ISSUE #4/ APRIL 2021 Quills 'n' Stills PERSON OF THE MONTH JOEY PINTO PRODUCTION ENGINEER AT FACEBOOK BOOK REVIEW 100 SELECTED POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON ANIME REVIEW YOUR LIE IN APRIL NITABOH Poetic Musings
QUILLS 'n' STILLS 07 ARSENY TARKOVSKY AND CONTENTS HIS SON 10 THE SKY 11 POETRY INTO THE PICTURE 13 100 SELECTED POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON 16 EARTH'S FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE 20 PERSON OF THE MONTH 26 REAL TIME COMMUNICATION USING WEB SOCKETS
QUILLS 'n' STILLS CONTENTS 31 POETRY SECTION HAPPY DREAMS; FAR AWAY TALES OF AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION LIFE AND TIME MEMORY HOAX A SONG TO MOVE BY तनहा कामयाबी पाकर भी तू ज़ दगी हमारी कस मोड़ पर जब वो थे तो 41 ART & PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION 54 WHO WROTE THAT 58 ANIME REVIEW YOUR LIE IN APRIL NITABOH
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Dear Students, Reading literature enables us to see the world through the eyes of others. It trains the mind to be flexible, to comprehend other points of view. Literature has had an impact on the development of society. Literature gives us a detailed preview of human experiences, allowing us to connect on basic levels of desire and emotion. When students read magazines, they learn to appreciate words and their power. They travel to other realms and times through the texts they read. They understand their own culture and others’ through the valuable contents of the magazine. I hope this magazine shall be very helpful in shaping the mindset of our students and helping them flourish in society. DR A.K. VYAS Co-ordinator (IIIT Kota)
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Dear Students, IIIT Kota is one among the many new IIITs established in the year 2013. Right from its inception, IIIT Kota has made several strides towards excellence in every field under the mentorship of MNIT, Jaipur. Under the able guidance of our honorable Director sir and Coordinator sir, and well- coordinated efforts from the students and faculty, a good number of clubs spanning both co-curricular and extra- curricular activities were nurtured. I extend my best wishes to the entire Quills'n'Stills team, which worked round the clock to make this magazine a reality. I hope that this magazine shall be a great platform to showcase the broad spectrum of events that happen on our campus. I convey my best wishes and congratulations and look forward to the next edition. Dr. Vinita Tiwari CACS convener
QUILLS 'n' STILLS FROM THE EDITORS : Editor: An individual who does precise guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge. Dear Reader, We are immensely proud and slightly nervous while sharing this edition of our magazine with you. A team of new recruits set out to build an edition of a magazine that has already won many hearts with its previous editions. We believe it was Tanmay boss’s idea to let the new recruits have a taste of magazine curation. We are glad we got this opportunity to build an edition from start to finish as each one of us got to learn the slight nuances of magazine designing through this. We never imagined that content accumulation, editing, work distribution, and designing a magazine could be as hectic. We both had no prior experience in editing. Once in a while, I used to edit my father’s work emails, or my nephew’s school essays but mostly my editing skills were limited to my journal entries only. Same goes with Anant as well, he too flexed his editing skills only while writing an online blog or article. Now that we’ve warned you of our newly acquired editing skills, we hope in case you encounter any mistakes you will take it in your stride and forgive our negligence. For this edition, we've chosen the theme: Poetic Musings. As you read through you will come across beautiful poetry in the form of articles, photographs, poems, drawings, and much more. We hope this edition will rack up to your expectations from us. Alright, enough of this, let’s turn the page and get right into the magazine! Apoorv Kashyap & Anant Mehra Associate Editors Quills 'n' Stills
QUILLS 'n' STILLS EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE : \"None of us is as smart as all of us.\" - Ken Blanchard To begin with, we are grateful to our wonderful seniors to lend us this opportunity to create this magazine. Without their fruitful guidance and encouraging words, building this edition was impossible. We would also like to extend our gratitude to our institute and its faculty members for letting us publish this magazine and supporting us whenever we required help. If any one of us had to redesign this magazine all by himself, we might have some remarkable pages but the whole magazine would be far from it. What lies in the upcoming pages is a collective effort of a team of 9 diligent individuals who put in equal efforts to have each page speak for itself. Every member gave his insight to make the look and feel of this edition a little bit better than before. We would also like to thank all those who submitted their entries and made this edition worth reading. Without their amazing submissions, the existence of our magazine was unimaginable. Lastly, it is the readers who bestow their time on reading our magazine. And it is for the readers that we put in so much effort to get better with each coming edition. We thank you all for choosing to spend your time with Q ’n’ S and we hope you enjoy reading it! Apoorv Kashyap & Anant Mehra Associate Editors Quills 'n' Stills
QUILLS 'n' STILLS ARSENY TARKOVSKY AND HIS SON My introduction to this ingenious poet came through a work of his son, who was no less than a genius himself. I first heard his poems in a certain film called Stalker. The film, the poet, and the filmmaker, as I was unaware of back then, will always be remembered for revolutionizing the medium. STALKER IS CONSIDERED TO BE ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FILMS OF SOVIET RUSSIA. It is the most celebrated work of the legendary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Although the film is characterized as a sci-fi/adventure, in reality, it transcends genres. It is about experience and meaning. It is about knowing what is unimportant and what matters. It is about finding meaning in things that matter. The film revolves around a central character, ‘stalker’, who is an illegal guide of a post- apocalyptic ‘zone’ which supposedly has a particular place known as ‘The Room’ where everything a person wishes for comes true. In the film he makes this dangerous journey to the forbidden zone with two companions: a writer and a professor. All three of them come across as dejected in one way or the other. As the film progresses, we get to know about all three of them as they are put in various unearthly situations by the magical powers of ‘Zone’. 7
