Both of us being absolute beginners to trekking so we choose an relatively easy and short trek “Ettina Bhuja” (ox’s hump when translated to english) (it got its name because of the similar shape of the hill to that of the ox’s hump) which was 2.5kms + 2.5kms trek. Being on a tight budget we opted for a local homestay. Our itenary looks something like this: ride to homestay unload, check mails and finish the office work as he was on WFH, trek on day 2's morning and later figure out what to do on day2 afternoon and day3. As we were trekking at the end of the summer we were expecting the scenery to be dry but read further for the reality.

Left Bengaluru before dawn of 1st May headed start towards Sakleshpura, the Bengaluru Hassan highway was smooth and filled with riders as it was a long weekend. Reached homestay by noon 12, stopping in between for the photos, breakfast and morning standups (work from highway). The terrain changed from concrete jungle to highways to narrow single lane across coffee estates to slight offroad to reach the homestay. Homestay was run by a sweet couple. We particularly choose that one as it was near to trek starting point. After unloading the luggage and eating the lunch prepared by the homestay lady we headed in search of internet service as there was no signal at homestay. Wandering around we reached a closed post office and my friend connected to the internet and checked for any assigned tasks or mails to respond to. The scene looked something like this.

After this we wandered every side road as there was time for sunset. And we went to a watchtower near the homestay to see the sunset on suggestion of the homestay owner. The road to the watchtower was pure offroad and inside the forrest with frequent elephant spottings in the nearby areas which we got to know later from the homestay owner. The road to watchtower was filled with adrenaline and after reaching a good spot we stayed there for about 15 20 minutes and than the fear started to settle in as there was no sign of human and fearing the encounter with wild animals and getting stuck in dark inside the forrest we quickly headed by to homestay. After reaching the homestay we had a good chat with the owner about how the life is in the region, politics, senanigans of an celebrity how visited the reigon few years back. later we had the dinner and went to sleep as a trek was waiting for us the next day.

Next day we started our trek around 7am, we passed through the forrest canope and into grasslands, the grassland was covered with fog and suddenly when the fog cleared the summit was standing ahead of us. Being our very first trek the climb looked very steep (refer to first image) and we were second guessing whether to continue or not but as we approached the starting of the asent it was not as hard as it looked and after about 30 minutes of climb we were at top enjoying the stunning view of the forrest and the ghats. After clicking some pictures we headed down back to homestay, while descending we were still figuring out where to head next and decided that we will go to Kukke Subramanya via Shiradi ghat and return to Bengaluru via Bisle Ghat (intention was to cover all the ghats in the region) On reaching homestay we bathed, had breakfast prepared by the homestay lady and resumed our journey.

We were expecting the Shiradi Ghats to be single lane tarmac road covered with canopy on both sides, but but, it was a fully paved, bumpy, concrete road which sucked out all the joy of the ride and also the afternoon heat drained our energy. We reached our hotel in Kukke by 2PM, took shower, had lunch and headed to the Subramanya temple got Darshana, went to a small temple nearby and return to Subramanya for prasad and came to hotel and decided that we will leave before the dawn and be on ghat at the time of sunrise.

We left the hotel at 5AM when it was pitch black, and we headed straight towards the ghat, when I approached the first turn in ghat, I was terrified as the headlight of Scrambler wasn’t enough and what was around the corner wasn’t visible. Still we continued the journey and started climbing the ghat and slowly the sunrays were passing through the thick forrest cover and reaching the road and the feeling of riding in the Bisle Ghat at dawn can’t be explained in words.

After crossing the Ghat we went through the coffee plantations and the roadsss were smooth, fresh tarmac which gripped the tires like feviquik. Me and my riding buddy were is sync conquering one corner after another, one neighborhood (as there were no big villages and only 4 5 houses in a area) after another and we joined the Hassan Bengaluru Highway. As we reached the highway we fueled up and got ready for the final stretch to Bengaluru. On the way we had stopped for the breakfast and just when we were saddling up a biker group came to the same restaurent on their Triumph Tiger 800 XC (my first crush), Africa Twin, Vstorm, BMW F850 GS and that sight of the OG Tigerr, ufff made my day. I would have stood there staring at it for another hour but fearing the Bengaluru traffic we continued our ride and reached Bengaluru, and our ride comes to an end.

while alive:
  if weekday:
    getup()
    get_ready()
    if possible:
      have_breakfast()
    travel_to_office()
    work()
    travel_to_stay()
    dinner()
    scroll()
    sleep()
  if weekend:
    if energy != empty:
      social()
    else:
      restore(energy)

And amidst this loop, there are few side-quests which make you realize that it isn’t really a loop and these side-quests are the break statements.

