beingdesh

Category: Flashback

  • Who Enjoys It?

    Some are doing it, some do not. I always seem to fall in the latter. They do different things, different activities and seem to enjoy it all. For me somehow once the Primary activity starts turning a bit and infact a lot boring I seem to shed the other added ones too.

    Some stand up and like giving motivational speeches, which I think are mostly worthless, some do all the work in life and you never know, and some write sitting in their 3 seater room … 😐

    I sometimes end up drinking along with my similarly-bored friend, same Old Monk with dry peanuts, Chakli and watery green chutney and discuss the same things over and over again. Its all about thinking about those great days of Work. Did I say great???

    It was thinking about BTech days while being at work, although I thought that the next degree would be back to that kind of fun, but I miss something.

    Miss TIME, just to be, just to roam around, discuss stupid stuff with people, read some nice stuff, read books, watch cricket all simple things in life. Taking walks during night-time through the dusty lanes here, me and another of seemingly lost friend, talk about not getting what we wanted here and what we will get after here, thats one of those simple things, but not much otherwise.

    I am sick of those same old jargons, I am bored of people not knowing and saying anything about anything without thinking (ha, they call it thinking on the feet), tired of the same old classroom, excel sheets, mera DELL and writing the most stupid pieces of assignments in the history of assignments.

    New Year, already half a month past and still to add that much needed freshness, because all things tend to become same over a period, especially when you are in this corner of Mumbai.

    Desperately looking forward to March, time for escape to Villages and it would be fun for sure.

    People think that I am frustu, but its just the lack of time and senselessness of what I am doing, I know that I need, a new pair of lenses to view the world.

    Literally, these specs are old and loose now 😀

  • 10 Hour Sleep…Kidding Ain’t You!!!

    Tired mind, tired soul, tired body, sitting in a lecture and looking at the red layer forming on my eyes is a habit now, it was the same tomorrow, my friend lal saying me that my eyes have turned lal, a quiz to attend (not the regular B-School Acad Quiz, but a general Quiz for a change), walk crazily back to the hostel, drink a chai and the 82gm Parle-G, go to room, another “Online” B-School event to work on, another unsuccessful attempt, eat dinner which has turned extremely boring nowadays and…

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Roomie wake me up at 12, I know I always say that but surely wake me up, have loads to study, me putting an alarm too…gnite

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    A Foggy room, smell of rain, nice and cool feeling, “The Straight Drive is his favorite shot, they not that, we know that”, the sound of Mark Nicholas from Cricket 2007, the mobile says its 11:45, roomie1 and another guy from my wing onto Cricket, they love EA Sports Cricket07 here and it has caught on with lot of people recently, roomie2 studying most probably what looks like FM, I wake up, sit and sit for 5 mins, I do some badbad and say that I am very tired and want to sleep. I spend five mins thinking about what to do next, and then think why not just lie down for five more minutes…

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Looks like a nice long shopping street, like “The Mall Road” on every Hill Station, its nice and cool, I am walking, but why alone, I have no clue. Oh, how come he is here, he and his wife, I am meeting them for the first time after his marriage, he still seems the same.

    “Sorry yaar I couldn’t make it to your wedding, how could I have, I have no time”

    “It seems thats the only line you have picked up after going to a b-school”

    I don’t talk to his wife and both of them just walk away…

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    An office, I don’t know where it is, looks like a decent enough one, nice and clean, a sort of a bluish-saawariya-ish tinge to the whole place, I fail to understand why am I here. Hey I know her, I know her for sure, its the same …hmm wait, cant really make out her face, its a bit blurred, infact everything is blurred.

    A change in office from Salt Lake Kolkata to Mumbai is required, she is not getting it, we meet talk about it and start walking. Keep Walking as the good old Johny said (Diageo’s Johny :)). Nice Breeze, great weather, me doing bakbak as I always do, she responding sometimes as she always did!!! Hand in Hand, the touch of her hands, we talk for about 15 mins or so whooffff she goes…

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Sleep…Sleep…Sleep

    Aaah, the pleasure of a stiffness in the body when you wake up after long time (I just cant imagine what would have happened to Rip Van Winkle), roomie 1 still sleeping, roomie 2 sitting straight with his chadar on his head (in a meditating pose), nice breeze flowing through the window. It seems it rained at night, aaaah, the smell of Fresh Air, for the first time in ages. Pre-Reads and assignments, chuck it yaar, its 7:45, lecture starts at 9, anyway can’t do it.

