wtf facts

1. Rafa's outta French Open. Well thats what happens when you concentrate on making a stupid fashion statement by wearing a pink shirt with yellow headband! Federer, here's your chance to complete your career slam. Do it now or don't bother showing up in Paris again..
2. Bappi Lahiri is 7UP's brand ambassador. Come on now, give me a break! Wasn't 7UP supposed to be all cool and happening with that Fido guy as its mascot?Come to think of it, where the hell did Fido, or whatever his name was, vanish?
3. ohk I had in mind to post 3, but the 3rd one has jus slipped outta my mind. Who cares, 2 it is!!

French Open (?)

Ohk, I am totally wasted.. i have got nothing better to do than wonder as to what should I do... so well, I thought why not do a crappy post instead, you know the one where you don't have anything to actually wirte about but you still write. Well yeah, that's the sort of post this is. So you have been warned and if you continue to read, well, what can i say for you, except that perhaps, just perhaps, you are more wasted than me. No, not perhaps, you definitely are more wasted than me ;)

You know I have been following quite a bit of French Open since I don't have anything better to do and there's a limit to the number of good movies that HBO and Z-Studio can show in a day. Star Movies well is a different story alltogether. It seems to make new records of showing most number of crappy movies in a day. And it betters its record every single day!!

But let's not digress. French Open! Hmmm, well was watching Nadal's match and all that i could notice was his outfit. Gone were his trademark three-quarter shorts and his sleeveless tee. And what were they replaced with? Well if you don't know yet, please don't read further! It;s horrifying to say the least. A bright pink tee and a yellow headband!! Bright pinka nd yellow!! Seriously? Come on now, if he needed to be more colourful he could have gone in for the graceful and tradional Spanish colours: red and yellow. But no.. he had to make a statement.. and well he did make one.. but of all the wrong sorts.

Anyway, let's move on to something more sesible. Yeah I can't do a toal crappy post. Somehow I lack that talent. Having had a look at most of the leading players a few things are certain. Well almost certain. After all, barring death, what else is certain :)

Ana Ivanovic is not going to be able to defend her title. In fact I would be surprised if she makes it to the semis. Safina on the other hand is looking quite good for her maiden French Open title. On the men's side, it seems Federer's search for a career rand slam ain't gonna be over anytime soon. In fact I'll be bold enough to say that he won't even make the finals this year. And well, Sharapova, making her comeback after a long injury lay-off is as expected struggling. But she has shown some fight. And she is still in there, slogging it out and looking good for some more.

Till the next post, or death due to boredom, whichever is first.. :)

Crap

This is going to be a crappy post. So readers, beware!!

I wanted to do something on the tradition of April the 1st being celebrated as the Fool's Day. But as it happens am too tired to do a proper post. And so am just gonna list down some random things...

These are the wrappers lying around in my half of the room (all of which have been consumed by yours truly over the last couple of months or so)

Britannia Bourbon cream (my childhood favourite.. :) )

Rasna fruitplus (lemon flavour!!)

Classic Elaichi cream

Lays Classic Salted

Sunfeast Dark Fantasy (love these!! an absolute delight!! )

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Dairy Milk fruit and nuts!!

Five star

Five star crunchy

Five start fruit and nuts!!

Monaco (now where did this come from :O)

Sunfeast Bourbon cream

Seven Up bottle

Coke bottle

An empty Real Juice 1L pack (I seriously need to clean my room!! )

Some loacl brand namkeen

Kit Kat

Thums Up bottle

Lots of Himalya Koflet wrappers

Small wrappers in which the beasn ke ladoos I brought from home were wrapped

ohk there's a lot more crap lying around my room but am bored of writing about it!! Blaaaahhhh!!

Insomnia

Over the last few days I haven't been able to sleep for more than 6 hours at a stretch. My schedule has gone for a toss and while that isn't such a big deal it's the lack of a long sleep that's freaking me out. Hell, it's downright scary!!