Or maybe these side-quests are the function calls which when done executing go back to the loop.

To be honest even I was a bit scared, but I knew nothing would happen being a strict defensive rider, but even without your mistake things can still happen.

We (me and another rider) left my hometown in the morning and reached Bengaluru in afternoon. After dropping my fellow rider I went to my PG, paid the month’s rent (during previous visit I paid the deposit amount) and went in the room, initially I was in a triple sharing room, but due to some issue, I switched to a two-sharing room the same night. And you can say due to my luck I am alone in a double sharing room. (The second tenant is yet to arrive) I am enjoying the room all by myself, it's been 5 days I am staying alone, and I just hope that second tenant doesn’t come. (I know I am being greedy but… you will get to know).

After settling done in a double sharing room, the first thing I faced was the problem with the bed, me being 5`11, the bed is short by few inches. Anyways it wasn’t a big issue, and I am comfortable now in my single bed.

I went to Bengaluru early, meaning I have a full day spare between arriving and joining date, so on the next day (spare day) I decided to go to my office on public transport. So, after having my breakfast in my PG, I opened by phone, typed in the location of my office, selected the public transport (bus mode) in the google maps and went out. Just as I was walking on the road, the air pollution in the city hit me; after walking for about 5 minutes, I felt something weird in my nose. I spotted a medical shop nearby, went in and got myself a mask and walked to the Bus stop. The ticket to my office costed me 18 rupees; while purchasing the ticket I was a bit shocked that they accepted UPI even for bus tickets, as I had cash I paid with cash and went to office. It took me nearly 50 minutes to reach my office. After seeing the route to the office, I explored the area which I saw on Instagram, where all the wealthy people stay (I am not disclosing the location of it, you can keep guessing). I saw huge bungalows, luxury cars in parking lots, green neighborhood, expensive shops and just as I walked a few steps, there was a slum-like area all within 100 meters and that's the contrast of the city, I have seen the same thing in Mumbai as well few months back.

After exploring the area, I took the bus and I got down 2 stops ahead of my actual stop, you ask me why? Because the driver didn’t stop at my location, I was sitting in my seat watching my bus going ahead of the location, when I asked the conductor he said, Ohh ilibeekith aanu? and whistled to driver on the next stop, anyways I walked 2 stops ahead back to my PG had dinner and slept on my short bed.

First day of my Corporate Life / Day 1 of Office in next blog.

I will try to show up every week, don't know, if I will be able to do or not but I want to do it as documenting my journey and this new phase of life. Next Blog, first day in Bengaluru.

Considering the current market situation, I didn’t want to miss any opportunities so in the 15 days' time between the online assessment and the mail, I first read thoroughly the experience PPTs of the seniors which helped me a lot to understand what exactly the Toshiba wants. After reading those PPTs I came to know that Toshiba looks for an in-depth knowledge on C, DSA, OOP and OS. So, I made a plan to cover these topics in the time I had.

Firstly, I spent a week revising my DSA topics, like implementation of Struct, Stack, Queue, Singly, Doubly Linked List, Circular Singly, Doubly Linked List, DFS, BFS, Sorting algorithms. I had a good hold on these topics as I had studied these topics in-depth during my 1st 2nd and 3rd Sem of engineering course (At that time ChatGPT wasn’t so popular, so thankfully I had implemented all the codes manually). I read the Book “Let Us C” by Yashvant Kanetkar which was very helpful in understanding the C Language and brush-up the topics. Next 4 to 5 days I studied the concepts of Object Orientated Programming using C++, as it was our course in 4th Sem of Engineering. And coming to the OS part I covered just the basics and scratched the surface of OS as I was pretty confident with my C, DSA and OOP. After covering these subjects, I had covered almost 60 to 70% of the topics which are needed to clear the interview. But before I can reach the Interview Round, there is an Online Assessment which was conducted in college labs thankfully. Why Thankfully? because you can’t use AI tools to cheat in online assessments and in this scenario, I have an advantage over others as my strong suit was C programming. Other topics in the Online assessments were the aptitude, which I covered in 2 days before the online assessment.

