The Typical College Life..

Last 5 months... it's been quite a trip

2012-01-21T00:36:00.000+05:30

5 months back, had someone asked me the last preferred time for blogging, I would have said "Friday Night" before the person could bat an eyelid. Yet, that's precisely what I'm doing now. Life is a lot different and organized now than what it used to be. Things that have changed between then and now go beyond the last digit of the "yyyy" part of the date, things which I wanted to eke out in this blog but they never got beyond the "drafts" section. Friends have switched jobs, moved out of the city, a new one has come in, old friendship has been revived, gymming has become a religion, egos have clashed, cricket matches have been lost, my nephew has got cuter and naughtier, an almost-certain transfer to mysore has been defied, a chess championship has been won both as an individual and as a team, I've moved into a new project and yeah, the BIGGEST news is that the much feared CAT-astrophe HAS eventually happened. Not that I expected to top this time but then, I'm sure it would have come down to "those 3-4 questions" which, if solved quicker, would have been the difference between an 88.61 %ile and the one on the right side of 96, the one that I had last year! In a way, it has sorted out a few things. In the past few months I've got a new reason to stay here in Hyderabad and keep pressing. Work or no work, office never drew more than "just enough" attention from me. But now, having been working for 2.5 years, the thought of taking a 2-yr break for "possibly" a better job wasn't exciting me enough and thankfully, I got a CAT score that has really sorted things out.. talk about being an optimist!!!

2012 started off with a completely unplanned trip to Pune. Being a VERY organized person when it comes to my travel dates, I still can't believe that I decided to catch the 9 p.m. bus to Pune (for a 3 day trip) at 7 p.m, DURING a game of Chess! As I've discovered in the past, such unplanned trips often turn out to be the best ones an this one went exactly that road. The trip did little to change my perception that Pune is a GREAT weekend getaway but settling there, specially in the IT industry, is a STRICT no-no (hence it joins Bangalore in my list of "Cities I'd NEVER want to settle in"). It was my 4th visit to Infosys Pune since completing my Mysore training, spread over a period of nearly 2 years - and the observation that couldn't escape my eyes was the continuous decrease in the no. of known faces you bump into in the food courts there. Nontheless, it was great to catch up with whoever is left.

Closer home, the weekend right after returning from Pune was occupied by the Inter Corporate Chess tournament, hosted by Infosys. It was open to more than 60 IT/ITES companies in Hyderabad. Last year I could not participate despite being selected for the team, as it clashed with my leaves. However, lightning missed striking twice very narrowly this time, as the tourney fell on the weekend sandwiched between the Pune-trip weekend and the one on which my family visited here. I've never been in favour of playing more than one serious game of Chess in a day but as has become a norm now, we had to play 7 games over a 2-day period. Considering it was a corporate tournament, you get some very good players who make you think so hard that at the end of the day your mind completely goes blank. Day 1 turned out relatively easy for me, as the opponents from D.E. Shaw and HSBC blundered once each, which was enough for me to mount an attack and then there was no looking back. Day 2 was the real challenge, in which we were required to play 4 games. I got a walkover in the first one, as my opponent was too lazy to come at 9 a.m. on a Sunday. The next game(Round 5) would rate pretty close to one of my best defensive games, in which, despite trailing by quite a bit throughout the game, I made quick enough moves to leave my opponent short of time and claim a win. The Swiss League format is such that if you keep winning, your opponents for the next draw keep getting tougher. Round 6 was a bit of an exception, in which I went for the good old english opening with black which confused my opponent. Round 7, the last of the lot, turned out to be thrilling, as I was again trailing all the time but somehow kept fighting. In the end, my time did run out but I had made my move which would have caused my opponent a forced mate in the next move. Since I didn't have enough time, the points were shared and I ended up as the only unbeaten player with 6.5/7 points, which was not bad at all. My teammates Vishal, Parthipan, Rohit and Rizwan also fared great in their games, which ensured we won the tournament by a distance. Beating Sanjay Saxena was the best moment for me, as he was one trouble maker who was accusing Infosys of cheating in "every tournament in the past". He did end up as the 2nd best player though.

Ok, enough of Chess bragging now. Bhaiya-Bhabhi's visit to Hyderabad last weekend came at the perfect time. Having the excuse of guiding them through the city, I also explored a few places I had never been to, including the Golconda Fort, Zoo, Charminar and revised the places such as Lumbini Park and Eat - Street. They were tiring-but-enjoyable 3 days and am looking forward to my next Delhi trip in mid Feb to join my family in celebrating nephew dearest's 1st birthday :-)

The 2 non-manipal people out of 4 have moved out of our beloved 4 BHK abode and guess what... 2 manipal people have joined in. Things couldn't have been more perfectly timed. Not that Nitin and Deepak were any trouble, but now, the 4 of us - Sagar, Anubhav, Vinit and myself are from the same college, same batch and our flat still has a car and a bike :).

All in all, Hyderabad hasn't been a bad place to stay, after all. A city where I am at my office desk within 10 minutes of starting from home, a city where I've made a lot of good friends on my own and have the company of few of the old timers and a city I ddin't initially want to come to! Yet, there seems to be some void... that one missing piece that'll complete the picture. What is it? Even I don't know for sure!

That Talismanic Jinxer!

2011-11-18T22:46:00.001+05:30

It was exactly a week ago that Anubhav, the only friend of my engineering group left here in Hyderabad, responded with the question, "WHAT??? YOU also feel sick?" to my initial statement after returning from office, which was, "I'm feeling a bit weak and feverish".
The fact was that I had resumed office on Monday, 7th Nov, after a rejuvenating 11-day Diwali (and CAT exam) break at home. For a good part of past 4 months I had one injury or the other which prevented me from gymming, playing cricket and tennis, running, etc (pretty much everything physical). On top of that I preferred to save my energy for my supposed CAT preparation session, which was supposed to take place every night (why it never actually happened is a story for another day).
So, the point is, once i returned, I was fully fit, had got CAT out of the way with an average, accuracy-dependent performance and was raring to go. Monday started with a little gymming and running around the cricket ground of office, Tuesday got more intense and on Friday I went full throttle, starting my evening with cricket practice at 5 pm and ending it with Tennis at 8:30, sandwiching running and gym between the two. Add to that riding home in a sweat-drenched sleeveless, with that poetic "wind-blowing-in-my-face expression" and you have all the ingredients for falling sick.
Anubhav has known me since the time we first met in train while going for our Manipal counselling and truth be told, I've probably never fallen sick since that day in May, 2005(TOUCHWOOD). And, given that he has a good memory (He still remembers the release dates of all the movies that released in the year 2000-2001!!!) his question wasn't random. However, one main reason has been the fact that the day I stepped out of home for joining my engineering college 2147 km away, I was conscious of my health and made sure that nothing goes wrong. Being bed-ridden with your family all around you feels bad enough so I didn't want to experience that with no one around. Thankfully, I made friends that would last this lifetime in that journey (which was supposed to take 36 hours but ended up taking 60, thanks to Mumbai floods!) but still, I hope you got my point.
Fast forwarding to that eventful Friday: When my ability to fall sick was doubted, I uttered a few curses, drank a glassful of hot water and retired to bed, hoping I don't wake up with a temperature on the wrong side of 100 Farenheit. I didn't.I thanked The Almighty and started aggressive planning for the 2-day weekend. But probably I had thanked God too early. I noticed a small lump on my left thigh and ignored it, choosing to go out shopping instead. The next day it had taken the shape of an inflammation and its head had changed colours from red to white. Still, it was small enough to force me into bothering. By Sunday evening it had started spreading and I decided to go for my typical "all or nothing" method, in which I turn to my ever so reliable after shave lotion to burn the acne into extinction. Stubborn as it was, it refused to just die down and had grown to challenging proportions by the next (Monday) morning. Since then, I've been on a dose of pain-killers followed by antacids followed by anti biotics.Needless to say, I've not been able to walk without pain this whole week, leave alone sports and gym. Can't put to words how frustrating it is to turn up at the Cricket Ground in office at 5 pm and watch the team practice. Thankfully there has been some improvement in the past 24 hours and as of now, I'm targeting the Sunday 2 pm practice session. Fingers crossed...

2011 Round - Up

2011-11-05T15:06:00.001+05:30

To say thatthe blog isn’t getting updated often enough would be cliché to say the least,but who cares? As long as you have the will and drive to write, time willfollow. To blame it on office work or the looming CAT exam would be thefashionable vindication I would have used had it not been my own blog. Thus,despite the office, sports and non-existent CAT preparations, pure,unadulterated, untainted and utter LAZINESS would be the reason, as usual.

Bulk of2011 has whizzed past already and before I realize, whatever little is left ofit will follow suit. “Reflection” would possibly be too divergent a word frommy character, as I’m not too fond of looking over my shoulder. Still, never abad time to do a reality check and see how the year affected you.

The lastyear ended on a high. In college days, Goa trip was too frequent for peoplefrom Manipal but as a student you’re always trying to limit your expenses. Itwas after one of such trips in 2008 that five of us, i.e. myself, Sagar,Anubhav, APS and Omveer (the Jaat ;) ) had decided that once we start earning,we’ll celebrate a New Year in Goa, the perfect time for witnessing peak crowds.Given that we were spread across three cities, the planning started inSeptember itself and to our credit, things went off well and barring a coupleof hiccups, we had a great time.

Return toHyderabad ticked off the countdown for CAT results, something that I wasn’t tookeen about, given my lack of preparation for it. 12^th Jan was the day CAT-2010results were declared and more than my own score, I was happier for Sagar’sscore of 99.73 %ile, which got him calls from all the IIMs and eventually, ittranslated into final calls from Bangalore and later, Ahmedabad. APS came infrom Bangalore to join in the celebrations as well. My own score was not muchof a consequence for me, as I was not willing to get started with my MBAwithout working for two years and secondly, I had underperformed in my book, asI had left a few questions without even reading them. A score of 96.98 gave methe confidence that it wasn’t beyond me to score better.

The monthof February was the best of the lot, as we welcomed a baby boy to our family.My nephew was born on 18^th of February and that explains why I’vevisited home 4 times this year, massively contrasting the usual 2 trips a yearregime that I had followed right from my engineering days.

May-Junebrought with itself the time that I live for in Infosys, the annual crickettournament. 2010 was my debut year and I was little known then but thanks to myman of the match performance on debut, I was a better known name this year andas a result, was promoted to Tier 1 from Tier 3 J. I was on leave for the periodleading up to the start of the tourney and that was the reason I was droppedfrom the starting 11 in our first game itself! Its never easy to sit out of agame of cricket and though you have to keep a brave face and keep smiling, itis impossible to do if you know that you are better than quite a few people whoare on the ground. I took it on the chin and earned my place back from thesecond game onwards. What followed was a string of good performances by myteam, which ensured that we finished at the third spot. I was famous forshouting at my captain and vice captains during a game, as I didn’t agree totheir on-field decisions, which cost us the game and a place in the Finals,which doesn’t come on a platter every day. After shouting at him on and off thefield, I didn’t even bother shaking hands after the game. Thankfully, I sortedmyself out during the weekend and we played as a team in the 3^rd place playoff onMonday. More than the cricket, it was the friendships that I formed during thetournament which I cherish, as you don’t meet like-minded people with commoninterests and apt sense of humor every day.

In July thetrials were held for the inter DC Cricket tourney in Mysore and as my luckwould have it, I injured my shoulder on the very first day of practice, whichmeant I wasn’t able to rotate my arm for about two months. Nevertheless, I didtravel to Mysore with the team. We crashed out of the tournament in the semis,losing to the eventual champions, Mysore! If you’ve joined Infosys as a fresherand got trained in Mysore, you develop a soft spot for the place so honestly, Ididn’t feel too bad about losing to them. Secondly, it gave me a chance to go to MysoreCampus again and re-live the memories of my training days. I tried my best todo it but the fact is that Mysore isn’t the same without those colored tags,those assignments and unending module tests.

Octoberbrought along the annual sports fest of Infosys Hyderabad – Hydrenaline 2011.Though cricket will start off later this month, all the other games are over bynow and I captained my MFG team again in my second love – Chess. We had a firstround exit last year and it was personally very disappointing, as I did win 2 out of my 3 games last year but sadly, the teammates couldn’t earn even halfa point from their 6 games. This time I was more careful with the trials and itpaid off. We finished the tourney in the 3^rd spot which was quite anachievement, given that we had been seeded 7^th in the 14-team event.

Anothermemory of October would be the fact that I got courteously scolded by one goodlooking female for offering her a chocolate for her birthday. Can’t reallyrecall the last time such treatment was meted out to me, so I’d like to thinkof it as a lesson in “When not to offer a chocolate to a girl”.

It was niceto spend Diwali with family after years and then take the CAT exam a week afterit. Though the exam went OK, it missed getting into the “excellent” category byjust 3 or 4 questions and I just can’t overstate the importance of it. Still,hopes are high and 11^th January will be the Judgement Day.

The bestpart is that now I can look forward to go back to office and relax, spend timewith friends, hopefully add a new friend to the list, play cricket AND, BLOG MORE OFTEN. Fingers crossed about the last one though!

Cricket, Work, Problems, Friends, Fun, Goodbyes - LIFE

2011-07-25T00:06:00.000+05:30

Even though the lazy Jayant has dominated Blogger Jayant for the past few months (or rather years) but thankfully, once in a blue moon, on occasions like this, the Blogger Jayant comes up trumps and hence, this blog gets updated. There was a time when I used to refer to my earlier post while writing a new one (because I never forgot what I blogged about previously, like I have now! ). Anyways, my last update was somewhere in December 2009, which would be roughly within a month from attending Vishal's marriage and then taking the CAT exam. It's not that I've won The Nobel Prize or something in the time between then and now but yes, there have been a few good updates.
There was the long-planned Goa Trip with my college friends which was truly amazing and a nice time to get together for friends. Really hope that everyone takes out 3-4 days like these for each other, out of an otherwise packed 365 days of the year. About ten days after the trip ended, I was in for a surprise. After a casual preparation, scoring a percentile of 96.98 in CAT made me feel that after all, I can fight for the top 1 percentile next year around, which, I believe, is what you should target if you start off with something, be it exam, sports, anything. Hence, I would like to believe that this year I will actually go at it real hard and get something more than a "decent" score out of it. However, the things to follow in this post would heavily bet against it.
February is normally considered the spring season and my bhaiya-bhabhi were blessed with a baby boy, who's growing cuter and naughtier by the day, which is making my stay away from home all the more difficult. It has been the happiest news on family front for quite some time, especially after we lost Nanaji and Dadima in the past two years. He's gone a long way in helping Mummy and Papa cope up with the losses.
Sagar conquering his dream by getting into IIM-A has been the biggest news of the year outside my family and we all were so happy for him. He thoroughly earned his place and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. APS came to Hyderabad for a weekend to join in the fun and we surely had a good time, but we still missed Jaat.
Then came the much awaited annual Cricket Tournament of Infosys Hyderabad, which was this year named as P3L, i.e. Pearl and Prakriti Premier League. (Pearl and Prakriti are the name of the 2 development centres Infy has here in Hyderabad). Thanks to my one-hit wonder performance from last year's tournament, I was promoted to "Tier 1" in the auctions. I got picked up by a team called The Aryans and incidentally, its the same team against which we lost our game last year and ultimately it cost us a place in the next round. A few players were still there from the last year but mostly it was a fresh squad. I was made to sit out of the first game itself. I was in no way thrilled about it and that confirmed my suspicion that since it was a team chosen by guys from Andhra, regionalism will prevail. However, I got my chance in the next game and played every game thereafter. We finished 3rd in a 20-team tourney which was a good achievement. The highlight for me was bowling the last over in the quarter finals when the opponents, Gangstars, needed only 7 to win and containing them for 5 runs, which secured a win by 1 run for us! More than the game, it was the friends that I made during P3L which I am thankful to and really hope it continues.
Looking ahead, there's a lot on my platter right now. For a start, I'll be travelling with the Infosys Hyderabad Cricket Team to Mysore for a tournament and I'm really looking forward to it. A trip to Mysore, 18 months after completing the training will really be nostalgic and when I go with a group like this, it surely will be fun. It's about time I tightened up with my MBA preparation and of late, I've been bitten by the GMAT bug as well, so really hope to put in the tough miles during the next 6 months.

The Flat Disaster

2010-12-09T16:22:00.002+05:30

Having been an extremely active non-blogger for the past 6 months has left me with a lot of self-invented,nonsensical ideas and what better place to get rid of them than the blog. Its not that there's been nothing to share about in the past 6 months; in fact, its quite the opposite so I'll try to break down the time period chronologically. Taking a cue from the now-behind-bars-but-still-adored-by-me famous Mr. Julian Assange, I intend to release the cables(read blog posts) one by one over the next few days/weeks/months/years so as to keep my non existent readerbase on their toes.

Ever since we moved into a real cheap 2 BHK with pathetic surroundings in the month of March (due to lack of options and mostly due to the fact that it was close to my friends' home), we had been on the lookout for a better home and we didn't mind paying that extra bit for that. Then, one fine day while I was on bench and lucky to have got hold of a system here in Infosys Hyderabad kiosk, I read an advertisement which said a certain gentleman was looking for 2 people to share a 3 BHK flat. 8 hours later we were at the flat and beat our nearest competitor by about 5 steps in handing over the advance(It was in 5-figures, in case anyone was curious to know) to one Saurabh (whom we had met barely 15 mins ago and who, as you would have guessed, was going to be our new flatmate). Thus, we sealed the deal for our new home and were elated. The new flat, despite costing us about 63% more than the current one (blame my hopeless CAT preparation for reporting the figure in percentage... more on how my CAT preparation started and ended well before the actual exam(which, by the way, I eventually took) will follow later), had its benefits:

It was closer to the office, which means we saved Rs. 5 per trip and Rs. 10 in total (for my fellow college/office/flat/bench - mate Sagar it meant saving Rs. 20 per day, given his swipe-in -> breakfast -> come home -> sleep whole day at home -> dinner @ office -> swipe-out time table).
It was at a walkable distance from the famous and highly unhygienic Kothaguda junction, where we were so used to feast ourselves on probably the filthiest paani puri in Hyderabad which I don't know how still tasted great.
My friends' home was still walkable(if you can walk about 1.5 kms without ending up rolling around on the roadside gasping for water and breath, in no particular order)
Reason 2 was too tempting.
The surroundings were far better and it came across as an excellent strategical outpost from where to lauch the long awaited "mission-girlfriend-hunt", which had been pushed to the backburner during the past week and "mission-flat-hunt" had taken over.

So, the deal was struck some 20 days in advance and we were all set to move in from the 1st of August. Moving into a new city, playing cricket for a month in office, getting a good flat, being put on bench for a seemingly indefinite period, it made me believe that nothing could go wrong in life. There was no communication at all between us and our new flat mate for the next 20 days or so, as he was busy with his Investment Banking work and I was busy.... well... technically I didn't have any work but then, why disclose all your cards up front? I was busy pretending that I was not such a useless person in office and actually it was the office work which kept me from calling/visiting him to pay the remainder of the amount.

Sunday, 1st August, 11:00 am: I was offloading the tempo containing our beloved TV, Refrigerator, tables, chairs, etc from the tempo into the lift of Bhavya Shanti Sadan, our new home. Ten minutes later, I was shaking hands with Saurabh, who was welcoming us into the new house, which, at that instant, also contained 4 other people.

Saurabh: "Man, you sure you people are bachelors? Mast samaan-vamaan lekar aa gaye tum log to!"

Jayant: (trying to act cool and unpertrubed at the sight of 4 unexpected people in the flat) "Yeah, what can we do? We're so addicted to Sports and Beer. Hence the TV and refrigerator respectively"

(laughter all around, even from those 4 unwanted people who were sitting too far to hear the conversation)

After exchanging the usual pleasantaries and enquiring about when exactly did the ex-occupant intended to clear up the mess he had left in the flat, if at all, we were on our way back in the same luggage tempo.

"God, this flat has brought about good omen from the heavens. We've started saving from the first day itself", I murmured to Sagar and Anubhav, who had come up to help with the luggage transportation.
Same day, 08:00 pm: We were at Shilpa Park, home to Sagar,Anubhav,Vinit and Urvi (and also to us on weekends) playing our newly purchased ultra-modern 6-player LUDO when my cell displayed,

Saurabh Flatmate
Calling...

Jayant: "Hello Saurabh, what's up?"

Saurabh: "Yaar, there's a bad news. Owner called me right now and we have to vacate the flat by 1st September."

Jayant: "But... how can he? We've just moved in..."

Saurabh: "Sorry man, we had an agreement of a month's notice from either party and he's sticking to it."

Well, that pretty much concludes the flat-hunt part of the story. There are more disasters to follow and if I manage to retain the enthusiasm, they will be out shortly.

The Infosys Hyderabad Cricket League Experience

2010-06-25T20:35:00.003+05:30

This post of mine is not as much of a “post” as it is a “rant/crib/blabber”, whichever one you like to choose. So, go ahead with that in mind as there might not be anything you find interesting in here.

It was the evening of June 4th, 2010, when I was answering the question, “Man, 5 wickets in a 12 over game. Don’t you think that is a bit too much?” I was in the post match presentation of our first match and it was the first game for me in Infosys Hyderabad. Before the game I was not sure if I will play or not and I was more than happy to see my name in the playing XI. After that there was no looking back, as I took a good catch at the third man boundary and another sharp one at short mid wicket.In between I was called up to bowl the 8th over(I myself was surprised as I expected myself to be needed only as a back up bowler, if one of the regulars fail). I started off with a wide, a front foot no ball and the free hit that followed was slogged over covers for a boundary. So, I had conceded 6 runs off 1 ball and cricket didn’t seem to be all that easy a game then. However, that was the time when things turned around and I ended up getting 4 wickets in my first two overs, conceding 8 runs.I had accounted for both the icon players of MFG – Tigers and their captain as well. My third over was the last of the innings and I did get a bit carried away while bowling that, giving away 20 runs and taking a wicket. Hence, my debut finished with figures of 3-0-28-5. 9 runs an over is about par score here at the small Infosys cricket ground so I was over the moon with my performance, which eventually earned me the man of the match award. We were chasing a target of 93 from 12 overs and we were home in the 8th over itself, thanks to a stroke filled 58 off 29 balls from our captain-wicket keeper- opener, Atul Sir.

Things haven’t been that smooth afterwards and in our next game against The Aryans. I was called upon to bowl when both their openers were set. Our opening bowlers had completely lost the plot and after 4 overs The Aryans had a score of 55/0 and things weren’t looking good for us. Bowling changes were not working and I was called upon to bowl from the ESA end(the same end from which I took 5 wickets). I started off with my customary wide outside the off stump and then a good length ball that took off like anything, with the keeper(standing up) barely managing to hold on to that. The next good length I bowled was slogged over covers for a boundary, resulting in me over pitching the next one, which sailed over mid off for a six in no time! I was taken for 14 runs in that over. Statistics in cricket are funny and they don’t tell you the complete story. If someone was present at the ground and watched me bowl the over he would have realised that I had bowled two bad balls, one of which was hit for a six and a double was taken off the other one. Apart from that, I had barely strayed in my line, unlike our so called “strike bowlers” who fed the batsmen on the leg stump during the powerplay overs, with packed off side fields! I did not get another over after that and I knew that the captain was losing his faith in me. We conceded 121 runs in 12 overs and, given the batting we have got, we thought it was chasable easily. Our makeshift opener Anupam got out the first ball and then in the second over their captain, Mayank, ripped the heart of our batting apart when he took a hat trick and we were 4 down for 5 runs after the second over and the game seemed as good as over. However, we knew deep down that all 11 of us can hit the ball decently and the fact that we scored 106 runs off 10 overs after that would testify to that. We lost the game by 9 runs.After the game all of us bowlers got a good dressing down from our captain and the agenda for next practice session was “no one will bowl at the leg stump, come what may”. I stuck to that but in the process I could not get out of my old habit of over pitching or under pitching. What people don’t understand is that when you bowl in nets, you’re playing on a mat where the ball skids through but the bounce is not true, i.e. the bounce gets somewhat suppressed. When you’re playing on a pitch, the ball tends to bounce and carry a lot better. Hence, what is good length on a matting wicket might end up getting slaughtered in the match. However, after the practice my bowling was summarized as inconsistent. True, I had not bowled any wide, be it outside the leg stump or off stump.

Our last and final league match was on June 22nd against HRD – Indians, the team that are billed up to be the tournament favourites and which is captained by my favourite player in the tournament, Sumit Sehrawat. 15 minutes before the match I came to know that I was left out of the playing 11. Kishore tried to convince me that I was “rested” but he wasn’t fooling anybody. I mean, you don’t “rest” a player when you go into a match knowing that a win will secure a place in the next round. I had that feeling of being left out right after the nets on the morning of the match but what shocked me was the guy who was my replacement… Harsha. My bowling in the nets was summed up as “over pitched” and his was “wayward”. It did show in the match as well, when he was called upon to bowl the second over and ended up giving away 13 runs (after our “strike bowler” Davis was taken for 13 in the first over as well). We again ended up giving away 50+ in the 4 powerplay overs and things weren’t looking great. Then came Ravi Dubey, our second icon player who had never bowled in the nets due to a back injury. He contained Sumit brilliantly and was our best bowler for the match. Our bowlers again pulled it back in the later stages and we restricted HRD – Indians to 111, a perfectly chasable score! Our batsmen started the chase well and we were left to get 43 off the final 5 overs with more than half of our side left to bat and two of the senior pros, Kishore and Ramesh(vice captain) at the crease. For some reason they were happy to take singles rather than trying to go hard at them and we were left to get 31 off the last 18 balls. That came down to 20 off 12 but now the problem was that Sumit had one over left. He gifted us a boundrary off an overthrow and we were left to get 10 off the last over. It came down to 4 off 4, 3 off 3, 2 off 2 and then Madhu was run out in attempting what should have been a single easily. The match eventually ended in a tie. We are now dependent on the result of the last league match of our group, The Aryans vs MFG Tigers on 28th June, to see if we will progress to quarter finals.

The bowlers were again in the firing line in the post match talk by our captain but in all honesty, it was the batsmen’s fault. If the bowlers gave away so many runs initially, they only brought us back by restricting the opponents to 111. At one time HRD looked to be set for a 140+ score and that would have been out of reach for us. Our captain gave away his wicket after a well made 35 and the other so called experienced batsmen failed to steer us home. After the match we were told that “no one will play for charity” and performance will be the only critieria for selection.