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Through the course of this journey, the film makes many astonishing observations about human nature, faith, agony, courage, confidence, experiments and rules, and the lack thereof. In order to cover this wide range of themes, Andrei Tarkovsky resorts to cinema and poetry. What better way for ‘The Zone’ to make its presence felt than riddles. And what better way to present riddles than poetry. ‘The Zone’ talks to the stalker. It guides him to take care of himself and his companions. The fact that ‘The Zone’ instructs the stalker to never go in ‘The Room’ himself could provide enough flesh to philosophers to think about for decades. We could discuss the philosophy of this film but we would fall short of words way before falling short of topics to discuss. But this article isn’t about philosophy, it’s about poetry. And luckily for us, poetry provides answers even when it asks the toughest of questions. Now summer is gone. And might never have been. In the sunshine it’s warm. But there has to be more. It all came to pass, All fell into my hands Like a five-petalled leaf, But there has to be more. Nothing evil was lost, Nothing good was in vain, All ablaze with clear light But there has to be more. Life gathered me up Safe under its wing, My luck always held, But there has to be more. Not a leaf was burnt up Not a twig ever snapped … Clean as glass is the day, But there has to be more This is one of the many poems of Tarkovsky which are used in the film. This poem fits so perfectly in the story of the film that it feels like it was written only for the movie, but if you think about it, where wouldn’t it fit? And therein lies the beauty of Tarkovsky. His poems behave like mirrors, they reflect without any bias. They are true universally just as a being is to its own reflection. His poems are never dramatic, never heroic, never exaggerated, and never understated. He never milked his life which was nothing but dramatic, heroic, and tragic. In his youth, he wrote a poem about Lenin with his friends, which got them arrested and sent to be executed. He was the only one who managed to escape. He later pursued his degree in literature. His only son predeceased him. He could have easily made his poems about the legend of himself, but he chose not to and that is a testament of a great poet. My favorite poem of the movie though comes from another Russian Poet, Fyodor Tyutchev. 8
QUILLS 'n' STILLS I love your eyes, my darling friend, Their play so passionate and braight’ning, When a sudden stare up you send, And like a heaven-blown lightning, It’d take in all from end to end But there’s more that I admire: Your eyes when they’re downcast In bursts of love- inspired fire And through the eyelash goes fast A somber, dull call of desire... This is my favourite poem because it is based on my favourite character of the film, Marta. Marta is stalker’s deformed daughter. She lost her legs due to the tragedy that struck ‘The Zone’. We realize in the end, that ‘The Zone’ talks to Marta as well. It guides her as well. It shares its magic with her as well. Robert Bresson, one of the spiritual saints of cinema said 'Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.' Without stalker, I wouldn’t have been introduced to these troopers of ‘Zone’ and these torchbearers of Art -- Stalker and his daughter, Tarkovsky and his son. - Abhinav Jain 9
QUILLS 'n' STILLS A BIG THOUGHT OF WONDER ON The endless stretching sky above me reminds me how small this world is, and like an infinite THE SKY movie always leaves me spellbound. A brilliant diversity spreading like the stars - Abhilasha Bansal illuminating the darkness of my life. I always like finding peace and confiding within that peaceful sky, feeling safe within its embrace as if I were a part of it. The glowing moon above me, shining like a thousand diamonds in the sky, guiding those who need her light always makes me realize the beauty of life. I like hiding away from people and away from all my pain, watching the beautiful sky while it unfolds its beautiful hues, those combinations of purples and blues. So confident and so bold, yet so far and so cold, oblivious to human chores, stretching from one horizon to another, the warmth it provides is just one of those sublime experiences which are hard to find words for. The sun above, fighting its own battle with those clouds, perhaps it may hide away for hours but it never forgets to find its way back home. The sky has seen it all, the glories and the destructions of the past, yet it stands inevitably tall carrying our souls within that same blue sky. 10
QUILLS 'n' STILLS PPooeettrryy INTO THE PICTURE INTO THE PICTURE -S RAMESH KUMAR A Blessing in Guise The Epic of Gilgamesh is considered to be one of the oldest preserved epics, dating back to the - S Ramesh Kumar 18th century B.C. It contains poetry in Sumerian and was discovered through many The word “poetry” is of Greek origin different Babylonian tablet versions during the and is derived from the word poiesis, which archaeological excavations. There are other roughly means \"the making of something that similar examples which might include the never existed before\". Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the latter of A meagre form of writing and expressing all which has become an important narrative in that one’s heart and soul could muster. Every both Hindu and Buddhist mythology throughout person has his own personal definition of the regions of Asia and of the world. word poetry and over the years it has gone The necessity and evolution of poetry over the through some rigorous and necessary changes. years can be attributed to the need of preserving The way we tried to understand them then and history and one’s cultural identity for what we are trying to do now is utterly generations to come, a prudent way to raise different, our holistic approach towards ancient one's voice and be heard amidst the masses ballads and Shakespearean sonnets were which aren't ready to listen. Some with an exhumed because of the broader perspectives of inclination towards logical perspective think the 21st century. Although the earlier that poetry and poetic styling was originally depictions of the same are also kept in mind. developed to help storytellers, who often acted as historians, to memorize and retell their stories more lively and effectively. Over a couple thousand years poetry played a role of utmost importance in Wars, Revolutions and Movements as a war cry for soldiers, gospel for prayer and faith, to stand against injustice and tell the tales of brave men and women who lost their lives for a greater purpose. 11