It was 14th July 2025; we had a Pre-Placement Talk in the morning where the HR and few of the senior managers talked about the role and the company. After the Pre-Placement Talk we had Online Assessment in the college labs. The assessment consisted of a Coding question,

Question:

Given the number of Matches “N”, Maximum Points that can be scored from a single match “M”, Minimum Run Rate needed to Qualify for the finals “F” and an integer array “A” of size (N-1). The team has played N-1 Matches and have earned the points as described in the Array “A”. Find the minimum number of points that the team has to score in the last match to qualify for the finals. Return -1 if the team couldn’t qualify for the finals

I don’t remember the exact question, but it was almost the same as mentioned above, it was an easy question. I started my Assessment with this coding question and in my first attempt I clear all the testcases except 1 hidden testcase in about 10-12 minutes and moved to the aptitude section and left the failed testcase to be revisited once I complete the aptitude section. The aptitude section consisted of question from the topics of Predict the output, Identify Errors, filling missing statements in C (15 questions) Percentages, Non-verbal, Profit-loss, Ratio and Proportion, Time and Work, Data Interpretation, Directions (31 questions) Analytical section Comparing images, count number of ‘s’ in a sentence, etc.(4 questions) after all these I came back to the coding question’s failed testcase, I had missed a condition where the cricket team has already qualified for the finals, and in that case the minimum number of points needed for that team will be 0. I handled this edge case, and the testcase passed.

1 hour 15 minutes of the Online Assessment was completed by 2.00 PM approximately. I was pretty confident that I had cleared the assessment and will be shortlisted for the technical rounds which will take place the very next day, 15th July 2025. On my way to home from college I took printout of all the documents needed for the interview along with the resume and by 07.00 PM we received the mail from the placement officer, The List of shortlisted candidates for the technical interviews. I found my name in the list. I revised the topics of C, DSA, OOP and OS in the night and slept early, around 12am, yes 12.00 AM is considered early for an Engineering Grad. We were told that interviews will be started by morning 8.30. All my friends who got shortlisted had arrived in front of placement cell for interviews.

The interviews began around 9.15 - 9.30 AM maybe I don’t remember exactly. My interview started at around 10.00 AM. I was the first candidate to be interviewed by that particular panel, there were two Interviewers in the panel. I was in the seated in the interview cabin and nervousness was overflowing from my face. The interviewers were still setting up their devices while I was seated on the “hot — seat”, one of the interviewers saw me being nervous and started a small talk and he told me that he was my senior from 2022 batch, he then told me to calm down. After this small conversation I was comfortable and controlled my nervous and the first technical interview round began.

Starting with my introduction the interviewer asked me to rate my DSA and C programming skills; I rated myself 3.5 and 4 respectively and the questioning began. He gave a code snippet of pre increment and post increment operator

Code snippet:

int x = 5;
int y = x++;
int z = ++y;
printf(“%d”,z);

and asked me the output and later explain how I got that output.
Next, he gave another snippet and asked me to trace it for multiple inputs and explain it to him with the memory diagram, I did that.
Next, they asked me which is faster a++ or a=a+1, I knew that a++ is faster but couldn’t explain why it is faster, after the interview I looked it up and found out that it is faster because of the way it is handled internally and the way assembly instructions are written.
Next question, Given a variable “v” declared in a file “one.c” how would you access that variable “v” from another file “two.c”. I said with the help of the extern keyword in C, he cross questioned on that but I was not able to answer it and move to next question.
He asked me what will be the output of the following snippet:

int x = 6;
int y = 4;
double z = x/y;
printf(“%.2f”,z);

I said the output will be 1.00 and explained that the output will be 1.00 because of the datatypes of x and y being int and the format specifier in the print statement.
Next, he asked me how I can implement a loop in 3 ways, I answered, using while, for and goto. He was impressed that I was aware of the goto and next they asked me to list the sorting algorithms which I knew and tell the space and time complexity of Heap sort.
Next, they asked me to write the prototype for the malloc, I did that and explained the need of typecasting it and why it returns a void pointer, it was followed by the question asking for the difference between malloc and calloc. I answered it correctly and next they asked me which data structures are used in BFS and DFS and told me explain it verbally, like which all nodes will be in the stack and which will be in the queue. There were someother questions related to DSA and C but I don’t remember all the questions.