In hindsight, yes, it is a team that plays and it is a team that wins or loses. Being left out of a playing 11 was a first for me and that will always haunt me.I do not have any personal grudges from anyone in the team and having watched all the teams play, I genuinely believe that our team has it to win the cup. What hurt me was the manner in which I was dropped. They keep on telling you “its ok if you over pitch or bowl wide on off stump” but please don’t bowl anything on the legs. In the first game, I was fearless, I was not thinking of anything else but bowling my best and at times experimenting, which got me the wickets. However, now things are different and “playing for my place” will always be at the back of my mind, even if I don’t want to think about it. For someone who has always been in charge of whichever team he’s played for, right from the junior school days to his college, for someone who was the only one from first year playing in the inter branch cricket tournament and forced his way into the team at the cost of settled seniors, this is a bit too much to take. Except for my college inter branch cricket team, I’ve always been the captain at whichever level we’ve played and today, when I’m dropped for someone who’s ready with childish excuses every now and then, it really hurts. On top of that you don’t have anyone to talk about these things either. However much I try to take my mind away from it, it just keeps coming back to haunt me. As of now, its fingers crossed for the next game and I hope some common sense prevails in the next selection, given we progress to quarter finals.

Mumbai Diary - 1

2010-05-05T19:56:00.002+05:30

First of all, let me introduce you to the entertainer-in-chief for the rest of this post, Kanishk/Kanishka. It’s actually a ‘he’ and to be honest, I haven’t been able to figure out whether he actually uses the last ‘a’ in his name or not( I wonder if he himself knows that). The simple reason is that I have seen him use both the versions of his name with ease. I stick to the version sans the last ‘a’ for two reasons:

It’s shorter.
I recently mentioned to a few friends of mine that I went to Pune and stayed overnight at Kanishka’s place and their reaction made me realise how easily the longer version can be confused with the name of a girl and to what extent its meaning can be (mis)interpreted.

I’ve known him post my 10^th standard and in general I have no abnormal observations about him apart from what I am going to write. Kanishk is to good luck what Green Goblin was to Spiderman, what Mozilla is to Internet Explorer, what Pope V was to Galelio, what Zayed Khan is to hit films and what Virender Sehwag is to bowlers. In short, these two can’t co-exist. One eventually ends up killing the other and as my ill-fate would have it, Kanishk emerges victorious more often than not! To sum things up, if there ever was a percentile score assigned to person for having/causing ill-fate, my dear friend would be having a percentile similar to the CAT score of the brilliant minds who secure interview calls from IIM-A(B/C).

The second point of interest would be his (lack of) intelligence. I know he would not be taking too kindly to this aspersion but then, here are a couple of incidents. Just read through them and then you are left to decide for yourself:

Scene 1: Me and Kanishk waiting at a bus stop(for a bus, in case you had any doubts!) after school. An overcrowded bus comes, I rush to the back door, Kanishk to the front door. I decide to give up after observing that 20 people were already occupying the footboard. Kanishk somehow clings to the front door. Now the bus starts moving. Kanishk looks back to see if I’ve made it(the bus is picking up speed constatnly). And, on finding me stranded at the stop itself(the bus is moving at its normal speed now), he decides to jump off, with his face still turned backwards(people with their IQ in triple figures would get down at the next stop or at least care to be facing forward when jumping off a bus), towards me. About 2 seconds later, there he was, lying on the road, flat on his face! The first reaction should have been to sprint through the distance of 50m and ask him if he was all right. But, when you see that happen to a guy like him, you cannot resist laughing your stomach out and I was no exception! Thankfully, he didn’t get any visible sign of discomfort and he got up laughing.

Scene 2: Kanishk has travelled a good 80% of the country’s length, from Shimla(H.P.) to Manipal(Karnataka) to pay a ‘surprise’ visit to his girlfriend. He’s staying illegally in one of the vacant rooms of my college hostel and has run out of balance on his mobile. I went to class in the morning and asked him to be comfortable in my room and call me up from the landline phone of my room, in case he had any trouble. Now, the guy was so love struck that he could not wait to talk to her. And finally, in an act of utter and abject desperation, he called her up from the landline number. Even though girls are generally considered stupid, but there was no way in the world she was going to buy the lamest of excuses that there had been “some problem” in the airtel network, as a consequence of which a landline no. with a Manipal code was on display on her mobile when he called her up and that was how his surprise ended.

Now to the actual story:
We had written our 12^th boards and results were awaited. It was that phase in which you were done writing all the engineering entrance exams (including IITs) and were hopeful enough of making it through to at least one of those(obviously, not expecting anything positive from the IITs until, of course we had the merit to rig-up the merit list upside down). Life was pretty much boring, with nothing to do whole day apart from watching TV, eating and lazing around in the house, getting used to being scolded by mummy for anything and everything, starting from waking up in the morning to taking a bath and have my meals on time. In short, life was missing adventure and that was the time when The Almighty decided to inject exactly that into it.

Myself and Kanishk had appeared for an entrance exam for getting a 5 year MBA-Tech course introduced by the famous(and VERY expensive) NMIMS, Mumbai. We had both been shortlisted for the second round, i.e. Personal Interview, which was to be conducted at their campus in Mumbai. Kanishk had been absconding from Delhi for the past few days and I had no idea where he was on the face of Mother Earth, if at all. I myself was wondering whether to attend the interview or not, until my brother forced me into getting my ticket reserved and preparing for the interview, due in less than a week’s time(8^th of June, to be precise). The trains to Mumbai were all booked and I booked my tickets in Goa Express, till Pune, from where my cousin brother would receive me and then I was all his responsibility. The train was to leave Hazrat Nizamuddin station, New Delhi at about 3pm. By 1 pm I was done with my packing and was going through the checklist and pretending to be listening to my dad’s famous “How to ensure a safe journey alone” speech (that I never actually follow, but listen nevertheless out of sheer respect).

That was the time when the dreaded K-factor struck. In hindisight, this blog post wouldn’t be born had that phone call not been made, but at that time it was the last thing on my mind. Kanishk called up from New Delhi railway station, asking me if I was going. He had just returned from his home with his dad and was in no mood to embark on a 24 hr train journey again. I cursed him internally, bid him goodbye vocally and continued with my check list. Within half an hour, he called up again, saying that he will meet me up at station and he had “made up his mind” to go to the interview. Having known him for two years, I wasn’t really a stranger to his mood swings but honestly, even for a person like him, it crossed the line a little bit. So there we were, 2 hours later, negotating with the TTE as to how much he should pay to get an extra berth.

Now with Kanishk into the scheme of things, my travel plans were altered slightly. My interview was scheduled on 8^th of June and his was on the 12^th. We had decided we’ll come back together, which meant we’ll get 3 full days to explore Mumbai. The idea itself was exciting but there were quite a few hurdles to clear before that, one of which was to come to Pune station to receive us the next evening!

We reached Pune on the 7^th June(evening, with my interview due in Mumbai the next day at 9 am.) and as decided, Sonu bhaiya was there to receive us. We went to his flat and ate like we had never eaten or will never ever eat. We finished our dinner “hurriedly”(in about 30 mins) and then took towards the highway, relatively relaxed at the knowledge that Pune-Mumbai busles ply frequently till midnight. However, as I soon realized, I had not taken into consideration the K-factor that was accompanying us. At about 11 pm, we were standing on the highway, signalling thoughtlessly to any moving object which seemed capable of carrying us for 4 hours and dumping us in Mumbai. The buses/taxis were nowhere to be seen(the K-factor was making its presence felt) and it was foolish of us to expect private cars to stop by at midnight for 3 guys. At last our efforts did pay off.At 12:30am(8 hrs 30 mins to go for my interview), a good old commander budged. It was going to Mumbai to fetch the newspapers for the next day. He happily accomodated the three of us for Rs. 80 each and we were breathing much easier. It was about 4 am when we had our first sighter of Navi Mumbai and by the time we reached Andheri, it was 4:30(4 hrs and 30 mins to go for my interview and we didn’t have any place to stay yet!). The driver had guaged that we weren’t exactly looking for something on the lines of Burj-al-Arab and told us that he’ll take us to the lodges/guest houses he knew and if we were lucky, one of the caretakers would excuse us for waking them up at that unearthly hour and allow us in. About half an hour and 4 guest houses (and an equal number of NOs) later, we found ourselves stretching on the bed of a guest house. We slept at 5:30 and woke up at 7, took our luggage and reached NMIMS, Ville Parle in time. I went in while Kanishk went away with Sonu bhaiya to the nearby Juhu beach. The formality called interview went smoothly and now was the time we had been looking forward to. Sonu bhaiya had to return to Pune the same day and we were shortly going to be on our own in Mumbai. We were worried about the boarding and lodging expenses there and that was when Kanishk’s uncle emerged onto the scene as the saviour(of our LOW four figure bank balance)and offered us free accomodation, which we shamelessly accepted. The fact that his family was out of station for a fortnight ensured that we did not cause him unreasonable hassles. One thing I cannot thank Kanishk enough for is his ability to provide me free shelter in unknown cities whenever I’ve really desired one(Mumbai and Pune are on the list as of now and hopefully the list will grow!). So, now both of us were on our own. Uncle’s job was going to keep him busy throughout the day, we had saved up on the boarding expenses and we were free to explore the city of Mumbai for the next 3 days. Well, this post has got longer than what would keep you interested and if at all you have survived it till now, wait for the next part, as that will contain the real (mis)adventure!

....to be continued

Settling Down After 100 Days Of Madness!

2010-04-23T21:05:00.002+05:30

First of all, let me tell you straightaway that the phrase “settling down” is not intended to mean matrimony in any way.

The Crazy Period:The mentioned period has been important to me in a lot of ways. I don’t like it, I don’t dislike it but most certainly I will never forget it. It has transformed me from a trainee to a professional and now I’m starting to get the real picture of how challenging my job will get with time. I have seen the best and the worst parts of friendship. Have been in troubled waters and then come up trumps the next day. There have been fights with friends and there have been conditions imposed on friendships(which, I still can’t believe I accepted!). Have had my trust broken and have broken it myself. And, if all these things are not bizzare enough, I’ve been through four cities, i.e. Mysore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Pune during that period over issues that aren’t completely unrelated to those mentioned earlier. Anyways, let me get to the point straightaway instead of continuing with my gibberish phrases.

What I thought I've always been:I have taken great pride in believing that I’ve never been much of an emotional person. Not that I don’t care for family/friends, but there is always a practical angle to my thoughts/actions. I would like to believe that I never let me heart dominate my head in making decisions and that has kept me going all these years. When it comes to expressing emotions, I’ve always followed the mantra:

“I will never show, and you will never know!”

What I have actually been: And now comes the twist to it. I have hardly been the above mentioned person during this phase which ended recently. The misadventure is rooted in Mysore so let me handle the events chronologically. I used to be the first person to get out of office during the training days in Mysore but I have sat on my PC uselessly for hours and HOURS(most of the times till midnight, after which you’re kicked out of office, as it’s got to be locked by the security people), doing absolutely nothing! I have delayed my lunch and dinner purposelessly, I’ve lied left, right and centre, for anything and everything.I have flunked a paper for the FIRST TIME EVER in my life and that too, a paper which was supposedly “too easy”. I’ve gone to a re-test full of over confidence(and, given the fact that there was about 40% of the course which I had not even touched, the origin of the over confidence is still mysterious!).

For those who are not aware at all of the marking pattern during the Infosys Mysore training here’s a quick introduction to it, without understanding which you will not fully comprehend my stupidity! You have to write a 30 marks Hands-On(Practical) exam, followed by 70 marks of theory.The Hands-On is an open book exam and, as is the case in all the colleges the practical marks are supposed to help oneself “sail through” the paper, as you’ll hardly get below 25 out of 30 if you attempt all that is there to be attempted, in the right or wrong way. Well, at least this was what I felt about it until… well, read on.

So, as you might have guessed by now, I DID manage to comprehensively flunk the Hands-On exam, with a grand score of 13.75 out of 30! Infosys requires you to score 65/100 to pass a paper and there I was, looking down a tunnel with no light at the other end, requiring another 51.25 out of 70, i.e. 73%. However, given that in the Hands On exam there is open book system and, needless to say, there’s no such system in the theory paper, there were ominous signs for the things to come in the paper.To make matters worse just one night stood between me and the paper. The final result was assuring enough, as I scored 89% the next day but then, talking about crazy things, this much score from me can easily be counted as one of them!

Enter the partner in crime:The rest of the deeds also feature a partner named Ashish, who has played the lead role in most of our acts I’m going to mention here. Just a quick intro to my engineering college batchmate, Ashish. For a batch of 800+ people, its not easy to know everyone so there's no surprise that there were people in Manipal who didn't know Ashish, despite being from the same batch. However, I found out recently that almost everyone knows him as "the guy who used to abuse Bansal on basketball court during cricket matches!" Now let the story continue.I have got in arguments with auto drivers, trying to defend Ashish(who, in turn, was on the wrong side of the argument so in this case, “defend” implies talking endlessly and disappearing from the scene asap). Following Ashish’s lead, I’ve ridden bicycles on the footpaths in the Infosys Mysore campus without being whistled at by the security guards(and mind you, its no mean feat, given that there are at least 3000 security guards monitoring the campus at any given time!) and parked them at the exact places where they’re not intended to be parked. Walking casually through the corridors of our hostels in Mysore, Ashish would all of a sudden ring someone’s bell and then we were left with no option but to get out of sight. And then, how can I forget Ashish’s favourite game, i.e. getting into the life on the ground floor and then pressing 1,2,3,4,5 buttons just as the lift passed each of the floors, without causing the lift to stop on that particular floor!Another popular lift-game was to rush into the lift and take it up, when we knew that there’s some poor soul a few metres behind us who’s also headed for the same lift and hence, causing him discomfort, which was our idea of happiness! Just to add to the list, I once bought a whistle used by the security guards and tried to confuse the people in the campus by blowing it off everywhere and trust me, someone like Ashish too stopped me from doing it as he found it “embarrassing”!!!

And to add icing on the cake, I recently went to a salon and stole a comb, which, in turn, I lost!

So, there have been enough acts of stupidity and now there’s neither time nor the company to continue with them. I cannot thank The Almighty enough for not getting me posted to Pune, something that I was willing to kill for two months ago!Getting posted to Hyderabad seems to have released the previous, more stable, sane version of myself, who is quiet most of the time, sincerely goes about his job and has a thousand thoughts going through his mind all the time, jostling for attention. The past week has given me the chance to get my head down and think about the direction I am headed/want to be headed to. Getting paid for sitting idle in the company a.c. for the months of March and April seemed to be a dream come true but now the realization has sunk in as to how much time has been lost in that. All of a sudden, ambitions which were buried deep inside have erupted and suddenly I want to do a lot of things and, for a change I am willing to put in the effort as well. Felt good to find a few readers for my blog and recently I was over the moon when I took my first step towards becoming a published author. 24 hours in a day are no longer sufficient, being at home no longer means either watching t.v. or surfing the internet, the IPL games are no longer a must-watch and time spent on the internet is no longer synonymous to gtalk,orkut and facebook!

Office: The best part about office these days is that I do not have to keep looking at my watch repeatedly during office hours to kill time. Got to meet the top brass of my department yesterday and had a sneek peak into the kind of work I am expected to do in the future. Thanked The Almighty again, as I didn’t get posted to some testing unit. Got to know that we are into delivery and the kind of work that we’re going to do is purely developmental. The only thing I was concerned about when I got into the I.T. sector was ending up into support/testing job and now that has been taken care of. Thus, office no longer means having to stay in the campus for 9 hours 15 minutes before you go back, watch TV, chat and then doze off.I do have things to keep me engaged through the entire day.

There are times when I sit back and think about the time that sped by and then questions such as ,”Could I have done something differently?”, “What could have happened had I….?”, “Why did I have to ….”, etc mushroom up. There cannot be any clear cut answer to those and with time I have started to stop losing sleep over it. Being a spontaneous, impulse driven person, self-examination has never been my forte but this time it has yielded a positive result, for a change. It tells me that once again I’m lying at a highway where there are only two possibilities. The first one is to go back to where I came from and get stuck in the same circle I had so desperately wanted to get out of. The second, and more realistic one is to look ahead, pick up the pieces, gather myself, dust myself down and carry on into a little known territory, carrying with me nobody’s support but HOPE. The last week has made me realize that the possibilities that lie ahead of me over the next 18 months are immense and even though it’s a long shot now, I am up for it in a BIG WAY! After all,

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

No More Hyderabad Blues!

2010-04-18T11:26:00.005+05:30

I’ve had 45 days of Hyderabad and it has been a fitting experience. Although I’m so much used to living out of home, this one has been different.

The 7 semesters of hostel life in Manipal provided various types of shared and single accomodation. But at no point of time was I required to worry about laundry, arranging drinking water, paying out bills, finding a house to live in, finding someone to clean up the house once a while,etc,etc.

Then followed a heaven called Mysore, which took the definition of “hostel” to an entirely different level.One cannot complain when you’re provided with LCD TV, intercom, lamps for various purposes(one on the supposed study table and other on the side of the bed, either of which were hardly used by me), no roommate to have differences with and when someone’s there to arrange your bed, dust and sweep your room, replace the used tea and sugar bags with fresh ones. However, the cribber that I am, it didn’t take me even 24 hrs to find faults with the housekeeping people. When I entered the room for the first time, it was all spick and span, cleaniness to such a degree which was(and will be) alien to me. So, I decided to mess it up a bit and give it a familiar look, the kind of look I was so used to during my hostel days in Manipal, in which there was a bunch of clothes which would be lying either on the chair or the bed( I was in a habit of shifting them from chair to bed when I needed to study(come on, whom am I kidding?... when I needed to use my laptop placed on the table as a desktop) and then back on the chair when I needed to get some sleep). To my surprise, the moment I came back, I found the bed to be as it was before, as if no one had used it, ever!My shoes and socks were in place and I was about to lodge a complain with the reception people, alleging that the housekeeping guys had stolen my belt, when 3 days later I found it out in the drawer of my study table!!

I must confess that throughout my stay in Infosys Mysore, I was wondering what right have I done all my life that I managed to find my way to Infosys campus interviews by fooling the HR people ‘n’ number of times(Yes, unlike others, I was interviewed more than once..thrice to be precise.. before joining Infosys but then that’s another story in itself!). And, to be honest, I’m still quietly smillng at these god-sent Infosys people, who have been paying me for about 7 months now for doing practically nothing.

Anyways, cut to the present scenario. When you’re determined not to go to a particular city but are left with no other option, the first aim is to start finding faults with the city the moment you enter it. My entry to the city didn’t give me much opportunity to do that, as I entered it via the RGI Airport at 11pm, HUNGRY! And, trust me, Hyderabad airport is clearly the best managed airport I’ve seen till now, which includes Mumbai, Mangalore, Goa, Bangalore and of course, New Delhi. The moment I step out, I found McDonald’s, which was something I had missed too much in Mysore and Manipal. That was another thing to be happy about. Moments later, I was in an aero-express bus, which saves you from getting into arguments with auto/taxi drivers, despite which you end up paying an astronomical figure, just because you’re new to the city and have no idea about the rates. 40 minutes later I was with half of my college group(half, because only 2 out of the 4 were there) and from there onwards, things never looked back. From finding flats to stay in to celebrating birthdays to night outs, everything has been fun. The best part about staying in Hyderabad is that it takes me barely 20 mintues to reach office and I have the flexibility of timings, as I don’t even need to take office transport!Bangalore and Pune are notorious in this regard, where you need to spend at least an hour and a half in traffic on a daily basis.I have my friends staying very close by for any kind of need(varying from work to party to getting me something from the market when I'm not in a mood to,etc,etc).

It’s strange how people adjust to different things. When I went to Mysore and I came to know that I’ll no longer have 24 hour access to internet, I thought I couldn’t survive there and wanted to get out of it asap.Then I started liking the place and started spending time with my friends doing everything apart from studies. Then,during the last month, just when Mysore started getting boring,god sent one more person who, strangely enough, found our company interesting!The days that followed were exciting, challenging and memorable and Mysore rounded off with the best 20 days of my life!Then came the postings and I got posted to Hyderabad. I so very much wanted to go to Pune and didn't leave any stone unturned to find a swap for the same.I got a feeling as if I'll not survive in Hyderabad and imagining life here was becoming difficult. However, it has turned out to be a college reunion of sorts and I do find myself very much settled here, despite three out of station trips in a short while. Not for a moment am I trying to suggest that those days have been replaced by the ones in Hyderabad, but then, this is the way the world goes!

Lance Armstrong, the 5 time Tour de France Champion has an interesting way to share his idea of happiness in his book, “It’s Not About The Bike”. In the mid 1990s, when he was a challenging cyclist who had not been able to clinch the world championship crown, his idea of happiness was to “Win the Tour de France(Considered the world’s most physically demanding athletic event)”. A few years later, some time during 1998, he was being diagnosed against cancer when the doctors didn’t give him more than 10 percent chance of survival. Chaemotherapy virtually killed him for three weeks, one loses his strength, can barely walk, leave alone cycling. Then, his idea of happiness was “Waking Up and being able to crawl”, as it gave him the assurance that he had lived through another day of Cancer(Which, however, was no assurance that he’ll live on to see the next day!)

That gives us a reason to think and redefine our idea of Happiness, doesn’t it?

More to come...

Mysore Memories...

2010-03-18T16:59:00.004+05:30

This one's for the two of you, A and V.. and am not even sure if you'll ever read this!

It was on 22nd of February that I got my posting as "MFGD-Hyderabad" and I can't put to words what sickening feeling it had on me for the next few days.The SWAP portal closed on 25th midnight and I was "sick,tired and frustrated" of being "sick,tired and frustrated" at the end of it. I was myself surprised at the intensity of such feelings, such desperation to get to Pune, a city I had never ever stayed in! I was surprised at my madness because in the past 10 years, Hyderabad was going to be the 5th city I would be living(yeah, Living, not just visiting) in. So, I am very much used to entering a new city completely on my own, making friends for a lifetime, then bidding an emotional goodbye to all of them,packing bags, travelling alone to my new temporary home, making new friends, having a good time again and the cycle continues...! So much so that with the passage of time the word "emotional" had been struck off from the phrase "emotional goodbye". BUT.. THIS WAS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT! I knew it straightaway that this goodbye was not going to be easy by any means.

For the first time in all those years I was afraid of missing my friends. I gave it everything I could to get a transfer to Pune but nothing materialized(apart from an offer to work in Infosys Pune in CME in night shifts, which I outrightly rejected!). I felt like cursing one and all. I felt like quitting the job and finding a new one in Pune. Yes.. all this because I absolutely did not want to miss my newly formed group of 3(Ashish and Vinita being the other two), come what may.The best moment of those days was the 3 of us sitting in one of the food courts, doing absolutely nothing and all of a sudden, one of them would start with,"Jayant, chal na Pune". I hated that conversation then, as it was not going to help in any way but now I miss it badly.I don't feel like entering the food courts here without you guys because whenever I'm sitting alone in a food court here at Hyderabad, I feel the two of you would walk in out of nowhere and start playing pranks at me. I want you to try and snatch my Litchee shake because it tasted much better than your experimental order! I want to be kept waiting for 1 hr after being told to wait for "just 15 minutes". I want to pursuade both of you to keep sitting at FC3 for some more time, despite your eyes crying out for sleep, not because I didn't feel sleepy, but because I wanted to hold on to every single second.I want to snatch the chocolate ice cream from you, not because I loved eating it but because I loved to see your expression and a near-crying face(which,put together with a near-crying voice produced an effect only you are capable of) when someone dared try getting even 1/50th of a spoonful from your cup. I want to keep arguing with you people that shifting to Bangalore is not such a good idea, as getting a swap to Pune is equally unlikely, be it from Bangalore or Hyderabad. I want a totally unplanned outing with both of you, in which we straightaway headed for the exit gate of the campus without having decided where exactly we were heading to. I want Ashish to get into arguments with auto drivers over the nomenclature of eating joints around Mysore and then see his embarrassed face when the auto driver corrected him!

Miss you guys badly. Not so long ago we used to be with each other from 9 a.m. to even past midnight and today, we're so busy that talking once a day doesn't seem feasible.. talk about how times change!!!

Hope... I read somewhere.. is a funny word. It doesn't assure you of anything but it keeps the entire world going...!!!

Adieu to Infosys Mysore and discovery of a new emotion - Sadness!

2010-03-06T09:28:00.005+05:30

What a roller coaster ride the past ten days have dished out! I always took pride in the fact that I've outgrown "emotions", in every sense of the word! Staying out of home for long periods and meeting your family once every six months or so fills you up with a false sense of confidence, that you have bravely deleted the words "sad", "miss you", "loneliness", etc, etc from your dictionary. But then, God has strange ways of making you realize that you're still as fragile and vulnerable as you always were.

Stepping into Infosys Mysore campus on 13th September 2009, every other of my 483 batchmates had the same objective as mine in mind, i.e. to successfully complete the training and get out of that campus asap. The initial days were great, as one tries to explore every inch of the 335 acre campus. As time goes on, one starts getting sick of seeing the same food courts, the same cycles, the same hostel room and on top of that, the monotony of alternately going through slides and taking up tests. Initial couple of months were the saturation point for me and I prayed every day to get out of that campus at the earliest.

However, about 5 months after stepping into that campus, i.e. 21st January onwards, my feelings underwent a 180 degrees turn that I still find hard to believe! The 36 days that followed after that(till our batch was released) brought with them a few words and feelings that I had long buried and had decided never to reuse! Words such as "lifetime friends", "crush", "companionship", "trust", "care", "butterflies in stomach", "nervousness", "going weak on my knees on facing someone",etc, etc had sneaked into my life again and the worst things with feelings as these is that the more you try to drive them away, the more you try to kill them, the stronger they emerge. Now I understood why they compare good times with a fist full of sand. The harder you try to hold on to it, the faster it slips out of your hand. I didn't realize that time will eventually come to an end until my batch owner announced it one fine day(10th of Feb, 2010) that "The release date of your batch is 26th Feb".