QUILLS 'n' STILLS CLASSIFICATION OF POETRY was writing for. LITERATURE (AMERICAN) Modern poetry helped us discover two new types of poetry: Spoken Word and 1.The Early English Poetry Performance Poetry, which are performed 2.The Anglo-Norman period often to make a strong social statement to 3.The Renaissance in England society. Today poetry is used in therapies 4.The Restoration and 18th century for depression, they are also taught in 5.The Romantic Movement universities and colleges to improve the 6.Victorian Poetry perspective, developmental learning and 7.The 20th century behavioral intent of the individual. 8.Modern English Poetry I believe that poetry is an art in the truest sense, letting out what you can feel and Modern poetry is all about writing imagine on the paper is indeed a gift to be being independent mentally, without treasured. Unlike most people who think heeding any restrictions. As for some, that writing poetry is difficult I feel that the idea of rules and regulations while understanding the pieces written by others is writing seemed more regimented while more onerous. Anyone can read some others boldly rejected it at the drop of simple words of the language but it takes the hat. The idea was to write ornate more than a heart to find the meaning texts, concise or not was the choice of behind it. That’s what it is truly about, and the poet and the occasion & intent he has always been. 12
QUILLS 'N' STILLS 100 SELECTED POEMS BY EMILY DICKINSON A BOOK REVIEW BY APOORV KASHYAP \"If I read a book and it makes my whole The book is published in India by Fingerprint Classics and is available to buy online. Dickinson’s body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I anthology consists of poems originating from varied emotions and feelings. But upon reading, know that is poetry\" - Emily Dickinson one recurring theme that made an appearance after every two or three poems was Death and A name too bright among the many poets and Immortality. Dickinson was put in touch with intellectuals from the 19th century, Emily Elizabeth death’s grief at a very young age, and the depth of Dickinson is widely known as one of the most her anguish is apparent in many of the poems that intense and romantic poets from her era. Born in a she wrote. prominent family in Massachusetts, Emily realized her love for poetry at a young age after a family friend introduced her to the poetry of William Wordsworth. Although she continued to write throughout her lifetime, it was only after her death that her younger sister, Lavinia, came across her poems and made them public. “100 Selected Poems” is a collection of Emily’s writings, which are chosen from a massive lot of nearly 1800 poems written by her. 13
QUILLS 'N' STILLS \"I never lost as much but twice, And as they say, you learn more about poetry in the And that was in the sod. pauses than in the actual words, the long ‘dashes’ in her poems which marks the presence of a Twice have I stood a beggar meditative pause, always left me fidgeting on the Before the door of God! edge to read the next line. The way that the poet has incorporated these ‘dashes’ in her verses was Angels — twice descending, something that was new to me. Sometimes at the Reimbursed my store — end of a line, sometimes in the middle. Sometimes Burglar! Banker – Father! once in a line, sometimes twice. I have to say that I am poor once more!\" the immaculate presence of these ‘dashes’ made my reading experience a lot finer than I expected. I could be wrong in my judgment, but I believe that the loss she is referring to in this poem is the \"Love — is anterior to Life death of two prominent people in her life: Leonard Posterior — to Death — Humphrey, her principal at the Amherst Academy, Initial of Creation, and and Benjamin Newton, a family friend she used to The Exponent of Breadth —” admire. Each one of Dickinson’s poems uses vivid and evocative imagery. She often lines up her subject with nature, religion, music, art, and commerce to instill universal themes in the reader’s mind. Although most of her writings have a deep and profound edge to them, once in a blue moon she wrote in an amusing tone as well. \"'Faith' is a fine invention Dickinson lived a life of seclusion and kept herself hidden from the public eye. At the later stage of her When Gentlemen can see — life, she hardly used to wander out of her bedroom. Dickinson never married or had a great number of But Microscopes are prudent friends in her life. With the few people that she did form a dear acquaintance with, she kept her In an Emergency.” contact through correspondence only. This miserable way of living was showcased in her style This blatant quatrain is a satire on the superiority of poetry. She mostly used to write on dark topics of Science (Microscopes) in contrast to Religion which have now earned her the title of a morbid (Faith). poet. Her poems often take a look at death as something natural as opposed to the generally Talking about rhyme and meter in her poetry, accepted idea of grim. Therefore, her poems sound Dickinson never used the conventional style of calm and serene even when she is talking about rhyming schemes which were accepted by her death and the grief around it. It is almost like she’s literary contemporaries. She used what is referred romanticizing the idea of death in her poetry. to as “Slant rhyme” or “Approximate rhyme” in her poems, which is the rhyming scheme that is not often exact. Due to this distinguishing quality of her poems, publishers used to heavily edit them to meet the generalized standards of poetry in her time. Even in the common meter, she was seldom strict about the number of syllables in each line. These slight bits of rawness that she brought in her poems made them more humane for her readers. 14
QUILLS 'N' STILLS \"I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! They’d advertise — you know. How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — To tell one’s name — the livelong June — To an admiring Bog!” This is probably my favorite poem from this book. Here she’s talking about how she feels content without the public admiration that most people strive to achieve; how it is not significant to have a good reputation to live a happy life. Her words seem like an attempt to normalize the sheltered way of living that she herself practised throughout her life. In fact, to shield herself from the web of public fame, she published merely ten of her poems during her lifetime. Also, she told her sister to burn her papers after her death, but after reading her wise and profound poems her sister could not keep her word. Dickinson often wrote short poems; the number of longer poems penned by her are far too few in comparison. Another interesting point about her poetry repertoire is that almost all of them do not have a title. Ever since the first publication of her poems, they are recognized by their first lines only. Emily Dickinson lives on through her poems and will continue to occupy this earth until doom’s day. To the lovers of poetry, Dickinson has been one of the finest to ever hold a pen and share a thought. Still, her writing style may not be suitable for every reader. If someone is looking to read a happy-go- lucky or feel-good kind of poem, he/she should look the other way. Her poetry is not something that you should read if you’re trying to feel uplifted or motivated. Dickinson had a unique writing style in which she professed the dilemmas and misery she felt as a woman in 19th century America. Each one of her fervent lines from this collection is worth pondering under a night sky. If seclusion, melancholy, and silent passion are some things that bind you, believe me, Emily Dickinson wrote each of her verses for you. 15