Once they were sure about my DSA and C Skills, they moved to the Computer Networks (CN) topic, the questions on CN were less and were just to check the basic understanding of CN.

First, they asked me to list the layers of OSI model both the 7 layers and 5 layers variant.
Next, they asked me about the TCP and UDP protocol and where each of the protocol is used, next they asked me to explain about jitter and delay. I had read about these previously but was unable to recall, I told the same thing to them and they moved to the OOP Concepts.

They asked me about pillars of OOP, next about the types of polymorphism, types of constructors, explain about function overloading and function overriding, where they are used and in which scenario, friend function and few other questions which I am not able to recall.

Next set of questions were on the topic of Operating Systems (OS), and I messed this topic the most compared to other sections. First, they asked about the different types of scheduling algorithms and explain briefly what happens in each of them, next they asked me if I was aware of the topic of holes, I wasn’t confident on this hence I informed them about the same. Next, they asked me what does fork() do? I answered it correctly as; I had used it in my OS lab sessions. Next the differences between the getpid() and getppid() functions. And what values will they return when called from the child process and parent process. I had read about this exact same topic before the online assessment, but I answered this question wrongly and got to know my mistake after the interview.
These was the last topic they asked, and, in the end, they looked at my resume again and asked me to explain the projects which I added in the resume also about the certifications which I mentioned in it. I had done the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate during my break time before joining engineering, they asked me about the content of the course and next, I had also listed the NPTEL Certification of Cryptography and Network Security course, they asked what all I studied in that course and a follow-up question on where will the encryption and decryption algorithms be used apart from the networking field. I said that we can use the encryption and decryption in the storage devices to protect the data from being compromised. And with this my first technical interview was completed. It was almost 60 75 minutes long but it never felt like that long and I didn’t even realize that it was so long.

I came out of the chamber and has drinking water and talking with my friends about the interview and suddenly the HR calls my name and asks me to get my resume, in my mind I was like maybe she wants to verify some information, as there was almost an hour and half of gap between the interview rounds of my friends, but she told me that I am going in for the second technical interview. Within the 5 10 minutes after the first round my second interview began.

I went inside the chamber, this time there was only one interviewer, and he seemed to be a senior manager in the company, he had almost 15 20 years of experience. The interviewer was calm but very knowledgeable.

First, he asked me to introduce myself and later looking at my resume asked me to draw a UML diagram of the OOP project which I added in my resume, it need not be the exact one, but it must cover all the methods and attributes from the project.
Next, He told me write the code and explain how I implemented the inheritance in my project. After that he asked me to write the code and explain about function overriding and function overloading, same question was asked in previous round as well but this time there were a lot of follow-up questions on what and why.
Next, he asked me to add a new functionality to the project. After this he moved on to the next project which I mentioned in my resume, DSA project. I explained about the project, and as it was our course project, we were asked to implement as many Data Structures and Algorithms possible. For example, I implemented two different string-matching algorithms even though I could have used a single algorithm twice. So, he asked me to list the Data Structures and Algorithms I used in the project. I listed all of them and he asked me if I can write a code for detecting loop in singly linked list, I wrote the code correctly and them he asked me to trace it for the input when there is a loop in the linked list and also when there isn’t any loop in the linked list. I solved it using the method of slow and fast pointer.
Next, he asked me about the React project which I added in the resume. And after that he asked me about the JPMorgan Chase Code for Good 2025 Hackathon, as I was the finalist and asked what my role in the team was, I said I built the feedback form, the landing page, an emergency action button using the React, which is linked to mail and the phone number of the user (Our hackathon project was on building a web application to connect Caregiver and Care seeker, detailed blog on that topic will be coming).
After this he asked me a puzzle, which was a simple math-based puzzle, hence I solved it and explained my approach on how I came up with the solution.