"God, why do you have to be so cruel? Why can't you put us into extended training?" was my first reaction to it. I decided that to make those 16 days count would be the best thing to do, rather than brooding about why there are only 16 days. And, the 16 days that followed really did count for a lot. Companionship I had never before experienced followed and I expected our group of 3 to be together always, even though fate would not let us be geographically together for long. The postings came and I was the odd one out, thrown into Hyderabad, though in the company of two old time friends. Still, there's something about friends that makes you never want to compare them. As I had experienced so many times before( in the course of changing cities and schools), I was sure that this bonding will fade away with time. Its always been the case that whenever I get separated from friends, however hard I try to retain them, time takes its toll and eventually the regular calls change to the occasional SMS and then to a once-in-6-months scrap on orkut/facebook and eventually it all disappears, though I'm the one who tries to the most to keep things together.

Today its been exactly a week since the group left Mysore and the role of time is already taking its effect. The frequency of calls hit an all time low of 0 yesterday( though for a different reason). There was a mistake made and one of the the three, as always, has been singled out to suffer the most and he is going through the similar feeling once again.. of being OUTCASTED!!!

Let's see what fate has in store for him next.. does he get the courage to make new friends again or the deep scars that have been left will keep reminding him of the possible consequences.

Leisure @ Infosys Mysore

2009-12-12T11:21:00.000+05:30

One of the reasons I started blogging was that it provided an outlet for my rants and ramblings. And, more than 3 years later, not much has changed today. The best part is that I would completely forget/ignore blogger for a few days, weeks or even months but then I keep returning eventually.

Life has become regularised post 13/09/2009, i.e. the day I stepped into the Infosys Mysore Campus. I've always been a person who wants to do a lot of things apart from what I am supposed to do. Most people would agree that this is a good attitude to have, as it gives you a chance to explore yourself, see what you are capable of doing and how well you can do certain things. Being away from home helps in this regard, as you have the free time completely for yourself. It might sound unpleasant but then, it is a fact. When you're at home, you have responsibilities(which, by the way, I carry out very well). Still, there's a sense of laziness that I so badly wanted to overcome and what better place for it than Infosys, which provides you an opportunity to support yourself financially and devote time to the extra curriculars.

Despite all the talk that Infosys training is tough, one doesn't get the time to enjoy the world class facilities we have here in the campus and all the related nonsense, I can proudly announce that in the three months that I've been here, I've read Lance Armstrong's "It's Not About The Bike". If you're alien to the name of the author or the book, it's about a cyclist who overcame testicular cancer to win the most physically challenging sport, the Tour de France and is an idol for the cancer patients today. You need to go through a few pages of the book, in case you feel short of inspiration. The second book was Chetan Bhagat's "2-States". It was a pleasant surprise to see Chetan Bhagat come out of the Call Centre and recitify The Three Mistakes of His Life. 2-States definitely ranks besides Five Point Someone and by this time I really am wondering what can be the reason behind the title of all of his books starting with a number.
The third one, which I'll complete shortly, has really given me the confidence that I can actually get a book published some day. It is a sweet love story but then there's nothing in it that commands respect. I have this writing bug in my stomach since eternity and in fact, a friend of mine got a bit irritated by my philosophical response to the communicable stupidity called "Love" and she suggested I write a book! Not sure what her intentions were but then I definitely wanted to do this all the while, as I genuinely beleive that my till-date life has got all the ingredients required to occupy the 250 odd pages of a book.

Moving on, I can proudly announce that I've started hitting the gym since the past week or so and it really is going good. I actually look forward to my next gym session the moment I step out of it. Not that I'm expanding exponentially as the days are passing by. I am pretty much in shape (which, by the looks of it, will turn into ROUND if I don't put a check on it) but it is more of a preventive measure to counter two health related problems at one go. The first one's obesity and the second one, well... I like to keep it to myself to avoid any unwanted sympathy( and NO.. IT'S NOT AIDS!!).

There are lots of places to explore around Mysore and I'm pretty sure I'll find out the time for them in the coming 3 months or so. As of now, Bangalore is the best option because it is a place you can always go to irrespective of whether your friends want to come or not. Cricket used to be the topmost leisure activity for us when we came to Infy but nowadays its become almsot impossible to play, given the crowd that throngs the cricket ground. And, in any case, gym is a much better alternative for burning fat.. isn't it? And, add ot that the two chess boards that are there in the Employee Care Centre(ECC) where I go after my exhausting gym sessions to find some exercise for my brains. Either the chess standards at Infosys is too bad or I am yet to see the best players here. Whatever be the reason, the fact remains that I've not found any opponent till date who can give me a scare or last more than 25 moves. This surely is a pleasant change from Delhi, where you had to earn each and every win, even during the weekend club games!

If you really want to kill time and money here in Infosys Mysore, going to the Mysore City and exploring the dine-out options seems the be the popular choice here. I do like to eat out once in a while but not like those carbohydrate-crazy souls who would pay Rs. 100 in covneyance for a Rs. 150 dinner!

All this said, I hope the second half of the training passes by as smoothly as the first one and I avoid the close shaves that I had with a couple of module tests.

Infy Update

2009-12-12T09:54:00.001+05:30

Blogging from your office PC is probably not the most thrilling way to spend a lazy Saturday morning but then it was kind of.. forced!
Two weeks back we thanked the Infosys facilities people a lot because they had added one more show to the already existing 6 shows at the multiplex for the weekend. And, since most of the people have Saturdays working, we were quite happy about the whole thing, as this would provided the long-desired alternative to standing in queues for one and a half hours to get the tickets and sometimes, even that wasn't good enough! The first week of this experiment went pretty fine. We turned up at 8:20 for the 10 o'clock show and got the tickets comfortably(the ticket counter opens at 8:00 for the 10 a.m. show). That induced a sense of complacency in us and last evening we planned to have a blast at the multiplex by inviting as many people as possible and we did get a good response too! 7 of us reached the multiplex at 8:25 and were unfortunate enough to miss out on the tickets. And, once you get up at 7:50 and freshed up, you don't really feel like going back to the room and sleeping through the day. So, that left me with my office as the only realistic option and here I am!

I entered the Infosys campus on 13th September,2009 and the 3 months since then have passed in a flash!Needless to say, its been a wealthy experience, both experience wise and of course, financially too. One basically gets paid to learn new things here, which is still unbelievable to me. People ask a lot of questions about what do I have in mind after Infy? Whether I want to stick to Infy for my entire life? When am I going to do my masters? And countless such questions. It's not that I am completely ignorant to such questions but then, there's not much use thinking about them now. Just as I hadn't even planned I'll ever land up in Infy when I was in college. My target was to participate in the placement process of all the companies and let's see where I land up. With a few twists and turns, I landed up in Infosys and I'm absolutely loving it. I am really thankful to The Almighty that I didn't have to stick to Wipro and keep waiting for the joining for 6 months or so, as a few of my friends are doing.

The questions that I keep encountering from the people who are yet to join is, "How do you manage your time? The training must be really tough na? They chuck out a lot of people after every stage." Before I joined even I heard a lot of such nonsense but now that I've seen everything myself, I must say that it was the biggest rumour I've ever heard. There's no such thing as "killing schedule" here. In fact, after two months I was convinced that I'll have a lot of time so I even joined the health club here, which keeps me busy during the evenings.

Made a few good friends here other than my college people and the efforts for networking with new people are on. The fact that my entire college group has shifted to Bangalore irrespective of whether they're employed or not ensures that I have a blast whenever we get an extended weekend. Home is something that I will always miss but then, not much can be done about it and honestly, I was pretty much bored for the 8 months I had to be at home prior to Infosys.

I'm Sorry, Mr. S.R.K. but that was a Cheap Publicity Stunt!

2009-08-20T13:31:00.009+05:30

16th Aug,2009, 8am:A normal,socially aware Indian is in a holiday mood(thanks to the pleasant coincidence of Independence day preceded by Janmashtmi Holiday and succeeded by a Sunday). Sitting in his living room, he takes out the rubber band from the newspaper and unrolls it, only to be encountered by these headlines.

What would your reaction be? The natural answers would be anger, disgust, pain, patriotism, revenge and their synonyms but the most important one would be "Sympathy", wouldn't it? If you've read till this point I request you to go ahead and read the ENTIRE post because I have some evidence of backing up my views.

So, SRK, in his own words, was "frisked" at the Newark airport. I'm sure he meant it as a verb and the dictionary meaning for "frisk" as a verb goes like this:"the act of searching someone for concealed weapons or illegal drugs". So, first of all, there's no big deal in anyone being "frisked" at an airport. We all are "frisked" before entering multiplexes, malls, Metro trains and, of course, airports,right? SRK has repeateadly alleged that it wasn't a normal "security check" but it was frisking. I'm not sure of his vocabulary level but my limited knowledge of it tells me that the security personnel are being paid to frisk passengers, aren't they? After all, they have to ensure that no one is carrying weapons or drugs with him.

Secondly, Mr. SRK alleges that the checking took more time than normal and the personnel deliberately made him wait for two hours. The reason for this was mentioned very briefly in one of the newspapers but most of them just carried SRK's side and they never bothered to get the entire picture. Now that the incident seems to have been forgotton by the media, I decided to do some research on the facts and here is what I came up with.

The real picture:

Mr. Shah Rukh Khan was detained at the airport because his baggage had not arrived due to the airline's fault. Hence, he was made to wait until it arrived and was checked. I read it somewhere that the airport officials have claimed that the period of detention was exactly 66 minutes. However, I'm not sure of that so let us assume that it was 2 hours, as came out in the papers. Can someone please tell me where the airport officials went wrong if they detained a person for 2 hours because of the fault of the airline? Obviously, they could not have let him walk away without the baggage and then check it later. The other point of contention is regarding the popularity of the icon. I would excuse a security officer in Newark in the U.S. if he doesn't recognize a person who is such an icon back in India (just like people in Holland didn't recognize Sachin Tendulkar on the streets when he went there for a 3 match series)and frankly, even if he did, he would still have gone through the entire security procedure. Hence, it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Airport security for International flights is a major issue and sometimes we will have incidents such as frisking of former President APJ Abdul Kalam(more due to the negligence of government in pre-informing the alirline) or an SRK.

It is unjust for anyone to pass judgement on an entire community and the fact that 9/11 has really changed the way Muslims are being treated around the world is really sad. In an ideal world, it should not happen and everyone should be treated equally. The sad part is that suspects of all the major terrorists activities around the world, be it serial blasts in Delhi, in London, in Madrid or the 9/11 itself belong to the same community and that is the conundrum. This is one incident in the U.S. but it does happen day in and day out to the common Muslim here in India as well. And clearly, it'll never happen to SRK here coz everybody knows him. So, before blaming the U.S. we have to set our houses in order. That said, the best we can do is to cooperate with security people all around. There's nothing to fear when we are right and when we demand a terrorism free world, the least we can do is to cooperate with the security agencies around the world rather than crib and complain.

And, Mr. SRK wants to frisk Angelina Jolie when she comes to India.... its fine if he was joking but there won't be many who would see it purely as a joke and the message conveyed looks more like targeting people from the U.S. in return,which is not the best way to respond.

Out of this entire incident, SRK has managed to cash in on the patriotic mood of the nation in promoting his upcoming movie,which is based on the same topic(I don't even want to name it). No matter how much he keeps on saying the now-familiar pharases such as "I don't need publicity", "I don't need these things to promote my movie",etc, fact of the matter is that publicity always helps and there's no limit to it. How can we forget that this is the same actor who would go to T20 Cricket World Cup in South Africa wearing a black shirt engraved with "Om Shanti Om" in golden colours prior to release of his movie? He would keep taking on an Amitabh Bachchan at an award ceremony or make comments on Amar Singh, Salman Khan and anyone else for that matter.

SRK no longer the icon he used to be for me:I grew up watching and liking SRK movies and I've always been his fan. However, such acts from him in the recent past has maligned his image and I now see him as a conceited, arrogant egotist. Success has got to his head and one such incident was prior to the IPL when Sunil Gavaskar criticised the Kolkata Knight Riders' "multiple captaincy theory". SRK pitched in for his coach(which was justified) by saying that I would stand by the decision of Mr. Buchanan(again, hats off to you for showing faith in your coach prior to such an important tournament) and those who disagree with it can buy their own franchisees and implement their ideas on them(perfectly unjust). Probably he tried to show that he has got the money to buy a franchisee and Mr. Gavaskar hasn't. For your information, sir, the day Sunil Gavaskar wants to buy an IPL Franchisee he won't run short of financers. Why does he forget that his domain is movies and he should not interfere so vociferously in subjects out of that domain. And taking on someone of the stature of Gavaskar was really uncalled for. Lately, he has been projecting himself as the "good face" of Islam, which is again, a creditable act because not many people have had the time and guts to do that. Aamir Khan hasn't done badly at all in this industry and the reason I value the person so much is for the way in which he does his work and raises his voice when he needs to(The Narmada cause). I loved it when he had a banter at SRK regarding the name of his dog in his blog. May be it was undignified but when we talk of SRK, we no longer need to be dignified. This country has got its hands full of crisis at present and we don't need gimmicks like these from our revered stars to distract us, do we??

Driving Woes in Delhi

2009-07-07T10:58:00.001+05:30

Driving a car has been one of my less ambitious and more practical childhood dreams (few others being flying the MIGs and SUKHOIs and taking on the Taliban on my own, bombarding the terrorist camps in Pakistan, captaining the Indian Cricket Team to a World Cup win, winning a Grand Master title in Chess, becoming a multi trillionaire.... ok ok.. billionaire and taking jibes at that school time crush of mine for turning me down........ let's come back to the original topic!). It got realised rather smoothly, as last summer I learnt the art and managed to negotiate my way to a permanent Driving License without any fuss, thanks to my father's contacts. A broken number plate, two scratches, 12 months and about 1500 kms later, I can say that I'm about as close to being a perfect driver as a normal person who doesn't harbour dreams of taking up driving as a profession can get. The saying that one is never happy with what he has been proved true for the zillionth time, as I don't want to pursue my "dream" any more, unless I'm being pursued by an elder and more powerful family member(which unfortunately all of them are) to pursue it! Obviously, there are reasons to it and this post is intended to uncover them to my non existent readers.

Negligent pedestrians: This breed can easily be found here, especially on comparatively cramped roads(which are at least 16 feet wide anyway!). The idea of sharing the road with anyone else doesn't amuse them one bit. No matter how loud, continuous and irritating the horn gets, these runts continue the stroll in their backyards. I met one such person about 7 hours ago, while on my way to the Sarojini Nagar market and that is when the idea for this post originated(at least the person did something constructive). My honkings fell on deaf ears, as he and his friend were walking side by side, arms on each others' shoulders, probably celebrating the legality of homosexuality when he was struck by the bonnet of a Santro(deliberately slowed down to 20-30 kmph) right behind his kneecaps and he barely managed to avoid falling on the ground. He tried to give me an "Angry young man" stare but before he could put up a look to back up that stare, I was shouting at him, questioning the existence of his ear-drums, fully aware that we were in "my area" and there would be shopkeepers to help me out if the intended war of words turns leads to something more physical. However, it did not get to that and the fellow stepped aside rather quietly. This was a surprising case because the pedestrian was a male. Normally it is the fairer sex of Delhi for which the words "ancestral property" and "roads" seem synonymous. When you cannot predict whether that speeding car or yourself would win the race while crossing the road, the protocol is to keep your eye on the car and change your plans mid way,if needed and keep crossing. However, the ladies/girls would simply turn their backs on you and start crossing, forcing you to do the entire thinking, i.e. calculating speeds, checking them out, calculating the probability of escaping alive if you dare hit them, etc, etc.

The mindless honkers: This breed is no less irritating than the previous one. The reason being that they think they can achieve something by honking at my car when even they can clearly see that there is absolutely NO WAY OUT of the jam/red light we're stuck in. I recently found a way of dealing with such people. I simply stick out my hand and indicate it to them to overtake me through the non existent space. It is my way of telling them, "Idiot, if you can see any space available, be my guest and take it."

The careless bikers/drivers: The rule of the traffic jungle is that there is more than a fair chance of you getting seriouly injured for no mistake of yours. One sudden lane change by the driver ahead of you is sufficient to bring down curtains on your healthy life and hence, this requires luck and emphasises the need for lane changes.

Hurried idiots causing and worsening jam situations: It will take some explaining.. imagine a 6 lane road, with 3 lanes meant for traversing either direction, separated only by a yellow line after the 3rd lane. Red light is on and cars start stacking up one behind the other in the three lanes. Now there will be one impatient idiot, who will cross the yellow line and take up the first position in the queue, hence blocking the lane meant for traffic coming from the other direction. In a matter of seconds, cars stack up behind this one and then there will be people thinking of occupying even the fifth lane!! This halts up traffic from the other direction and consequently everyone will be honking at everyone, including the person who started the whole thing! This will lead to the conditions mentioned above and there will be total chaos. "Money can't buy you brains" is perfectly examplified here. I do feel like walking up to such drivers and questioning their common sense, but somehow I've resisted till now.

PARKING WOES: The capital letters should be enough to mention its importance. I read some time back that lakhs of new cars hit the roads of New Delhi every year and it is no surprise that despite the efforts of the NDMC and MCD by building multi level parking lots, the problem keeps on sky rocketing. You are required to leave the keys of the car with the workers at parking lots and that does raise a few eyebrows. In fact, it surprises me that how can one trace the car, in the event of the parking lot guy running away with it?? I guess you can hold the concerned authority responsible for it(NDMC) in most of the cases but still, one should be able to do without these troubles.

I really hope The Almighty blesses the diseased people of Delhi with some common sense. That would want me to drive more.

Un-tagging myself!

2009-07-01T18:29:00.005+05:30

I was convinced that I had successfully evaded being tagged by Aditi , but that was only until two hours ago, when I got an e-mail notification telling me that I had been tagged. Not for a moment do I mean to sound unhappy and curse her. It's just that I wanted all to know how reluctant I am to be doing tags. But now that I've started, watch out!

So, this one is meant to be about "FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MYSELF." I would like to apologise for sounding arrogant or any other remotely synonymous adjective. Here I go:

Upbringing and moral values: I was born in a middle class family in Patna, Bihar and spent 16 years of my life there before my family moved and settled in Delhi. I am proud to say that I possess the best of both the cultures and I can't thank my parents enough for that.And now I can say that we're more into the upper middle class but thanks to The Almighty, none of us are too showy about it. I firmly remain footed on ground, I say my prayers regularly and thank God before each and every meal I eat. I've been lucky enough to be brought up by parents who taught me the importance of self respect and honesty, parents who still belive that if you are good to others, God will see to it that you're all right. And yes, a lot of the credit for my Nanaji, with whom I spent the most formative years of my life(years 1 to 4). Unfortunately, he left us forever two months back.
Diverse interests(sports, reading,etc):I am interested in a lot of things, including reading, cricket,music, interviews, chess, football, newspapers, writing, watching television, travelling and yes, studying used to be on the list till the first half of this decade too! I know others see these hobbies of mine as a waste of time but I know how much I have learnt from these experiences and I take a great deal of pride in it, irrespective of what others think.
Typing speed: This might look out of place in all these goody goody stuff that I've written but trust me, typing while looking at the keyboard is a real headache. I thank myself for the effort I put in right after my tenth boards and now I'm at a stage where I can EASILY clock more than 60 words per minute and when I'm really into it, it goes over 90 :)
NEVER SAY DIE ATTITUDE:I uncovered this aspect of my character in the last four years that I spent in Manipal, trying to negotiate a degree in Electrical and Electronics engineering. In an attempt to gain sympathy,let me tell you that it is considered a 5-yr branch, as in the olden days hardly anyone managed to clear it in the stipulated 4 years without missing out on the college masti. I did not want to miss out on the enjoyment of college days so I knew I was in for something serious. There have been times when I've had to cover a 300 page book 12 hours before the end semester examinations and those were the same troublesome topics that fetched me 2 or 3 marks out of 20(repeatedly) in the internal examinations. There have been countless such papers but I have managed to come through the degree without failing in any subject. I know that's no big achievement when you look at it from outside, but if you consider the amount of time and effort I have put in, it's really worth appreciation. There are papers that professors have taught for over 50 hours in the classroom and I've cleared them by putting in about 10 hours in the entire semester :). Apart form academics, I've realized that there's an exceptional sense of cool in me in all situations. Be it while arguing with my elder brother or parents, be it the time when we just came to know about Nanaji's death and no one had a clue how we were to proceed with things or be it the times when people laugh at you about your academics or stuff like that. I quietly say it in my mind that "My day will come whenever I put in the effort" and I still belive it. I never lose my temper or shout at anyone out of angst. I guess playing chess has helped me evolve as a human being.
Analytical ability:I am able to sit down and analyze a practical problem and then decide upon which is the best possible measure to be taken, rather than shouting in a panic situation and spreading panic.And, what more proof than the fact that I can proudly boast of an IQ of over 125, after taking tests on various websites.Given that a normal person has IQ of 100, it's not too bad, is it??

Whoa... so much of bragging about myself ends this tag. Thanks Aditi, for tagging me, as I had never sat down and thought about my positive qualities so much!

A Week of Mixed Emotions

2009-04-20T20:25:00.002+05:30

Mission weight loss continues: It started on 13th April and despite the unlucky date to start it on, I have surprised everyone at home(none more than myself) with the regularity of it. I have not skipped it for a single day and now the limbs are getting to normal. I don't know how many of you have experienced it but if you play/exercise heavily after a long gap, the following days turn out to be a nightmare. All the imaginable joints and muscles in your body start aching like anything. For the best part of the week gone by, I felt as if someone had pumped a good 5 kg of Iron into both my thighs and shoulders. The entire body was feeling so very heavy but thankfully I stuck to the routine and now it is much better.

Two days back I proudly announced to my elder brother that I have hit 50 sit ups in a day, in 3 segments(25+15+10). It was then that the old IMA trainee in him woke up and asked me to show how I had been doing them. He showed me the "correct" way of doing it and the next day my 3 segments of sit ups had the count 15+8+3 !!

All in all, the exercising part is good and now I am addicted to it.

My N-73 roars back to life-This was the best part of the week. Normally I am not extravagant but when it came to buying a new mobile last July, I wanted it to be the best possible thing. I begged to my parents for increasing(nearly doubling) the upper limit set by them so that I could go for the nokia N-73. I had made enough money from my blog so I was confident of affording the phone, which is what I actually did.
Here is a short account of how I ruined it. I was hell bent on getting it repaired but some logistical obstruction(read money) or the other(read time) kept on popping up and I was not able to get it sorted out. The minimum requirement for the repairing was a four figure amount and I did not want to bother my parents with it. I decided to make some more money out of my blog apart from taking up a few sponsored posts and thanks to
this website, I was able to earn enough and get my phone repaired. That mobile and my wristwatch(gifted recently from bhaiya-bhabhi on my birthday) are my two most loved possessions and I can't really put to words how happy I felt on 17th April, the day I got it repaired.

IPL 2 - The Passion is back:The IPL started two days back and honestly, I was not really looking forward to it. I even missed a major part of the games on the first day but seeing Rajasthan Royals crumble to the spin of Anil Kumble was a great sight. Rahul Dravid's half century in the same game was equally impressive and that gave me an impression that this time round, there would be a fairer contest, as the bowlers are getting help from the South African pitches, something that was missing in India last year. The opening day was good enough to get my Delhi Daredevils T-Shirt on for the next day and the team didn't disappoint, giving over rated Punjab the battering they deserved(but somehow escaped) last year. All in all, I'm back in the IPL mould and that win covered up for Manchester United's semi final loss to Everton last night.

Getting rid of those THREADS:You can't keep everyone happy in life and there are times when you have to take a stand. I am an egoistic person and even if you're my friend, there's only "x" number of times I would compromise on my BIG ego to mend our relations. I decided a few days back that I had had enough of "friendship" with this person and in this "friendship" that lasted less than two years, I felt cheated. I have been trying to break free of the threads that surround all of us and hopefully this is the first step. I do feel a bit sad after having refused "any possibility of future communication" with the person but then, that is how I am. Once I take a decision, whether right or wrong, I stand by it.So, arrogant as I might sound, I have cut out the risk of deservedly expecting a birthday wish from someone and then not getting it.Time is a great healer and I'm sure in the coming days I will learn to move into the same loneliness that has been my faithful companion all these years.

All in all, life's been going fine and the only concern for me now is to get my mid term training report approved, signed, sealed and then sent to my college.Once that is done, I'll be busy preparing the industrial training report and then the final report of my last semester project. How I wish I was doing my project with someone who could do all this work for me..

Indian Politics plunges to new lows this election season

2009-04-15T16:34:00.003+05:30

I have never been a fan of politics and I never cared to know what the manifesto of the parties were going to be like, what promises they make and how many of them they actually keep. Politics for me has always been a pond full of mud where the person who has got the perfect balance of having the least corrupted image survives. I would never care for the front page of a newspaper unless it had news related to cricket or football and I hated news channels.

However, all this changed five years ago, when I cast a vote for the first time in my life and luckily, it was about a month after attaining the voting age. All four members of our family went together for the voting and surprisingly, it was the first time my parents and my elder brother were casting votes, making me the youngest voter of my family :)

It's not a film script so I would not say that I started following politics very closely after that but I felt there was a need to keep an eye on what the leaders of the country were upto. These days, when I don't have much work to do, television is the best medium to kill time and since I do not follow the music channels or the daily soaps religiously, it leaves me with little choice other than the news to watch.

So much of a prelude for what?? Read on...

I am sure all of us have, by chance or choice, followed the methods adopted by the political parties to lure the voters by all means, fair or unfair. I expected this campaigning season to be no different but sadly, it was. What was expected to be another two months laden with allegations, counter allegations, mud slinging and making and breaking of friendships has turned into something much filthier. The candidates have started using foul language on national television, in an effort to pull down others.

It all started with Varun Gandhi's famous hate speech in which he made no secret of his way of dealing with people of a particular community.

After that it was Lalu Yadav's turn to speak his mind about his preferred way of punishing him and no surprises, both were hauled up by the Election Commission.

Mr. Narendra Modihas been trying desperately to project himself as a National Leader ever since the Vajpayee Government was formed and then the Godhra issue just added to his cause. Thus, he, along with Mr. Advani, jumped into the campaigning by criticizing the Congress Party for being old!! I mean, what prevents these people from thinking sensibly before they make such speeches?