Of Food and Faculty

It's not often that you get to know the blokes who teach you outside the classrooms. More often than not, our interactions are just limited to the classrooms. I have been quite lucky in this respect that I have got to interact with a couple of faculty members outside the classroom environment over the last three and a half years. But what happened a couple of nights ago ws truly amazing. All of us sitting in the cafeteria, it being our last such get-together. A number of us were leaving for home the next day, and more importantly Sobu wasn't returning to college. He had been offered an internship at Qualcomm and would be in Hyderabad for the next semester. Anyways, lets not digress from the topic. So yeah, there we were sitting in the cafetaria talking from anything to everything under the sun when Manu, the guy who runs the cafe at night joined us. And well, he had some insight to offer on the food habits of our faculty members...

prof. shiv

A pretty fixed lunch... generally includes a daal, bhindi and jeera aloo.. just 2 chapatis (surprise surprise!!).. and lots of green salad... and yeah a strong coffee to top it off...

prof. mathuria

A daal a day is the motto for him... 30 days-30 daals... no deviation whatsoever... gets his veggies from home only..

prof. srivastava

Never eats in campus.. always goes home...

prof. banerjee

Well well... yeh to subah ka doodh bhi brajwasi se hi lene aate hain.. so u can guess ki khane ka to kya haal hoga.. no wonder raat ko bhi cafeteria mein hi dikhte hai... apparently, mrs. banerjee, doesn't like to cook..

Next we asked Manu kis sabse zyada kaun khata hai.. and well.. the list wasn't surprising at all...

pk chopra, prof. anil roy, kumbar....

prof. sinha (Daddu) and prof. Jotwani were among the rare eaters... while rest everybody was almost a regular..

I wonder what happens next, now that brajwasi has finally decided to close its shop...

Diwali..

Hmmm.. so finally the day is over. And with it ends my first Diwali away from home. It was a day of firsts. My first Diwali away from my parents; my first Diwali outside Jaipur; my first Diwali in the hostel....

It was interesting to say the least. The day started like no other Diwali. Usually am woken up relatively early and have to take my bath and get ready and everything. This time round it was different. I was still sleeping when my parents gave me a call at 3 in the afternoon ;P

After watching the latest episode of Heroes and cursing over the non availability of those of PB and HIMYM, I decided that it was time that I went and had a bath. After all you can't afford not having a bath on the day of a major festival... ( ab itna gaya guzra bhi nahin hun main :P... vaise another secret.. the bath would have probably been delayed even more, had it not been for the fact ki hostels mein garam pani nahi hai... :X .. aur mujhe beemar hone ka koi shauk nahi )

Anyways, Sobu and I had decided that we would go to CCD... Server was asleep, and after contemplating for a while, both of us decided that it was best that he be allowed to rest, lest the Server become unstable and start querying everyone in sight ;P ( something worth mentioning here... yours truly had, the day before, observed signs of instability and heightened activity when Server started querying about Sobu in the bathroom... not the washroom.. but the lil cubicles with a shower and 2 taps in it :P )

Anyways.. coll se nikalte hue, the two of us saw a banner advertising the opening of The Chocolate Room at Infocity... u r tempted, isn't it.. well so were we... after gorging upon the delicacies at CCD, we decided to look for it... we went as far as CP... but our efforts were in vain... sala mil hi nahi raha tha... thinking that it was probably towards the offices, we decided to turn back.. (G ne beech mein phone aur sms pe Sobu ko garyana shuru kar diya tha.. :P) And lo.. there was the Chocolate Room, right beside CCD... Sobu had an interesting observation to make.. ' bekaar marketing and placement strategy... jab hum dhundne nikle the, tab nahi dikha, to logon ko vaise kaise dikhega...' hmmm.. i wonder....