After he was done with the technical questions, he asked me if I am aware of the role in the company and later, he explained about it, and the second interview is completed.

It was around 12.30 PM when I came out, this round was also an hour long. My two technical rounds were done, some of my friends had 3rd round and also 4th round in some cases. After my 2nd round the HR told me to have lunch and be back by 1.30 PM, she didn’t tell me anything about the next round. I had my lunch which I had packed from my home and was present Infront of the placement cell by 1.45 PM. Interviews of other candidates begin at around 2 - 2.30 PM. I was waiting, thinking I will have another technical round. One after another my friends went in for the interview and came back; some cleared the interview some were sent back. As the time passed my anxiety grew and slowly my focus zone was weakening and suddenly at 4.30 PM HR calls my name and asks me to get my documents and informs me that my next round will be a HR round, hearing that I was relieved as HR round is just for sake of formality and whoever were interviewed for HR round got placed (I came to know about this as it was mentioned in experience PPT). Execeptions being problems with the relocation or other personal reasons.

HR Round was just 15 minutes, the HR asked me about my family background, if I am ready to relocate to the Bengaluru as I will be working on-site and told me that I have to do a 6-month Internship in my 8th Sem of engineering in Toshiba itself. If I had any plans of going for masters. And with this all my interviews were done by 5.00 PM. But official announcement of the results was yet to be done as technical rounds of some candidates were still going on. And around 8.00 PM they announced the results, and as soon as I heard my name, I was relieved. And then they gave us goodies and welcomed us to the company and team, clicked a group photo and the placement procedure was completed. I called my parents and told that I am placed. It was 10.00 PM when I reached home, had dinner and slept dreaming about the life about. (it’s 1st of November when I am posting this blog and the life is total opposite to what I dreamed about).

In the end my suggestions for the interviews would be to go prepared and don’t bluff as the interviewer has more knowledge than you and can call your bluff easily. Be honest if you don’t know the answer to a question and let the interviewer know it so that they will move on to next question.

See you in another blog.

Birthday paradox is a veridical paradox that states that it requires a group of only 23 people to have a minimum probability of 2 people having a share birthday (Day and Month).

The probability is calculated by finding the probability of two people not having same birthday and not by directly calculating the probability of a shared birthday. Because common birthdays can occur not just between two individuals but between multiple people.

Assumptions:

• No Leap Year
• No Twins
• We are considering same birthday as same daya and month and not same year.

The formula to the probability of occurrence of birthday on same day given a number of people “N”,

(P) = 1 — Probability of not having any common birthdays

Using the principle:

Probability of Occurrence = 1 — Probability of Not Occurring

For N = 1
A Group of single individuals

P = 1 — (No. of days no one has any birthdays / No. of days in year)
P = 1 — (365/365)
P = 1 — 1
P = 0
P = 0%

For N = 2
A Group of two individuals

P = 1 — (364/365)
(Since one person already has a birthday, so second person cannot have birthday on the same day)

P = 1 – 0.997260274
P = 0.002739726
P = 0.273%

This can be calculated in the usual way:

First person having a birthday on Day X
Probability of second person having same birthday as X = 1/365

P = 1/365
P = 0.002739726
P = 0.273%

We can generalize it using the formula

As the terms (365-i)/365 are lesser than 1, multiplying them multiple times decreases the value and eventually it will tend towards 0 before reaching the value of i=365, which makes the numerator zero and the whole product zero too.

According to Birthday Paradox

We need

23 person in a room to have ~50% chance of 2 people having same birthday,

41 person for ~90% chance of 2 people having same birthday,

47 person for ~95% chance of 2 people having same birthday,

57 person for ~99% chance of 2 people having same birthday,

If we want absolute certainty and not just probabilistic chance then we turn towards the Pigeonhole principle, according to which we need 366 people to have absolute certainty that there will be atleast one pair will share same birthday.

