Looking ahead......

I just finished writing my manifesto for the post of sports secretary. oh no, dont say that i am unanimous (which i am by the way),because there is a contest and that is between me and ........ME! this might sound very wierd but it is true. i realized this today evening while having a conversation with my wingmates that , because i got this on a platter, without me making a ounce of effort to get it, i might just let myself get drifted with the wind.

This has not been a very pleasant year as far as my sports is concerned. whether it be losses or injuries, i seemed to be doing the wrong things at precisley the wrong times! anyways no point looking back now and brooding over the spilt LASSI(ya i hate milk!), so lets move ahead and take a sneak peek at what lies in the future of dhanian and ganga...
hmmm....I see..... very vaguely though.....

• Ganga celebrating a comprehensive schroeter victory!( that would be very nice!)
  

• a gold at inter IIT in the far east(please god please!!)

and the rest of the picture seems distorted.....cant read anymore.....

sport rarely teaches you nothing and all through the losses and broken bones(exaggerating ...I know!) i have realized that you are always a winner ,irrespective of which side you are on!

ahem! just to let y0u all know that I also, through my XTRA sensitive, high end futuroscope see the letters "L I T S O C" being associated with GANGA.....wonder what that could mean.......... anybody???

(DISCLAIMER: this is very emotionally charged piece, so pregnant women and young children are adivsed not to read it!!! )
"Pain excites me."."
these are the words a man who has stared death in the face and come back to conquer the world. Yupp , the texas born Lance armstrong is the guy i am referring to. last semseter , when i had to make a presentation on a personality, i chose armstrong and since then he has been my role model in my life. a week ago , a friend of mine gave me his autobiography to read ,knowing very well that i would instantly love the book! the book captured my imagination, and gripped me completely. At certain stages in the book when Lance describes the his fight to survive, i actually had goosebumps! the sheer nakedness with which he describes the pain and the suffering and also the ecstasy he experiences with every single victory, both, in life and on the cycling track. Many people think that Lance never gave up through the course of his tussle with cancer, but this not true. He was so distraught with life that he was satisfied with becoming a burger eating house husband who would play golf on weekends. This was natural, and expected of anybody who has just miraculously survived death( he was given a less than 50% chance of survival , but in reality the situation was much worse and Lance was informed later about it.)
But, Lance was no ordinary guy. Ya he felt lost, but when he was made to realise that he survived and he had life to live, he came back much stronger and became more mature. From being at the bottom of the cycling world , it took him less than 2 years to regain the number one spot in cycling. But that was not enough for him, because , he yet could not convince himself and the world that he had recovered completely. the Tour de France, became his ultimate goal in life. the race is one of the most gruelling sporting events in the world,and it tests you both mentally and physically.
Well the rest is history and so i shall say no more.
on sunday night when mark boucher hit brett lee to the fence and South Africa had achieved the unthinkable, it just made me a stronger believer in Lance 's motto in life:NEVER QUIT!