By the time we returned, it was time to light the firecrackers... That was a lot of fun.. As expected not everyone got hold of the firecrackers.. and the admin got quite a bit of verbal stick for giving us sub standard crackers... a pleasant surprise was that like me, there were quite a few who voluntarily said No to crackers... yeye... We going Green.. :)

Now we come to the most interesting part of the day... After playing cards for a while, we decided that it was time to hit the roads and check out the Diwali decorations ( Infocity had already disappointed us by the lack of the same). I had bugged Sobu enough about the magnificent illumination back home... We managed to obtain a Kinetic and began our journey... Our initial plans of going to Ahmedabad were put to rest by the mileage of the vehicle... So we decided to hit the capital city itself... Considering that it houses quite a few govt. offices, there were enough reasons to expect it to be well decorated... but man.. we were in for a surprise... there was hardly any decoration and illumination! You had to see it to believe the lack of it... We hit one sector after another... 11, 16, 24, 21... but the result was the same... no decoration! Even the main market of Sector 21 was without any decoration. In fact the most decorated places were the petrol pumps!! The brilliantly decorated images of Joahri and Bapu Bazaar back home flash in my mind... It was such a shock that it has got me wondering if Diwali is indeed the Festival of Lights...


We still could afford to travel quite a few kilometers, so we decided to hit City Pulse... Bhains auntie had once told me that the City Pulse vala road ends in a broken bridge or something which is quite a spot... so well we decided to check that out.... we kept on going.. par no broken bridge was in sight... finally we came upon a semi haunted temple... ;P ... seemed like a palce worth checking out sometime... we had encountered an auto on our way and it had told us ki twas just a village ahead... maybe Bhains aunite had meant some other road... maybe Bridge ke upar road ban gayi ho.. who knows... but yeah... we discovered a new place... that semi haunted temple... and how can i forget... we also came across one of the few decorated buildings.. a radhaswamy ashram :)... did u know that a such a place existed in our vicinity? i didn't!

We decided to head back towards college... On our way back we came across the Swaminarayan temple and it too was decently decorated... We were planning to hit Shrey Ashram next when it happened... the kinetic wobbled a bit... i felt something was wrong with the front tyre... Sobu got down to examine... he decalred the tyre to be hit... but alas! everything can;t be so perfect.. something had to be wrong... and it was... I was right about something being wrong with the tyre.. the only thing was that it was the rear one... :S

Well the next phase of the journey involved Sobu and I taking turns to drag the Kinetic back to the college... Thankfully it happened just around a kilometer away from the campus.... And that brings an end to the tale of my first Diwali away from home... one of the more interesting ones to say the least... but yeah.. i missed the decorations...

In the pipeline...

I have been meaning to write upon these for quite some time now, but somehow it just keeps getting delayed. I guess putting it out there in front of my loyal readership would goad me into writing at least some, if not all of them. So here's the list..

• Synapse: This one should have been written a long time back. I have learnt a lot from it and some of my happiest memories relate to Synapse. Quite committed to writing it.. :)

• The Chosen One: This would be a piece on Sachin Tendulkar. Since I have to in any case write it for Entelechy, so I guess this too would be done!

• The Date with Destiny: Most of my loyal readership already knows the story. But just for the sake of the writer in me, would write it...

• Hmmm... dunno wat else ! ;P
  

Answering that Tag...

Once upon a time there lived a guy called Lanky ( i guess he's still alive! ;) ). When the world was young and the Sun shone bright he tagged Piper who dutifully accepted it. Piper in turn tagged me, but then I wasn't seen in blogosphere for a looonnnnnnnnngggg time. Now that I am back, and have nothing else to do, I will accept that tag and give my 2 cents to whatever crap is being talked about.. :)

Last movie seen in theatre: Dark Knight... simply awesome... Nolan rules!!

Book being read: Not in our genes by R.C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin; Yuganta by Irawati Karve.

Favourite Board Game: snakes and ladders, known as sanp seedhi in local dialect. Ludo is a close second followed by chess, a distant third.

Favourite magazine: Reader's Digest.

Favourite smells: the aroma originating from mom's kitchen and that of fresh rain.

Favourite sounds: Ummm.. Ummm... Can't think of any!!

What is the first thing you think when you wake up: What is it time to get up already?

Worst feeling in the world: Not being able to cry when you really want to...

Favourite fast food place: a lounge called mr. beans in Jaipur. Among the internationally renowned ones, McD...

Future child's name: know what Piper? you aren't the only silly one around! And no am not answering this..

Finish this statement, “If I had a lot of money I’d.. spend it!!