    It feels great to sleep for 10 hours sometimes, especially in a b-school where the only thing we lack is that, had a fresh day with no sleeping in lecture today, and even the weather is good with slight helpings of Rain making the day every pleasant.

    And see, sometimes sleep is the only time where my imagination runs wild nowadays, it used to different before…

    200201094 was surely much enjoyable and relaxing than PGP-08-003 (my GTalk status nowadays)

    p.s.- Please no Freudian Interpretation of Dreams or Jungian for that matter, I tried reading the first one unsuccesfully and the second one too slightly, both not successful…

  • A Part of me Died

    Dada, Dada will never ever play again. After the post lunch victory, reality has just started sinking in. It has been eight hours after that historic victory but I have no other thoughts other than Dada in mind right now.

    I almost ran into tears as I went through this article Losing my Religion. Its one the best articles on Cricket I have ever read. As Siddhartha Vaidyanathan narrates his story me and all my friends across India felt that he is telling our story. I thank him for writing such a great article. As I looked at this phrase in the post, a part of me died, I felt the same. All these cricketers have been as indispensable to me as my body parts and as they go slowly I feel a great sense of loss and sadness. Its almost the formal end of my childhood which lasted so long due to these great players and the day Tendulkar goes life would never be the same again. Just today I said to someone that almost 4 years of my 24 year life has gone in thinking, watching, playing and talking about Cricket, and these guys made it possible.

    I don’t know what to write, Dada has been a Dada for me, as a Big Brother he has given me and so many other Indians great moments which we would cherish throughout our life. 1996 when he and Dravid came into the team, I missed his first test hundred. I heard that there is this new guy who is king of off side, bowls some nice swingers too and is very similar to David Gower. His elegant off side drives gives me fond memories of my childhood, after Dada every kid in my township started playing strokes on the offside (generally it was considered that leg side is more scoring with a tennis bowl). Almost invariably when he used to open with Sachin and take first strike he would hit a sweet boundary through the off side. I vaguely recall him hitting Pollock many a times through the off side, the bowl slowly travelling to the fence, and Boycott all praises for the Prince of Kolkata.

    As I came from class 6th in 1996 to the 2000’s 10th board, Dada had become a prolific run getter in one dayers, I had remained the same students, in the years had passed an unsuccessful world cup, The God becoming the captain unsuccessfully, azhar going in and out of the team, a World Cup where Dada scored a brilliant 183 at Taunton, a World Cup in which I didn’t sleep at night and and went into tears momentarily when South Africa lost in the semis, lot of Coca Cola cups at Sharjah where Tendulkar and Dada were killing all bowling attacks, a Sahara Cup where Dada set himself as an all rounder, a period of change in Cricket when Wills ended its sponsorship with the Indian team, Jagmohan Dalmiya headed the ICC, and above all a disgraceful India South Africa series. And then it was Captain DADA.

    Although I was a Dada fan but it was after he took up captaincy my respect for him increased, as he and his side with few new players started winning it was a different feeling altogether. Dada positioned the Indian Team as an aggressive unit, for the first time in history I felt that Indian Team was doing something like this, change which Dada brought about was zillion times more than Obama used the word in his campaign. Change we need was brought and it was just amazing. The Great Eden victory still comes in my dream, and the Natwest one, or India almost ruining Steven Waugh’s farewell in Australia, and the 2003 World Cup and so many others.

    Lot of memories, but sadness is blurring most of them today. Some not so good ones of Dada’s spat with Greg Chappell and him being dropped after the Zimbabwae tour, some of prayers which we did for his return to Cricket, some extremely funny like me saying Jai Dada aloud in front of a Dada poster with 20 people standing around before my XAT exam last year in Bangalore, some drunken memories of me and my friend dimpy, patrick and sussu drinking and praying for Dada to score during our tragic loss to Bangladesh in last year’s World Cup, more drunkard ones of me and the quark and the enginerd and Ati-Say supporting Dada, and Sandy and Mathuru and Mandu supporting Dravid and Barve as always confused :), some meoments where I cursed Greg Chappel like had none other in my life, two historic moments when I watched Dada Live on stadium, him hitting a Six to Vettori during a Test match in Ahmedbad, him winning in the IPL opener at Bangalore this year, never saw him in one days, some more cursing for Bucknor when half the times gave pathetic decisions to Dada and many a times helped the cause of getting Dada a ban, some moments which I was ashamed of as Dada’s Pepsi ad, and another million memories.

    I hope Dada finds happiness in whatever he does next, he enjoys life and cricket and some time with his family.