QUILLS 'n' STILLS EARTH'S FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE Have you ever wondered about the uncertainty of being in a galaxy moving at 1.3 million miles per hour, inside a solar system that moves around at 125 miles per second, and indeed our planet, the Earth is revolving around the Sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. Shocking isn’t it? Within this chaotic universe, how can we find a way to save ourselves? Each year 6000 asteroids pass by Earth, many likely to make a ground impact, yet here we are, alive and breathing. NASA’s DART, a huge step in building an asteroid defense system, is one of the less crazy ideas of avoiding potentially catastrophic asteroids. DART – the Double Asteroid Redirection Test – is a spacecraft designed to crash into an asteroid Dimorphos. The impact will change Dimorphos’s velocity by one millimeter per second. Even though Dimorphos is not about to collide with Earth, DART is intended to demonstrate the ability to deflect an asteroid headed our way, should one ever be discovered. Ever since the Russian probe Luna 1 became the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of Earth's Moon on 2 January 1959, mankind has sent about 250 probes into the solar system. DART is unique among them, the first to not only study the solar system but to change it. 16
QUILLS 'n' STILLS By 1980, astronomers had accurately In 2005, the US Congress gave NASA predicted the orbits of about 10,000 orders to catalog all near-Earth objects asteroids, including 51 “near-Earth” bigger than 140 meters in width, asteroids. Today, the numbers have gone uphill: the Minor Planet Center objects which would bring about keeps track of about 800,000 asteroids catastrophic effects if they collided in total, of which almost 24,000 have with Earth. The work remains ongoing. orbits close to Earth. Thanks to In 2016, NASA established the statistical analyses, astronomers firmly Planetary Defense Coordination Office believe they’ve successfully found to efficiently coordinate between the about 95% of the big near-Earth numerous American and international asteroids, the kind that would destroy agencies that would be marshaled if entire civilizations if they were to make an object of mass destruction was a ground impact. Earth moves by the headed our way. DART is the group’s distance of its diameter (i.e 6400 mission. Earlier proposals envisaged kilometers roughly) every seven using two vehicles: one for the minutes. If the arrival time of an collision, and another, sent in inbound object can be delayed by advance, to watch the impact and more than 10 minutes, it will miss measure the after-effects. For a long Earth. (The fine details, of course, time, it seemed to be the only option depend on the trajectory of the because with an asteroid traveling at asteroid; the extra three minutes are 30 kilometers per second, the kept aside for the effect of Earth’s millimeter-per-second change in gravitational pull.) speed caused by a collision would be hardly possible to measure accurately using telescopes based on Earth. But this came at a whopping price: up to $1 billion. Then in 2011, a breakthrough occurred, Rather than sending two spacecraft, the idea was to send a single spacecraft to crash into a small asteroid orbiting a larger one. To measure the force of the blow, astronomers came up with a clever trick. The new mission would cost about $250 million, a relative bargain. In the end, the Italian Space Agency came up with a shoebox-sized spacecraft called LICIACube to piggyback on DART, providing assistance with observations without greatly increasing the cost. 17
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Dimorphos was discovered in 2003, DART will require 14 months to travel orbiting a bigger asteroid, which was from Earth to Dimorphos. DART will named Didymos. Didymos is about a launch on board a Falcon 9 rocket half-mile wide. Dimorphos is about from the Vandenberg Airforce Airport, 500 feet in diameter—the size of a California. The spacecraft will take off small sports stadium. Nobody knows to the south, and will circle the sun what it looks like because it is too far once before meeting the asteroid pair away for detailed observations from a few weeks after their closest near-Earth telescopes. Both asteroids approach to Earth about 6.8 million are separated by a half-mile; miles away, 30 times farther than the Dimorphos orbits Didymos slower moon. The trajectory is designed to than a person’s walk. The orbit of minimize the energy required for Dimorphos around Didymos can be launch and to time the impact for a imagined as a ticking clock. It close approach so that Earth-based completes a revolution every 12 telescopes can get the best look at the hours. In a rough sense, what we’re collision. If all goes well, the launch doing with DART is whacking the window for DART begins in late July clock. All astronomers have to do is 2021. On 30 September 2022, it will measure the difference in the orbital cease to exist – years of effort by period of Dimorphos. The expected hundreds of people reduced to change is about 10 minutes or shreds, ushering us into a new era. roughly 1%. 18
QUILLS 'n' STILLS PERSON OF THE MONTH Joey Pinto is an alumnus of the 2017 batch of IIIT Kota. He is currently a production engineer at the Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park, California. He is among the first students of our institution who cracked the GRE Exam and did his MS in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (2017-19). Here is an in-depth interview of Joey Pinto covered by Anant Mehra (2nd Year). JOEY PINTO Can you tell us about your background before you joined Production Engineer at Facebook IIIT Kota? MS in Software Engineering at CMU I grew up in Mumbai, did all my schooling and junior college there. I had always been What is your role at Facebook? fascinated by technology and gadgets as a kid. I got my first I’m a production engineer at the computer on my 10th Birthday Facebook Headquarters in Menlo after nagging my parents for Park, California. A production probably 2 years straight. engineer is a hybrid between a Internet access wasn’t as easy software and systems engineer. I to get as it is now. My first am a member of the Web internet connection was a dial- Foundation team which deals with up. I started coding in 10th incident management and grade and had started maintains the web infrastructure. specializing in computer We are a group of first responders science right from 11th grade. to any major usability or The only other significant part infrastructure problems across the of my life apart from computers entire Facebook family of was music. It’s something that products including Instagram, remains close to my heart to Whatsapp and Oculus as well. date 19