Do you drive fast? yeah..

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal nope... never have in fact.

Storms- cool or scary? cool...

Do you eat the stems on broccoli? huh? what was that..?

If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice? hmm i guess auburn..

All towns/cities you have lived in jaipur and gandhinagar. Want to experience Pune and Blore at least!!

Favourite Sport to watch: Cricket!!! And not only T20.. ODIs... test matches.. anything would do... God bless Star ppl for coming up with Star Cricket!!

One nice thing about the person who sent this to you I don lie on my blog :P

What’s under your bed? broken slippers, discarded shoes, some wrappers and lot of dirt.

Would you like to be born as yourself again? yeah..

Morning person or night owl? is morning the time when the sky starts brightening just before I go to sleep?

Over easy or sunny side up? yeah angrezon vaale sawaal puchna band karo...

Favourite place to relax: my living room..

Favourite pie: Again my predicament is like Piper's.. aware only of chocolate pie.. so by default that's the facourite..

Favourite Ice Cream: Butterscotch and choco-chips... love them!

Ahh.. the bad thing about accepting a tag so late in the day is that almost everyone you know has already been tagged... Hmmm.. Wait I guess Chadda is left!!! So here it goes.. I pass on the tag to Chadda!! :satan:

All You Need is Perspective

Over the last few days, had a couple of conversations with people who were similar to one another, yet so different. Its keeping those conversations in backgorund that I put forth my take on the things that one takes for grnated in life, or in other words one's outlook towards life.

Ohk so before me move further, lets get some things clarified. The focus group, for the want of a better term, of this post is that of Indian students in their late teens and early twenties. The views that follow are mine, though as metnioned above, are influenced by my recent experiences. And finally, if you think you disagree, you are most welcome to share your thoughts.

Life is a journey, and during this journey we travel along a road that's unique for each one of us. The places that this road take us to are to an extent in our hands, for it can not be denied that we make our own destiny. However more often than not, the people who shape their own destiny are far outnumbered by those who are just happy to trudge along the road. They wander aimlessly on this road of life. During this journey called life, we experience a lot of things, some good some not so good. All is hunky dory as long as the experiences are good, but the real test comes when things aren't to our liking, when the going is tough. Its then that the true nature of individuals and indeed a society is revealed.

Lets consider a scenario. Most of us fail in one thing or the other. And its through these failures that we learn and indeed succeed in due course of time. Had everything been like this, life would have been so simple. Alas, it isn't so simple. No matter how successful we are, no matter what our accompalishments be, we'll find excuses to crib about things. 'Man I am such a loser, I didn't make it to the IIMs' , 'I have not been granted schloarship from MIT, i have failed my parents' are some of the common utterances of today's youth. Be it academic failure or heartbreak in a relationship, we tend to think of ourselves as the worst off person in the world. So much so that we aren't ready to listen when somebody tries to show us that all's not lost and life still has meaning. Its then that we really need to reflect and decide, are we really in such a pathetic condition? I think not.

In pursuit of materialistic goals we have neglected things that really matter in life, things that we take for granted. The next time you start to say that life couldn't be worse, pause for a moment and think, is my life in such shambles, that no matter what happens, my condition can't get any worse? If your answer is yes, then you need a reality check.

When was the last you acknowledged your family's support and indeed felt secure knowing that no matter what happens, my parents would always be there for me? Now think of all those millions who do not have families or whose parents don't love them. When you pray next, say thanks to God for your family.

Money is another factor that makes us crib a lot. It deosn't matter if we are wearing branded clothes, sporting a new cell phone and driving a fast bike. If there is something that we want but don't have money for, we'll crib. The next time you complain about something similar think of all those who don't have enough money to feed their families.

I don't want to sound all philosophical and say that since we are better than a lot of people we shouldn't be ambitious. No that's not the point. Being ambitious is a good thing but its also necessary to realize that these things are not the end of the world. Failure in an examination doesn't make you a total loser. As long as you are learning from you past mistakes, its enough.

Sometimes all what's needed is to put things in perspective.

Time!