    I am happy that I can tell my kids 20 years from now that Dada was there, because I don’t think they would ever see a player like him again, they will ever feel the emotions of the game we all love in the same way as we did, but as Siddartha pointed out in his article we belong to this generation and for all of us its a very sad day. Hope is what I have and I hope there will be many more greats who will play for the Indian Cricket Team. In the current lot I don’t have that feel for anyone other than Sehwag or Dhoni. Lets Hope.

    So finally this is it, as the Quark would have told me in his favourite singer Jim Morrison’s words, this is the end, beautiful friend, or debu would murmured his Darkness filling up the room dialouge, one thing I know, I have lost something which is irreplaceable.

    God give me the strength, I would badly need it on the Day when Tendulkar retires.

    Technorati Tags: Sourav Ganguly, Dada, Cricket, India

  • Bye-Bye Jumbo

    18 years, for 18 years they waited that he will turn the bowl, and he didn’t.

    Anil Kumble was never the conventional spinner, one who turns the bowl much, infact at one time we as kids used to discuss how Venkatesh Prasad’s cutters turn more than Kumble’s leg breaks. But what he had was consistency, over after over he used to place batsman on a grill. If Warnie and Murali had all the fast food instant items, Kumble was of the Tandoori variety, slow and effective.


    As a kid my friend Anirvaan or Rikki a big fan of Kumble use to imitate him and his action exactly. So much so that after every bowl he used to adjust his specs (something which the Kumble of those days with a specs and moustache used to do). Tall and broad he resembled Kumble and used to bowl day in and day out like him. His imitation was on similar lines as that of Shameek’s Prasad action or my Arshad Khan action :).

    Kumble’s earliest memories take me back to Hero Cup, where he took 6/12 (if I am not mistaken) against a pretty strong West Indies side. India won that series and that was the first time Day and Night Cricket happened in India. Most from my generation remember that as the first time we saw cricket. (Although I remember the 1992 world cup too, good memory you see :)).

    Kumble cleaning up the stumps of Richie Richardson is something I vaguely remember.

    From those days Kumble had a great ability to bowl straight, consistently probing the batsmen. Flipper and Googly, both his main weapons surprised the batsmen. He used to slowly setup the batsmen and then use them as weapons which more often than not resulted in success.

    Azhar had a major contribution in shaping up the career of Anil Kumble along with India’s manager in those days, Ajit Wadekar. Throughout the days of Azhar India remained unbeaten at home and Anil Kumble was one of the major reasons for that. During that period Kumble cemented his position as the undisputed domestic champion.

    With Dada came a change, India started winning abroad and Anil Kumble contributed to its success in australia, W Indies, England and South Africa. He had a mkor role to play in all its victories abroad.

    There are three moments which stand out for any Kumble fan- the ten wicket haul against Pakistan at Kotla, I still remember praying to god for the final wicket of Akram which he took; his jaw breaking effort at Antigua test where he claimed the wicket of Lara and bowled even with a broken Jaw; the Sydney test (Steve Waugh’s farewell series) which he bowled superbly and we came very close to a series victory (thanks to Parthiv Patel and Mr. Bucknor we didnt win it). Although I would like to add another, the Perth test in which he led us to victory last season after the Sydney MonkeyGate scandal. That was another moment which stands out for me.

    When he left the stadium at Kotla that day, I suddenly had a feeling of immense respect for this cricketer whose importance many of us realise now. His match winning contribution to Indian Crikcet is unparalleled and a spinner like Kumble will rarely appear on World Stage again.

    Hail Kumble and may he have great success in whatever he does next.

    Extra Bites:

    Harsha Bhogle has paid a great tribute to this great cricketer, read it.

    My post on gilly’s retirement earlier in the year

    Coming up is the super sad moment of Dada retiring :((

    Technorati Tags: Anil Kumble, Indian Cricket

  • City 3-tier

    After two and a half months at SP, it seems I have slowly started realizing the fact that most my bakbak, most of my stupid and sometimes interesting jokes (although I try to relate them with loads of real life examples), most of ideas relate to 3-tier cities. Thanks to one of my friends here who made me realize the importance of Small City Dreams again.

    You talk of a Loreal and I move to Chik Shampoos, talk of Britannia and I talk about the reach of Parle-G, someone mentions a detergent and there I start with Karsanbhai and Nirma. It seems brands with huge mass appeal and great reach attract me more than glossy and high end brands. Nothing against any of them, just that I somehow realte easily to the mass-brands.