I have written a C Code that simulates the scenario

#include<stdio.h>

double probability(int n) {
    double ans = 1.0;
    for(int i=0; i<n-1; i++) {
        ans = ans * (((365-i)*1.0/365.0));
    }
    ans = 1 - ans;
    return ans*100;
}

int main() {
    int n;
    printf("Enter the Number of People in a Group: ");
    scanf("%d",&n);
    printf("%.2llf%%",probability(n));

    return 0;
}

Run this code and give the input, which is the size of the group as prompted.

I came across this Paradox in my class of Algorithmic Problem Solving Course and got to know about this interesting “PARADOX”

Youtube Videos on the same topic:

August 2024, when we took the delivery of the bike at the Triumph Showroom located in Hubli, Karnataka.

First of all no issues with the bike, it’s the best in terms of build quality in it’s segment (just my opinion after seeing other bikes). But the problem is with the showroom staff and management over there. I informed the salesperson (lets call him Mr.A) who was in contact with me from the start, showing the bike and the one who did all the paperwork of bike, that I will be in showroom at 2.00PM for the delivery (bike’s full amount was paid 2 days before the delivery day), not prizes for guessing the bike wasn’t in the showroom. We had to wait for almost 30–45 minutes for the bike to arrive in showroom and when Mr.A wasn’t in the showroom as well, when I called and asked about bike he said that its gone for washing and must be back soon.

We waited and bike arrived (service center was about 500–700 meters from showroom) it was washed but was it clean? NO.

Bike’s body was filled with watermarks (the mark left by water after wash if the water drops aren’t wiped properly). The chain was rusty. There was a scratch on the tank, and also on the right side of the body where Scrambler is written. Left rear of the bike was rubbed against something as there were multiple scratches or you can say Brusies on the saree guard and the left rear indicator. And guess what the odometer reading of the bike was 7 kms. When asked to the manager about this (manager is the different person, lets call him Mr.B) (Mr.A still haven’t arrived to the showroom). Mr.B argued thats its the way it is. (complete illogical statements) We than compared my “Just Washed Bike” with the bikes in showroom for display, and the display bikes were cleaner. Later Mr.B sent the bike again for washing and polishing and we waited for another hour in showroom.

While we were waiting for almost 2 to 3 hours no refreshments or beverages were served (there was literally coffee machine in the showroom, I guess thats only for aesthetic purposes only).

The bike arrived, what changed? few watermarks were gone, rubbing marks on left rear indicators were gone, I don’t know how but they were not visible, the scratch on the scrambler nameplate on right side of body was gone magically. WHAT DIDN’T CHANGE? the rusty chain, scratch on the tank, scratch on the saree guard. (The scratch on tank hurts me to this day). Somehow convinced myself and took the delivery of bike. Unlike other brand I don’t if its Triumph’s thing or just at this showroom no accessories/goodies were given like helmet or keychains unlike Royal Enfield. At the time of delivery they just cover the bike with a cloth for unveiling it and a big show key for sake of photo thats IT. No instructions about the bike were told.

About 2 3 weeks later one of my friend took the same Triumph Scrambler 400X, not in Hubli but in Bengaluru (Bangalore) and he shared his experience about the delivery.

The salesguy(of Bengaluru showroom) lectured about the bike for an hour straight, letting him know about every single detail about bike including the fuse set beneath the backseat, when to change the fuses in case of any malfunction in bike, about the toolkit provide with the bike and also instructed him to switch between the keys every fortnight. I felt that I made a mistake of purchasing a bike in Hubli, after listening to all this. Anyways what's done is done, can’t change anything.

In the end, all I want to say is Triumph really did a great job on this one, but its a one time experience of taking the delivery of bike which was ruined for lifetime all because of the negligent staff at Triumph Hubli.

The only mistake I did was and regret till this day is I trusted Mr.A’s words and registered the bike without inspecting it. It was a tricky situation because the bike has to be invoiced before the end of July to avail the 10,000 anniversary discount (to my bad luck after billing the bike the discount offer was extended for another month, and in this extended offer period my friend purchased the bike in Bengaluru after listening to my horrendous experience) on the bike’s ex-showroom price, and at the time of billing the color which I wanted wasn’t available and I had to rely on Mr.A to pick the bike with color of my choice.

— Owner of Triumph Scrambler 400X.