The insems got over today. In what has almost become a ritual, I went for an haircut. While I was waiting for my turn, I thought of something and decided that it would make for good blogging material.

Alas! By the time I had returned back to college, my brain's scheduling algorithm had already scheduled other priority items (yeah guys I had my CNS paper today :S ). And then as i log into orkut, what do i see? Things are not going well for the eternal blogger, Sid too! Frustrated by the low turnout and cliched title of his blog, he has decided to rename it!

Anyways this post wasn't meant to discuss all this stuff. I just wanted to let everybody know that i still like to blog. its just that a combination of factors make it quite difficult, not least of them is the ever decreasing speed of the internet.

Well for anybody who has happened to read this crap, don't worry am coming out with crappier stuff soon!

Is this me???

Up at 8 in the morning and studying...lol.. wats happening to me :O

Herbie...

Hmmm.... A post after a long long time! Feels really good to be posting something after such a gap. And what a post this is going to be! Man have been driving a car for more than 5 years now... and what happened yesterday has never happened to me...never! It was the creepiest thing that i have ever experienced. And what with recently seen Lindsay Lohan in action in Herbie, the memories came flooding back to me.

Ohk let me start from the beginning. The month of july brings with it a surge of marriages and assorted ceremonies in north India. The occasion was my neighbour's engagement and I had gone to attend the ceremony with my bua (read forced to go). The venue wasnt far from my place, just a couple of klicks. while going there nothing happened. It was an ordinary car ride.

The fun began on the retrun leg. For the past few weeks there's been some problem wid ma car. it wont start unless given a choke. As i started the car, i felt something was different. The engine was groaning rather than purring. I thought maybe i had accidently pressed the gas pedal too far, so i reduced the pressure a bit but nothing happened. Puzzled I removed my foot entirely form the accelerator, but still the sound didn't stop. I decided to mull over it later and put the car in gear. And Hey Presto! As i released the clutch, the car started moving, even though i hadn't stepped on to the gas. I thought it was coz of some slope in the road. but when the speedometer conintued to inch upwards on a straight road, with my foot firmly staying away from the gas, I was amused. I thought maybe the pineapple juice that i had consumed rather lavishly was taking its toll on me :P! But in front of my own eyes the speedometer kept moving upwards... from 30 to 40 to 45. At one point it even touched 60! The entire journey i drove only using the break; acceleration was taken care of automatically!

Had I been alone i would have thought I had hallucinated the enitre thing, but my bua was there to confirm the incident. Maybe my car finally got tired of me and decided to pull a Herbie on me! Who knows...

Can't Think of Any!

How do u feel when u r pissed off? well thats how am feeling right now!!! Don't ask me why; for I can't tell u... and i have a gut feeling am gonna feel like this a lotta times in the coming few months...well I hop to God am wrong...coz frankly speaking it aint a good feeling...when u r frustrated, but u can't tell anybody; when u want to do something and some mere mortals come up with the most unexpected excuses n hindrances...trust me u wont like being in this position...

Void

Hmmm i don't know how to put it... but ever since NATCONG 07, something has changed... I am not able to pinpoint it but something is definitely not the same... I don't feel that comfortable sitting and doing nothing... the college activities seem even more mundane than they used to be... i want to be constantly subjected to challenging environment, an environment which tests me and my capabilities... there's a void... a void which I somehow do not know how to fill...i guess that's it... I am not sure as to what i want to say more...
adios!