QUILLS 'n' STILLS What was your reaction after You’ve done many projects getting into IIIT Kota, how was during your undergrad. Can you your initial college experience? tell us a little bit about them? The first thing that I remember There were a lot of projects I got after being allotted a seat in IIIT a chance to play around with. Kota was the panic that arose Since the second semester almost after I tried to google the all subjects in the IIIT Kota university. It was nothing but a syllabus are mostly computer little paragraph in the corner of science focused and those courses the MNIT site. You need to felt pretty natural to me and I had remember that we were in the already got myself accustomed to first batch ever. We’ve seen IIIT the atmosphere. I had the time to Kota materialize out of thin air try new things. I learned Android and become its own entity and development in my second have its own identity. We’ve quite semester and PHP web literally seen Prabha Bhavan development in my third. I got transform from a bunch of approached by an entrepreneur scaffolding and torn-down who was an MNIT alum to build an rooms(It was called the computer Android app for him. The startup center at that time) into the grew fast enough to need me to architectural marvel it is today. hire other IIITK students to help The first experience that really out, later on even as a full-time made the identity of IIIT Kota role after college for a classmate. stand out was the onboarding of The startup did well and ended up the batch of 2015. We had the getting acquired by a giant. Cairn most amazing week full of events India’s CSR app is one of the organized for them. There was a more iconic projects I got to work week-long set of events including on. We built an app to be used for art lessons, music sessions, social work and also to travel to cooking classes, and whatnot. It Barmer for it. I did also work on a was nothing like anything anyone lot of research projects with MNIT on campus had ever seen before. PhD students on Distributed Our batch was involved in Systems and Android Security. organizing the events. Other than that, being into music I was a In the summer of 2016, a bunch of part of pretty much all cultural students stayed back in college events. over summer to build an ERP solution for admissions. We had built computer stations for students to upload documents, enter details and get documents verified and get a student ID. We were given two Dell poweredge blade servers, we installed an operating system on it, deployed the ERP to it, it was super fun. It was a huge highlight of my time at IIITK 20
QUILLS 'n' STILLS When and how should current My experience of working on students go about picking research papers at IIITK helped projects during B.Tech? me contribute to research work at CMU. Day 1! The reason for that is you don’t really sign up to get How was the college experience at CMU? How was a project to work on. You don’t the culture different? wait for something like, “Oh, I’m going to wait for the third year to start a project”. You’re When I first came to CMU, I a computer science engineer was also new to the United the day you step into IIIT Kota. States and it was a big culture There’s nothing stopping you shock for me to absorb. There from picking up a problem and were stark differences in the working on solving it on day 1. behavior of people in classes, You can find projects online the method of teaching, the from open source repositories way assignments, projects, and on Github or work on building tests worked. Something I your own portfolio like a really admired was the fact website or an app that solves a that lectures were almost problem you face in your day- completely conversational. The to-day activities. The students were super focused. entrepreneurship cell on The professors really campus usually has tons of encouraged discussion, even opportunities to work on between students in the class existing ideas if you can’t and it really added a lot of come up with your own. value to the study material. There were a lot of activities What skills that you acquired done in class. CMU is at IIITK helped you during your masters? notorious for having rigorous Courses like Object-oriented assignment work but they were programming and Database Systems were really great always an integral part of the building blocks and some basics of machine learning and learning and were often distributed systems helped me hit the ground running at CMU. discussed in class. As a I also got a lot out of the projects that I had worked on member of the Student in terms of skills I could use for assignments and advanced Activities leadership, we courses at CMU. organized theme parties and other events on campus. Working as a teaching assistant was an interesting way to deep dive into a course and help other students. 21
QUILLS 'n' STILLS What are the differences and I was able to have some between academics in India and the US? impressive impact on reducing their experiment durations because of a set of automation In the US the syllabus is defined tools and analytics dashboards I as a set of focus areas that will built. Trust me, controlling super be discussed, but the matter large pieces of equipment with discussed is pretty exploratory. Java code feels incredible. Courses are updated every time they’re taught with the How was your experience with GSOC? Do you have tips to get technologies or best practices in selected? the industry. Very often we had guest lectures from people from top tech companies in silicon Google summer of code is an valley and their inputs would then annual remote internship that become the syllabus. Each Google organizes that allows lecture is pretty unique and students to contribute to an open- covers a single topic, source organization and be continuations are not common. rewarded with a stipend. I worked Classes often have a pre- on a project for the International requisite reading or assignment Neuroinformatics Coordinating and a post-assignment or quiz. Facility, Sweden. The company Grades are curved but are pretty has really interesting confidential. neuroscience projects including a mind-controlled wheel chain. I worked on building a drag and How was your internship at DRDO. drop Signal Processing + ML How did you get it? interface for data scientists working on EEG systems. I was I worked for DRDO Hyderabad as mentored by a member of INCF a contract engineer immediately for the 3-month duration and got after graduating from IIITK. Some to learn a lot about software professors in IIITK had contacts engineering best practices and within the organization and were writing professional maintainable able to get me in touch with a code for the Open Source world. scientist who was intrigued by my The project was pretty successful skill set. I had a really and was continued by other interesting experience there students for the next two years. being the only software engineer My advice to anyone intending to among a set of really hardcore apply is to narrow down on a electronics engineers. I had a single project and try to create a pretty unique position because of stellar proposal for it, with a the CS context I brought . concrete project plan and schedule and also a mock-up or prototype. 22