VETTY WED

Written below is a concised report of a certain evening in the life of DH(ya thats my new nick....courtsey strong tam boy!)there is purpose behind my posting this on the blog, which i have mentioned at the end of the report. So here goes...(pardon me for typos)
well , sometime in life a kind a vacuum sets in , which leaves you lost for thoughts to ponder over , actions to do and in such cases , nothing makes sense !!! last night was one such night...It began with me coming back from a marathon playing session that included one of the best goals which i have scored in my life(goal no.3673..ya i have maintained a record of every time the ball hits the back of the net!!!) .Fast forward and i found myself at dhaba,along with a bunch of my hostelmates, waiting for food to arrive and staring at my phone, as if expecting a call or something!
Scene shifted to hostel an hour later, and to 255 where we got into one our usual election related conversations, and the whole talk drfited from there to other very mundane issues(like the "false " claim of bale in a paper..for details refer to his blog!) By this stage i was extremely aware of what i was doing....I was filling the VACUUM!
Thanks to the comp troubleshooter aka anush maadher, i was able to successfully upload my picture onto my blog...which prompted me to motivate him to stand for the post of technical affairs secretary.
Soon, i had a visitor to my room, the one and only Jha. This guy always seems to have noble intentions and desires, but somehow fails to live up to them.(No offence meant to Jha, after all how many of us actually have desireS???)He was here for "business" reasons.Suddenly something within me wanted to laugh all the way through the night .... so in comes duck into the picture. He had just lost one of his "limbs"; Yes, duck, like most IITians has six limbs: 4 natural ones and a mobile phone and GOOGLE talk! Our man had for some reason lost the G limb, so he was all paranoid, and was in one of his cranky states. He comes to my room, and when i offer the choice of which movie to watch , he comes up with K3G!!!
So we watched K3G, ( bale entered the party soon enough and suprisingly was game for K3G!!) the stereotypical SRK blockbuster, which takes you supposedly, through a range of emotions; anger, betrayal, happiness, and yes! celebration.The three of us having watched it decided to look at it from a different perspective : a critic s opinion of the whole drama. Well, half an hour into the movie, the three of us could bear no more and decided to call it quits.... in hindsight, a very wise decision. The only thing which kept me watching it for half an hour was the absolutely astounding performance of Kajol as the country dilliwali.
It was 12:30 then....It is 01:30 now.
CONCLUSION:
buoy! does it take time to write a blog or what!

thats me!

hey thats me me and more of me!

Huff...puff...huff...
(P.S: The opinions reflected in the post might be seen as offensive to some, so reader discretion is advised!!!)
The smell of fags heavy in the air.... open skies .... five people( extremely hungry!!!) wait with baited breath for the guy from the kitchen to get their burgers!!!!
Yes, this was the scene at the burger joint where we had dinner today. We were surrounded by "Tam brams" who were smoking their lives away, reflecting on the day that had gone by,and probably looking ahead to their day ahead. While i waited for my Italian burger( pretty cheeesy stuff, i must say!!), one amongst us raised the question : why do people fag? there was a moment of silence, and then..... the burgers arrived!!!! The next twenty odd minutes saw noone speak. Everyone was busy filling their tummies, and so the question was never answered. So , when i ask myself now , i still dont have a definitive answer. What is it that makes a person a light a cylinder of 120 mm length and 10 mm diameter and breathe the smoke that emanates from it?

They say its an addiction, but the addiction is only once you start it. everyone knows its sideeffects. When one smokes, one is not only eating away at one's lives , but is also reducing the lifespan of the bystander. The industry might be a very profitable one both in terms of size and revenue, but sometimes you got to think away from the economics and think of welfare of society while making decisions(YES....economics quiz was today...). The Suprising part is that majority of the people who smoke are educated and are well aware of the consequences of their actions. Yet , they seem to behave apathetic to the situation. Its as if they are at the mercy of the fag . In the remaining world smoking is getting branded a taboo, while in India quite the reverse seems to be happening. The young , with a sudden influx of wealth (thanks primarily to the outsourcing bubble!!), have their pockets full , and are looking for avenues to spend. Smoking to them seems to be the right way to go, beacause:
- its a long term investment..... meaning you will have a monthly amount for it, which keeps increasing.... as you get addicted....the only difference being that the premium is taken at the end - with your life!!!!
- smoking makes you thin and slim....now you can eat more junk food,if and when you get time from your beloved partner--the sutta!!!
- Your friends suddenly seem to take notice of your actions...what you do and how you do them....(although there might be some who would stay away from you....then the next point is for you)
- You need no company of anyone else, You and your sutta are enough.... everything becomes secondary in life !!!!!!!

Its a pitiful situation, that the youth(15-40;forming two thirds of our population;) is being drawn by the bud. The fire is burning, and if it is not put out soon , there might be only ash left to collect!!!!!


