The mystery of the scratched VCD.

Last December there was a family(my mother's kindred) reunion of sorts here in Cochin.The occasion was cousin Preetha's engagement .The marriage is scheduled in May.However my mum who lives in Delhi couldn't participate in the rhapsody. I had a fabulous time with all my cousins and friends who were present but my mum was wistfully morose because she missed out on all the merriment.
Aunt Shaila who is the mother of my betrothed cousin is my mum's eldest sister. Mum has great regard and admiration for Aunt .Aunt loves her kid sister. They communicate every other day with each other on the phone and after the engagement their conversation mostly lingered over the party.
The engagement video was out within one week of the event and four VCD copies were sent to relatives all around the globe( one copy was sent to cousin Deepu who is in Dallas).Aunt had asked my mother if she wanted a copy but mum said no thinking that it'll be a lot of work for her sister. Then one day I guess one month after the engagement, while the two sisters were talking on the phone, aunt started talking about the engagement and the video as usual and my mum got the feeling that perhaps aunt wants mum to see the video.So mum asked if one more vcd could be burnt and sent all the way to Delhi.
My aunt however wasn't all enraptured with my mother's request because mommy dear had initially said no. Aunt disapproved of it to me and I decided to take the responsibility of getting the cd written and then posting it through speed-post.I did so and mum received the cd after three days. But she couldn't play it on the computer or on the dvd/vcd player and this made her awfully frustrated.There were some scratches on the CD.I blamed the speed-post people. I even called them incompetent. I didn't venture to tell her that before posting the VCD ,I and dias played a little catch game with the parceled vcd and I had dropped it onto the floor once.
She was finally able to watch the VCD contents in spite of the scratches and was very pleased with it. She observed that I looked a lot thinner than usual and therefore I got reprimanded for not taking good enough care of my health.

Project at NPOL

In most engineering colleges, the students in their final semesters are suppsed to do a project. We (CUSATITES)choose to call it the ' Major ' project because it is worth 300 marks. I am doing mine in NPOL(Naval Physical Oceanographic Laboratory) along with Varun M, Srijith and Dias.Npol is a laboratory of our DRDO(Defence Research Development Organization).They specialize in building SONARs. No readers, our project has nothing to do with SONARs and submarines .We just need to dabble with their database.Nevertheless,it is a live project which they promise will be implemented if completed successfully and help us in fetching certificates from the ministry of defence.
Srijith's father is an employee of NPOL which helped us to get to do the project there. It is quite amusing to see Srijith smiling from ear to ear when he meets any employee , right from the hindi speaking guards to the countless acquaintances of his father. The security regulations there are very stringent. No mobile phones are allowed inside. They don't seem to have any problems with CDs and Flash drives(actually it is disallowed but they don't check our bags).
We have two project guides:-Mr. Ananda manoharan and Mr.Gopakumar.The former is an eminent scientist of the IT division and a very cordial person with a lot of energy running through his veins. But unfortunately he must be the most inarticulate person I've ever met.It takes great levels of concentration and imagination to discern what he is trying to say. But despite his apparent weaknesses he takes great pains in making things clear to us .
The other guide is mr.Gopakumar who unlike his senior, has no problems in talking coherently. But he has great expectations from us. In that regard the patron is loads better than the protege. However, both are warmhearted people and greatly pleasing to work under.
My expeditions to NPOL will be incomplete if i don't mention the qualtiy of the food provided to us in the canteen. Half baked chapatti and tasteless Dal(or at other times chana or peas curry) .
Simply awful.