods of some

children at Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, Palayam and Divine Children’s Home, Poojappura.Many third and fourth year students too joined in, and it was a pleasant sur-prise to see Dr. Kurien Isaac come and interact with the children at Divine Children’s Home. The students had

taken drawing books, various paints and colours, various toys, cricket bat and soft tennis balls, badminton sets, diwali decoration material, choco-lates, mango drinks and maggi, which was cooked and served for lunch after the children were done playing with students. y

Leaving smiles on the face of those children was a satisfying experience, here are some we could capture:

Photo Courtesy:

SHAKUN YAWATKAR

A Visit to NABARD

news 05News 05IISTian's TV Debut

Abhinav Shukla makes it large on Indian Television Delhi: Abhinav Shukla, a fourth-year student, recently made his TV debut as an IISTian on NDTV India's quiz show, Sawaal India Ka. The first pre-lims was conducted online and the second one was held in Kochi. Al-though a number of people were se-lected from IIST in the first prelims, only Abhinav Shukla had it in him to make it to the Round 1, which would be aired on TV. An all-expense paid round trip to New Delhi later, he was

on the 'hot seat'. After a sweeping first round, he was up against a pretty girl from Haryana, who aspired to be-come a politician. Either he ran out of luck or the competitor distracted him, we are not really sure but, Abhi-nav lost the "baton" to the girl. Inor-der to compensate for that, the host permitted him to sing a song in his oh-so-beautiful voice. He has now qualified for the next round which will be held next month. yA tv grab from the game show

Poll-KholAn extensive poll, amassing a total number of 300 votes, was conducted on Facebook by our ardent reader, Ramiz Ahmad. The question put forth was "Who is the coolest faculty in IIST?".Raveendranath sir from the Aerospace department led the poll with a total of 60 votes. Anandamayee Tej ma'am came a close second with 48 votes. y

14th October 2011: The final year students belonging to the Macroconomics institute elective, were taken on a study tour to the National bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) regional office at Palayam. NA-BARD is an apex development bank in India formed by the Parliament with the main focus of, as the name says-rural development. The office building of the Trivandrum Regional Office was an awe-inspiring structure and as the group of gaping students made their way up to the confer-ence hall, they were left stunned by the chic non VSSC like interiors. The Chief General Manager, Mr. K C Shashidar, entered the hall and an introduction session took place. The ease with which he connected to each student and the frequent jokes made him an instant celebrity. When he introduced himself as the Chairman of Bombay Rock Association and talked about his 10000 GB music collection, the students were left wondering if he was actually the CGM of NAB-ARD. Mr. Shashidhar, a native of Bangalore was born and brought up in Mumbai. His talk about NABARD and its activities was declared way better than any of the Wednes-day seminars in IIST and his ready approval of funding Shaijumon Sir's projects left everyone speechless.After his speech, the students were given a great high tea (minus the tea) followed by a presentation by Dr. Maya on “What engineers need to know about NABARD?” y

A Visit to NABARD

Alumni News

<<NABARD Regional Office at Palayam, Trivandrum

After playing their part in the successful launch of PSLV, we were able to get hold of a few of the alumni, who are working at various ISRO centres. The burning question of salaries was posed to them and one of them even sent us a photo of his sal-ary slip. The in-hand salary# at various centres is given below (D.A hike of 7% not included).

#In-hand salary is considering you receive HRA and TA.*This figure is not exact as payslips were not available.Breakup of the salary (Bangalore)Earnings Amount Deductions AmountBasic Pay 21,000 NPS Tier 1 3171D.A 10,710 Income Tax 662H.R.A 6,300 Education Cess 13T.A 3,200 Higher Sec. Ed. cess 7

D.A on T.A 1,632 CHSS subscription 210

Canteen coupons 300

Profession Tax 200Group Insurance 40

Total Earnings

42842 Total Deductions 4603

Note: This is given for informational purposes only. It is not our intent to influence your choice of centres with this. y

Hyderabad - 38,239 INRBangalore - 38,239 INR

SHAR - 34,500 INRTrivandrum* - 35,000 INR

EDITORIAL

news06

“My college has only 600 students”“Hmmm. That’s good, isn’t it? You will have friends who will last you a life-time”“Well, that’s true. But, the downside is you can never get lost in the crowd, when you want to”

This conversation with my friend a few months ago sounds pretty apt, consid-ering all that has happened up until now. Although the title was mislead-ing, you, the reader, have now come to understand what this op-ed is actu-ally about. If you haven’t, fear not. You are alone.Firstly, I would like to clarify what this article is not.