Priynaka Gandhi gave him a very apt answer, asking openly to the journalists that,

"Kya main apko boodhi lagti hoon? Mujhe nahi pata Modi ji aur Advani ji ke dekhne ka kya nazariya hai"

This reply has kept him mum for the past few days and I really appreciate the lady for the way she carries herself and distances herself from active politics, restricting her participation only for the campaigning purpose.

The BJP - Congress rivalry has gone on and on but the good part is that they do not use any vulgar language against each other.

This was the time when a totally unheard of Candidate from BSP, Mr. Akhilesh Das, came into the fray. The person joined BSP after parting from Congress about an year ago and here are some of the lines that he used (which reflect his family background and his mindset) to criticise Mr. Amar Singh's inclusion of film stars to his party:

" Amar Singh ji Nafisa Ali ko le aaye hain. Unki film line mein itni hi chalti hai to Aishwarya Rai ko hi le aate. Hum bhi itne boodhe nahi hain, hamara bhi mann laga rehta.
By virtue of her marriage Nafisa’s full name should be Nafisa Sodhi and not Ali since her husband is a Sodhi; but of course that depends on what relationship she has with her husband. Pata nahi pati hain bhi ki nahi, woh to hum hi keh rahe hain.”

I mean, what depths can these leaders scale in their bid to attain power? I would like to leave you with this and I hope there are no more of these quotes in the months to come. It has really brought shame to the entire country.

About Birthday, aftermath of chess and losing weight!

2009-04-13T10:09:00.004+05:30

The gap since my last post has been eventful, to say the least and I had planned at least 3 posts during this time and here I am... writing a post that I had not planned for at all!

Birthday:After the chess tournament in which I underperformed to an extent, it was my birthday to take over the spotlight for a day or two. It came just two days after the tournament and somewhere in my mind I had thought of gifting myself one of the 6 awards from the tournament that were for the taking for the unrated players. Nothing of that sort materialized and I spent the two days leading up to my birthday on a very low note, not going around much, not studying, not blogging, not playing chess and not joking around with bhaiya and bhabhi.

The family members were quick to realise this and they planned a mini party for my birthday and as a prelude to that,I was taken to the Lajpat Nagar market to choose a new wrist watch, which bhabhi had promised me some time ago. I chose one form the Casio Edifice Chronograph Series and I must admit, costly as it was, it went a long way in pepping me up.

I had not paid any attention to my mobile because of my low mood that day and I missed dozens of calls, the maximum of them from Omveer, who even mailed me to enquire what I was up to the whole day. It was in the evening, after the usual cake-cutting mini-ceremony that I got the best birthday gift. Weekend was approaching and bhaiya and dad had 3 days holiday on the trot. Bhaiya kept pressurising dad about how badly we needed a break from the usual routine, hinting at a short trip to somewhere. Nainital, Shimla and Jaipur were shortlisted as the options and we finally zeroed in on Jaipur and Ajmer, despite the weather conditions, as we had never ventured in the Western Part of the country. It turned out to be an excellent trip and it deserves a separate post with pictures(it was one of the posts that I had planned). Hopefully I'd be able to put up an account of that trip very soon.

It felt nice to get calls from the 4 genuine friends that I've made in manipal.Given my quiet nature, combined with my growing interest in chess, I could not spend as much time with them as I would have liked in my final semester there and I still feel guilty about this. I think they know me well enough now and have accepted this as a part of my nature. The paradox is that I realise it now,when it is too late and those days would never come back. Proud to have friends like Omveer,APS, Sagar and Anubhav( in no particular order of preference).

NTPC exam...almost missed:Yesterday I was done with the NTPC exam and how I reached the examination centre is another story(the second blog post that I had planned). In short, I reached the venue at 9.55, 15 minutes after the "NO ENTRY" time and somehow managed to get in and put up a decent enough performance in the test.

The Interesting Part - A pleasant change in lifestyle: I have become used to taking taunts from bhabhi and mummy about my bulging tummy and I never paid much attention to it. I do admit being overweight but it is only about 2-3 kgs. I wished to wait and watch for a few weeks and if it gets out of control, then I'd have done something about it. But, when my mamaji commented something along the same lines a few days back, I really gave it a serious thought. He is a person I respect a lot because of his discipline and the lifestyle that he commands as a Lt. Colonel in the Indian Army so when he says something, you are better off taking it seriously. I immediately checked up my height to weight ration in the Body Mass Index chart and my BMI came out to be 24.

The key to the chart read:

19 - 23: Healthy
24 - 29: Overweight
30 - 35: Obese
35+ In danger of dozens of diseases related to heart, liver, etc.

The conclusion was that I had just entered the "overweight" category which was not alarming enough for me to rush into doing something. However, when you have difficulty putting on a 34 waist jeans, you know things are not all that well. That was the moment that I decided to "lose weight" and as I did some research on it over the net, I changed my priority to "burning fat", as the two things are vastly different. The second one is more of a permanent and healthy option.

So, my day now starts at 6 am with a 2 km jog to the IIT grounds, where I do a variety of cardio exercises, push ups, sit ups, short sprints,etc, in sync with the advice that I got from a "Mylot friend" of mine here on the net. I return home really tired at 7.30,freshen up have a short breakfast( having 5 short meals a day is critical element in speeding up metabolism that eventually burns fat .... whatever that means!), go through the newspapers and by 9 a.m. (which used to be the time I got up from sleep until a week ago) I feel so fresh in the mind. Now I have time on my side. I can do a lot of things throughout the day and still have time left in the evening to go for another 30 minute walk. Its amazing how systematic I have become.

Now I even want to study some time during the day because I have so much time left after watching T.V, going through the chess e books, playing online chess, replying to mails, earning a bit of money online and yes, I now have time for blogging too!

I really hope I stick to this regime for a few weeks at the very least.

Chess Diary: Concluding part

2009-03-30T20:13:00.005+05:30

So, it all ended yesterday. My first tournament ended on a disappointing note for me, as I lost the last round to a player named Sanjay Gupta, rating 1749. It has started getting more and more frustrating, the way I fail to win games against sub 1900 players. I got three chances to do that in this tournament and I failed in all three, securing an ugly draw in one of them.

The irritating thing is that it is not that they are playing well to win. It is more a case of a blunder from me which costs me the game. After six rounds, I had scored 1.5 points out of a possible 6 and I was looking down the barrel. I aimed to win all five games to end up with a respectable score. I almost succeeded, as I won four on the trot but the loss in the last game is haunting me and I suppose it will continue to haunt me for quite some time. It was similar to the loss I incurred in our Inter MAHE championship against Swarup, the captian of the Kasturba Medical College, where I had blundered after having him on the mat for the first 20 odd moves. No wonder, I lost out on the prize by half a point and that is what I can't forget.

All in all, finishing with 5.5 points out of 11 was an average performance, if not bad and there were a lot of lessons to be learnt. I know my game better and I hope to prepare well for the next tournament, the one in Amity scheduled for mid May. My FIDE rating performance is 1588, which is way below the minimum I expected, i.e. 1700. I am not reading too much into it as of now because it is not my rating. If I improve my game in the next month or so, I am sure I would start with a 1700+ rating. I met a lot of people and made a lot of friends there, of all age groups. It is a pleasure to see children of 7-15 years of age play phenomenal chess and beating people of their parents and grandfather's age!

It is so very true that defeats teach you more than the wins. I never analyzed my game but now I will. Thankfully I have found some very helpful people there who have told me about the method to be adopted and hopefully I would put up a better show against the next 5 rated players that I meet.

The entire tournament was a pleasure, met a lot of people and I hope to learn in the future from the players like Saket, Saveson, Siddharth, Sanjay, Surendra and many more(ohh.. I didn't notice that all of the names start with S!!).

Chess Diary - Part 3

2009-03-27T00:26:00.004+05:30

Day 5:Round 7:I did not write much about yesterday's two rounds because I lost in both of them to unrated players. I won't say I played badly but I should have put up a better fight and analyzed the game closely. I think the fact that the players were unrated filled me up with overconfidence and I paid a heavy price for it, losing both the games. And yeah, today I was too focussed on my games so I didn't care which table my friends were playing on in the hall. And after playing a hard fought game that lasted around 4 hours, I did not have the energy left in me to search anyone so I decided to return home.

Today I went in with a sense of urgency. I had analyzed my game yesterday and found out the deficiencies and blunders. Sometimes you make a seemingly harmless move and it costs you the game! I did not believe in it earlier but I had seen it yesterday. Hence, I reached the venue at 3.55 pm, went to check the pairings (and for a change, saw only my table number, rather than the usual days on which I see "everybody's" table and opponents). I was drawn against Vaibhav Varma ( he mentioned it to me specifically that he is a Varma and not Verma) who was unrated. After the two shattering defeats to unrated players yesterday, I was so much down on confidence that I hardly paid attention to his rating. Only while entering his name in the scoresheet did I ask him that.

I was playing white so there was the usual opening that I feel comfortable with. I missed a good move on the 3rd move itself. It did not lose anything but I could have gained a vital advantage. The game went on to take an unusual course from the beginning and somehow I felt comfortable with it. The reason is that most of the players memorize the openings and they know what to play against what attack. I am not a player trained by coaches and all so I feel it quite difficult to memorize them. Hence, my opening is weak. I missed an opportunity or two in the middlegame as well but I had got an advantage of two pawns and was confident of winning in the endgame. However, the winning move did not strike me at the right time and I almost threw away a win, when I worked out an apparently silly move which would be winning for me.
My opponent was taking at least 15 minutes for each move after the 35th move or so. He offered me a draw on the 40th move and only then I realized that if I did not play carefully I would throw away a win.I refused the draw because after losing 3 games on the trot, I could not afford another loss and finally, when I made the 55th move he could not find any escape route and offered to shake hands, which means that the player resigns. It is a pleasure to see this gesture from your opponent and shaking hands after winning the game and saying "well played" is like rubbing salt into his wounds. It felt good to win after 48 hours and I hope I would do well tomorrow as well. I really need to!

Chess Diary - Part 2

2009-03-24T20:24:00.009+05:30

Day 3, Round 4:

I went in for today's game full of energy, as I was overjoyed with both the results yesterday. I relaxed a lot through the day and reached the venue just five minutes before time. I straightaway rushed to check the pairings.

Table 67:Preetika Tayal vs Jayant Shekhar

This is what was written on the board. Hmm.. so for the first time in my life I'll be playing against a girl.. good enough! I have always believed that girls seriously lack intellect and I thought I would have a pretty decent game. However, I had missed one thing, i.e. her International rating, which was 1857. I have beaten players with 1900+ rating but I cannot treat it as my par rating right now so I knew that she would be a tough opponent. And for those who would think that I started thinking about "other things" the moment I saw a girl's name need to think again. The fact is that every participant pays a minimum of Rs 1500 as entry fee for this tournament and there is far too much at stake for me so I could not afford to get distracted.

The girl has just entered the 10th standard in APJ, Pitampura and after the first 10 moves or so, I was surprisingly very happy with my position. I had to play the black pieces and my opening is weak. For a change, it was me who was attacking her and she spent whole of the first part of the game defending.

I was starting to tire after the 20th move and that is when I made a silly mistake, which put me down a full piece,i.e. 3 points. And after that it just got worse and I resigned the game on 26th move. It was a good lesson for me and I repeated a mistake pointed out by my friend cum coach Akram Baig, i.e. I do not castle.

I hope I will not repeat this mistake for the games now onwards and I cannot afford to make mistakes like this any more.

However, it's not just about chess these days
I was really sad as I shook hands with my opponent and was walking out of the playing hall, when I walked across table no 109. A girl,(name removed coz it didn't go down well with few ppl) ,was playing her game with a boy having a good rating and she had an advantage in the game. Now, if at all you are thinking as to how I knew the name of the girl, read on to get the answer. In these tournaments, a list is put up outside the playing hall, listing clearly the name of the players with their ratings, points and the table numbers.

However, that did not change my disappointment and I decided to head back to the metro station and then to home. My misfortune didn't relent there either and as I entered the platform, a train left. I checked the information bar and found that the next train would be after 4 minutes, which is a long time, by metro standards. I was roaming to and fro on the station and the usual "bird watching" activity that one is expected to undergo in such a situation did not attract me, as I was far too disappointed after losing the game. Just as I turned back, I found the girl of table 109 on the same station! I went to her to find out about the result of the game. I straightaway walked across her, she recognized me and we started talking about our games, our standings, our points and all that. The game of chess is such that you can go on and on discussing about it and you would not finish.The initial 4 minute wait was now reduced to none and the announcement for the train's arrival broke the conversation for a minute.

So, what about you?Are you in school or college? That question hit me like anything. Here I am, 3 months away from being an engineer and she still doubts if I am a school student!! I attributed this to the unique quality of brainlessness that only a girl can possess and answered in a somewhat stern voice, "I will complete my engineering in June." This answer had probably the same effect on her that her question had on me and she wasted no time in cutting her tongue between her teeth for a moment. Then the unwantable happened.. Rajiv Chowk station was there and she got down. I could have taken the same route but I resisted and we exchanged best of luck wishes before parting.

Chess Diary - Part 1

2009-03-23T22:42:00.006+05:30

The title suggests what I am upto these days and I plan to write my experiences for my own sake (as I know hardly anyone reads my blog) as they would help refresh the memories some time later. I am playing in an Internationally Rated Chess Tournament, which started on 22nd March and will go on until the next sunday, i.e. 29th March.I am not getting too much into technical chess in my posts so I am sure those who do not have any interest in the game(like most of my friends) would not have difficulty in reading.

Day 1, Round 1The tournament started yesterday, with the usual formal inauguration and then the pairing was done. My opponent was Mr. Gopalakrishna, an old man with white, longish beard and hardly any hair to match the color of the beard. I came to know from the list that he was rated 2070 so I was up against it straightaway. For layman's knowledge about chess and its ratings, anyone who is rated above 1750 or so is considered to be a strong opponent and given the fact that I am unrated till now, I knew that I will have a tough time. I was playing with white pieces so that gave me slight advantage, but it didn't last long and I crumbled under the pressure mounted by him and resigned the game in around 38 moves.

Day 2
I was not in a very good mood today, given yesterday's loss but I knew that I would get a comparatively easier opponent for the second round and that was the case. My opponent this time was Simarjiv Singh, a sardar kid.I was playing with black pieces, which meant he got the advantage. However, I had decided after yesterday's game that I would not sit back and defend. Thus, I offered him a gambit on the very first move and he took it. The pieces were getting exchanged regularly but he was ignoring the fact that I was gaining tempo after each exchange and he blundered. He had too many things to worry about and I opened my score for the tournament with an easy win.

Lot of time to spare.. what to do?? My game had started at around 10 a.m. and I initially took my time to think, which meant that I was trailing on time by around 30 minutes. However, the game got over before 11.30 and the next round was to start at 4 p.m. ( as the organizers had to ensure that all the games of round 2 end well before the start of the next round, so that they can decide on the pairings). I decided to go to my father's office for lunch, as it would kill time and I would get some much needed nutrition. I virtually starved for the entire day yesterday and I didn't want to repeat that. Another incentive for the travel to dad's office was that I had to take the Metro, which is a heaven for "bird watchers". I came back at 3 p.m, analyzed my previous game with a friend of mine and then went to check the pairings for the next round.

Day 2, Round 3: This has by far been the most memorable game I have ever played. I must have played better in online games but still, the fact that this game was against a FIDE rated player, Tarun Mathur( rating 1788), added to the excitement. The match was to begin at 4 p.m and I was seated well before time. My opponent kept me waiting for a long time and I decided to follow the game going on on the adjacent table, in which an 8 year old kid was beating the hell out of a 25 year old guy. I checked the watch and it was 4.25.. still no sign of Mr. Tarun. I decided to go to the organizers and they told me to wait until 5 p.m. I wished he never comes and I get a walk over, but that would not have made me happy. Finally, Mr. Mathur, a person of a medium height and somewhat stocky built(with a frightening French beard) appeared onto the scene and I switched my focus back to my table. I had the white pieces and, as is the case so many times, I lost the advantage of playing white when I had to break down a move into two. My opponent then slowly built his attack, which would have resulted in a catastrophe for me had I not calculated at least 4-5 variations before every move. He had too many threats but somehow, I just hung in, I even had to sacrifice a pawn to stop his attack. I can proudly say that I was at my defensive best in this game and I even offered him a draw later, which he refused. It was logical decision on his part because you do not agree to a draw when you are up a pawn and both the players have a Queen, two rooks and a bishop(of opposite colors). All of my pieces were tied down and one blunder would have been catastrophic. However, I managed to stop his attack and then he decided to change the flank of the attack and that is when a move struck me out of nowhere! I would not go into the technical terms of the move but I came up with a move which meant he either gives me an advantage for the rest of the game or the game would be a draw. Thus, it ended in a draw and I walked off a satisfied person, given my bad position throughout the game.

As of now, I have 1.5 points out of 3 and tomorrow would be a crucial day to my FIDE rating aspirations. I need all the luck!

Our Unfriendly Neighbourhood

2009-03-05T13:03:00.003+05:30

It was Pakistan's turn to face its own music. The recent terror strikes on the Sri Lankan Cricket team has fuelled new speculations and I am sure not all of them are wrong. The entire world knows about what happened in Lahore so I would not go into the details of that. I am more interested at pointing out incidents which point to something else.

There was not a single policeman in the bus of the Sri Lankan team. Prior to the tour they had been promised President level security to them. Where was it??

Why was the departure of Pakistan's Team bus delayed by 5 minutes at the very last moment?

The route of the bus was changed at the very last moment. How did the attackers come to know about it?

The Geo TV camera that shot the attack is fixed somewhere, stationary. Normally, when a reporter bursts onto such a scene, the cameraman is seen running with the camera to find the right angles. However, here the camera has been fixed at just the perfect angle. Did they know about the incident's timing as well?

The attackers are shown to be roaming around freely in the streets of Lahore, 11 minutes after the attack. There is no policeman in sight.

I think this is proof enough that Lahore is out of Pakistan government's control now and the end of the democracy is not-so-far.
I am not pointing fingers at anyone but you can make up your mind as to whether the attack was planned or not.

Stop wondering friends, I'm all right

2009-03-01T17:52:00.003+05:30

In the past few days, there has been a significant rise in the number of posts in my blog. All this while I was under the impression that nobody bothers hopping onto my blog for any reason. But, it seems there is an occasional reader or two for my blog all the time and that is the reason I have faced quite a few questions recently, asking me if I was doing well??

Those who know me or have followed my blog for a decent length of time know that I am a lazy blogger, who would not update my blog so easily. The fact that I made as many as 10 updates so quickly has really made them sit up and take notice and they could not help asking me what I have been upto.

My answer would be,"I'm fine." It is just that I have been offered a few sponsored posts lately and I was happy enough to acknowledge their offer, as they are paying a decent enough money for a neutral review.

Apart from that I have been killing time, as always. With two crucial exams coming up on the next two Sundays, everything apart from studies will have to take a back seat. The month of march will present me some exciting opportunities, both for my academics and sports so I hope I reach my birthday with a few good things in my kitty.

All of a sudden, it's raining offers for my blog :)

2009-03-01T15:57:00.001+05:30

There was a phase when I did not earn even a single penny from my blog, due to the lack of opportunities at the two sites used by me for getting sponsored posts. However, things seem to have taken a pleasant turn for the past three days. I am getting offers right, left and centre!

In the last two days I have made more than $30 from blog sponsorships and just as I write this, I have got one more offer worth $5. Apart from that, I have got the offers from advertisers to put their ads on my blog and I would be paid for every click it generates for them. Things are looking so rosy now :)

Another T20 Loss.. hopefully things will only improve from here on

2009-02-28T10:06:00.002+05:30

It was an agonising loss to the Kiwis yet again but it was heartening to see the Indian side claw back into the game after they were outclassed for the first 30 overs of the game.

Many ifs and buts would be raised but the fact is that had there been a normal mid off for the last ball, the game would have gone into the super over.
However, these are indications that things would only get better from here on so lets hope the worst part of the tour is past us.

Too many things to do!

2009-02-27T11:03:00.002+05:30

It is the end of February and I just cannot manage my time well enough to pack everything that I want to do in a single day. It seems as if 24 hours in a day are not enough.

Not that I am killing myself by studying day and night but I'm afraid, that is exactly what I have to do from now on.When I thought about spending the whole of my last semester here in Delhi, I was sure that it will be all work and no play. But no, it has the downside to it as well, because living with your family,you have parents right on your backs to see that you don't keep on playing chess all the time.

As things stand now, I have to submit a synopsis about my training, appear for a test on 8th March, submit the mid term report a few days after that and then prepare for the first FIDE Rated tournament of my life. It will be my first shot at an international rating and I would not want Rs 1500 to go in vain.

Let's hope that I am able to maintain some sort of balance in all these things.

Graduating... in more things than one!

2009-02-24T19:43:00.003+05:30

Let us get to the topic straightaway, as I am running short of time.

I am about to graduate from college with an Engineer's label in a few months from now but that is not something I am so excited about. I am talking about the other thing, which is more interesting..

The story goes like this...

Being the youngest and probably the only driver in my family having the right balance of skill and confidence I am always under the pump whenever I talk about taking out the car alone. I took mom to the doctor last week and she was quite convinced with my driving skills, so is my brother and bhabhi.

So,all this while, the big deal was about trying to convince dad about the fact that I am now trained enough to take the car anywhere, without denting other cars all around. Today, I planned with mom to go to pick dad up from his office, which is a good 12 km from my place and most importantly, it is in the heart of Delhi, so you expect heavy(and I really mean HEAVY) traffic at that time. We told him that I was going there with a driver, so he need not worry, as I would not drive.

However, we reached there and I drove him back safely so I think this is my graduation as a driver. :)

Update..

2009-02-07T17:28:00.002+05:30

So, I'm full time into my training now and contrary to what I wanted, I HAVE to report there every day, week after week, for the next few days at least. However, if you take out the 34 km a side bus sojourn(twice a day) out of my schedule, I enjoy my time in the office. Have learned a few things there in the past week and this week I actually helped them increase the efficiency, as I was given the responsibility to carry out a few tasks and I did that without any fuss.

Apart form that, I think tomorrow is Rose Day, another of those overhyped days like Valentine's Day, when we have got nothing to do. I've observed that in the past few years, the cards and gift manufacturers have created unnecessary hype around these so called "festivals" to sell their goods. The sooner the youngsters of this country understand this, the better.

Now a new concept has emerged, i.e. of a Valentine's Week!
It is supposed to start from Rose Day and carries on till Valentine's day, i.e. 14th of feb.

gimme a break!

Welcome Mr. Obama

2009-01-21T10:39:00.002+05:30

So, Mr. Barack Obama was yesterday sworn in as America's 44th President and the first having a foreign background. He's believed to be a man for the middle and lower middle classes, as he's seen life in Indonesia, Africa and other such countries.

The welcome speech was not much of a surprise, with economy and terrorism being the highlights, as expected.

I'm sure the world is going mad in finding out what new things are there on offer.For starter, The White House website has been completely transformed. Be it inaugural website, inaugural luncheon menu, inaugural recipes, whatever you want to know about, all you have to do is Click Here
So, for the moment, that would be all about the inauguration and my best wishes to Mr. Obama.

Back home in India, the government has issued a directive that from the next session, all the schools would have to prescribe NCERT text books instead of the other state books. This has caused considerable amount of debate in the academic circle but one thing is for sure, it will allow some degree of uniformity.Although I suspect students would still continue to use other text books for reference as they have been doing.

The 100th post for my blog! :)

2009-01-20T14:09:00.004+05:30

It was some time in August,2006 when I decided to give away my diary-writing habit as it was becoming too much of a job to keep all your previous diaries with you. You dont want to just throw them away and carrying them with you to hostel and then home for vacations and then again back to hostel was not something I relished doing. And, you can't just leave your old diaries at home because you write some very very personal things in them and you don't necessarily want your family and friends to go through all of them.

Then the idea of blogging came into my mind and I searched for some FREE blogging sites on google and that's how I landed up on blogspot/blogger.Google wasn't biased in their search then because that was the time when google had not bought it.This is my little story behind getting started with blogging. Now one might ask when you don't want your family and friends to know about the personal things, how can you even think of writing them on the web for everyone to read? The answer to this would be a smart one.. I have two blogs, one is for public viewing and the other is not, which serves me as my private diary :)

In these two and a half years of blogging, I've ranted about how things were not going well for me, or the opposite. Sometimes I've picked up the crazies of topics just to write for the sake of updating my blog and a few posts have been sponsored as well..

An year after I started blogging, I got my own laptop( August, 2007) and that's when I started to explore new things and updating my blog more frequently. In April, 2008 I came to know about a few easy ways to make money by blogging.If you're a part time blogger you won't earn enough to support a living or something but then you can get enough to support your small needs here and there.My interest in blogging kept on fading at times, due to lack of opportunities to write sponsored posts and make money and even otherwise. But, all in all, it has been a good experience and I hope I stick to updating my posts more often this time round. Ironically, I've made around $100 by now through my blog and that was with the minimal of efforts. So,now I plan to inflate that amount and turn it into something substantial.

If you're a new reader and you want to earn something for doing what you love, i.e. blogging, I would suggest you to go through the Payperpost ads that are there on the left hand column of my blog. It's really an easy way to make a few bucks and though there are limited opportunities there, you will at least get $20 for sign up, which is absolutely free.

Or, Alternatively,
Click here to earn money instantly for reading emails!

I never thing deep before writing my posts and I don't have the vocabulary to use complicated words. On the contrary, I write spontaneously and I'm sure whoever takes the time to read it will find it easy to understand. There have been a few readers who keep coming back time and again and thanks a lot to you people, especially Carra, who takes time to go through my posts and I can't forget that it's through blogger only that we've become friends just by exchanging comments and mails. There have been a few other visitors, who just come and go but I don't blame them for it, as it was me who is regularly irregular here.

All in all, it feels good to be able to complete a century of posts :)

Time to get started

2009-01-20T11:32:00.002+05:30

Its been a long holiday for me and now I'm really fed up with the lifestyle I'm following that involves practically no work, be it physical or mental. I've spent the first twenty days of the new year doing nothing other than surfing the net, playing online chess and putting on weight. Now its time to figure out where I want to see myself by the end of the year. As of now I have only one place to go,i.e. join Infosys and do what lakhs of engineering graduates do every year, i.e. so called product engineering.