QUILLS 'n' STILLS How did you apply to Facebook? What should students focus on, What was the interview process projects or competitive like? programming? CMU students were invited on Now you may hear different campus to the Facebook HQ for an Infrastructure event. There I answers from different people, but met really interesting people performing different roles at I am really opinionated about this. Facebook and got to see Facebook hardware for the first I think there should be at least a time. I really enjoyed listening to stories from a Production 70-30 balance favoring project Engineer about FB’s software infra. I handed over my resume to work. Now, competitive a recruiter on-site in person (ah..the good old days)...A few programming polishes your ability months later I got an email that they wanted to chat. Being a new to think fast, be able to recognize grad, I had 2 phone interviews about coding and systems and I patterns, and implement common was then invited to this magical Disneyland-like campus for 4 data structures and algorithms rounds of onsite interviews. These were 2 coding rounds, 1 really fast. When you get into the system design, and 1 behavioral interview. I loved the systems industry, these begin to identify design interview because I could talk about my fun experiences as soft skills. Time constraints working with systems in IIITK and CMU and really portray the value translate to your efficiency. Time I brought right out of school. The behavioral interview really gave complexity gets evaluated against me a chance to understand the Facebook culture and things they the code readability and cared about. maintainability tradeoff. Complex data structures and intricate algorithms are super rare. Being able to nail competitive programming questions is great but using them to train yourself to be a better computer science engineer is just the wrong way to look at it. Skills like software code structure, automated testing, deployment techniques, system design are things you more actively use in the industry in your day-to-day work as a software engineer. Mini projects are the best way to develop these skills. Competitive programming has relatively low friction to get into as a new programmer and therefore I support it as a training ground but once you build enough experience, try to put in the effort to have small, presentable projects that solve real-world problems. 23
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Can you tell me about the work support engineers to collaborate culture at the Facebook HQ? effectively and have an impact How does it compare to India? on the company and the world. TLDR; It’s awesome and I love What’s your message to current and future students at it. Unfortunately, I don’t have IIITK? too much of a baseline since this Love what you do! Now, this doesn’t have to be very is my first job and I can only philosophical. Be critical in evaluating things you’re working compare it to my internships and on. “Do I really want to be an engineer? This project I’m stories I hear from friends. working on, this assignment, this lecture I’m attending...why am I What I love about it: doing it? Why are people trying to teach me this? How is this The blameless culture: I deal actually done in industry?” If you don’t answer these questions with incidents all day, and now, you will regret your decisions way down the line never have I ever seen an when it’s more problematic to fix things. Have empathy for your individual being blamed for an future self. IIITK is special! It does not need issue, we learn from our to abide by the status quo. You have a voice! Make sure you are mistakes and support learning what you need to learn. The faculty and staff are here to individuals and teams to support you and make sure you are given an opportunity to be prevent them in the future. the best engineer you can be. Work on making things better, Accessibility: I can ping (or one step at a time... yourself, IIITK, and the world! walk up to, when that was possible) any person in the company and ask them a question or for help on a topic Seniority: is opaque at Facebook. No one knows my level of hire except my manager, the same goes for promotions and pay. This avoids unnecessary competition and toxicity and promotes an amazing open culture. Leadership: My manager, when she’s talking about me, says “I support Joey” rather than “I manage Joey” or “Joey works under me” and there’s a major philosophical difference there. The entire purpose of management and leadership is to 24
QUILLS 'n' STILLS REAL TIME COMMUNICATION USING WEB SOCKETS Ever wondered how we are able to send information in real-time using chat applications like Whatsapp, Telegram, etc. Today in this article we are going to build our own simple (but ugly) chat application. Excited? Let’s get started. What are WebSockets? WebSockets API is a technology providing a *bidirectional communication medium* between client and server. It means the client no longer needs to initiate transactions while *requesting* data from the server. So how does the server know that a new client is there if we do not send a request? I didn’t say that we are not going to send requests at all or did I? So during the first request to the server, the client establishes a WebSocket connection(WebSocket Handshake). Some headers are included in the request. The server keeps a track of all the different client requests. What happens under the hood is a little complex and can’t be explained completely in this article. But luckily we don’t need to know everything to build a chat application. Is there any other way for real-time communication? Yes, there is. HTTP Long Polling is another technique. Here, the client sends a *request* to the server and the server keeps it open until some new data is available. When the data is received, the client receives it, the request is closed and a new request is opened immediately. This process is repeated again and again. But as you can see, there’s a big disadvantage i.e. it requires a lot of server resources. Requirements:- Text Editor (I am going to use VS Code) Node.Js Web Browser Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Javascript 25