This article does not contain details/facts about the incident(s). So, the honorable disciplinary committee members can stop reading between the lines. As for all you ‘gossip-girls’ out there, this article will not quench your thirst.

“Such indecent acts took place that wouldn’t happen even in a third grade college…” – a red-faced Director

Just when everyone thought that Dhanak had gone without a hitch and for once, the t-shirt demons of the past were going to be put to rest, a circus took place. The same adminis-trative machinery which hasn’t reim-bursed our intern expenses even after three months, ironically, swung into motion before anyone knew what was happening. Shortly afterwards, the Small World EffectTM came into play and within a matter of minutes this news had spread all the way to alumni in various parts of the country. Tips for the publicity teams of future fests?

IIST is like a mini-society but with the societal rules warped. One of the reasons for this warping is the acute male-female ratio. Every action of a girl is observed, commented and characterized. This makes every girl coming into IIST a heroine in herself (Women's cell, please excuse). But, to live up to that intense level of scrutiny by the five hundred odd boys on cam-pus is a herculean task, isn’t it? And as you have learnt, when the pressure

increases, the bubble will burst and this could be the most illogical ex-planation for what transpired on the last day of Dhanak. Sadly, the people involved had not prepared for such an eventuality and hadn’t thought of the consequences of their actions. Here, the student community, in itself, wasn’t so generous. The conversations that ensued during the next week, if put on paper, would give Chetan Bha-gat’s novels a stiff competition. And the myriad of opinions of individuals would have given any psychologist a field day.

Now, returning to the incident and what needs to be done. Just as you

cannot generalize that all the Keralites are drunkards, just because majority of them drink, all the 4th years or for that matter, all the students are not so irresponsible. It is a sad thing that many of them, who were not even re-motely involved, are bearing the brunt from the administration. As far as the actual people involved are concerned, they have faced a lot of social stigma already, be it from the students or from the faculties. So, whatever the administration has in store for them is quite insignificant compared to what they have gone through.

One of the liberalists had this to say “Why is the administration so seri-ous about it, when bigger things hap-pen in universities in the US and no one cares there?” Well, my friend, this is India and here, everyone cares. If it were any other institution with stu-dent strength of over two thousand, this matter would have been conveni-ently disposed of without much chat-ter among the students. But, we are not any other institution, are we? We are the Indian Institute of Space sci-ence and Technology, a world-class institute.

By now, you must have been wonder-ing on whose side I am on, what with all the paragraphs dripping with sar-casm. Well, the situation does not per-mit us to take sides, just like it didn’t two years ago. But, the question re-mains as to how much the students (involved as well as others) have to pay for that one careless night. In conclu-sion, to all those who have survived and flourished in IIST’s mini-society, you have mastered some of the soci-etal skills which will be particularly useless in the outside world.

Editorial06It's a Small World

Why things are the way they are in IIST

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bySHASHANK.S

Editorial Dated 25th October 2011

news 07Op-ed 07

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions expressed in the above article belong to the original author and do not neces-sarily reflect the opinions or policies of The Sounding Rocket and all its editors.

Dumb Dumb DumbIf the famous four going-to-the-beach-in-an-indica ad was the first thing that came to

your mind on reading the title, join me as I lament the demise of good advertising A girl walks up to her boyfriend who is sitting on a bike doing noth-ing. She says, “Rohan, chalo na party chalein!” The guy says "No, too busy", not sweating in his biking apparel under the scorching Indian sum-mer sun. The girl makes a face and says, “Rohan, you are impossible!”, stomps, turns around, stomps again and walks away. Ro-han here, pulls out a black-red cheap look-ing cell phone from his pocket and pushes the big play button in the centre. A great dance number, an assortment of various bass sounds with some disco theme music flows out of the tiny speakers of the tiny phone and the whole world starts shaking. From out of no-where, the entire college ap-pears and starts dancing, cho-reographed, mind you! The girl is extremely happy and the guy is a hero now. The new Videocon Ba-zoomba.