The second and better option would be to prepare hard for all the off campus examinations that are coming my way in the next few months and get through one of them and give myself a better and more relevant career.

The blog advertising has caught my attention of late again so I've decided to cut down on my chess time and spend some time on it so as to put my surfing hours to a better use.

Let's see where I land up!

Update of what's going on

2009-01-20T11:07:00.002+05:30

Now that the management entrance exams are over here in India, its time for the results. The CAT results were declared last week and now its the turn of XAT to declare their results. In case you have had trouble looking for that result, you may click here

Another sought after results have been that of the much hyped Fiitjee Talent Search Examination results. I was really amazed to find this as the most searched keyword on google India, as personally I think Fiitjee does not deserve it. Anyways, if you are looking for the FTRE results, you can click here

Today is the day for Barack Obama, America's 44th President, to be sworn in and they're reportedly going to spend something like $120 million for the ceremony, with around 2 million people expected to attend this amidst 40000 security personnel!
There are a lot of websites that will tell you about how to go about finding out each and every detail of the ceremony but what caught my site was a website which will offer you a live streaming of the ceremony. You can catch it by clicking here

Alternatively, there are a host of websites that will offer you the complete schedule of the inauguration ceremony and one of them is this

Internship :(

2009-01-19T23:15:00.005+05:30

Its been a month and a half since I came home after my 7th semester exams. The first week was full of enjoyment and I spent whole of it with my friends, family, relatives and a part of it with my laptop.

However, things are a bit different now.I find myself with nothing to do and I can say that it was out of this boredom that I decided to give a shot at the Indian Engineering Serives(IES) examination, which is to be held in June. My batchmates would laugh when they hear about this, as I am least expected to clear any exam of such magnitude, thanks to the reputation I earned myself in the previous three and a half years. But whatever they may say, nothing wrong in giving it a shot, isn't it?

The major issue concerning me these days is the commencement of my internship. I was supposed to join in the second week of January and its well past it.There were a few glitches in it and now that things are back on track, I suppose it'll most definitely start by next monday. The thought of waking up at 7am to traverse 35 km to Noida, spending the entire day there and coming back late at evening is frightening but that's what I'm supposed to do... pray for me!

Change in job preferences

2009-01-19T22:02:00.002+05:30

After having seen hordes of people running around like mads for jobs in the private sector, it seems the wheen has turned back again.
Government and semi governments jobs are back in the reckoning, especially after the world economy started taking a pitfall and people hired by top companies getting their offer letters "delayed" by months.

Allahabad Band P.O. examination was one of the most searched for toics on google India, with other govt jobs not lagging far behind!

Finally, it's over

2008-12-17T12:54:00.002+05:30

Yesterday my 7th sem engineering results were out and I'm so relieved that I cleared SGP(with my lowest ever internals-15!) so now I'm lisenced to use the words "missing" for my Manipal days. All this while the results were threatening to undermine the use of the word itself as there was a small possibility of me having to go back to college to write my make-up paper but all that can be thrown out of the window now.Honestly, I did believe that I had done just enough in the paper to see me through but then, you never know until the results are out.How much I love my ability to never overestimate myself! :-)

Moving to my life in general,the past 15-20 days have been the most enjoyable.There's hardly a good or bad emotion I didn't feel.Bhaiya's marriage, fear of failure in exams, visit to an amusement park with Sagar, Anubhav and APS and riding on such rides that twist you round and round from all possible directions at a height of 20 feet, having the usual argument with one of my best friends,spending time with my now "Complete" family(thanks to the newest member, my Bhabhi) and then, most recently, loneliness( thanks to the honeymoon schedule of the newly married couple :( ).

Thus, I'm back to the world of chess and there are a few tournaments lined up in the next month and a half, which would get me closer towards an international rating, for which I've craved all this while.There are a few people who've started showing me the sky by saying that "At age 23, you've all the time in the world to become a GrandMaster if you work from now".These are the words of Mr. Anoop, the founder of a FIDE(the world chess governing body) affiliated club here in Delhi and by mentioning him I've reminded myself that I've to rush now so that I can undergo the 2-hour journey to meet him in time and hone my Grand Master skills :)

So, bye bye till the next update!

Do we still need any "proofs" of Pakistani hand??

2008-12-03T01:11:00.002+05:30

It's been a week since terror struck Mumbai right in the face. As usual, there were visits of politicians promising the world to the families of the deceased and this time,for a change, the government has apparently taken a sterner approach towards our neighbours, but the situation has hardly changed.

Interrogating one of the terrorist has clearly relvealed that the 11 people responsible for shaking Mumbai up left the shores of Pakistan from Karachi on a small ship and the next day, they got help from a Pakistani vessel. They have been given intense military training in Pakistan. While the top brass of the Pakistani government keep on denying this and pledging "full support" to us, its pretty evident that they themselves know the fact better than anyone that Pakistani land is being used for infiltration.

The U.S. President-elect Mr. Obama has supported India by saying that we can go ahead and bomb the terror camps if Pakistan can't do anything to stop it.It does send out a strong signal but with all the diplomacy involved, its still a long call.However, we might just have a few more concrete steps coming up from the Indian government in the near future.
Let's wait and watch!

Happy phase over, life comes full cycle!

2008-11-14T23:22:00.002+05:30

Not so long ago I posted about how everything had apparently fallen into place, from academics to sports to personal life.And now,life's come a complete cycle.
The past month has been anything but perfect. Spending diwali at home after a 3 year gap is probably the only good thing about it.The lesser I speak about academics, the better as at this point of time I'm giving a shot at the end sem exam, with the aim of clearing a paper with my lowest ever internals. Apart from that, the phone that I loved so very much has been practically ruined.It soaked in rain when I obliged happily to Omveer's idea of walking in Manipal's rains "One last time". To add to the misery, I switched on my phone a bit too early and now its got a strange problem.Everything is functional but the phone itself,i.e. it always shows "No network".Funnily you can use all other features of it!I hope it'll be fine once I reach home after the end sem.

The addiction to online chess is thankfully fading and thus the time isn't far when I'll be having nothing to do in my room and will resort to books out of boredom!I hope this happens before the end sem exams.

An exciting 30 days are in prospect for me,where I'll be writing my end sem exams, flying to Delhi and back within a span of 24 hours, write my remaining papers and then there'll be a week or so in Delhi with my college friends!Really looking forward to this one :)

ADDICTED to Chess!

2008-10-01T15:30:00.003+05:30

In case you missed the capital letters in the title, go read it again and it'll tell you what I mean.Online chess had always been one of my favourite pastimes but these days its reached a new high.All credit goes to my chess captain, Mr. Abhimanyu Sangwan, who introduced me to this new site, www.chessbase.com (as if spending 4-5 hours a day on Yahoo chess wasnt enough!) and here I am... taking regular doses of the game.

You do get addicted to something you're good at(for example,I never get addicted to studies) and if you have a few people sharing the same interest,there's nothing like it.

Thankfully, this habit of mine has reaped some rewards in a short time,i.e. going to KMC, Mangalore as the captain of the "B" team of my college and winning against a few good players does instil a sense of confidence in you, which you carry with yourself throughout the day, in no matter what you are doing.There are a few certificates that I'm supposed to get and if Mr. Sangwan is mindful and generous enough, I might as well get them before passing out of here.
For those who're still untouched by the game,I would like you people to just give it a go and you'll know what I'm talking about.

The negative part is that I've got so much addicted to it that sadly I've not been able to spend as much time with my friends as I used to.I still make it a point to do that but its difficult to give this up completely.And on the rare occasion that I find myself free to chat to them, one or the other is busy with something and I'm in a way forced to return to chess.

Life's lately been going pretty smooth,not much turbulence anywhere.Second sessionals have been messed up as has always been the case with me but this time I had scored comparatively better in the first so am not much worried about that right now.Have been meeting quite a few new people in the last fortnight and the latest in the series was meeting Komal yesterday and in some ways, she lived upto the impression of the childish person that I'd expected her to be after hearing her voice.I might have gone horribly wrong here and either of Omveer or Komal reading this would definitely want to chop my hands off but then,its MY BLOG,isn't it?? :)

Things falling into place..finally things are keeping me busy!!

2008-09-07T21:02:00.005+05:30

If anyone ever needed a definition of "multitasking" they should monitor my life over three weeks,i.e. the one gone by and the two to come.

It all started with a leisurely walk into the chess room of my college,where I turned up for the trials for the college team.I had given up on playing chess since my 7th standard and then started playing here online,just for killing time.Till my second year I didn't even know that we have a chess team and trials are held for it.Last semester I managed to get into the substitutes of the third year chess team and was lucky to get a game because Harsh,the person who re-ignied the passion for chess in me,had to pull out at the last moment. It was 14th Feb,2008 and I lost the game after taking the lead.Not giving excuses but my mind was somewhere else,after all I expected(and probably deserved) a better "Valentines' Day" than that nightmare.And ultimately it was my defeat that cost us the tournament,as we lost by a score of 1.5-2.5

Anyways,this year I desperately wanted to give it a shot for the MIT Chess team and thankfully I have improved my game and I was unbeaten in the first round(forcing a draw in 1 and winning 5 of a total of 6 trial games).The captain, Abhimanyu Sangwan(the Grandmaster of our university) was skeptical in picking me(as he should be) because I was outscoring a few big and better known players.However,I played innumerable rounds and finally he was convinced to take me in the "A" team and handed a part of the selection responsibility for the other teams on me.

It was last Tuesday when we had inter year tournament and I played the game of my life to help my team win it.I guess none of you have ever played a game of chess(leave alone on a 5 minute timer) so there's no use trying to explain you the thrill and pressure to avoid defeat at the hands of a first year guy when you're on the backfoot.That victory really set me up and the joy on the face of my teammates was the biggest satisfaction for me.That blitz-krieg prompted me to try my hands in the "Best Individual Player" competition which was to be held the next day and,to my delight,I stood second in that.Harsh,the deserving second placed candidate was third(which was unfortunate) but such was the draw that I didn't get to play him.

So,moral of the story is that the agony of costing my team the title the previous year is mitigating.It would have been nice had my so-called sports freak friends turned out to watch the games(about which I had duly informed them) but then,when they could not come to my cricket games because it was held "under the sun"(at a ground where everyone except the players can sit in the shade) it was too much to expect from them,given that it collided with their dinner time.They wouldn't even know the result had I not told them and I am sure some of them still don't know it,neither do they care.

Moving on to another of the many happier things,I was delighted to get my end sem exam schedule yesterday.I know it sounds weired but I have a reason to be elated.My brother's wedding is on the 30th of November and my exams are from 21st nov to 4th dec.But,the good news is that I don't have any paper on 30th Nov and 1st Dec, which means I'll get around 48 hours to make a u-blink-and-you-miss-me trip to Delhi for that,which was seeming impossible.

The Infosys campus connect program is starting from tomorrow and it'll occupy me for 90 minutes,4 days a week.Add to that the seminar that I've to present tomorrow,for which I've been working for a week.Once that is done with,the chess evenings would reasume and it'll be time for some serious games,as we'll be practicing to defend our title of MAHE Chess Champions in the Inter Mahe Tournament,on 13th and 14th sept.
Then the preparation for the second sessional would start and this time I'll have to perform better so that I can relax a bit in the third test(which has been a dream till now).

All in all,it's been a busy semester till now,with a couple of parties thrown in here and there by my friends to keep me going.I don't know how long these good and busy times would last but I'm loving it like anything.It makes you thing that you're actually not sitting idle whole semester and putting on weight.

SORRY TO THE WHATEVER FEW READERS WHO STILL ARE PATIENT ENOUGH TO VISIT MY BLOG FOR NOT GETTING BACK TO YOU.I'll be back soon..

And Life Moves On...

2008-08-28T23:36:00.004+05:30

Couldn't believe that I have not updated my blog since two months now.Not that I didnt have anything worth writing..actually its quite a contrast to it!

A new semester has started and the feeling that this is likely to be my last semester here in Manipal is slowly sinking in.Suddenly I'm overwhelmed by a sense of realisation that sand is running out of my hand at an uncontrollable rate... the way it has been for the last three years.However,this semester is something very very different.I always wanted to live an "all-rounder's" life here,which includes performing well in studies,managing my extra curriculars well,sports of course and a few other things here and there.Not sure what all would I be able to achieve in the next three months but the start is showing ominous signs.

I wrote my sessional papers a week ago and after a long period of low single digit scores since I entered Electrical Engineering I'm happy to announce that it's been fairly satisfactory.For a change I've studied a paper or two in class itself,so as to save up on the preparation time during tests and whatever little effort I had put in,it showed.

Getting the highest marks in one of the low scoring papers was the most satisfying performances and getting 5 double digit scores out of a possible 6 is something that I hadn't done ,if you take out the first yr performance.However,I had set a few goals for this semester,both academically and otherwise and till now,I've been well on course but there's a long way to go before I start jumping up and down.

have been real bad in one paper,scoring 3 on 20 and I've to make sure that I get to a safe total in the next two,so that this doesn't count.
Wish me luck for my goals!!!

Congrats Sagar

2008-07-28T01:14:00.003+05:30

This one's for one of the members of my closest friend group here in Manipal,Sagar.
Yesterday he appeared for the selection procedure of his dream company,Deloitte, as did around 400 other students and all but 39 were eliminated after the first round itself.

Anubhav,another close friend of mine,also got through but he could not get beyond the first round of interview,which left only 20 candidates to compete for final selection.
Sagar was one of them and,as we all expected,his name was there in the final list of 13 shortlisted candidates who were finally to be offered a job.

All of us have always held him in high regard and he lived upto that status by getting through both the companies he's appeared in,i.e. Accenture and Deloitte.

As a celebration, he threw a party for just the four of us(himself being the fifth one) and we've returned about two hours ago after a pretty entertaining treat.

I will include some of the pictures of the treat some time later(as my net connection is too slow right now and it's taking an eternity to add an image to this post) to give you an idea of how it went.And before you jump to conclusions about me,let me clarify that I do not drink and it is so much fun when you go to a restaurant cum bar with a bunch of people who actually do drink.

Omveer,famous amongst all of us for his drinks,has surprisingly(and SHOCKINGLY) given up on it.He preferred to watch with just a bottle of breezer to keep him company.

All in all,it turned out to be a good outing,just the kind you need from time to time to take a break from the college schedule and then to return to the same with a fresh mind from the next day.
I initially wished for a job at the earliest for all the five of us.This wish was fulfilled on 4th of June itself,with myself,Sagar and Anubhav all getting a job,to add to Omveer and APS's jobs with TCS which they got a month earlier than that.

However,now the bar has to be raised and my wish would be that all of us get through our dream comapnies in the near future.It will be quite a life after that and the last few months here at M.I.T. in each other's company would add to the happy memories we've had over the last three years.
Pray for us!

Placements: Season III

2008-07-26T20:25:00.002+05:30

So,the so called third round of placements have started in our college and it's quite a scene to go and watch the candidates,especially when you are not actually going in and taking the tests :D

Round one was on 2nd May,when Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) came and recruited 322 of my batchmates. I appeared for it,cleared the written but could not get past the technical-cum-HR interview.Thus,I was left high and dry after it,wondering what the future holds for me.Only I know how hard I prayed to get "One Job Somehow".Even if it is in the IT sector only!

Round two unfolded right after our end semester exams of 6th sem,i.e. on June 2,3 and 4.Three companies in three days and they gave hope to the remainder of students,who could not get into TCS. Accenture,Infosys and Wipro were the three companies and according to me,the chances of getting into Accenture and Wipro were bleak,as the former was famous for its elimination in the GD round(which is where I was eliminated) and the latter was famous for its gruelling technical round. Infosys was my only hope.It's written is supposed to be tough but its HR round is considered to be only a formality.

However,the turn of events didnt exactly follow the script.I got through the written of all the three,got kicked out after the G.D. of accenture but even then,I was confident of getting into Infosys. Even before I was to appear for Wipro technical interview the result of Infosys written round was out and I knew that Wipro would only be a "formality" as I was sure to be kicked out in the tech interview.

That left me in a nothing to lose situation and I went into Wipro full of confidence. The technical interviewer was generous enough to ask the questions which I knew well and I was handed out the form for the H.R. round,which is the last hurdle.Confident of failing that one too, I went into it,answered some general questions and somehow qualified it!
Infosys turned out to be quite an anti climax,as I was kicked out in the interview(the "unthinkable" had happened!!)

And now,since the past one week,SEASON 3 has started,with companies like Mahindra and Mahindra, ABB, Deloitte, Sunguard(plzzz.. it's not a company manufacutring sun screen products),Toshiba,L and T and a host of others queued up to come in.

My interest lies in Cummins India Limited,which is due on 29th of July,around 60 hours from now and I've decided today only that I'll sacrifice GMR as my dream job to give a shot at Cummins.Thus,all the readers,pray for me,coz i need the prayers a loooot!
Once selected, those regular readers who are in Manipal would get an immediate treat :)

Amen!

Happy Birthday Dear Laptop :)

2008-07-26T12:03:00.003+05:30

As the title suggests,today my laptop completes one whole year in my company.Its travelled with me from Delhi to Manipal and has been my companion through the good and bad times.It's helped me surf the net for uncountable hours,doing a lot of nonsensical things and a few sensible ones as well.
I've chatted to my friends, fought with them, ignored them, shared my happiness and sorrows with them and have let a few people know that I dont exactly hold them in very high regard.All this would have been impossible without it so I think it deserved a full post dedicated to it.
It's never broken down at any stage,has recovered satisfactorily from one or two software issues that keep creeping in from time to time.Thus,all in all,it's been a worthy companion to me.And lately,it's also helped me make a few hundred dollars :D.

No wonder I care for it so much!

It's of my favourite colour, BLACK and for all of you who are still bothered about reading this post,I'm including a pic of it, taken through my ten day old mobile phone(guess I'll write an entire post on it when it completes at least 6 months) but that's quite a story in itself.The image is taken at the place where my laptop usually resides,with the same cluttered surroundings(to give you people a real feel of what it has gone through ;) )

All the blog readers are invited for the party :P

How do you blog?

2008-07-24T23:58:00.002+05:30

I always wanted to ask all the bloggers this question.And now that I know that a few people have started visiting mine, what better time than this to put this question through?

I HOPE you people are not thinking literally.We all know how to blog,isn't it?

The point I'm trying to bring out is,"How on earth do you retain your idea?"

I am not one who sits for hours, thinks about a topic, gathers ideas related to it and then organises them to give it the shape of a post which is entertainin/meaningful to read.I am one of those bloggers who gets his ideas from nowhere. And sadly, mostly it happens at a time when I'm out of my hostel, on my way to somewhere(where I have no means or mood to write the ideas down).

When I was sitting in a class,I thought about writing a post on the cribbers of my class. The kind of nerds who will go to any extent(and redefine begging) to get that extra half a mark from a teacher on the day papers are shown. While travelling in a train, I listen to people of all shapes and sizes talking about a variety of things,wanting their ideas to be respected more than Mr. George Bush's and I think of writing a post on the kinds of people you encounter in a train. Then I recall the beggar that crossed on the last signal or the waiter who served me food in the restaurant, who was similar to me in age and I think how possible was it that I'd have been born in his family and faced all the hardships...
We never value our resources much and keep on craving for more, like greedy parasites.We fail to understand that there are people who are in a worse position and who would not get to ours even if they work harder than us whole their lives! Isn't it a tragedy?

And then,I read someone's blog with posts like "The Tag Game","Weired Things About Me",etc etc and I think of writing one myself.

So,basically,after reading all this nonsense, you must have understood that the point in questinon is how on earth do you people manage to gather your ideas and organise them so beautifully into a post?

Finally decided on the new mobile handset :)

2008-07-18T00:00:00.004+05:30

The last 36 hours have been full of adventure for me,with my mind diving in a sea of varied emotions (joy,sympathy,frustration,etc to name a few).Before you decide to navigate away from this page thinking that there was(or still is) something terribly wrong with my head at the time of writing the post(due to the difference in the topic and the first few lines),please read on,I bet I'll connect the two.
The "adventure" refers to the procedure of selecting a new mobile phone and the emotions largely concerned either myself or the phone manufacturers(Its upto you to decide which emotion was for whom :P).The ordeal started around 10th July,at my home in Delhi(I am writing this post a week later,from my hostel room in Manipal!)when dad finally gave me the freedom to raise my budget to five(yes,FIVE!!!) figures(with the restriction of keeping the digit at ten-thousand's place to PRECISELY "1" and the following digit "BETTER NOT EXCEED" "2").Anyways,I was too happy to think over these things so I agreed instantly.

This is the time when real problem started,i.e. deciding upon the set.I've been going through all sorts of user reviews,website reviews and forums that discuss the top brands currently doing the market rounds and what follows is a brief account of the the kind of confusion I've had to live with over the past week.

"When you buy a phone,it SHOULD be Nokia".This seems to be the mantra that dominates the minds of the cellphone using masses in the present century.I was guided by the same and I had almost instantaneously decided to go for Nokia N73/Nokia N73 Music Edition(priced at 13k,something which was "affordable" if I could deliver a few perfectly timed dialogues, studded with proper emotions to mummy).

Then I thought about giving other brands a "fair chance".I browsed through the Samsung phones and was amazed to know that they've successively launched 3 phones over the last year or so and all of them have beaten the previous one to take the honour of being "The World's Slimmest Phone".And trust me,once you see their design,you DO NOT want to miss a chance to get it.However,the complaint was that Samsung isn't exacty renowned for their battery life and taking a slider phone is always a gamble.I was blown away by their BEAT 450 model,which boasts of virtually everything you can ask for(and some things that you wouldn't even imagine) in a basic multimedia mobile.However,the 2MP camera was the downsider,as when you're paying 13k,you deserve better than it.There's no protection for the camera lens either and besides,it's got an annoying feature of having to take out the speaker and plug in the headset if you want to receive a call which comes while you're enjoying the supreme music quality.There's a general complaint in Samsung phones that you can't even change the message alert tone.Now how annoying are these features!##%$#@!

Next...

In comes the Sony Ericsson "Cybershot" range,with Xenon flash,that can take quality snaps in pitch dark!Its got all the essential music features,3.2MP camera(the highest resolution possible in my budget!)and all kinds of connectivity facilities that I'm least bothered about.
"How can a phone be so perfect?",I thought.I searched for the answer and I was happy to get it.It uses a joystick,hardy reliable.And,SE aren't renowned for their battery life either,are they?The set looks brick like as well....

Next...
Motorola..... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

Ok,Ok.. then let me get back to the good old Nokia itself.. I searched on for possible problems in the famous N73s and I found one,to my satisfaction,i.e. the phone hangs at times and the software is relatively slow.It takes time to get the camera started.

But then,it ships with all the gadgets that you can possibly plug into the various slots avaialble in a mobile so who cares?Add to that a 3.2 MP camera with Carl Zeisses Lens(supposed to be the BEST) and 20X digital zoom(perfect for shooting girls from a non-hazardous distance) and the tonnes of other applications,you can hardly ask for anything else.

The lesson I learnt was that no matter how hard you search and what your budget is,you will ALWAYS find a mobile phone lacking in something or the other.Thus,it's the best to go with your heart and that's what I'm going to do.
I had always dreamt of a N-Series phone when I looked at the ad.And their punchline was catchy too(which I surprisingly remember even though I've not seen their ad for more than an year now),i.e. "Meet the new Nokia N-Series".

Ready for the final Hurrah!

2008-07-12T14:15:00.002+05:30

My vacations are almost over.Am leaving the comforts of my home(for the comforts of my hostel :) ) tomorrow morning and hopefully this is going to be the last semester full of classes,tests and all there in Manipal.I'm done with 3 years of engineering and its needless to say,I've practically learnt nothing to be of much importance to the Industrial people.That's one of the reasons I am still amazed at what the Wipro Technologies people saw in me that prompted them to select me in their campus interviews and pay me from next year onwards!

Anyways,the point is that this is basically the last semester of my engineering life and all my seniors/teachers/professors have advised me to enjoy it to the fullest because "You will not get these times back in future."Now let me tell them very frankly that that's exactly what I've done in the preceding 3 years!People say that this semester should be "different" and in my case,being that would advice me to study(for a change!), which really sounds nerdy,doesn't it?

However,now I'm starting to worry about the future after B.E. I have the security of a job and that has actually confused my thought process.I always wanted to go for GRE as this seems to be the exam best suited to my style of learning.I even went to the USEFI office here in Delhi to gather as much information about the Universities/courses/scholarships as I could and it was a useful visit.I've also found a very supportive senior to guide me along so I guess I'm ready for it now.I will hopefully decide over the next week whether I really WILL GO FOR GRE or not and that would determine how I spend the last sem in my college..

Have to go off now as mom's been shouting at me for a while to take my breakfast..
bye!

Movie Review:Jaane Tu...ya jaane na

2008-07-11T18:18:00.003+05:30

I watched the movie today,exactly a week after its release,at PVR Priya and I feel like writing about it(unlike Love Story 2050 which was way too predictable,combined with ordinary acting and dialogue delivery).

Jaane Tu.. doesn't have any extraordinary script.If you look back at the movies that have released(especially with actors making their debut) you'll find a lot of similarity.Its a typical college romance but what makes the movie worth every penny you spend on it is the way in which a simple story has been narrated.All the characters fit in their roles naturally.Genelia has got a refreshing break from the childish image she used to have and I'm sure she must already have got more offers!

Imran Khan is this simple,sweet, typical chocolate boy many girls would be drooling over by now.He looks as if he had got his name written all over that role.The casting of the movie starts in a rather unusual way,with images of couples of all ages.Honestly,I couldnt get what exactly they tried to show,can only guess..
Anyways,once the movie starts, you get glued to your seats.Never once during the movie did I feel like running out, though the script was somewhat predictable.
It's got everything except fight sequences, i.e. emotional scenes,college romance and an adequate dose of quality,situational humour.

After all,if Aamir Khan decided to produce this one so he must have been convinced by the quality.

The movie isn't perfect,as is the case with all the Hindi movies,as it defies logic a few times,one of it was: For majority of first half the story was based in college but I can't remember any classroom scenes or for that matter,any prof!!

But then, you wouldn't like any Hindi movie if you start searching for logic in each one of them,would you?

To cap it off, Jaane Tu.. is running full four shows at PVR Priya for second successive week and if I remember correctly, the last movie to have achieved this was Kal Ho Naa Ho.. so that should tell you something about the response of the audience.

