This is what happens when 2 dumb prof’s who don’t even know a single “bit” of Networking come to evaluate a project on routing protocols.

[Enter Panelist 1 – Dumb, Panelist2 – Dumber]

Me: Good morning sir, I would like to start by first giving a brief recap of what we showed in our 1^st presentation. We started off with…

Dumb: Aap mat bataiye, let him <3^rd slotter> speak.

Me : [silent]

[blah blah blah]

Dumber: [towards me] aap to kuch bata hi nahi rahe hain.

Me: Sir, actually we described the mobility model as…

Dumb : Bola na aap chup rahiye, let the other guy speak.

Me: [Silent again]

Dumber: [again towards me after a while] Aap kuch padh k nahi aaye hain lagta hai.

Me: Sir, as I was telling before, we described the scenario in the last presentation, we now move forward t-…

Dumb: Ab agar aap next time bole to aapke number cut kar lenge.

Me: [yet again silent and pissed off]

Dumber:  Aap to explain hi nahi kar paa rahe hain. You just have copied it from somewhere. You haven’t even done the analysis. Kya dikhane laye ho?

Me: [frustrated] CAN I SPEAK NOW PLEASE?? Sir, we have done the analysis and also all the simulations. The real presentation is not even started as we are still on the first slide.

[finally moving on to the real stuff]

Me: [using some basic networking terms] Sir the first thing we find out is the logic efficiency for both proactive and reactive protocols….. [a bunch of equations on the slide]

Dumb and Dumber : [blank]

Me:  Actually there is a data phase and an exception phase…

Dumb: You just copied equations from somewhere. You are not able to explain what those terms are.

Me: Sir, that is what i am explaining, [with aid of a really cool diagram I might add] The exception phase is… <blah blah blah>

Dumber: I am not able to get what you are saying.

Dumb : You just made the slides so casually. [Because at one place I wrote T_a and at another place I wrote T_{a ,} you see the “a” was different. THAT IS THE REASON they said why they couldn’t understand :-| ]

[as a desperate measure I took a sketch pen and a blank paper and in a frenzy started making blocks and diagrams to pictorially make them understand… I resorted to hindi  for a better communication]

Me: [after a lot of drawing] so, this is what I mean by exception phase in a reactive protocol. [I turn towards them]

Dumb:  Hume kuch samajh nahi aaya. What is this reactive protocol.

Me : [Something an electronics prof. like you should have learnt in nursery]… [going back to the basics] A reactive protocol is <blah blah blah>

Dumber : accha leave all this, batao protocol kya hota hai? Batao routing kya hoti hai? Batao Network kya hota hai?

Me: [seriously mahn, are they for real?] ohk, a protocol is a set of rules and regulations….

Dumber: accha just skip all this. Kuch output laye ho.

Me: Yes sir. [I started moving forward 8-10 slides, seeing days of hardwork go to waste] These are the simulation graphs we obtained using qualnet.

Dumber: Bas graph bana lie ho, ye to ban hi jata hai.

[don’t know what they expected from an output, a pin-up of salma hayek and beyonce??? Or a love ballad by Sonu Nigam?]

Me:  Our results match perfectly with our mathematical framework.

Dumb: Hum kaise maan le. You were unable to explain.

Me: [agitated now] Sir, I explained everything. I can still explain if you want. Most of it we already told you in the first presentation.

Dumb: You should have explained clearly each and every term starting from basics.

[Sly, these guys want a crash course in networking from me for free. Well that cannot be done in 10 mins.]

[Dumber saw his watch. Both of them started going back]

Dumb:  Itna casually mat liya kariye presentation. Aap kuch padh ke nahi aaye. Bas equations copy kar li hai. You don’t know the meaning of the terms [what?? Me or you??]

Dumber: Next time aap log kuch output laa kar dikhayie. [both of them left]

[I came out of the lab, bearing a pale poker face, not knowing how to comprehend what just happened]

 

P.S – apologies to the el-classico members (amal, paonta and sethi) because i ditched you guys to work on the project.