The good old Dhara ‘Jalebi’ ad is gone. So are the mentos ads. A pa-thetic attempt to carry the legacy of the Nirma jingle is made every three months. But seriously, splashed mud stopping mid-air and Hema, Rekha, Jaya and Sushma pushing a van out of mud while pseudo-hard rock plays in the background, are not even close to the original.

As more and more foreign ads are be-ing played to the Indian audience, and more and more advertising agencies pop up every year, the race to make a statement is over and everyone is fighting for that small gap between the beginning of commercials and the changing of channels. Ads target-ing specific audiences give no regard

to the ad’s quality whatsoever and you get Dairy Milk ads with numbers that stay on the teenage girl’s mind for months and ‘cuteness’ that is jam-packed inside the ad illogically.

As online advertising is becoming more and more invasive, it some-times does annoy me to see Foreign University ads when I mail the word MBA or engineering to someone. Facebook, on the other hand, will offer me four different websites for

buying merchandise if I like a band’s page. All other websites, irrespective of where you click, will take you to mydala.com. The age of pornograph-ic advertisements on internet is over. In India, thanks to flipkart, myntra, inkfruit and the likes, it’s the online shopping sites now, and of course, the survey and online jobs.

Well, the catch again, is targeting: shopping sites target the lazy youth, the all comfy order and pay-cash-on-delivery system is a

relief and a luxury. Dating sites target the new to internet pervs who think internet is but an-other big hard disk. The Bazoomba like ads make the peo-ple who cannot af-ford college think that what is shown

in the ad is hip. So, its not surprising to see not-so-educated people being the ones who buy that stuff and play music out loud on the road. Shrewd, isn’t it? The guy in the deodorant ad is always average looking; drives nothing more than an old scooter or a wrecked car and he gets the ‘an-gels’. The fair and lovely girl never becomes a successful doctor or engi-neer but does win a reality show and gets modelling contracts.

byANKESH MISHRA

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World News08Around the World

Things happening around the world while you were tucked away at our green cam-pus at Valiamala, 18 kms from Thiruvananthapuram city, on the way to the famous

hill resort of Ponmudi. Yes, part of the last line is from the institute website.

On 20 October 2011, Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi was killed by the Libyan na-tional Transitional Council (NTC) soldiers near the city of Sirte, Libya. Gaddafi’s convoy was hit by a French air strike. He survived but was wounded and took refuge with several of his bodyguards in a drain un-derneath the road west of the city. Around noon NTC fight-ers found the group and took Gaddafi prisoner. Shortly af-terward, he was shot dead. At least four mobile phone videos showed rebels beating Gaddafi and manhandling him on the

back of a utility vehicle before his death. He was shortly shot dead afterwards.Gaddafi was in power for over 40 years and as of now it is not clear whether he was loved or hated by the Libyan people. Gaddafi was however more famous for his erratic behav-iour and the famous Amazo-nian Guards. The Amazonian guards was the unofficial name given to the all female-elite-heavily made up bodyguards that Gaddafi carried around with him. You can see more in the picture. y

Libyan Dictator Muammar Gaddafi killed Photo C

ourtesy: Wikipedia

Occupy Wall Street is a se-ries of demonstrations in New York City near Wall street. The protests were initiated by the Canadian activist group Ad-busters and are apparently the first thing in history started by the Canadians and then fol-lowed by the Americans. They are mainly protesting social and economic inequality, cor-porate greed, corruption and influence over government and such stuff. The protesters' slogan "We are the 99%," refers to the difference in wealth be-tween the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.The original protest began

on September 17th and since then, has spread rapidly over 900 cities around the world. The protests have been par-ticularly successful thanks to heavy female participation and people being sick with the re-cession.Last heard, “The 1%”, meaning the top 1% have hit back saying that “We are the Wall Street. It is our job to make money. People were not complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000. Just like gambling, it’s not a problem until you lose”You can choose whose side you are on y.