How is it to travel with old people?

2008-07-08T11:13:00.003+05:30

All of us like to travel,don't we?Personally,I've travelled across the breadth of India in the last ten days.The most interesting part was that I got to travel in all kinds of vehicles with people belonging to a varied class of society.It is really interesting to travel with such a diverse group,hear what they have to say and then to add to their discussion if you can.

The most common discussing while travelling in train is the kind the middle aged men indulge in,usually in the mornings,but then it can be at any time of the day.They will pick up any politician from the day's newspaper and start criticising him/her.This will slowly spread to the person's political party and in no time it will cover everyone in the political field.The older men have one major misconception that "these youngsters" cant do the job as well as the older people,let alone do it better than them.Today's youth is more educated than ever and I have no doubt we are equipped and educated enough to carry out a task better than what people belonging to a generation earlier than us are/were capable of doing. The elderly get an eternal pleausre in sitting over coffee and reminding us of how well things were done in "their days".

Well,there are different kinds of travellers and I would shortly do a post on that alone.Am off for some time now,meanwhile you might want to go through Travel, a blog belonging to a friend.

All you wanted to know about EPL

2008-07-08T11:06:00.002+05:30

English Premiere League is the biggest and the most widely followed league in the world.There are a lot of webistes running that would claim to bring you up to date with them but then,here is one of my personal favourites.Just go to EPL-English Premier League to satisfy all your appetite for the league,including the live tables,latest match updates and all.
Enjoy with us this coming EPL Season!

A day of sporting extravaganza!

2008-07-07T12:45:00.004+05:30

Yesterday,July 6th,was a day full of fun for sports freaks like me.Though I didnt have much to do in the first half of the day,it all changed once the clock hit 15.30IST.
To start with,there was the eagerly awaited Asia Cup Final(Cricket) between India and Sri Lanka.This Indian side has got a new look and energy about it and come across as a side formidable enough to take on any opposition at any venue. India were the favourites yesterday,having already beaten Sri Lanka once in the league stage but then they had not seen anythng of the new Sri Lankan sensation,Ajantha Mendis and he turned out to be the trump card for them.India were set a target of 274 which looked very easy,given that 300+ totals had been chased down fairly easily in the tournament till now.However,the script had something else written in it and Ajantha Mendis was introduced into the attack with the Indians having scored around 85 odd in just 9 overs. Virender Sehwag had done brilliantly yesterday,having reached his 50 off just 26 balls and the team's total read 58 for 1 in 7.2 overs!

However he lost his wicket owing to his continued disrespect for spinners.He went charging down to Mendis' second ball and got himself stumped.India never recovered after that,though Dhoni had some support from Robin Uthappa but they never really looked like chasing down the target and eventually,the line up with 7 specialist batsmen and Irfan Pathan as the eigth one failed to reach even 200,folding up for 173 and handing the Lankans a 100 run win!India are still not shed the "chokers" tag and they'll need to win a few finals consistently to be able to do that.

While India were restricting Sri Lanka to a below par total,the British Grand Prix was in full swing in Silverstone and it did present an enjoyable and exciting race,with the cars spinning left,right and centre in wet track conditions.One of my favourites,Felipe Massa,kept on spinning time and again and I didnt bother counting how many times he did that once he crossed 5!The race winner,Lewis Hamilton did it in style,lapping two world champions in Fernando Alonso and Kimi on his way to the podium and that meant he had lapped every driver upto 4th spot!This result threw open the world championship for drivers,with as many as 3 drivers tied at the top spot on 48 points and Robert Kubica just two points adrift of the trio of Hamilton,Raikkonen and Massa.

I still believe Ferrari would run away with the constructors championship but the two Ferrari drivers have made a mistake by letting Hamilton come down from a spot where one or two more solid performances from Ferrari would have seen him all but out of the Championship race.

And finally,it was time for Rafa to show that he can win on grass too.It was the best Tennis game I've ever seen.Nadal took the first two sets 6-4 each and then it was the time for FedEx to show why he's won the Wimbledon five times in a row.Saving two championship points,he took the next two sets into tie breakers and won both of them,setting up a thrilling final set.Not surprisingly,it also went into tie breakers and then it was the Spanish Warrior who prevailed 9-7 in it to break Federer's dominance at the Wimbledon.

Euro 2008:The Surprises Keep Coming!

2008-06-22T10:13:00.003+05:30

We're now left with just 4 games of the showpiece event of the summer,Euro 2008 and we've had plenty of upsets worth mentioning.It all started from the league stage itself, when France,the World cup Finalists, had to lock horns with Italy,the World cup champions for the only available quarter final spot and both the sides knew that even a win against the other might not be enough to see them through.
However, Italy prevalied in the tight game and edged France by a 2-0 margin to sail through.Gigi Buffon deserves all the credit for Italy's progress.He was the man who saved a crucial penalty at the dying stages of Italy's second league game,against Romania,with the scores level at 1-1. Italy would well and truly have been dead had that gone in and that would have put an unexpected end to their Euro dreams. And again, Buffon was instrumental in making a few crucial saves against france. We must not forget the side which caused so much chaos, Netherlands! They scored 9 goals in the three league games and conceded just one, against France and were looking to be the hot favourites for the title. However, as I posted in my last post, the Dutch had started too well and as we've often seen in sports, fairytale starts often don't yield the right results at the end and that's what happened with Netherlands last night.

Holland were knocked out of Euro'08 last night by an inspired Russia and I suspect it has more to do with Guus Hiddink's mastermind than the Russian squad. This man always achieves the results least expected of him, be it in the wolrd cup with South Korea or with Australia and now, another underdog side, Russia! The game was locked at 1-1 after 90 minutes. Russia opened the scoring in the last 20 minutes or so and Holland pulled it back via the talismanic Van Nistelrooy. But it was the Russian Czars who prevailed at the end of the extra time, scoring two late goals to knock the Dutch out.

The earlier quarter final, between Croatia and Turkey was more dramatic. To start with, Turkey had started with 8 players on a yellow card and their first choice goalkeeper was serving a ban following his behaviour in the previous game. The Croats were the hot favourites and they showed it when they opened the scoring in the 119th minute(after the score was 0-0 at the end of 90). The turkish side showed their fighting spirit when they equalised in the 122nd minute to drag the game to penalties. That is where the Croats lost it, as they fired two of their penalties outside the post to hand the Turkish side a 3-1 victory on penalties and a semi final date with Germany, one of the clear favourites now even though the term itself loses its meaning once the knock out stage starts, as we've seen.

Tonight my favourite side, Spain will take on Italy and I back Spain to come out of this one as winners. It is a tough call as Italy are always a strong side but this spanish team can beat anyone. A Spain v Germany final would be a fitting end to this competition and I'd be happy if any of the two sides win.

Euro 2008! The Favourites and the Dark Horses

2008-06-18T16:28:00.002+05:30

Well,the Euro fever is at its peak,with just two more nights of league phase games and then we move to the business end of this spectacle,i.e. the knockout phase.Predicting anything in football is always dangerous as you might have to eat up your words later but I would like to stick my neck out here and say what I believe!

Netherlands would be everyone's favourites,given the command they've shown in beating Italy,France and Romania and they've conceded just one goal in the three league games!I've been following football and sports in general for quite a while now and I can say that Netherlands aren't going to win this time.They've started just too well and over the knockout games,you never know,just one bad decision,a penalty or something against you and all your good work can be undone.I would like them to win but then,I'm sorry to say,they won't.

Teams like Italy,Germany and Portugal would be in the fray for the second favourites spot and they've quietly squeezed through to the knockout stage,without getting much attention.Portugal had an opportunity to win all three games but they ended up on the wrong side in their last league game.

My favourites are Spain.I know it's not a wise choice but this time it comes more out of heart than head.Spain have,on numerous occasions,started their camapigns at World cup or Euro with a bang,scoring goals by the dozens but then fizzled out.All this despite having a good enough side.This time I want them to win and they've shown that they're capable of beating the best.

Croatia are the dark horses.They're playing way too freely not to scare any of the top sides.Germany,well, I saw their young side do so well in the previous world cup and was sure that their players would mature into a world beating unit two years later but that freedom is lacking this time from their game.
Best of luck to them!

There's space for all forms of Cricket!

2008-06-10T23:38:00.003+05:30

After a month long of tonking the ball in a pre determined manner, slogging the good length deliveries over mid wicket,going for big shots right from the first ball and encouraging the belief that being a bowler means death(especially in the sub continent) the past week has served a pleasant change to a genuine cricket lover.

England,the world's most tradational venue and one of the few countries which actually has a well defined "season" of International Cricket, played hosts to the Kiwis and since the first test overlapped completely with the IPL, there wasn't much focus on it.It was only in the third test that I sat back in a relaxed mood to be taken by the charm of good old Test Cricket.Sadly, the Kiwis lost that by an innings and 8 runs but the result is not the talking point.It is about the feel of watching test cricket, the joy that one gets when a Ryan Sidebottom takes a 6 wicket haul to dismiss the kiwis or a Jacob Oram makes a fighting century at a rate much less than run a ball in swinging conditions at Lord's to take his side to a formidable total. Over the last two months we've witnessed so much of T20 that we've forgotton how much fun we can derive when a bowler's teasing the opposition with his swing, when batsmen are afraid to touch the ball in the "corridor of uncertainly" and when the ugly looking slog sweep is just not employed.

However,the future of Test matches was never under threat from T20, but that of 50 over cricket was.Today was India's opening match in the Kitplay cup, hosted by Bangladesh, against Pakistan and going by the fun it provided for at least 80 overs,I dont think any form of cricket is under threat by any other.All of them have a niche for themselves and they have their own audience.However, I must admit that now the common audience would be very few. The die hard, traditional fans would not get as much pleasure from a slogged six by a Swapnil Asnodkar as they would get by watching Rahul Dravid play a perfect cover drive or a Sachin Tendulkar playing a straight drive back past the bowler which almost hits the stumps.

It would be wrong to say that cricket is the loser in the long run.No. If anything, cricket is gaining audience worldwide with the invention of IPL as it was broadcast successfully in over 170 countries in the world!And dont even think about Indian audience turning their back to it,it just can NEVER happen

Aarushi Murder Case takes interesting turn

2008-05-24T08:20:00.003+05:30

After a week of investigation and a few dramatic events,there's yet another twist in the Aarushi Talwar murder case.The police are somewhat convinced that it was not exactly a case of honour killing,though her father is still a prime suspect.They claim Mr. Talwar had extra marital affair and Aarushi and the servants of the house knew of this.Another MMS clip released makes matters more complicated,however police arent giving it much importance at the moment.
We can just hope that justice prevails in the end.

Apologies for not updating with personal posts

2008-05-20T08:27:00.002+05:30

My end sem exams are going on these days and I hardly get the time to sit down, think a write something sensible which wud make a good reading. Ten more days and I'll be done with all this stuff.Secondly, if you are wondering what I have done to my "personal" blog, here's the answer: I'm planning to start a tech blog very soon and for that I need some finances for hosting, domain registration etc so I'm trying to arrange for that.I've moved my personal blog to another page, which you can access if you're smart enough...[;)]

Jaipur,the Pink City, Rocked by blasts

2008-05-14T04:53:00.002+05:30

I'm sorry to be starting a post like this,but then it's so very true.These days,when we hear of a bomb blast taking place somewhere, we hardly bother finding out what went wrong unless there is a chance of our friends or relatives being involved.And yes, I'm not only blmaing others,but I'm blaming myself too, as my initial reaction after reading the headline was to ignore it,as I thought so many things happen in this country all the time,who has the time to bother for those?

Anyways,four hours later I have realised how grave the situation is.In case you're not living at your house,i.e. living in a hostel,etc and you hardly get the time to(or you hardly bother) watching news, let me update you.
The Pink City, Jaipur, has been rocked by serial bomb blasts,yes, it's right,SERIAL BOMB BLASTS.The timing of the blasts couldn't have been worse.7(probably 8)serial blasts took place in a space of 20 minutes,starting at around 7.35 pm in the crowded areas of Hanuman Temple,Johari Bazar, Badi Choupal, Tripolia Bazar and the surrounding areas.Today being a Tuesday, the Hanuman Temple area was particularly crowded,as were the neighbouring areas.All the localities were within a span of 2-3 km so we can only imagine what the situation might have been there,at the peak time for marketing.
Till now, 60 people have been reported dead and more than 200 injured,and these are the official figures,which means the injured list might go well past five hundred.

The usual blame game of the government has started,with those people choosing to single out Bangladesh based terrorist group,Harkut-ul-Jehadi Islami(HuJI) this time.The Prime Minister, as usual has condemned the blasts(as if we didn't know!) and must have given the routine explanations,i.e. the guilty wouldn't be spared, criminals would be nabbed,etc etc.

A few days will pass like this and then the focus would shift to something else,may be the on-going IPL, and everything will be forgotton by people,as public memory is short lived.Sadly, we can't do anything to help the state-of-affairs and only time will tell what efforts have been put in by the big-talking government to actually do something about it and,most importantly, come out with results.

Another failure.. and getting over it!

2008-05-06T22:20:00.003+05:30

Have been quite busy since friday,May 2nd till Sunday and a large part of Monday, for various reasons and you might find this surprising when I tell you that I didn't have classes even on a single day of those four days.

TCS came for campus placements to our college on Friday and as it was a first time experiences for all of us,the entire batch was so excited that even those people who didn't want to appear for it attended their Pre Placement talk, just for experiencing the occasion.

It was scheduled for 9.00 am and not surprisingly it got extended to 9.30.Then we came to know that some big shot who was to come for it had got stuck midway on his way to Manipal from Bangalore and we'll have to wait at least two more hours for him to come, thus the official time given to us was 11.30. It gave us ample time to do the last minute preparations, getting our resumes and all organised in a file and we even tried to catch up on the english word lists,but decided to give up on it very shortly.An hour later, the re-revised time given to us was 12.15 and thankfully, it started finally at 12.30.

Ironically, the "qualities" that the presenter, some Chakravarty(whichever way you spell it) better known as "Chaks" insisted upon were, respect for Individual(and what respect did he have for his future employees when he himself turned up so late??) Integrity, blah blah...

Anyways, we got over the presentation rather smoothly and were divided in 3 batches of 250 people each and were to take tests one batch after the another, as 700+ people had applied for it.My batch started at around 5pm and I knew halfway through the test that I was going to clear it rather easily.So after the test I was relaxed, watched the IPL match of Delhi Daredevils(crushing Chennai :) ) and didnt even try to study. Friends confirmed at around 10 that night that I had expectedly cleared the test, as had 474 other students.

Next day was going to be really big, as it had interviews coming up.Nobody was sure how many rounds were going to be there and people were interviewed random number of times.Personally, my interview was excellent,as the most dreaded thing, technical round, went very very smoothly for me.They asked such simple questions that I didn't even think to answer,except one, which I promptly accepted that I wudnt be able to answer it.My questions ranged from Cricket to friends to industries to academics, etc.I was asked to "wait outside for some time" by the two interviewers and later on, it turned out to be a wait for more than 2 hours. They finally announced at 7.30 that no further interviews were going to be there that evening and we could check the results next day.

I had expected to get through in interview as well, as it had gone pretty smoothly. I didn't show any signs of nervousness(coz I wasn't :P).However, the next morning when the results were announced, my name didn't feature in the 322 candidates that had finally been taken out of the 475 initially shortlisted.It came as a big disappointment to me and I could barely walk back from the auditorium to my hostel room.I had a few friends for company, who couldn't get through and we shared our experiences.

The surprise came much later, when I came to know that my first roomie, Chandan, couldn't get through either, similar was the case with Srinivas, Hemendra(topper of comp sci), Aseem and a lot of other people.If the H.R. ppl eliminated me, it could only have been due to personality(which I still doubt) but even if that's the case, these people have the most pleasing personalities in our college. They've even taken few very good students, including my branch topper and few other, similar people.
The biggest shock is that a lot of people who have back papers of previous semesters and one of my classmates who's repeating the entire year and still has backlogs got through.

Thankfully for me, I hadn't told anyone that campus recruitment by TCS was coming up, not even to my family or closest of friends.I had initially planned that if I get through, I'll give them a pleasant surprise and if I didn't then I wudnt have to answer them about anything.Thus, I was relaxed on one front.Finally, I told about it to my mother two days later, i.e. today evening.

Getting back to that day,
All I can make out is that those people wanted a mix of people, some very good,some average and a lot of dumb guys.Dumb, because those who didn't answer even a single question in their technical round got through easily.

Anyways, I've come out of it fully now and have a month full of exams and tests coming up.All I can say is that it was hard luck for me(and for those TCS guys ;) ) that they didn't take me. I'm now waiting for Infosys, my first preference(even over TCS, but I had to sit for it as TCS came first) and I'm pretty confident of getting into that.
wish me luck!!

PC: The strangest of strange things

2008-04-27T00:15:00.002+05:30

All of us bloggers use our PCs as if it were the most routine objects.We hardly stop a moment and think about what goes on inside it, do we?We yell at our ISP if our net connection isnt working, we yell at our PC customer care executives if there is the slightest of disturbance in it, without ever bothering how much effort and skill it takes from an engineer's side to be able to understand your problem, leave alone solving it.

Being an engineering student,I've not been able to delve deep into the PC knowledge, apart from a few parts which I find very "hip" to name,like the Mother Board, Processor, Graphics Card, lan card and the likes.People can boost up their download speeds to several times higher just by making a few internal changes to their systems. One can reduce the boot time considerably if he/she learns to identify the start up programs/applications that are not required.One can even control another system on the network through a far off workstation.

This post isnt about what goes on inside a system, as I hardly know 1% of the entire thing. It's just to give you an idea of how many millions of electronic circuits are at work to perform the simplest of operations. For example, when we hit a particular key, it appears on the screen.Most of us have no idea as to what engineering goes into making such a thing a reality.The very basics of a computer system, i.e. the Kernel, operating system, software, hardware,etc etc is a complex subject in itself and to integrate all of these to create such a magical machine is nothing short of miracle.The fact that we have such people who know how exactly a PC works and they actually design it, is astonishing to me!Just imagine someone who knows the entire electronics and electrical circuitry, the digital circuitry and the operating systems part and then they actually put all of these together to give us a wonderful magical box!!!

I know this post was rubbish but then that's what may sometimes happen when you're completely out of thoughts but want to write a post just for the sake of it,isn't it??

Time to slog!

2008-04-26T06:43:00.002+05:30

Its 26th April,Saturday and I just attended the last DSP lecture of this sem.Soft Computing syllabus is already over, microprocessor lab is over too and we've even had the end sem exam for that(which means we'll be free on all mondays from now onwards).We were supposed to submit the synopsis for mini project today and god knows what's the status, as I've not done anything about it.Add to that another lab end sem coming up on wednesday, then TCS coming for campus placements on 2nd to 4th May, then demonstration of the mini project, then the third sessional tests and then the dreaded end sem examination.

Going by the kind of lifestyle I'm living you wouldn't get even a hint of what all lies in front of me and that's one of the reasons for this post,i.e. to vent out my frustration, plan out strategies and to demonstrate my anger at my inability to come to terms with studies.
Well, enough of ranting now and forgive the nonsensical contents of this post. :D

Tough weekend ahead

2008-04-26T06:21:00.002+05:30

Its again Saturday!I just can't keep track of how time is flying.It seems as if you blink you eye and week after week passes away.Got to rush to college in less than two hours' time and then we have that all important cricket final in the evening.The paper seeing of the second sessional and the much awaited Chelsea vs Manchester United match is there in the evening as well. Oops!!! Didn't I mention studies at all?It's such kind of situation where I just cant' have enough of studies.The more I get into it, the better it will be as I can't even figure out how many subjects/topics I need to keep a track of simultaneously during the next fortnight with placements, third sessionals, mini project submission, lab test and all coming up.
However, as I always do, am staying positive and hoping for the best of results.
good luck to me!:)

IPL is here to stay!!!

2008-04-25T22:09:00.003+05:30

Its been just over a week since the Indian Premier League Twenty 20 cricket started and even though I didnt support it much initially, I have to confess that it's the new sensation in International cricket.People might argue that the entire concept was taken up from the existing league in English Football but still, one must have the vision to see its future before implementing and Mr. Lalit Modi has excelled in that department.

The amount of talent that's on display from the top countries of the world is awe inspiring.The close matches that we've had recently and yesterday's phenomenal feat of Shane Warne knocking off Symonds for 4,6,6 off successive balls when his team needed 14 to win from four balls is simply breath taking.These are the kind of matches that draw the spectators to grounds and make sure those watching at home stay glued to the TV sets. The prospect of Shane Warne bowling to Andrew Symonds, McGrath bowling to Warne, Sehwag facing RP Singh was all hypothetical but only till this new phenomenon struck world cricket.

India sure is the driving force of world cricket when it comes to finance but then we've shown that we also have got the talent to match them, through players like R Jadeja, Shikhar Dhawan, R Bhatia and the likes..
way to go IPL!!!

Barcelona vs Man U.... just can't wait for it!!!

2008-04-23T21:21:00.002+05:30

Finally, the match of the season is here!If you're a soccer buff..or even if you're remotely interested in soccer... or(worst) you don't like soccer at all, I'd suggest you stay glued to ten sports tonight at 00.15am,IST.Its the Champions League semi final(first leg) and the teams involved are considered Giants in their respective countries,and even around Europe.

Starting with my favourites,Manchester United, it's a moment of reckoning for them. They have been considered the best in Europe and fairly, they've had critics playing them down, saying they're not strong enough to score against Spanish and the Italian giants. Over the past few seasons, they've been knocked out by the Italian powerhouse A.C. Milan but this time, our arch rivals Arsenal have done us a huge favour by sending them out of the competition fairly early. We're returning to the Nou Camp after 9 years,and the last time we were there, we scored twice in dying minutes to overturn a 0-1 deficit to win the Champions League. It was our treble year(1999) and though this time we're in the hunt for the Premiereship apart from the UEFA Champions League, we're strong enough to bring both the trophies to the Theatre of Dreams(the name given to our home stadium at Old Trafford by Sir Alex Fergusson). In my opinion, we're favourites because for a change, we've a fully fit squad to choose from at the closing end of the season, which is something we've never had in the previous few years.If I start describing the quality of players on both the sides, the blog would become too boring for those who don't follow soccer but still, Rooney and Ronaldo are worth mentioning.

A brief glance at Barcelona's season lately suggests that they're not quite at their peak,as they've not won a single match in the last four games.They'll be missing the services of superstar midfielder Ronaldinho and Messi's not fully fit, though he will take part in the match for sure but most probably he'll be substituted at some stage. Eto'o, Henry, Puyol, Valdes... the list goes on and on..

Just can't wait for the kick-off,which is about 170 minutes from now and I'll sign out on this note, and expect the few people who read it to experience the thrill of soccer themselves.

In a Pleasantly Unpleasant Situation...

2008-04-23T21:05:00.002+05:30

The days are whizzing past like anything.The placements, tests and all that seemed so far away a week ago are staring me in the face now. And in spite of all that, all I do is play, watch, eat, drink and sleep.... CRICKET!!!

Yeah, it's another post about cricket and its not about the Indian Premiere League(IPL) or something, it's about the cricket tournament I've been playing in over the last month or so.The Shanthala Cup, as we like to call it, has resumed after we were done with our sessionals and thankfully, we're continuing our march towards the trophy.On a personal front, I've played three games in the last three days, failing in one of them and helping my team along to qualify for the next round in two of them. The pleasantly unpleasant situation I talked about is this.. I am playing for two teams and both had qualified for the semi finals. Over the last two days, both the teams had their respective semi final matches and guess what... both the teams are in the final now!That leaves me with the awkward situation of having to play against my old team, whichever team I choose to play for.

On a personal note, it's great to be in such a situation, having contributed in the wins of both the sides at some point or the other.I'll have to disappoint one of my good friends before the finals but then, that's not a problem as I expect both of them to be considerate enough.After failing for two years to make it to the next round of the tournament, it feels great to be in such a situation. Finally, the patience has paid off and I've found out not one, but two teams which don't depend completely upon me to deliver at all the time.

Its been really hectic and there was a time two weeks ago when I had to play four matches inside 24 hours!It really does take a toll on your body and you cant even think of studying once you get back to the hostel but then, over the last two days, I'm learning to get used to it and I'm trying to balance out all the things(which is quite difficult [:(] )

Happiness all the way!!!

2008-04-22T04:00:00.002+05:30

Its the beginning(I hope) of some sort of a purple patch in my life here at Manipal. Blogging so frequently and not for sad reasons is unprecedented phenomenon and I really hope it continues this way.
The day began with my Micro p. lab end sem examination and I'll get through comfortably and when you add to it the fact that I'd studied for not more than half an hour for the test(prior to which we got 4 complete days off), it'd sound a pretty significant achievement.To add to that headache, we had three assignments to be submitted today, two of which were postponed, thanks to our C.R. and the remaining one was done(read copied) by me right after the lab.Went about meeting the other critiera,of filling up the Dream company for our placements today with relative ease, filling up Schneider Electric and GMR.

Then comes the fun part and no prizes for guessing what it's going to be about... CRICKET!!! Our knock-out tournament resumed today after the sessionals and I was informed at 4.15 pm that we've the quarter final match at 4.30.Initially I wanted to refuse it but the insistent individual that Pradeep is, he came to pick me up from the hostel and we were literally laughing when we reached the ground, as we couldn't muster 11 players!We started fielding with 2 players short.The missing ones joined in soon and the match was a topsy turvy encounter until the last over. I faced the first ball of the over in which we had to score 12 to win and guess what... I hit the first ball over the long on rope:). We won with Johnnie's last-ball six and it was a really satisfying effort, considering that we went in without our best batsman and bowler.
Enough of cricket now!Its time for me to sleep as its already 4.09 am on the next morning of Earth Day and I've to finish up an assignment in the morning..

Windows Vista:Is it really worth the switch?

2008-04-21T00:30:00.003+05:30

This is one question that must have been asked millions of times during the past year, ever since it was launched.Here I present to you a brief comparison of the features of Windows XP with Vista Home Premium(the edition I've been using for the best part of previous year).The ususal practice in any O.S. debate has been that Linux invariably comes into the picture so I'd like to refrain from the age old Linux vs Windows debate.