"A cigarette is a pipe with a fire at one end and a fool at the other"

A collection of my thoughts

Last Saturday i saw the hindi version of the movie " Paint it Yellow". A light hearted ,yet with deeper message, the movie was a completely miscible mixture( ...just back from a quiz..so pardon me for your using phase equilibria jargon..)of all the various sterotypical themes one notices in cinema nowadays. A overall well compiled product, which leaves you humming its music for a long time to come.The songs of the movie was well slotted and the music was upto what we have come to expect of A.R Rehman-- stupendous!!

There was plenty of cricket action to take note of this week. Well it all began with the pounding that Sri Lanka got at the hands of "Punter" and a certain bloke named Andrew Symonds!!!
It was a show of strength from the world s best cricket team on why exactly they are number one.
Having lost the first final, the pressure was on the men from down under, and to say that they beat Sri Lanka would be an understatement! After all, its not often that you see Muralitharan going for a 100 runs in 10 overs!
While this was going on down south, up north, Team India clawed its way back to beat the Pakis and regain some pride after humiliation in the test matches. As usual , the bombay bomber was among the runs, although Mohammad Asif had him dancing in his crease on more than one instance!!
And I almost forgot , we had our quizzes this week, so that kept me occupied the most of the time!! They will go on till the coming tuesday, so i am wondering what to do after that....
any ideas?

like they say...
"An idea can change your life"

"People are talking too much"

These are the exact words which a friend o f mine mentioned to me last night, which got me into writing this blog. All of a sudden the world seems to have become a smaller place, and information arbitrage is to "blame" for it. Yes, agreed that it is good that people can access information from anywhere and at anytime of the day, but there is also negative repurcussion to this phenomena.
This sudden surge in information accessibility has led to people to think that they can beat the experts in different fields at their game. What people dont realize is that whatever they know is only the superficial aspects, and at the end of the day it is best to take the word of the expert in that field before jumping to any conclusions.After all, A engineer can't claim to be a doctor just by reading all the medical pages that Wikipedia has to offer!!!
There is also another dimension to this information super highway that we find ourselves travelling on. Most of us have this urge to be always stay connected to the world, whether it be through Google talk, Yahoo messenger, or through mobile phones. People behave as though they are handicapped when they are not "logged on". Also , since all these means of communications are well within the reach of the common man, its become an integral part of our daily routines to spend certain amount of time in using these softwares. After all, it is cheap and in some cases free !!!
Free SMS; one of the biggest and most popular market strategies of the mobile revolution, it has become second nature to most of us. The idea of SMS is a very appealing; You are able to share informtion without having to getting a instant reaction from the other side, and when it is free, the urge to sms is irresistable!!! It has sort of become a timepass for most of us to message when we get bored or are lost for ideas. Its as though, we are using the service because it is available and more importantly it is free!!
Ya its true, the world is shrinking by the minute...... but lets just hope that there is still some space left for each one of us to live and breathe fresh air!!


"The next best thing to knowing something is to know where to find it."

"lets have chocolate crunch da"


one most difficult things to decide when goes to a place like Planet Yum is......
"what do i eat today?"
A couple of my friends are in a similar situation here!!!
seeing the picture a question comes to mind .....
who is going to make the decision?
i guess everyone who was there then knows who actually made the decision...
think think....

annoying thing --- crazy frog ---- captured!!!

finally we have succeeded!!! the most funfilled and exciting frog has been captured on camera.
well i was reading this book by tom friedman and in it he mentions a very important fact....
"printing made us all readers. xerox made us all publishers.television made us all viewers. digitisation makes us all broadcasters."
what i am doing now is evidence to the above statement.