Occupy Wall Street Photo C

ourtesy: Wikipedia

Continued on page 09I will join the protests if she was there

Boy oh Boy, do I envy African Dictators!

World News 09

On October 25th, 2011 during its quarterly policy review, the Reserve Bank of India announced the immediate deregulation of the interest rates given on Savings accounts (the ones that we hold) by the bank

to the customers. All ma-jor banks are expected to increase the interest rate from the present odd 3 % to around 6 %, thus dou-bling your interest. Its time to keep more money in the account folks. y

Deregulation of Savings account interest rate

Around the world...

Steve Jobs: The exclusive Biography by former CNN chairman Walter Isaacson is out and the timing is re-ally fishy. Going by the re-views, it’s the tell all book about the life and times of Steve Jobs. If you are an Apple fanboy (one who has/never owned an Apple product) or if you think it’s cool to order a book about Steve Jobs, get yours at Flipkart for Rs.559 or use your book grant.

Also, Dennis Ritchie, the creator of the C program-ming language and some-one who has shaped this computer age died a week after Jobs but received no/little media coverage. Heck, I am sure most of you didn't even know him. I didn’t. Guess, you deserve name and fame by selling products at double their price and actually getting millions of people to buy them. y

Steve Jobs official autobiography out

Photo C

ourtesy: topnews.in

Photo C

ourtesy: jaxov.com

Continued from page 08

Buddh hosts the first Indian Grand Prix

Photo C

ourtesy: getty images

The much awaited Indian Grand Prix was held in the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida. The race day is 30th Oc-tober 2011. Here are a few facts about the Grand Prix and the circuit that the av-erage Joe should know.• The Buddh Interna-

tional Circuit was de-signed by renowned architect, Hermann Tilke.

• The track has 16 large-ly medium speed cor-

ners where F1 cars will lap at an average speed of 210 km/h. The back straight will let F1 cars reach 320 km/h mak-ing it one of the fastest tracks in the world

• An after-party is be-ing organised by Ar-jun Rampal (who?), in which Lady Gaga will be performing. The tickets for the perfor-mance are being sold at 40,000 INR. y

Thank you RBI for giving us more money rather than combating inflation

Yes, this is Steve Jobs!

A stray dog named Michael checking out the circuit

-Compiled by Tanveer Ali

Extras10 Wayanad Trip

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On 5th October 2011, the 4th year students of IIST had an opportunity to tour the district of Wayanad, North Kerala. It was an epic 4 day adventure [citation needed] from October 5th to 8th .It was one hell of a trip packed with fun, joy, laughter… and a couple of fails. Around 110 students took part in this journey accompanied by the protectors of the realm viz., Prof. Thomas Kurian and his family, Umesh Sir and his family, Abhilash Sir and Shabeena ma'am.

We started off from Valiamala on Wednesday at around 8:30 pm. The weather was calm and cool, it wasn’t raining much then. We had three non-AC buses with non-reclining seats, which isn’t advisable for a 12 hour night journey but then not many slept during the journey. People played Antakshari, danced to the songs on the not-so-great-sounding music system and had dumb charades throughout the journey. Especially the dumb charades were taken to higher levels when people started using song names and even company names examples being Progenies of the Great Apocalypse and Fujitsu respectively. The group reached Kalpetta by 9 in the morning and had idli-vada for breakfast provided by the "new" Indian Coffee House. People aboard the bus A were given accommodation in the dorm BY-THE-WAY while the rest were given in the SINAI dorm.

Day 1

Some good lunch at Meppadi and we set out for the big trek to the Meenmutty falls. The length of the trek was reportedly 3.9km and it was really scary throughout the trek. It involved walking on narrow ledges, climbing down the ropes and slippery paths. The falls being 300 m high is the second largest in Kerala and many had the pleasure of getting into the fast flowing water…until the forest guards drove them out of course. It was an adventurous trek for all of us…a pretty tiring one too. Everyone was back to Kalpetta for dinner and rested for the night at the dorms.

Day 2

Next up on the list was the Pookode lake about 30 min from Kalpetta. To be honest there was nothing interesting to see at the lake except a small aquarium (yes, aquarium) but the self-piloted pedal-propelled boats were fun for many.