QUILLS 'n' STILLS First of all, create a new empty directory for the project. Open this with VS Code. And in terminal window type npm init -y This will create a package.json file in the directory like this: Now we need to set up the node.js server. Use the following command for that: touch app.js && npm i express socket.io && npm i --save-dev nodemon Now update package.json for the scripts. The script should look like this. 26
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Now let’s start with client-side code and logic first. Create a directory named public and create files index.html and main.js Yeah, no CSS files. This is what I meant when I said ugly. Now, index.js should look like this: main.js 27
QUILLS 'n' STILLS These two files contain client-side logic. index.js just contains two input boxes for taking the name of the sender and message and a button to send the message. In main.js we have written logic theat when we click the send button, it sends the name and message data to the server for publishing it to other clients. Now time to populate app.js i.e. our server. Now in app.js, we have made an express server. Now when the message is emitted it emits another message event to all the clients that are connected to the server with the same payload. Time to see if it works or not? Fingers crossed. Run npm start Congratulations if you see output like this. Everything should work fine now. 28
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Open two *incognito tabs* now and hit localhost:5000 in each of them. Enter name and message and see if they are broadcasting to both the clients. As you can see in the screenshot above it seems to work fine. Just need to be deployed so that others can use it. You can use Heroku for deploying it. Visit https://chat-app-tut.herokuapp.com/ to view the deployed version. For all the code files visit https://github.com/pc-beast/chat-app-tut. Feel free to create an issue in the repo if you face any problems. Those who don’t like this ugly-looking interface and want to change it, feel free to create a PR about it. I am more than happy to have your contributions and suggestions. - PAVNESH CHATURVEDI 29
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Poetry Section \" A drop of ink may make a million think! \" -Lord Byron
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Happy Dreams; Far Away Can you give me that dream I used to have when I was a kid? Soft child with magical fantasies Of distant and far away grounds. Where I heard many sounds, From morning till it got dark. In rapids against the world, My strength would slowly tire out. I would sink, descend to the bottom, And be awoken in another dream. High in the sky with music echoing; A song I used to sing as a child. Sitting in space with stars, Watching others from afar. How beautiful and simple! So easily I would fall asleep. Today, dreams come as nightmares, My mind is in shambles yet forced to be wise. It constructs worries and sorrows, Rears unfriendly fights with time. It's always hard to fall asleep, As there is no one to cling to. I'm stuck with the fury of bad dreams, Repeating night after night. Unveil the covert way, kind heart, I assure that I'm a reliable one. Take me back to those old ways, To those happy dreams, far away. - JASMINE BHATT 31
QUILLS 'n' STILLS TALES OF AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION Lazy summer noon of 2010, That new dress when everyone was just would've been worn again. sitting and I was hopping happily in the new dress that The white, which now Dadi got me – It was white has an invisible and had pink flowers on it – when the bell rang, imprint of a lustful hand and if in an alternate would've had some visible stains dimension, I wouldn't have just signed, of ketchup or mud. when the courier man, Things would've been different in standing on the stairs of my very own house an alternate world. rested his hand That day on my barely developed chest. Standing there, when winters approached, fearlessly touching me, a little differently for me. like I was some object, maybe he would've realised That time, that I wasn't one, if he could when everyone was celebrating \"feel\" my heart race. I would have caught that hand, the bond of two souls. or maybe had just shouted \"Ma\", It would've been I would have understood as happy a time what happened with me, and the fact that it as it was for my cousins happens to almost every surrounded by food we liked. If second girl only it was food that cornered me. and yet it was wrong. In an alternate dimension I would've known that uncle could also have incriminating hands, which when he used to pull my innocent ones and rub on the inside of his thighs I would have not just complied. I would have known the difference between his and 32
QUILLS 'n' STILLS my father's \"Oh! My dear child.\" In an alternate dimension I would have danced things would have been like a free soul, different. only if I wouldn't have to keep I would sit in public bus running from his creepy eyes where the smelly person's and weird smile. hand wouldn't try to go inside In an alternate dimension, I my pants. I would have a life, wouldn't mind calling out on UNCLE whose daughter was the devoid of cat-calling sister, followed by in whom I used to confide. The Diwali my meaningless rants, when I was to which my friend's reply Walking towards my home on the wouldn't be, \"It happens, it's dark road, fine\". I wouldn't have to be with Ma walking conscious of what I might say a few feets ahead of me. In an alternate dimension, the night of that would be taken as light 'consent', of what I might do, wouldn't have been so dark. that would mean that The sudden shock I was \"asking for it man\". would've been of a mere firecracker, Tales from an alternate it wouldn't have frozen me and dimension? I don't know about broken me the very second. The guy on the bike you, would've not even wanted to slap but that's what these sound to my butt. If not that, me, throw all your hate for atleast, feminism at me, but I'll tell he wouldn't be roaming free, like he is this very moment. you what? I would have held I am not a feminist, that incriminated hand, not any of the various I would have shouted the words meanings of it out there on that never came out of my head. the plate, all I ask is freedom from this constant fear, anxiety and my 'fate' - KARVY MOHNOT 33