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE....

ahhh!!! i see its been a long time since i blogged... so here goes. Well, today is yet another one of those days where i have no idea of what i want to do. at my head is absolutley blank!!
my "ornament" on my left thumb is still on. Tomorrow is when i might find out when it can come off. i have learnt a lot of things during these past few weeks about my right handed abilities, and i am happy to say that i am not as bad as thought i was with it.
Our semester is not particularly interesting as i was hoping it would be. I have made a few "discoveries" duirng the course of the evenings when under normal circumstances i would have been on the field sweating it out.
yesterday night was a lot of fun!! okay we( we referring to naresh, ducky and self) didnt booze... nor did we go places..
so what did we do?
Well, it all started when i buzzed ducky to ask him if he was interested to make the coffee trip to gurunath... and the rest as they say is history!!! naresh joined us and so did one other friend of mine( you know who!!!). the four of us camped at gurunath for the next two hours or so discussing anything and everything under the sun!! it was clearly evident to all witness at gurunath at that time that the four of us were totally jobless. Soon the scene shifted to 263 ganga where the fun and frolic continued,with spanky and wiper making guest appearances duirng the course of the next hour or so. by the end of it all, my jaw was so tired of laughing that it actually started hurting!!!
it might not seem a whole lot of fun to those who are reading this, but trust me when i say it was!!
suprisingly enough, i was paying attention in every single class today. now , is that just coincindence or what?
5 days to go to SAARANG.... and god knows how many days before i can get back on the field again....

The hidden side of everything...
okay.. This is the last blog from the chill and cold of northIndia...(thank god for that!!) Soon i will be back in chennai , the sweat, the humidity the huzzle buzzle of college life...ahh aahh what a pleasant thought...
i had a great december , despite the fact that i broke my thumb, and we lost at Roorkee(refer to my previous blogs for details..).I travelled a lot during the last month, met a lot of old friends and cousins during the course of my travels.
My brother gave me a book called "freakonomics". It is not that typical economist book, which will explain to you why america is the biggest superepower in the world and how India and China are catching up fast. It tells you how abortions in the 70's and 80's were responsible for drop in crime rates in america during the 90's.Sounds interesting ? you bet it is...
Dont worry, it tells you much more than than that. For instance, you are informed about what crack is, how it is prepared, and why it is more popular, both amongst customers and suppliers.
Stephen levitt(the author for all you who didnt know), gives us an insight into how a drug gang organises itself,and amazingly enough, you will find that it is quite similar to how McDonald's is structured!!
a must read for all!!
"Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life"

The great Indian wedding...
I am typing this blog out of pure enthusiasm of puting a night out!!! yes!! and this was for a wedding..(a not for an exam strangely ..).I just returned home, after a funfilled and exciting night!! i had no idea of the rituals that were involved in a wedding ceremony. Everthing starting from the mandal design o the crucial mangal sutra has pre and post ritual accompanying it.No wonder that the wedding took all night and went uptill 8 in the morning.i lost all my sleep during the course of last night, so when i returned, unlike the rest who decided to catch up on their lost hours of sleep , i decided to check my mail. "You've got mail" .Yes! thats exactly what gave me the energy and enthusiasm to write this blog. Anyways coming back to the wedding, this, my first experience, was quite an eye opening one!! ya sure it was a lot of fun, especially because i got to meet all my relatives after a long time, but i realised how taxing this whole concept was on every single person who was involved in it, including me. Does it need to be so? Cant we simplifly things a wee bit so as to ease the pressures leading up to such events? Maybe not as simple as in a christian wedding where "I DO" in essence captures the entirerity of the ceremony!!
Overall, an enjoyable experience as long as you are not the guy/girl in the line of fire!!

"Marriages are made in heaven but they got to lived on the earth"

Life : A marathon?

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
when the sun comes up, you better start running.