The reason I started using Vista Home Premium was simple enough: It came free with my laptop and at that time, the thrill of using an ORIGINAL software was reason enough, as I'd been using pirated versions of XP for a long time. I didn't go into too much debate as to whether it's advisable to switch on to Vista or not and decided to explore it myself.After all, the option of switching on to XP was always there as you can get the CD from anyone.

Merits:It contains revolutionary features such as the much improved search option(highly recommended), the aero interface(which doesnt add much value in terms of performance but it's good to have nevertheless), the windows sidebar(again an optional gadget, not too essential) and the much improved installation guide/the help and support system and the frequent warnings(it can get boring but then it keeps your computer secure). The C.P.U and RAM meter is the feature I like the most, alongwith the improved search and navigating through windows thing. It gives you a straightforward information about how badly are you screwing your processor and is a good indicator to keep a check on the no. of programs/applications you're using at a time.There is this "typing software" as well, which can type the words you speak but then I've not used it much and from whatever I've seen, there's scope for improvement.

Demerits:The major demerit that I've found out is the really long boot time. I use Vista Premium on a 1GB RAM compaq and it really takes at least twice the time taken by xp to boot.You can, of course reduce the boot time by chaging/removing the start up programs/applications but then it's not recommended until you're close to a geek(and if you were a geek, you wouldn't be reading this anyway!!). At times the CPU meter gets stuck on 100% and you need to shut off all the programs/applications to continue uninterrupted work.I think both these problems can be solved by getting extra ram(may be 1GB), something that I've planned to do in the near future.

All in all, Vista is the way forward, with a few shortcomings but then, all the good things come with a few glitches,don't they?

What a Day it turned out to be!!!

2008-04-20T01:29:00.003+05:30

People mostly update their personal blogs when they're down,frustrated,sad and a hundred associated adjectives. And why talk about other people, even I've done that myself most of the times.One of the reasons for not updating when you're happy is that you get so many people to share your happiness with,but no one to share your sorrows. However, I'd like to suggest all such people(including myself, to an extent) that it feels great to take out some time for yourself when you're happy and blog!This is exactly what I'm feeling right now.

To take the curtain off the suspense,I've got many reasons to be happy.First of all,my team won the first prize in the podcasting contest that we participated in yesterday and it was something which all of us had least expected, as the other teams consisted a member(s) who were mass comm. students, who deal with sound recording, editing and stuff day in and day out!One girl, from the organising college, was put in our group but she opted for a separate group(and rightly so) as she had all her friends there.That was a discouragement for me on a personal front but meeting my team members,I knew that we could actually pull off something special,as the mood in the Sound Lab(where we worked) was really good and the voices were coming out better than expected through the mic.Still,I insist again that I didnt expect us to win.

The day passed off like any other holiday,with me wasting most part of it.Attended the last few talks of MMSC and rushed back to hostel,as it was my b'day treat two hours later and I had to prepare for that,being the host.That was the time when Karthik messaged that we'd won the first prize and I rushed to the venue to collect mine.I remember getting a first prize for a quiz in my 5th standard,and its been more than a decade, so it is really special to me.

After that, as if the script was written in the Heavens, we had a party(which was pre planned,even before I had got the prize).Got really good feedback from all the guests and that rounded off a pretty good day.The only glitch was the absense of my new friends. It was largely due to misunderstanding but then, its okay,I know what they've missed out on so its their bad luck :P

MMSC - Another feather in MIC's cap!

2008-04-19T18:44:00.004+05:30

The valedictory function is still going on, I presume but I didn't see the need to attend it, as have attended most of MMSC during the last two days. Initially I thought of it as an event in which there'll be no space for engineering students and all that publicity done by the organisers(including the bloggers' meet) was just an effort to draw the crowd. There's no truth in the first part as I realised, anyone who's interested in media/podcasting/internet writing/ blogging could have attended it and those who didnt have interest surely would have some now, especially after the "making money online" presentation yesterday by Karthik. The second part of the previous sentence,though, I still believe has "some" truth but then, its the case with every event,isn't it?

It's the second event I attended of MIC and both the times, I've noticed that the volunteers come out with full spirit to make this "their" event, instead of just going through the motions and carrying out their "duties". The delegates(and to some extents, participants too ;) ) were looked after really well, right from providing conveyance to food,etc. Their smallest of demands(that of a mobile charger!!!) had been taken care of.

One of the organisers told me before the event that "I'll have to dance to the tunes of people who're 17 and 20 yr old." I met one of them yesterday and he really was the person to handle. I wished her "all the best with this guy!" via telepathy and it seemed to have worked,as the guy seemed a lot more civilised today :).Got to learn a lot from the podcasting workshop in which we(a team of 6) were given one hour to make a podcast of 10 mins. I wrote a part of the script and all of us took turns into recording their voices and it went off unexpectedly well. Made some good friends and thanks to Kenney, who invited us to Kerela for a free accomodation, free food, free conveyance holiday any time we pleased!Have a few grouses towards the attitude a few of the in-mates of MIC showed but that's nothing new,as it happens everywehre.

All in all, another successful event organised by them and felt really good to be a part of it. Hope to attend more of such events in the future.Have to sign off now as I've invited people to my party in two hours from now and I'm still to check the list of the guests.

New-found interest in blogging :)

2008-04-15T22:39:00.002+05:30

I am still amazed at the time I spend on blogspot these days. I had my tests since 12th but still, I was visiting people's blogs(most of them random ones) religiously. Obviously, it took a toll(and a HEAVY one, I'm sure) on the tests, but now I CARE TWO HOOTS about marks. It all started about a fortnight ago, when I was scrapped randomly by a Anadi to attend a pre-event to the Manipal Blogger's Meet. It all started from there and then I went through to his blog itself, thinking, "Let me check if he himself is interested or not."(hehe.. sorry for that thought, man!).

It was then that this addiction started, as I found links to a lot of blogs on his page and, I must confess, most of them were really good. Today, I finally got rid of my exams(not that I was killing myself studying all this while but still...) and the first thing I did was to Blogroll the people I always wanted to, add a few gadgets to my blog and thought that this GRAND ocaasion(coz I've spent more than an hour on my own blog for the first time) DEMANDED a post so, here I am!

Thanks to my readers who've recently started visiting and the one and only who has stuck on all this while, even if I wasn't posting( Thanks a lot, Carra for the patience). Would try to keep it updated from time to time now.

ATTENTION Please comment whenever you read any of my posts so that I know that people are still visiting it.

P.S. This post was completely a random one so I apologise for the lack of sensible content!!

Kudlu Trip

2008-04-06T23:48:00.006+05:30

As always, its been quite a while since I posted here. But, unlike all other occasions, I've had plenty to write about all this while.Will try to include the interesting bits here and keep the not-so-interesting byes out!

March 21:Trip to Kudlu Falls
It was a typical lazy MIT Sunday, i.e. you don't have anything to do apart from the tiny bit of lab work, no assignments, sessionals far faaaar away, and I was glued to online yahoo chess when Sagar barged into the room and ordered," Jayant, get ready, we're leaving for Kudlu Falls in half an hour."

My initial reaction was," Forget it! Someone or the other will say NO and the whole excitement will die sooner than it had been generated." I didn't utter any of these words to him, as something in his enthusiasm told me that this plan was going to be successful and, as he revealed microseconds later, "All are ready, we've to leave asap".

Soon enough, the five good men( Myself, Omveer, Sagar, APS and Anubhav) were on our way to Hebri and about two hours (and 8 bananas :) ) later, I found myself facing a taxi driver and Omveer negotiating with him. He was trying to explain to him how it will serve the 5 of us well if he brought his initial demand of Rs 600 down to 500. Finally he obliged and we set off for a (supposedly) 45- min drive to Kudlu. This was the time when the Devil in Omveer's mind spoke out:

"How about a night stay there? We can arrange for tents and all. It'll be exciting, wudn't it?"
"Wow!!!" Chuckled APS with unprecedented joy, which was quite a contrast to Anubhav (and to an extent, mine) reaction.
However, none of us objected and we drove to the Ranger's office, where they book tents in advance.

"NO GIRLS IN TENTS, OK?? Manipal has a bad reputation here." was the Rangers initial monologue upon knowing our college's name.
We all laughed his warning off and told each other, "How we wish we could join that club!" However, we had been passed eligible to stay there but then came the problem.He had only one tent left, and it could house two, at the max 3 ppl.

Even before we could start thinking of a solution, the exicted Jaat spoke out," Koi ni yaar, shift wise reh lenge. Sone thode hi na aaye hain". He had reached an agreement with the ranger, wherein he'd charge us the normal Rs 400 for the tent and half that amt for each extra person, making it Rs 1000. A bit more drama followed but finally it was a deal. We were supposed to stay there at night, once we came back from Kudlu.

Our taxi driver rushed us to the falls and it was 3pm when we got off the taxi(as it couldn't go any further) and set off on a 4km ordeal, with the kind taxi driver somehow agreeing to accompany us. at 3.30 he left us, saying," yeh raastha sidha chale jao.1 Km aur hai." Our requests of him accompanying us all the way through turned futile and we marched on.
at 4pm, we were supposed to be bathing in the falls but here we were, wriggling our way through the jungle, judging the right way, then realising 10 mins later that we were on the wrong way(as we had encountered a dead end), turning back, taking another way and the same story repeated. The supposedly "BEST TREKKER" amongst us, SAGAR, was the most bruised, slipping a few times and losing balance( and with it his cap :P). Add to all this the fact that all of us had changed to shorts due to the rain and we found leeches stuck to our legs every few minutes.(I still can't believe I had touched them with my fingers and pulled them out!!)
At 4.15pm, it was decided that the light was getting worse and going back would be the best decision, as there was always a danger of us losing way again on the return journey, so returning before dusk was always the better option. That was the time when we found few more Manipal-ites going towards the falls and a localite returning from the other side(which meant we were on the right way!).
That gave instant courage and energy to everyone to give it one final dash!We started on the way and reached the falls in 15 mins and had the best of sights awaiting us. All of us agreed that it was worth all the pain(I'm still not convinced on the leeches bit).
Bathing at the foot of a water fall in deafening noise of water hitting the rocks is one of the most amazing experiences you'll ever go through. It all ended well and by the time we came back to the taxi, we were all too tired to dare n stay in the jungle for the night. We decided to put end our trip just the way it had begun: in an unplanned manner!
Boarded the bus back to Manipal where we had Holi awaiting us the next morning..

Days at Dreamland over, time to get back now..

2008-01-11T13:09:00.000+05:30

The past month has to be classified as one of the most satisfying and, to an extent, productive vacations I've ever had in my two and a half yrs of engineering life.Looking back,there were several happy things about it that give you a sense of satisfaction... so,if you're still guessing about what its going to be about,let me draw the curtain.... it's about how I spent my month long vacation with my family,here in Delhi.

I came here on 15th dec, welcome by the unpleasant winter of Delhi which I've become so unused-to in the recent years.One big disadvantage of moving to Manipal is that you're so close to the sea all yr round and get so much used to the pleasant weather that even a 10 degree C temp of Delhi seems to be unbearable.However, it got overshadowed as only those people can understand the joy of meeting their family after 5 months who have actually been in that situation... the joy that surpasses all climatic disasters(yes,i called it precisely that,totally unaware that in the days to follow,the double digit tempeature would exist only in the imaginary world!)

Phase one:
It was the happiest and laziest of the times,as I hardly did anything other than being cuddled up in my bed till mid-day,getting up to realise that dad and bhaiya had already left for their respective offices at a time that seemed "night" to me(but later realised that it was around 9am).Sadly,mom had had enough of it and a day or two later,all that motherly love that u crave for in your hostel had started transforming into motherly "care",which resulted in me getting scolded when I "demanded" breakfast at 11am.The answer was simple,"Son,you woke up too late for breakfast and too early for lunch".
I was waiting all these days for two things..one,the beginning of the Cricket Series between India and Australia and two,the only unpleasant part of the holidays, my results...specifically-to find out how much below six my gpa had fallen...more specifially-to find out whether I had flunked in my PSA paper or not(which was a real possibility,given that I had even brought over my books,test papers and all for this subjet)

December 26:The Judgement Day
I went to face the mess and looooong queues of Janakpuri early in the morning with my dad to get a Learners' Driving License done.Was in constant touch with my mates who'd stayed back at college to prepare for their GATE exam,which is due in february!!(as if the screwing fifth sem papers weren't depressing enough)Thankfully, I got a call that contained the great news that I'd cleared the doubtful paper with one grade better than the minimum required,and my gpa had fallen to an all time low,i.e. 5.88(this somehow got overshadowed in the joy of clearing the paper,which was an achievement in itself,given that I had twice scored two on 20 in the internals!)That brought upon a sudden termination to the nightmares of achieving the unwanted feat of flunking for the first time in my life(now come on,don't count my failure in hindi writing as a failure,which was in my 4th standard).

Phase 3:Rising From The Ashes
Now was the time for some serious work.I started learning MATLAB,a very useful tool for engineering students,together with my Inudstrial training,and least expectedly,found a girl there who was JUST ONE YR senior to me.However,I found Erich Segal's novels more interesting than her and that's what I used to do most of the time I spent in Goldwyn India Ltd, Noida,as a trainee.Most of this phase was spent watching Cricket,Surfing the net,meeting a few friends and here I am...after a holiday,more educated on MATLAB,fresh to take on the new semester and wise enough to bury the disappointments of the last yr and looking into the future,i.e. VISION 2008!

Got a train to catch tomorrow and haven't even started on the packing so have to leave before mom dumps my laptop out of the house..

One heck of a train journey!!!

2007-12-17T18:16:00.000+05:30

This post is going to describe my train journey back home from college and a few related incidents.Ok, so where to start from?I guess I'll carry on from where I left in my previous post.

The best time during a semester in college is the last day, when you're done with your exams and have to do hundreds of things in a very short span of time to pack up and leave for the station, to board the train back home. So,let me skip the routine packing part and fast forward a little bit.. Its 10.30 pm, we're at the station, accompanied by hundreds of students from my college.Some people just came over to see us off and the usual joking and pranking around was going on. It felt a bit awkward for me to be standing there away from my dearest of friends(one of the sad parts of taking the a.c. coach), trying to keep myself busy with the girls by initiating useless talks which werent as amusing as they made it out to be.Its funny how easily you can make a girl laugh.. you crack the silliest of jokes and they'll be laughing their stomachs out.. anyways, I could write a whole post on "Stupidity of girls" so let me keep you away from that one.

Someone in the crowd of passengers made me happy and I prayed for her to be in the same compartment as mine..read on and I'll elaborate on this..

So, hundreds of false smiles and about an hour and a half later, my already delayed train arrived and as usual, people rushed here and there not caring the slightest bit as to what their seat nos were.True,the train's scheduled to stop there for about two minutes but a bit of common sense could have avoided the pandemonium that the lunatics caused for the next half an hour.. here's a description of what followed:

As we all know,each compartment has two doors so my idea was to check for the door nearer to my seat and take it, to make things easier for myself and others.I did that but, to my irritation,I found people with seat nos 1-8 boarding the train from the other door and vice versa, and leading the pack was none other than a girl from my class and I wasnt really surprised to see her lead an idiotic act, as she derives ultimate pleasure from such acts. It came to a point when I had to give up the effort to reach my seat,which was visible,just two compartments away but when you have people trying to traverse both sides through a two feet wide passage with their luggage(again girls contributing to the farce by carrying or rather tryin to carry twice the luggage they could manage), waiting patiently for the passage to clear up seems the wisest thing to do. Finally I reached my seat and there we had another problem but it was expected as it was the outcome of another abberation's (read girl's) "intelligent" mind.

Indain railways have fixed quota of tickets from a starting station(udupi in this case) to a destination(nizamuddin, new delhi). During vacations, theres a mad rush for tickets and that girl was foolish enough to be sleeping when she should have been rushing to the travel agents to get the tickets done and when she did this, it was already too late and all the tickets from udupi to delhi had been booked so she took her ticket from an earlier station.Now the railways rules state it clearly that if you have your reservation from a station and you actually board the train from a later station, you have to get the boarding changed.She happily ignored this fact and when she reached her seat, she was informed that her seat had been allotted to someone else,as she didnt report in time.

We were three friends(myself, Sarvesh and Ishaan) in the adjacent compartment so we decided to share our seats with her till the time she got her seat back.For the next 24 hours, she watched movie after movie(god save Sarvesh's laptop) and finally at about 2 pm the following day(26 hrs after boarding the train) she got her seat.

Looking out for similar aged girls is one of the first things that any guy does once he gets into train and me and Ishaan were no different.And, to our joy,we instantly found one in the next compartment.We rushed to take the seat so that we could see her all the time and this was the one I had mentioned earlier too, while building up to this post.She was the girl I had occasionally seen in my branch's library during exam days but please dont think that she was the purpose of me going to library for the last fortnight, as my friends would like to belive.Anyways,I was determined to talk to her and all,and was in no hurry as it was just the start of a 36 hr long journey so I was confident of getting many chances.It was already late night and our fellow passengers were requesting us to switch off the lights so that they could get some sleep so we obliged.The next day, after having brunch and all, I felt sleepy again at around 1pm,while my friends were busy watching movies. Woke up around 3.30 to find that "she" was missing from her seat,as was her friend.I thought she might have gone to some friends' seat,as is a common practice but when she didnt return till evening,it made me suspicious and when I checked the chart,it said that she had her tickets till Kalyan only,which had come about 5 hrs ago!!!Anways,there was nothing much to feel sad about and I read "Oliver's Story" for some time before falling asleep,at around 2pm.

This is when the more interesting phase of journey started.
I was awakened by Ishaan five hours later, to see off Sarvesh as his station was to come any moment now.He was arranging his luggage when he found his shoes missing!! We tried searching everywhere but to no avail.He borrowed sandals from his friend and prepared to leave.His wait seemed to last eternity as the train was stranded at the outskirts of Jhansi from 7am to 9am.Finally we bid him goodbye and hoped that we'll get through to Delhi without further hiccups.Then we came to know about a derilment that had taken place and we had to wait another 3 and a half hours before our train could move.It finally moved at 12.30 pm, already 6 hours late and just then, another of my batchmates complained that his set of shoes and sandals were missing.It was then that a newly married gentleman told us that he saw a policeman checking out shoes under our seats at around 3.30 am the previous night and he didnt object, as he thought it was some routine luggage-checking going on.We were getting bored so we thought of stretching the matter further(fully aware that the shoes wont be recovered) and complained to the TTE(Train Ticket Examiner).We had some pleasant arguments about the credibility of police,etc etc. The train was reached Gwalior and another gentleman from the Indian Army joined us.

He had been in the army for 20 odd years and he was returning to his posting(Baramula,Jammu and Kashmir)midway during his holidays.We were surprised and when we asked the reason he said with a smile," My bullet proof jeep has been bombed a couple of hours ago and a few fresh incidents of militancy have been reported so I decided to go back".Another shocking enough incident and it took my mind towards those in the army who have to deal with these things day in and day out.

Coming back,we finally reached Delhi and it was time to bid goodbye.Not surprisingly, that girl whom we had offered seats didnt even bother turning to us once during the last 17 hours,i.e. from the time she got her own seat!!

I somewhat struggled to get an auto at a reasonable rate and then found one.Talking to the driver is always better than sitting for half an hour with your nose held high, reminding him of the social difference so I asked him about his native state and as I had guessed from his style of speaking, he turned out to be from my native state,Bihar.He started by asking where I was coming from, what I do there,etc etc.When I told him that I was an engineering student,his eyes lit up and he fired a thousand questions to me!All were centred around his 5 yr old son,whom he wanted to turn into an IAS(Indian Administrative Services) Officer or an Engineer.It felt amazing to know how many ambitions parents have from their sons and to what extent are they ready to go for fulfilling all their needs.

The 11 km route from station to my home seemed like nothing and finally I was at home,after six months, exulting like a kid and partly,thinking about the journey,the kind of people I met,the 2500+ kms I had travelled during the last two days and then, to the gala time that I was going to have during the next month..

Another Sem of misery ends..

2007-12-13T18:30:00.000+05:30

Long time since i posted and I'm sure the handful of people who had started accepting me as somewhat regular to blogging would have gone away by now.Cant even say that have been busy studying as my results would not remotely suggest that.
Anyways,its the time to reflect back on the last five months or so, since my fifth sem started and sadly, it presents yet another sorry picture in terms of academics. Agreed, that in general the course was tough, as my classmates would agree,but I know for myself that I've done badly even by those low standards.

Its amazing how time keeps slipping out of your hands.More than half the engineering is done and next sem it'll be time to sit for placement interviews.God only knows what those people will find in me worth paying me a decent enough salary,if at all they do!!!

Actually, I cant find myself doing anything wrong this sem,but I dint study either, so other things stand for nothing.Its amazing that however bad you might have written your exams, the feeling after writing the last paper always remains the same,the kind I'm having right now.
Yes,today was my last sem exam and I can gladly say that I'll be boarding the train back to delhi in about five hours from now.And since I've seen the time now,it reminds me that I've got whole lot of things to do before that.So, I think that is it for today's post,I know there's nothing worth reading in it but then, I am in such great mood that I dint even think what I'm writing...
Happy Holidays to me!!!
n I genuinely hope that I'll be a bit more regular to blogging over the next month.

Fun,frolic,fear and farce.... tht's life!!!

2007-10-19T23:08:00.000+05:30

So,here I am,back!!! :)

Its been quite a while since my last post and going by the no of daily visitors of my blog(or rather the lack of it) its high time I updated it.
I've got my reasons not to be able to post anything new.Not that I was busy killing myself working all this while,but still, going by my mediocre standards,the last three weeks have been as close to "busy" as I have ever been.

Class Trip

I had the privilege of taking the lead role and organising a trip for my class to gokarna and murdeshwar on second oct:two nearby places,but the place was never of utmost importance for the trip, getting the class together was.I dont want to boast about how I played the superman role to get this thing done,but still, trust me,it was quite a task.Booking a bus 5 hours prior to leaving for the trip,without knowing the exact no of participants can lead to a really messy situation,but thank god, I wasnt led to one.The trip was a runaway success, you could feel it during the journey,otherwise you wouldnt be seeing people dancing around from midnight till 3am non stop in a 22 seater mini bus, you wouldnt see people playing football madly on the beaches and you wouldnt see people dancing again in the same bus,given the fact that all of us had barely sat properly,leave alone resting, in the previous 18 hours.

Tech Tatva- our technical fest
The aforementioned trip was really tiring and it took me more than 3 days to get rid of the pain in every imaginable joint of my body.By the time the "trip hangover" got over, there was further trouble waiting for me,but I can't complain much,as I had "invited" that myself.I got a message from my senior asking me to meet up regarding my work in our college's technical fest,which was to start a week after the trip.My job was relatively easier,I was supposed to wear the "organiser" tag and roam around with the camera people,getting them to take footage of the various events that were going on.It was fun working with them for the four days of the fest and when it ended on 13th oct,I was one satisfied person.

Indian cricket team are hosting Australia nowadays and we've lost the 7 match one day series 4-2 but still, the manner in which we won those two games should only add to our confidence and stature.Its not everyday that you win a match agaisnt them after being 62 for 6 chasing 194.

Of late I've not been in the best of health and that's been one of the main reasons for not posting regularly.The latest jolt came yesterday.I spent a good part of the day in the library and actually studied there for a major part of those 7 hours.I was ecstatic when I returned and soon I began feeling cold, sneezing at an abnormal rate and feeling weak as ever.Neglected it yesterday,thinking it would wear off when I get up from sleep but it wasn't to be.The whole of today it got worse,forcing me to even skip a lab,which I otherwise would never do, and sitting in my room without switching on the fan,in a 25 degree C plus environment.One of the few good habits I've acquired after shifting to hostel is this one.I've learnt how to be on my own in times like these.I would never have imagined my parents allowing me to even step out of my room in the condition in which I went out in the sun,hunting for medicines and then coming all the way back.I just feel this might have come at the wrong time,as I've got my sessional tests starting from Thrusday,less than a week from now.Anyways, it's going to be a nice experience,as it has been till now,managing everything on your own in such bad health.After all, life's not a bed of roses,isn't it?There are worse things that happen to people without them cribbing about it so who am I to complain??

This is for my readers... thanks for making me happy!!!

2007-09-27T18:21:00.000+05:30

I dont know what it is about 6pm of the day.It does something to me.I know it makes a strange reading,but then,its a fact.Anyways,decided to devote this time in blogging instead of surfing meaninglessly through innumerable profiles on orkut or chattng to so called friends who're online all the time and dont have anything to ask other than"hey,how're you?What's up at your end?"

Had a full day in college today,that is,lab from 9am to 12am,then had to submit an assignment which I had not even done and it hardly gave me any time to eat.Then,I was in class again,from 2 to 4pm.And wait,that's not all,after that we had to see our papers of the recently concluded first sessional tests,which were pathetic,as has become the norm with me all these years!Without discussing the marks,it'd be fair to say that I need a drastic change in my time table,else I'll be facing a new kind of trouble,academic,to add to my endless list of personal problems,which I've been wanting to kick out of my head,without much success,of course..

Anyways,changing the subject,its that time of the day when you actually sit down and think-think about a lot of things.The thought going through my mind now is,"Why the hell do I have to be sad all the time?"
Well,my acquaintances here might raise eyebrows about it,as you can never really make out what mood I'm in.Still,I'm the best person to know it,right??

What is the best idea of happiness?Is it hanging around with friends all the time?Is it scoring astronomical marks in your tests?Is it watching your favourite cricket/football team win?or is it just lying leisurely in you bed and thinking about the people you want to think?Ahem.... the last choice isn't there for me,at least,as it makes me feel sick,neglected,idiotic.....but at the end of it all...Lucky!!!

Anyways,my idea of happiness for the last two days has been the fact that people from Philippines and spain are actually reading my blog and giving their ideas about it.I can't express the happiness you feel when you see a comment on your blog,or when you see the rise in the counter that you've posted in your blog,for keeping track of the no of times its been visited.Obviously,the bad thing about counters is that they keep increasing even if you visit your own blog many times.But,even excluding that,I'm glad to see that every time I visit my blog,I find a decent enough increase in it.

Before I bug you people too much,would like to end on a happy note,and here's a message for my readers.."Thanks a lot!You people have given me the zest to let my imagination free and keep on writing.I'll try my best not to disappoing you,but even if you are disappointed,forgive me!"