Thoughts

Thoughts...everyone has thoughts and I am no exception. Thoughts keep comin and going, its like an infinite loop; thoughts enter your mind, you muse over them for a while and then they exit, but not without creating some mischief. These swirling thoughts would sometimes leave you full of pleasure, and you'll feel as if you own the world. But more often than not they will leave you in a strange state. Now strange state is itself a a strange term to describe that state and this is the state I am in right now. Would I call it anxiety, perhaps no; worried no again; confused, another no! Its just that kind of a feeling when you don't really understand what's happening to you and if you do know that you have no idea as to why its happening to you!
Lost in this labyrinth of thoughts, one has to search for that guiding beacon which would help us emerge from this swirling mist. And that's exactly what I'm doing now. My present condition is one in which I for the first time am finding it tough to make a decision. For i know that whatever decision I make now will decide the course of my life for the few years at least. It may even define the course of my life but am not sure whether that's the case or not; and one should never make the folly of trying to look into the depths of future.
At this point, I'm truly alone. I have no one to and seek guidance from. My parents have since the beginning left all decisions to me. It was my decision to not to drop an year, it was my decision to choose this college and it has been my decisions that has brought me to this point. So why trouble them unnecessarily and besides I'm sure they won't be able to grasp the true sense of the situation, not that I doubt their ability; its just not their cup of tea. Now you would say what are friends for? Indeed thats what they are for! But whom would I ask; the guy whose opinion I respect the most is himself facing a dillemna, and I have neither the inclination nor the patience to explain my condition to those "wise people".
Under normal circumstances I would have taken up a good book and read myself to sleep and during the sleep a solution would magically appear. (not kiddin! it really works for me!)However as luck would have it I'm out of decent books right now so I did the next best thing: I just poured my heart out.Let's see if it works...

Insems!

Well finally the ordeal is over! The 3 days, when the entire student community heads to the RC is now a thing of the past. (At least for the next month!) Well newys I am not writing this to discuss how the insems were or how badly I fared in them. It’s something much more than that.

Let me go into flashback. A few years earlier in Jaipur. There’s this guy called Rohit studying in arguably the best school of the city. Well teachers are almost sure they have found the next genius, for you name it and the guy knows it. 5 time inter-house quiz champion, winner of various inter-school competitions. Period. Ok now, this wasn’t my pitch for trying to impress my non-existent girl friend. What it actually was an image, an image of myself, that I found staring back at me when I look down the portals of history.

And then there’s something else too; a question mark! A question mark as to what I have become, what have I done with my life and what is my future? What has happened to transform that studious guy into what I am today?

Well any ways I was discussing the insems that have just got over. After coming to the college, this was the first time that I felt that what I was doing wasn’t right. This doesn’t mean that I am going to revert back to that studious guy personality again nope dats not an alternative! However from these exams I learnt a lesson! I am not utilizing my potential! I don’t know whether joining AIESEC has to do something with it or not, but I feel that I have been wasting my time and now I want to make up for that. I wish to utilize every moment of my stay in this college. For at the end of the next three years, I wish to have a decent pointer, an excellent general awareness, a successful college magazine and an AIESEC legacy behind me! I know the road that lies in front of me is tough; in fact I don’t even know if there’s a road in front of me or not! But then whatever the case maybe, I’ll give myself a fair chance, I’ll do everything possible to achieve my aims. Amen!

Life....

We all live, we all have a life. Now this statement may sound very ridiculous to you for it was meant to be ridiculous! On a more serious note, we live our entire lives, grossly engrossed in our day to day activities. But have we ever wondered what life is? If I were to ask you all, "What life is?" how many of you would have been able to answer it without floundering in the oceans of uncertainty? Being honest with you, even I wasn't able to do it at some point in the past few days and that's what gave me the inspiration to write this piece.

I tried to find a word which would describe this beautiful gift from God in a manner befitting it. Unfathomable, a journey, a mystery were some of the words which crossed my mind when I tried to answer this query; but none of them brings out the "Essence of Life" in its truest sense. After having thought about it for a while, I feel that life can be best described as an ocean. Ocean yes, that's the word which I feel completely defines and describes the strange and yet, wonderful phenomenon, better known as life.

Life is deep like an ocean, beholding a lot of unknown, for explorers and adventure-seekers, its full share of treasures and for forgoers its simply a huge mass of water. Like an ocean, life is sometimes peaceful and sometimes full of storms. Sometimes it may seem beautiful, at others times, terrifying. As an ocean changes the maps, sometimes creating new lands and sometimes engulfing them, life too changes the fate of a person, making him or ruining him in its course.

I guess I have written enough crap to bore you all and drive you crazy, so I would stop now. Please feel free to write any alternate way of describing life ... After all many a philosophers have tried to describe this strange entity. But isn't Life just too complex to be comprehended in its entirety?