That evening we went to the BanasuraSagar Dam, which was about 21km from Kalpetta. It’s the largest earthen dam in India and the second in Asia. The reservoir has dozens of small islands in it and with hills in the background that provide a spectacular view…which the group couldn’t get ‘cause they got there too late for the motor boats to be available. That forced us to be content with the cool winds over the waters, the awesome sunset behind the mountains, mid-air superman pictures and a bunch of Canadian tourists.

After dinner there was a campfire at this apparently haunted farmhouse. The music was great even though it came out from a single speaker and (soft) drinks were on the house. A special mocktail was made for the guests added to the vibe that night. A patent for the undisclosed composition and mixing procedure was filed days later.

Day 3

Eddakal caves are two natural caves situated at a remote location 25km of base camp ie., Kalpetta. Inside them are pre-historic writings believed to be dating to be at least 5000 BC. The caves were inside a hill prompting an inclined spiral climb to the top. The top of the hill provided a breath taking view of the area enabling photographers to turn on their panoramic modes. The carvings however were not much amusing to many but a few students did have their share of fun with their inane sense of humour. That evening everyone had a good buffet at Hotel Calicut and began their return journey back to Valiamala.

All in all it was a great trip though. Having a great time with your friends is all that matters after all. y

Digvijay SIngh, Politician“RSS cannot be ruled out in the non-availability of the motor boats to the IIST students”

byHEMAN PHINEHAS

Food & Fun 11

Navjot & Mohsin’s Restaurant Reviews

Episode-3

CASABIANCA

Vazuthacaud

M

Value for money 8

Quality of food 9.5

Ambience 8.5

Cost 6.5

A residential apartment-turned res-taurant, this place is a god-send if you crave Italian. Just make sure you aren't there on a Monday(closed) or any time between 3 and 6 in the evening(non-availability of main courses).

Must try:Spaghetti arrabiata(veg)/bolognese(beef )Pretty much any pizza on the menu

Avoid:Correctly pronouncing the dishes while ordering, if you suffer from rep-etition irritability.

Ratings

Remarks

HOTEL GINGER

Near Technopark

M

Value for money 7.5

Quality of food 7.5

Ambience 8

Cost 8

Situated ridiculously far away from our

campus, this restaurant remains the

only place in Trivandrum that I've had

Chinese from. Well, 'Indian-Chinese',

that is. The menu is pretty small, com-

prising mainly of noodles,rice and man-

churian variants.

On a side note, the hotel houses a Cafe

Coffee Day.

Recommendations: Choose your pick

of rice/noodles and gravy. You can't

possibly go wrong

Ratings

Remarks

In our endeavour to provide you with information about food choices in and around Trivandrum city, we will pre-sent you with what we feel is the best way to spend your money and gastric juices.

All numerical ratings are on a scale of 10(10 being impossibly impressive, seeing as we are difficult to please).

In this episode only Mohsin has re-viewed the restaurants as Navjot was elsewhere banging his head.

LocationLocation

STATUSsimble

1First Prizeiss teen pair waale kutte ko bhagana nahi padta..isse susu karte hue apna pair uthana nahi padta...

(A PJ quoted from Sarabhai vs Sarabhai)

2Second PrizeIIST-an institute where electrical lines are under-ground and optical fibers hang on poles

(Observation of the month)

Quotable QuotesQuotes that brought a

smile :)

1. "You are not in a territory to ask questions, you are in a territory to solve them."-A prof in the exam hall

2. "No one touches the canteen"-The obvious TSR editor on learn-ing about the new "11pm rule"

3. "...and I would like to welcome Thomas Kurian, director..."-A faux pas at IIST day

3Third Prize

You and your boss in the bathroom at the same time...totally awkward!

(An IIST alumni from his work-place)

chetta po12

The cartoons displayed are a work of fiction. Resemblance to any person(s), living, dead or IISTian is purely coinci-dental

This photograph was taken by Kumar Harshit during Diwali celebrations at IIST

Mail in your photographs to thesoundingrocket@gmail.com. The best of the lot will be printed in the next issue.

Camera: FujiFilm FinePix S3300F-stop: f/10

Exposure time: 2 sec.ISO: 100