I completely agree!!!

disaster at roorkee!!!!!

what a disastrous inter IIT... knocked out in the league phases and as if that was not enough , a fractured thumb to take with me as a parting gift!!!!(yes...i am typing this with my right hand only!!!left thumb is the one which is fractured!!)) kharagpur humiliated us on day one and kanpur repeated that a day later. 4 days into tourney and we are part of the ever increasing IITM cheering squad, who have all been knocked out in the various sports and are jobless for the remaining days. tomorrow is our last league match against delhi , (a dead rubber!!!) me not playing obly!!! this our first practice match for next years inter IIT in guwahati ...this place is really cold 3.5 degrees right now... one of the many resons why IITM struggling here...okies got to go ... coffee waiting in canteen... by the way this place sucks !!!!

The sun is out and Chennai seems a much better place. For one, we are able to practice for the upcoming inter IIT sports tourney in Roorkee. This time last year i was a first year student,shy and quiet ,drained of all my energy and enthusiasm, longing to go home after the completion of the first semester, but cricket forced me to stay put for 20 days more. Amazing how time changes a lot of things!! Last year all I cared about was when this whole ordeal would get over and when i would be in the cozy enivronment of home. I felt nothing despite the loss we suffered at the hands of Roorkee in the finals. but this year the mood is totally different . I have this burning desire within me to go and win. okay agreed, there is a substantial part of me which tells me to go home and relax forget about al this.But i can't do that and I don't want to do that. Revenge is on my mind. The odds are pitted against us. The weather which is going to be a critical factor , is definitely against us. The last one year has been a learning experience for me, in terms of the various pressures i have faced, both on and off the field. Despite the odds being against us, I am confident of pulling it off this time,mainly due to the fact that i look at ourselves , i see team IITM and not 11 talented guys. Like they say, "there is no I in a team".
Roorkee here i come!!!

NATURE.... WOW!!!
One of the most memorable experiences of my life happened yesterday.My exams got over so I decided to go and watch a movie(Potter 4),but unfortunately all shows were running houseful!! So my friend came up with the idea of going to the beach and buoy what a great idea it was!! After having grub we went close to the shore and just stood there gazing at the mighty sea,heading towards us with all its fury as if somebody had angered it. Amazingly enough the night sky was clear and one could after a long time see those tiny twinkling dots in the sky shining gleefully. The whole atmosphere left me speechless. It was after a long time that i had actually seen nature in harmony.All one hears nowadays are natural disasters and there after effects. Its a pity that we humans take nature for granted and dont give it due importance in our daily lives. The setting gave me a sense of calm and satisfaction which was different from anything i had experienced before. Sitting there i recollected all the pleasant momeries from home and life in college. what a site!!!
Fast forward to next morning ,time:0630 am:I get up with aches and pains everywhere due to yesterday's working out. But somehow the previous night's experience was still lingering in my head and although my body had phyiscally given up, my mind was fresh and thats why i could pull off the 5 km morning run. Amazing isn't it, the effect the mind haas on one's body!!

well people have tagged me so.... i need to respond!!
well my life is a mixed bag!!!
1. firstly, unlike most IITians i am left handed, which has its own advantages and disadvantages...
2. my whole day revolves around a single activity...that is crapping!!!!... the day i crap in the morning before going to class , you will find me bubbly and churpy; the day i get it done after lunch the smile will be there post lunch; and those days when it just never happens, you will find me sulking and groaning all day!!!
3.i love playing games..and before you all get awww and oooh about it i am refering to sports!!!
4. on bathing schedules i have nothing fixed.. although definitley have one the day i play...however, over the past couple of days have been having a bath daily,despite not playing..dont know why..although someone might know why!!
5. i just adore the IITM lingo!!! its the best part of it all!!(esp the "slisha" term..can be used universally without giving away the feelings you are going to express in that sentence!!ask ducky for details!!)

