Geek Tale #1 : Was It a Dream ??

#Written on 16-12-2009.


One fine Sunday ... ( I verified the day from my mom .. she told today is tuesday. This is what happens when you get a month off after a hectic sem ends in IIT - You don't bother whether it is sunday, monday or any other day as you are so busy relaxing and eating that you wish this time to freeze ) ... bored you enough huh... now back again ...


One fine Tuesday ... I got up at 6 o'clock to surf internet and download a movie ('Paa'). Download started .... 0% ... 1 % .. 2 hrs remaining . In the meantime I was checking my mail which had about 81 unread messages (41 facebook , 29 orkut , 8 newsletters and 3 personally addressed). Facebook & orkut messages went to trash ... read those newsletters which were actually advertisements ... thrash :x ... now the 3 messages...One was sent by someone whose email id read as unowho007kumar@gmail.com and the content of the message was as usual - ' Identify me if u can ! ' .... I recognized this kind of email-id can be possessed by only one guy - Monoj Kumar ... a friend from my school days who used to torture our ears ! ... School Days ... I wish to relive those days ... phew .. but time has flowed ... I moved on ..The next message was sent by Osama (not the one whose image came in your mind :P). It was to inquire whether I was in kanpur or jamshedpur. I wanted to pay him a surprise visit so I replied i'm in kanpur.
Then came the message for which you have waited for so long... It was sent by someone who claimed that he was in std. 11 and was studying in my school and wanted some help regarding a programming question .. hmmm.. I quickly browsed thro' the question ... it was familiar to my eyes .. 
I had already come across that question in 12th std. while I was preparing for a programming competition... M*I**L(currently in 12) had given me the question as a challenge stating that it was asked in an International Olympiad. At that time I just looked it for 5 minutes .. calculated in my mind that I could not solve it ... pocketed that question saying i'll try it at home ... but I never tried to solve it ... saying that I have no time .. gotta prepare for JEE
but reality was something different ... I feared .. u heard it right ... I did not want to loose this challenge and my confidence ... so made a very good excuse and escaped.


But see the fate ... the same thing the same fear ... it came back again ... but itz just an email .. delete it .. who cares .... nope solve it this time ... otherwise it will remain as a burden in your mind ... and many such random thoughts were flashing in my mind.


In the meantime ... Download Complete ! .. yippee ... and a voice said - relax dude ... your sem has just ended ... take a break .. leave the question aside and enjoy the movie ... But i was feeling leaden. I went back to my bed and ... i don't know what happened ...


My next vision ... It was a room full of ........ air .. you got it right - it was empty. I turned to my right and saw a computer occupying the damp and dark corner. Sensing no way out, I went near the ordinary PC. Something was already running on the screen .... Before I could see the name of the application (my wild guess - BlueJ as its interface was familiar to the application running on screen) characters started floating out of the screen and enlarged .... soon a river of characters started appearing .. enlarging .. arranging ... disappearing in front of my eyes ... trying to convey what hadn't struck me in the past 1 year .... yeah ... it was in front of me... unbelievable ... the entire algorithm to solve the problem program ..... my eyes ... popping out ... out of sheer excitement and .....I saw my mom's face. Her hands were on my shoulder .. shaking me ... a signal to get out of the bed .. it was 11 o' clock ... my mom told me that today I showed a very peculiar behavior .. my eyes were open and she thought that I was awake but in reality I was not ... I did not bother to listen to her. Quickly switched on my computer. I still had a faint memory of that algorithm .. quickly wrote the corresponding code ... no compiler error .. no runtime error .. program successfully running in front of my eyes ... but some deep thoughts were still traveling in my mind -
was it really a dream ... a deja vu .. or a creation of my mind which over the year had reached a solution without my knowing it .... i have no answer .. a mere lucky coincidence perhaps .. whatever it was it relieved me of a burden today ... the fear had vanished .... but the wait continues .... wait for more such dreams which come true ..