QUILLS 'n' STILLS LIFE AND TIME Life and time, We are running and are timed, I guess I’m obliged to spend. What do you talk of so fondly? Not once I despise this gift, To associate with birthing, What balance? Which tide? Is my bliss and I’m blessed. Forlorn disguised old faces, But time my dear and oh its pace! At sixty they found out about time. The sun does come up every day, Futile race it was, they claim. And the moon does hide well. Only a little closer now they stand, How the pace of time dictates nature! Death calls them faster with each day. A score and a four becomes a day, I think I have spoken too much, Seven days and a week says goodbye. Time won’t forgive me if I continue. I don’t always mean what I say, Coming back to life and off to start But with time I have something, Some issue, some bad luck. again, I do wear a silver watch, Everything ends where it started, And I set alarm to get up. Like a loop I’m sure you’re aware. I’m fearful, I’m lacking behind, I don’t despise nor do I disagree, Which personally I don’t mind. But the world won’t let me live, I just humbly recite my reverie. If I don’t follow the Clock. If brim of heaven was stirred, Let me tell you, one distinction, This perpetual complexity, Time is existent, forever stretched, Beyond life and beyond death. And this diluted nature of time, A fawn in a jungle hopping around, Wouldn’t ever cease. How does he know about the fall of night? So, I ask myself a question, Humans as we are called, Does time ever end or is it forever? Defined as our characters are. Our habit is to name and control, For very sake of my satisfaction, But fools, oh the fools we became, I conclude, for humans, When we tried to rule over time. Little deer and then there I am, Time will exist only for a lifetime. His instinct is his watch, No time keepers, no worldly time. But my watch is running days behind. But nature’s time never shall cease, I wish I wasn’t part of this race, Where no one spends a second, Was never meant for counting. To wait and to admire hardships. It was forever independent. To collect some leaves or stones. But no one stops for no one, - JASMINE BHATT Even if one falls, trips or bleeds. 34
QUILLS 'n' STILLS MEMORY HOAX Sometimes I recall a day, That I am yet to live. A day full of bliss and blessings. When I could stand on my feet, And feel alive at the moment. With a faint smile on my face, And my eyes sealed with tranquility. For once getting past the waves, Of the incessant beam of thoughts. For once not to cast my shadow, On the tiddly world within me. Rather, admiring the luster of nature, And its love for life and the living. Away from all the expectations and the hopes, Somewhere in the lap of equanimity. My heart brimmed with gratitude and love, For all the things that are yet to come. Until then let me continue the way it always does, Juggling life, death, and its in-between fuss. — Apoorv Kashyap 35
QUILLS 'n' STILLS A SONG TO MOVE BY Think of life as an orchestra, We feel ecstatic and at ease at And we — the same time, We are the guests, And it is now in the course of In a far-prolonged wedding. this song, That this long-wedding makes Each song that life plays, sense, Often ends up as mere noise. That Life makes sense. But then there comes that one song, This song has a meaning One song at which we’re behind it, aligned. But it is too fancy for anyone Suddenly the thoughts which to fully grasp it. were, At times, it sounds far too Scattered away at first, elaborate, Now reunite to form a At other times, far too simple. beautiful melody. This song has etched itself in your memory, We may not actually dance to And will now never let go. this song, But a part of us is definitely Oblivious to the fact that its swaying to it. run might soon end, We like the choir, the cadence, We mistakenly sync our the music, breathing to its beats. And Oh God! Do we But of course its run ends; the understand the lyrics! song ends. And we are left with a vicious When we find ourselves totally asphyxia, engulfed by it, Cause now mere breathing We look around to check on isn’t easy, other guests. When that song is no more. Still boring, still dull, Cause now mere breathing is humdrum. punishing, But that's not how we are. Now that you’re no more. That’s not how we are, -APOORV KASHYAP When this particular song is playing. 36
QUILLS 'n' STILLS त हा काम याबी पा क र भी तू त न हा का म या बी पा क र भी तू िक त ना आ गे जा ए गा ? त हा का म या बी पा क र भी तू िक त ना आ गे जा ए गा ? अं त म तो ब स ए क िस फ र र ह जा ए गा । आ ज ज हां ख ड़ े ह को ई इ े फा क न ह , ह जा र पी ढ़ ी ख िप है िफ र कै से को ई बा त न ह । अ प न को छो ड़ क र दू र च ला जा र हा है य ? खु द को द गा दे क र म न मा रे च ला जा र हा है य ? का म या बी क खो ज म इ त ना आ गे च ल च ला है , का म या बी क खो ज म इ त ना आ गे च ल च ला है , िक अ ब खु द को ही खु द से खो च ला है । मा ण प के द म प र िक त ना आ गे त क जा ए गा ? अ प न से ना ता न तो ड़ , ब ड़ ा प छ ता ए गा । उ स सा िह ल त क जा ना ही है तो ह म द म , अ प न को सा थ ले च ल । उ स सा िह ल त क जा ना ही है तो ह म द म , अ प न को सा थ ले च ल । व र ना ला ख क भी ड़ म भी तू अ प ने आ प को अ के ला पा ए गा । त हा का म या बी पा क र भी तू िक त ना आ गे त क जा ए गा ? अं त म तो ब स ए क िस फ र र ह जा ए गा , ए क िस फ र र ह जा ए गा | | -ओज व जैन 37
QUILLS 'n' STILLS जदं गी हमारी िकस मोड पर जदं गी हमारी िकस मोड पर जा रही है ये िकसी को खबर नह । लोग बस काम और काम म ही उलझे ए ह, इसं ान कब हवै ान बन गया ये िकसी को खबर ही नह । दसू र क तर से जलते ह। दसू र को िगराने म कई बार खुद भी िफसलते ह। एक अिडयलपन सा आ गया है हमम, सधु रना तो चाहते ही नह । जदं गी हमारी िकस मोड पर जा रही है ये िकसी को खबर नह । इसं ान कब हवै ान बन गया ये िकसी को खबर ही नह । हम िसफ अब इसं ािनयत क बात करते ह, मगर िफर भी एक दसू रे से धम के नाम पर लडते ह, म िह दू म मसु लमान बस यही तो अब हम गाते ह। जदं गी हमारी िकस मोड पर जा रही है ये िकसी को खबर नह । इसं ान कब हवै ान बन गया ये िकसी को खबर ही नह । औरत क असमत को अब रेत सी बना दी ह हमन,े कभी भी िबखर जाती ह।ै दिु नया म वो बराबरी से घुमे ये िकसे पसदं नही, मगर नारी सश क बात सब करते ह। नर नाजाने नर से कब नीच हो गया, ये िकसी को खबर नह । जदं गी हमारी िकस मोड पर जा रही है ये िकसी को खबर नह । -स चत व म 38
QUILLS 'n' STILLS जब वो थे तो जब वो थे तो घटं े तो इतने ही थे पर ये राते इतनी लबं ी ना थी जब वो थे तो झगड़े तो ब त ए पर इन आखं म नमी ना थी जब वो थे तो लतीफे तो कम सुने थे मने पर मरे ी मु कु राहट म कमी ना थी जब वो थे तो मलु ाकात कम लोगो से थी पर हमे कसी क कमी खली ना थी जब वो थे तो मह फल ब त जमी पर वो मह फल गमगीन ना थी जब वो थे तो मखै ाने ब त देखे पर पीने क चाहत ना थी जब वो थे तो मने कभी क वता लखी ना थी जब वो थे तो... ~ नशातं मौय 39
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Artworks & Photography Section \"The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke\" -Jerzy Kosinki
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Apoorv Kashyap 41
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Kunal Kishor 42
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Mohd. Junaid 43
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Sneh Patel 44
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Sneh Patel 45
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Sneh Patel 46
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Divyam Choudhary 47
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Divyam Choudhary 48
QUILLS 'n' STILLS Hitendra Singh 49
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