6. i attend most classes.. with an ATA(awake to asleep) ratio at about 7:3
7. i can speak four languages with equal fluency(i am sure some people who read this will contest this point with me!!) and in a place like IITM that really helps..
8. as far as acads are concerned i believe in constitent input gives continouous output theory!! however despite all this i find it difficult to stick to this statement due to the other stuff i keep doing..
9.i own a guitar but dont play it ..quite a common feature amongst IITians
10.i refuse to change my mobile connection despite the terribly poor network and serviceit provides...
11. despite the incapapbilities in my computer to support fifa completely..i play the game and i am pretty good it at too..
12. I just love f.r.i.e.n.d.s... got it stored (all seasons=18.2GB) on my 80 GB hard drive!!!
13. my taste of music is not specific. i listen to what makes me feel nice now..it could be a song form DDLJ....or it could be one of those bob dylan numbers or one of those GnR hits..
14. i need 6 hours sleep in a day to keep my system running ...
15. i love the mess food only on saturday nights when BBJ is served with eggs..else i am always on the lookout for company to either go to dhaba or order a Pizza!!
16.i just love my life at IIT, irrespective of what others say!!
17. Ahh ..forgot this one:I cant type very well as you will notice from the number of typos and spelling mistakes in this blog... bottomline is all that matters!!
will complete this in the next edition.....
to be continued...
stay tuned..

A MIXED BAG.....

aha!! 13 down 9 more to go... for those of you who didnt get that, forget it!! Finally after a long time I have got the time ,energy,( the comma before this parenthesis is called an Oxford comma, if you didn't know!!) and the mood to blog again. My exams are still going although I have got a respite of two days before they steamroll over me.And there we go... it raining again in chennai!! phew!!! The city is (literally) overflowing with water and the rains just don't stop . They keep pounding away on this marsh and drowned land as if there is no tomorrow!! A one day international washed out, schools and colleges closed(I don't know if anybody is complaining about that!!) and the overall city has a very gloomy feel to it. Hmm..What else has happened in the last two weeks that I stopped visiting this portal? Let me see...Aha yes !! Sourav ganguly has been shown the door!! Its finally happened..After long deliberation amongst majority of the Indians decided that its time there was a change at the top and the wall deservingly was given the added responsibility of leading a nation.
And yesterday the man from T&T surpassed the gutsy aussie southpaw Allan Border as the world's highest test run getter. If any body in the world still actually is a follower of west Indian cricket , its truly because of the aura and class of this man brings to the sport. When he walks onto the field ,the whole atmosphere changes to one of high energy and enthusiasm and that in a nutshell says a lot of the caliber of the man.. Who has seen the sport decay in his region through his playing years...Kudos to Lara,for shining despite the darkness surrounding him

dhanian?? rikky?? Virgin??(and yes in this we dont capitalize the first letter!!!) Well they are the names of the same guy... And yes that's me!!! This one the most interesting aspects of life in IITM. Once you are here, your "name" is what people here want to call you by and the "nickname" is the name your parents gave you. In fact the tradition is such a long one that , when a alumini of the institute, Shri Kumar Suryanarayana, president(R&D), Biocon,had come to inaugurate Shaastra '05, the director, under whom he had been a student, introduced him as "frenchie", a name which kumar was very proud of would seem funny for an outsider, but life becomes so much simpler with nicks. Take for a example a situation, in our hostel where we have two guys with the same "nicknames",Anand. But the nick system has removed all the confusion. One guy walks like duck ,so ducky is the "name" and the other dude runs to taramani every time he gets the call of nature,so taramani is the "name"!!
I presume that there is science behind this seemingly absurd naming system. It has been proven that our picture memory helps us recollect stuff longer, than by simply reading or reciting it a hundred times. So every nick has a funda, and through that funda(however dirty it may be, it has to be funny!!!) we remember the names of people: spanky; funda: he spanked a girl on the back side at school. Can you forget this guy's name now??The nicks are not restricted to students , some profs( who tend to make sure that they leave a imprint on whom so ever they teach.. You know what I mean!!!) like for example "kballs" is K. balakrishnan, and so on..
Irrespective of what is in store for me in the future, I will never forget the "names" that I got at IITM!!