Hail The Champions.....

2007-09-25T00:24:00.000+05:30

September 24,2007,8:45p.m.IST.What a day for Indian Cricket!!!We are the inaugural ICC World Twenty 20 Champions.What adds to the pleasure is that it was a dream final played at the Wanderers,Johannesburg,a thrilling match between India and Pakistan and,like they did ten days ago,India held their nerves again in the final moments to win the trophy.

The match started with a bad news for us,that sehwag wasn't playing due to a thigh straigh suffered during the last match,and,what added to the surprise was that it wasn't Dinesh Karthik who made it into the side,but it was Younus Pathan,who was making his international debut.India won the toss and opted to bat and then came another surprise..Yousuf Pathan was going to open with Gambhir.And,he just showed us why he was chosen, lofting Asif over long on on the 4th ball of the match, his second delivery in international cricket!However,he couldnt carry on and lost his wicket going for another similar shot.Then Uthappa followed him back after a while and India were looking for recovery.It never really came,as the two key batsmen,Yuvraj and Dhoni both departing in a hurry,but Gambhir was holding fort from the other end.India got some sort of momentum in the final overs,thanks to a brilliant 16 ball 30 not out from Rohit Sharma.This is one of the many players who's impressed everyone through the limited opportunities that he's got.I just hope he doesnt get targeted by the internal politics of the team/board and plays for a long,long time for us.However,despite Gambhir's 75,India's total did look about 5-20 runs short.
Pakistan's chase of a target of 158 got of to an undesired start,with R P Singh removing the opener Hafeez off the 3rd ball of the innings.Then came the counter attack from Nazir,in which he carted Sreesanth for 21 runs in the second over of the innings.It was a shift in momentum and he looked to be carrying the match away when R.P. Singh cleaned up Kamran Akmal's off stick in the third over itself.It was followed up by a maiden from Sreesanth,which started to shift the momentum back from Pakistan.However,Imran Nazir was in for something special as he kept carting boundaries.Pakistan's score:53 for 3 in 5.3 overs,with Nazir 33* off 14 balls and hitting everything at will.That was the time when my friend Piyush went out of the t.v. room saying,"let me go and eat something,the match is gone".I didn't stop him,as I wanted to sit in my favourite seat,which was occupied by him till then.And,then Uthappa at mid off produced a moment of magic...securing a direct hit form there to the striker's end to catch the danger man,Nazir,short of his creaes.The momentum was back with India.Pathan snared up Younis Khan shortly and it looked to be all over for pakistan,with their score reading 65 for 4 from 8.3,with Hafeez,Nazir,Akmal and Younis Khan all back in the hut.All eyes were on Shoaib Malik,Afridi and Misbah ul haq to deliver.Shoaib Malik,their captain,was accountd for by Pathan and then,Afridi came.Even though the asking rate was over 9,one knows very well what he can do.He tried for the heroics off the second ball that he faced,a slower one from pathan,which was taken neatly by Sreesanth.Pakistan were well and truly out of the contest at that stage,their score reading 77 for 6 off 11.4.Then Misbah and Arafat seemingly crawled towards the target,scoring at nearly a run a ball,pushing the required rate up all the time.Arafat too departed,the score reading 104 for 7 off 16 overs.But,as has been the norm over the years,Ind v Pak matches always do have this moment of brilliance which swings a match in a particular direction.Misbah,who was now joined by the youngster Sohail Tanvir who was facing his first ball in international cricket,and he smashes it for six!All of a sudden it started raining sixes as now Pakistan needed 28 off 17 balls!Sreesanth acounted for Tanvir.It went down to 20 off 12 and then,R.P. Singh accounted for Umar Gul to leave Pakistan needing 13 off the last over.

Joginder Sharma bowls the first one wide,then Misbah smashes one for a six and Pakistan now need 6 off 4,a perfectly gettable target,but Misbah tried the fancy chip over short fine leg,landing the ball in sreesanth's hands to give India the first ICC World Twenty 20 cup.

This augurs very well for Indian cricket.The first trophy consisting of more than 2 teams since Natwest,2002,and the team which brings it home doesn't consist of Sachin,Sourav,Dravid(the three mainstays of Indian batting) and Zaheer,the best bowler by a distance.This team has won all the matches through team efforts,aided by two mercurial innings from Yuvi.Given the average age of this side is much below 25 and the way the youngsters have been led by Dhoni,the future's really looking bright for us.

Even Shah Rukh Khan was there in South Africa to congratulate the team for their truly amazint performance.Really,a deserved victory for India's young side.Do feel sorry for Pakistan but there can only be one winner.However,they don't have to feel disappointed as they can keep their heads high.
Well done boys,keep it up!!!

Arrogant Aussies sent home... !!!

2007-09-23T01:25:00.000+05:30

Its 1:34am of 23rd of September,hardly an ideal time to be writing blogs,but then it was that kind of a day,or rather,night.Well,am referring to the India vs Australia semi final of the inaugural Twenty 20 World cup,which concluded half an hour ago,with India hunting down the kangaroos in a roller coaster of a game.

Sports is a great unifier and its evident when it comes to cricket in India.The match started with somewhat subdued start from Sehwag and Gambhir,the former getting out rather cheaply,folowed by Gambhir and then it was Yuvraj's turn to take centrestage.He carried on from where he left against his six-sixes-in-an-over act against England just three days ago,and changed the entire momentum of the game,aided later by the skipper for the tournament,M.S. Dhoni.
Then started the Aussie chase of 188,and as expected,we didnt get an easy win.They kept coming at us and at the end,it was thanks to an excellent 17th over from Harbhajan followed by two more from R.P. n the villian till then.. Joginder Sharma,with Aus needing 22 off the last over,which he wrapped up giving six runs n bagging two wickets.

This indeed is a very special phase for Indian cricket and as a fan you can't help but ask for more.The final is still to come in 48 hrs time and no one could have written the script better..its India vs Pakistan at Johannesburg!!!
The last three days at Durban have seen India beat England,South Africa and Australia and the rank outsiders Indians have excelled in every department.Durban seems to be a venue where we can just not lose.

Apart from that,there's not much happening in life,except the poor sessionals papers in which I skipped two papers and would get under ten in three of the four papers I wrote.All the friends seem to be too busy with their own lives and that's what I'm trying to do,with a lot of success,I must say.As for the studies,now its the time to alter my lifestyle a bit so as to get more involved with work and keep myself busy.Let's see how much I succeed.
And yes... today I somehow managed to download the song I'd been searching for,"Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney.Not that I'm too much into these foreign singers but then,some songs just take your heart away,and this is one of them..

Sorry South Africa!We love you but we can't let you win...

2007-09-21T17:23:00.000+05:30

Well,the title should say it all,regarding what the content of this post is going to be like.Still,if you're looking forward to reading it,let me warn you that this one's going to boast of three things,cricket,CRICKET and ONLY CRICKET...

The past week has been nothing short of amazing for Indian cricket.First,a win against Pakistan,coming back from a nothing situation to squeeze out the match in a bowl out,that was on 14th of Sept.Then, a run feast against England on Wednesday which marked the return of Virender Sehwag...have to applaud the man for the way he came back to answer his critics.
And then,last night,it was the turn of the Proteas to feel the music!It was the most special victory as it came thrugh channels which haven't been the forte of any of the Indian sides till now...Fielding!The openers started decently,fell early and then India were reeling at 31 for 3.In comes the debutant who's been waiting on the frignes for ages-Rohit Sharma and,together with the not so fluent Dhoni,took us to a total of 153,completing his half century in style,hitting a six off the last ball of the innings.I always felt a total above 150 could get tricky for them as was apparent from the bounce of the Durban pitch.That was the reason I overcame Sagar's taunt(kya dekhne jaayega?over me 25-25 runs jaayenge)to catch their reply from the very first ball itself.R P Singh's sensational second over of the innings produced two wickets,the second of them accounting for Greame Smith with an airborne Dinesh Karthick diving full length to his left at second slip to take a blinder.Rohit Sharma produced another sensational run out to put India firmly on the course and later, as it turned out to be,South Africa couldnt even qualify for the semi finals and they deserved it too,given the over confidence their captain exuded before the start of the match..

We've got a bigger hurdle to cross tomorrow,Australia,at Durban itself and India'll need all the departements to click simultaneously,which hasn't been done in this tournament so far..but yesterday's match has given us a million hopes.I'm not counting them out as our batting has been in fine form.Fielding and bowling were problem areas but barring Sreesanth,both the areas came good yesterday.May be tomorrow all the things......
Chak de India!!!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S...... really???

2007-09-13T17:37:00.000+05:30

This topic had been lingering for far too long in my mind.I was in a dilemma whether to actually publish this in my blog or not but when someone tells you that,"Jayant,you shouldn't be sharing each and everything about your life with me,it's your life.Live it as you want to."If that wasnt provoking enough,picture this dialogue,delivered a few months ago by the same person,"Jayant,its enough yaar.Now i can't bear it any more.Plz mujhe maaf kar do tum log."

I can't exaggerate how much I cried,what I felt,the desire to live was slowly being overcome by that to...........u can guess.Its not everyday that you feel disappointment,rejection,anger,guilt and countless such not so good emotions simultaneously.Your mind tells you to grow up,to let those people go to hell,not to waste your emotions upon somone who'll not even bother knowing how you are!But still,there's a voice that still urges me to keep faith,to forgive everything,put those things down to badly timed chain of events....probably it's left a scar beyond cure.

During my last semester vacations one of my family memebers told me something that I diamissed as rubbish at that time but now I can't overstate the importance of that sentence.

It was,"Friends are good enough only for college/school time.Once you get into your own lives, these people will not help you out.You have to face this world on their own, without expecting anything from anyone."

It has only been around one and a half months since these words were spoken(and neglected by me) and now I truly realise how true they were.I would rather like to modify it to....the word "Friend" has lost its meaning nowadays.All through my school life and even till now,I believed you make friends to interact,to share your moments,to rejoice in joyous times,to have a shoulder to cry on in not so happy times or simply to roam around,chat senselessly or do whatever that doesnt make you realise how time passes with them.This provoked another thought,"When you start counting the moments you are spending with your so called friends,when you dont know what to speak to them,when you say a "hi" or pass a reluctant smile just for the sake of it,when time just refuses to pass in his/her company and you still call the person a friend,there's something seriously wrong.
Now the word "friend" has become synonymous to parasite.

From some of my experiences over the past six months or so,I've started realising the value that sentence holds in my case.I've been known for getting too much involved in friends,sacrificing everything for them(including my grades) but that never bothered me.All these years of changing schools,cities and colleges,one is bound to have a laaaarge friend circle,so to say.But how many of them will really be there is a question I'm in the best position to answer.Without taking any names,all I can say is that I can count them easily on my fingers..............of one hand!!!

I have a principle about this whole thing:Make a lot of friends,but dont get yourself addicted to anyone as ultimately it'll be me who'll end up as an emotional fool.They tell you to wait for dinner,only to later say that they've had it somewhere.They'll tell you how much they care for you,but the truth is even if I were to die now,it'll take them a few months at least(if not years)to realise.You study with someone for a decade,spending each and ever moment from 8am to 12.40 together and now they'll not have the time to scrap/mail/sms/call you.Not that communication has been an important criteria in my friendship as it is somewhat an expensive business,but the desire should be there to make the most of it when life presents such an opportunity.Never really blamed anyone for this,but when you're shunned constantly,you're bound to consider all the possibilities..their placements,their own friend groups(of which I once used to be a part) and on top of all that,their SELFISHNESS.Frankly its reached a point where the word "hurt" has lost its meaning.Still, I'm grateful that I realised all this soon enough.

Emotions shouldn't have any place in one's life,as they consatnly initiate those clashes between your mind and heart which take up so much of your time and the funny thing is that the person concerned doesn't even realise this!!!

Hellooo...hang one,seems I've just been awoken from a sleep.What am I doing?Since when did I become sensitive to all these things?Who in the world has mattered that much to me that I start cribbing and crying??The answer is: NO ONE.

I might have sounded akin a depressed soul not willing to live any longer.hahaha..I can get overboard with emotions sometimes!
Just wanted to get this mess cleared of my mind before I start studying for my upcoming tests.
However,I'm confident of rising through,as depicted by the bird in the picture."How long" is probably a question no one can answer,maybe a lifetime would be enough!

Don't dare try pulling cricket down in India...!!!

2007-09-05T23:48:00.000+05:30

Mr. Shimit Amin(the director of chak-de-India),Sania Mirza,Leander Paes,Narain Karthikayen,Mahesh Bhupathi the Indian football and hockey teams(men's of coruse!)I've got some BAD news for all of you and many others whom I've not mentioned here.

YOU CANNOT MATCH THE PUBLICITY AND ATTENTION OUR DEAR CRICKETERS GET.

It's simple as that.No matter how much we criticise them for failing to get past Bangladesh in the World Cup,how much we curse them for concentrating more upon shooting ads rather than on their game,however much we hate every batsman(and bowler) for not scoring a hundred(taking 5 wickets) in each innings,the fact remains that we follow every move of our cricketers,that's why we find so many points for/against them.

Today was that kind of day when you couldnt have written the script better for a cricket match involving India.Settings of The Oval,Indian bowlers drawing first blood by knocking back their top order for nothing,then the recovery,a few run outs and a late cameo by Mascarenhas which saw Yuvi carted for five consecutive sixes off the last five balls of the England innings....
....and then the counter attack by the tried and tested(and also criticised) duo of Sachin and Sourav,both falling in quick succession,then the departure of Dravid and Yuvraj(who took with them our hopes of winning),the cameo by Uthappa and INDIA winning a close match!!!

You'll never realise the emotions attached with this until you've been a part of the celebrations in our hostel t.v. rooms,on the streets,on the famous "chaiwallah's shops" and countless such places.The most introverts of audience were dancing and swirling their shirts above their heads,people hugging each other,Rahul Dravid,the perfect gentleman,pumping up his fists and jumping up and down like a 20-yr old,Yuvraj singh running onto the field and hugging Uthappa for so long that it might have given dirty minds so much "other things" to think...........these scenes underline what cricket means to us.It's religion and it'll always be.
Our heart still misses a beat when an appeal goes up against Sachin......
We still engage in debates regarding where the Indian captain went wrong tactically..
We still turn up the second last pages of newspapers before going through the details of the first page...
We become more nervous than Sachin himself in the nervous ninties...
..
..
..
.. and we'll continue to be like that.Some things will just never change.
Once again..sorry to the people mentioned in the first paragraph.period.

That Kind of Day for India...!!!

2007-09-03T22:49:00.000+05:30

As usual,I've delayed this post but for a change, this time the delay is only for a day.However, this doesnt de-mean the importance of the day for my country.Yesterday was a great day for India.Most of the people's thoughts would be inclined towards the brilliant performance of our cricketers in yesterday's match but hang on, I'm pointing at an event which holds far greater importance than Sourav Ganguly winning the man of the match award to keep India alive in the 7 match Natwest one day series against England.

India launched Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle(GSLV-F04) into space yesterday, from Sriharikota, 100 km from Chennai. Seventeen minutes after its launch, it placed successfully INSAT4CR into orbit and just imagine, it had covered a distance of about 5000 kms in that time!!!
Given the weight of the vehicle was more than 2100 kgs, it would have been quite a task providing it a thrust so that it attains a velcity of 10.2 km per second.
One feels good for the scientists of ISRO, given that their last attempt, on July 10, 2006 failed miserably seconds after the lift off and the vehicle had to be plunged into the Indian Ocean just 56 seconds after its propulsion.
Just to give you an idea of how mammoth this entire task would have been,here's an image of the vehicle, straight from ISRO's site.

ISRO's next challenge is a mission to moon planned in March next year( I'm sure not too many Indians know about it now,sadly) and it's eagerly awaited.

Anyways, the day was made further special by by a senior of mine,who kept her promise of treating me, which was made online some months back.Considering I'd never met her personally till yesterday's treat, it was quite a surprise to find the seriousness with which she kept her words.The details of the meeting/person would be better kept with me so...that's about it.

Today was a gloomy day, in total contrast to yesterday.Bunked all the four first half classes and then the second half got cancelled, giving me more time to kill, starve, chat and yes,am glad to add, study!!!

Sometimes things just dont work out!!!

2007-08-23T20:34:00.000+05:30

So, half the engineering is complete!!!

Never realised that until I returned to college and was being referred to as a "third year student".
Its already the fourth running week of my 5th semester so am somewhat late in publishing this post, but oops..to whom am I offering excuses?(I wonder how many people take the pain of reading blogs but still, am writing for myself, after all, so doesnt matter)
Coming back, a few interesting things have already happened in the brief time that's gone by this sem, with their share of twists and turns...

Planned a trip to St. Mary's Island on 15th Aug(not that I was dying to go there, but am actually sick of making awkward faces when a batchmate asks,"Gee...!!! Not been there even once till now?.. huh.. i think.. as if it was a promotion criteria to third yr...), which eventually turned out to be the seemingly worst time to go there, as the ferry service to the island from Malpe beach is out of service during these monsoon months.
Still, had some sort of enjoyment at Malpe beach itself and I could make out from everyone's face that however hard we tried to enjoy, it just wouldnt work out.Still, after fooling around in water for a while and doing our familiar "chick-surfing" act around the beach(which wasn't too fruitful either), we put an end to the thoughtless splashing in water.... but hey, just recalled, seeing our very own Tiwari trying to learn swimming in water still inspires a dose of laughter....

Anyways, we didnt give up and geared up for yet another "outing" on the saturday that followed, this time it was APS's idea, to watch "chak de india", which he claimed was running at the nearby theatre in Udupi.The same set of people ventured out, followed by a chain of unexpected events..... APS and Omveer missing out on the stop where we were to get off the bus, me, Sagar n Tiwari going to the theatre to find out that some kannada movie was running, our trip to big bazar, getting bored, coming back... to end another day on which things went awfully wrong.

Took a break on the next day, i.e. Sunday but couldn't resist planning a trip to Mangalore the next sunday,4 days ago...for the customary ritual of paying at least one-visit-a -sem to adlabs for the Holy purpose of watching "Chak de..." n yes, this time it was surely running there.With the usual information-gathering on the net, we called up, only to know that 4pm show was sold out and we'll have to plan for the next show 7pm..Sagar took the initiative of calling up that place, booked 4 tickets and then, he wasn't sure of the price(whether it was 70 or 170!!!).
And, to make matters worse, he didnt clarify it over the phone, but broadcast his doubts to us later.
"Oh God.... not another mess up...."--I thought.

Eventually we went there, had our share of fun, watched a good movie after a long time and then took a bus at around 1045pm to Udupi.Things were going fine, got an auto from Udupi to our college and then, just as I was beginning to thank rain gods for showing the mercy of not pouring down heavily upon our 4 umbrella-less selfs, something truly bizzare happened..
We reached the K.C. entrance of our college at 00:05 hrs and the guard refused to let our auto in, stating "the rule" which said no vehicles allowed inside the campus after midnight. After wasting our time in arguing with him, we came out of the auto and then it happened!!!
It began pouring down and we were left with no choice but to wait...
Now I'm a firm believer of the rule,"chances of rain depreciate exponentially with the event of a person carrying an umbrella....and whats worse...the converse of this statement is true!!!"

Attended a seminar a while back by Dr. Raj Rodriguez and he quoted Paulo Coelho's quote," When you dream about something,the entire Universe conspires to get you there".Applying that to my situation, I wonder if the negative of that sentence works out better for me....

That's all for now,as i've got some LAB WORK to do for tomorrow(notice the capital letters if you havent already)

It was inevitable,but.............

2007-05-17T01:54:00.000+05:30

A person like me doesnt update his blog when everything's going fine in life. My posts carry a reflection of joy,anger,pain,relief,guilt,frustration,etc...something which makes my day memorable and which has got some memories, happy or sad...whether one can extract out tht emotion or not is not my headache...

Its 2a.m on 17th may,and i should hv been enjoying the success of my third sessionals by now,but dont feel like doing it.The reason is simple... i was supposed to be sitting and writin my third sessional DEC paper 17 hrs ago,i.e. from 9.15am but I was trying to get over the guilt of having to skip it inspite of having scored 13 and 10 in my previous two tests.... not good enough by any standards.I can always shield this with the excuse of not feeling well for the past week,but then, have always believed that it shouldnt have got to this point in the first place...

You dont need to be a rocket scientist to make out that my life at MIT has been a complete "academic catastrophe" and I've been a lean shadow of what I used to be in yesteryears.Anyways,that's another story....

The day started with relief and tension......of David not having to face the Goliath(DEC) and the Herculian task that lies ahead of me.Being an optimist like me does help in these situations but when you put ur head down and think,one realised that Davids dont slay Goliaths everyday, and I guess i've already had my share of Goliath-hunting.The decision to skip the paper wasnt a tough one,given the hours....err... minutes of effort I'd put in preparing for it and was massively helped by my roomie's suggestion.
Finally,the clock struck 2.45 and I got past my 3rd sessionals!!!Just the end sem exams and then home,sweet home...
As always,the day ends now with an expectant tomorrow,the hope of realising my dreams,the agony of my past deeds, the promise of setting up realistic,optimistic goals and.......the confidence to fulfil it

When will this monotony end???

2007-04-27T15:21:00.000+05:30

Another day is passing by,another plan is ruined,another hope dies...
Its been a while since my last post but thankfully i am back here.
Anyways,the way i've started here shouldnt suprise many if you know me.For those who dont,heres what it means.
If you've been through a journey of life such as mine,then you would identify with those lines easily.From being a brilliant student to an average one to being a below average one,i've defined new levels of mediocrity in recent times when it comes to my academics.And believe me,its not funny when you think of the difference between what I could have easily been and what I am.Every new day starts with a new plan,and the confidence to execute it.And every day finishes with the guilt of wasting one more day,one more opportunity,one more platform to gain something,yes...thats how I see each day and will continue to do so.

Uncountable hours of soul searching,innumerable amount of planning and Herculean confidence ultimately amount to nothing if you are not ready to get your head down and work towards achieving the goal.Its about time I realised this now..
Meanwhile,a lot of things have been happening around me(given the college I'm in,you should be really surprised if something or the other DOESNT happen periodically).Our university fest,Revels'07 concluded yesterday and we've got a holiday today,as has been the culture here.In the last week,I've hardly done anything of note,apart from missing out on the web designing team meeting,losing in our inter branch cricket match and then again in the famous "pitch fever",which is an exciting way of playing cricket on basketball court with indoor rules.

But then,life goes on,it has to!!!If everything in life went the way you plan it,Life would lose its excitement,but there HAS to be a limit to it,i.e. If nothing in life goes the way you plan it,somthing is seriously wrong and the sooner you start searching for the cause,the better.
Anyways,giving up is somthing I've never learnt,so tomorrow will be another day,another dawn,another plan and another hope....

Trip to Varahi Hydel Power Plant:Education and Fun together

2007-04-17T00:25:00.000+05:30

Today was a special day,most of which was consumed by my first visit to and electrical power plant,and what made the experience doubly exciting was that it has been construcated underground,which added to the thrill..
The day began at 8am,at KC,from where we were to leave.It was a pleasant surprise to see the bus finally leaving at 8.20,contrary to the tradation in our country(punctuality is something I really appreciate).But then,if everything goes according to your wish,life would lose its charm,won't it??
Anyways,a few technical glitches kept us in manipal till 9.15 or so and we finally reached the 60-somthing km distant power plant at 10.45.20 mins(and the usual security instructions regarding leaving cellphones outside,etc) later,we found ourselves standing at the main entrance,a 500 m long tunnel staring at our face,with the lights dim enough to frighten you for a moment.Now was the time when the real trip began,and excitement had reached its peak!!!

We were welcomed at the reception desk by more than helpful staff,who were happy to guide us through the map tht was drawn,presenting an overview of the location of the dam,the station and the race line(from which the used water is ejected back to the river).

As it was an industrial visit,its account would be meaningless without the technical details,so here they are:The Varahi Power Plant contains two units,each producing 115MW of electricity,with the turbine speed of 250 rpm.That tells you that it produces 230MW of electricity,which is supplied to the mangalore-varahi and shimoga-varahi power stations,from where it is sold.If tht doesnt sound interesting enough,read this..The estimated cost of a hydel power plant production is around 4-5 crores per MW.Add to it the fact tht its an underground power station,and the cost would be of the order of Rs. 1000 crore!!!

If that much of technical information doesnt bore you,I dont know what will.Anyways,let me try once more...
The entire set up is mounted vertically,with the alternator at the top and the turbine at the bottom,the total height of each plant easily exceeding that of a 4-storeyed building.We were fortunate enough to have access to all the areas of the plant,barring a couple of chambers,which contained open lines carrying voltages of over 400V.The turbines were powered by six nozzles,used to control the flow of water depending upon the required speed desired.The power plant has achieved a power factor in excess of 0.9,which is excellent,by all standards...

If you still havent had enough of technicalities,you SERIOUSLY are reading the wrong author.
Now comes the all important part of the trip..the food..and the big question,"The trip cost each of us Rs 50 but the college authoriteis didnt charge anything for transport,so was the food worth it?"
The answer,in my opinion,would be a big YES.I didnt expect ourselves sitting in the midst of a rocky stream,feet under water,sitting on a rock and enjoying as good a food as you get anywhere else,supplemented surprisingly by cold water and LIME(i realised today itself what an amazing energy drink it can be).We had fun cheating the hod with a few tricks that we students are so proud of owning,interacting with seniors,volunteering for helping out as and where required,etc etc..
Finally we left the river at 2.30pm,stuffed waist to neck with food and fluid,ready to embark on another one and a half hr adventure amidst the curly,mountain roads back to our college..but wait..there was another surprise awaiting us...
The return trip was more fun than the morning one and it was helped by the dozen-odd bananas I had(our hod is a great man indeed!!!) and the odd ice cream...
All in all,an amazing trip,just the right mix of food,fun and learning.Those who missed out for whatever reasons were really unfortunate.

That was not all the fun I had in the day.All the tired muscles were relaxed by a two hr sleep and refreshed by dinner,from where we straightaway went to the all time favourite sports of ours,night cricket at basketball court,where we won a close game.

This rounds off a perfect day,but would have loved to add at least an hr and a half of studies to that...
anyways,its already 1.02am on the 17th of april and I expect myself to be in class seven hours later,so have to stop here...