    It comes from my upbringing at Korba, that small town which nobody has heard of (people find it difficult even to locate Chattisgarh at times) and the diversity I witnessed there. Just came back from 1st Ganapati visarjan here at Versova Beach which reminded me of my days there, still crave for the Ganesh Chaturthi get-togethers and the Durga Pooja Pendal excitement.

    In between loads of padhai-likhai for which I have been completely uninterested for the past few days, I think this is something which will keep me a bit motivated for 2 years.

    All that old song singing, recalling DD serials during free time, talking about politics (which many consider small-townish), talking about regular dal-aata issues rather than using MacroEconomics to dissect issues and complicate them, or even hating to pay so much for movies it comes naturally to me.

    Lets take the Tata Nano issue for instance, everyone at my college (that issue super hot, in classes, outside it too) have been cribbing about Tata not being able to succeed and W.Bengal not taking advantage of a great opportunity. Having had the opportunity to live in Bengal for few days I have a slight idea what people there think, how people there work and I can judge the situation with some better clarity. I won’t put my judgement here though, thats another issue.

    Whatever it is, slowly its getting difficult to assimilate so much happening in class, I think its better I slowly start building upon my interests and giving it some direction.

    Destination 3-Tier surely looks promising again.

  • Angrezi aur main…

    Class 4th-5th

    It all started with that, we were given some sort of scholar badges and all (for consistent performances with a particular score in core subjects), there was this English teacher who I didn’t like at all, you know the sorts who went ahead with people who get top marks in junior sections, all those cute looking piglets whom they think are brainiest who get everything right, although I wasn’t that bad but she never gave me marks, maybe I wan not a piglet anyway.

    Class 6th-10th

    Same not so old boring angrezi teacher who gave marks to girls and little healthier sort off pigs and screwed me up again many a times. I also had a fight with her which messed up my relations and so I never got a scholar badge till class 11th as they held me back some way other for English and sometimes Hindi. Maybe I behaved like a dog here, pigs were still in demand. My confidence in languages till 10th had already received a heavy blow though. worst still I became a horrible public speaker in those days due to that.

    Class 11th

    Probably one of the best teachers I ever studied under was Mrs. Biswas, elegant and caring are the words which come to my mind. She had such an awesome persona and like others, her marks were not based on pre-conceived notion of an individual. All notions of animalism chucked off for the time being.

    Class 12th

    The year I cherished most in the school because my favorite teacher Mrs. Ratnam taught me for the first time (sounds unusual but true). She is the one I knew throughout my school tenure, the bestest teacher there ever was at DPS Korba. It was delight as she taught English in an year when no one thinks about it. She took my interview way back in 1988 and its quite ironic that she retired the same year I left school, 2002. Best year for English and me 🙂

    College Days, one Cat, workplace, blogging etc etc.

    Everything went fine, reading speeds were good, although I was regualr reader earlier I improved, did more discussions, turned from a hand shaking- leg breaking speaker to a nice confident aggressive presenter. Did all of this stupid writing, all dung, read dung, ate dung. See now I became a Pig.

    Good days for English were obvious.

    CAT & XAT this year

    Similar percentiles of 84.16 (84.13 in other) (Overall 97.7 in CAT, 99.42 in XAT) help me secure a missed call from IIM’s and XLRI. All the AIMCATs I hardly got below 95%ile, my worst performance coming up in these two examinations.

    Although I am disappointed I would like to add that my English is not that great, its just the way people judge your language skills, the kind of exams they look for, I don’t know.

    In that regards the best language teacher I had was my French teacher at Ahmedabad, she had an amazing persona and I really excelled when it came French learning.

    Although disappointed I am not broken, its enough of these exams for me, maybe something better out there for me. No one is an authority to comment on what I am like in anything, English has screwed me for a long time and hope it enjoys f**k*** me again and again. At least the language will get some pleasure out of it.

    Living in Bangalore has made me a dog again, pigs are the most intelligent ones, thats why there English is good.(George Orwell says so, although both the species should control there reproduction rates :))

    Technorati Tags: CAT, XAT

  • Kids are the Future, they know it !!!

    Date
    13th May’2002

    Train
    Bangalore-Delhi Rajdhani Express
    AC III Tier

    Passengers
    Pattu (that is me, school nickname), Addu and Niddu

    Travel Purpose
    Journey from Bangalore to Nagpur. Me going back home after more than a month. The time which was spent in Delhi, Nagpur, Chennai and Bangalore giving IITJEE, KCET and DA-IICT entrance, coaching and waiting for trains.

    The Incident
    Now something about the incident, we had a family sitting with us in Train, uncle-aunty and two kids, elder son gave KCET like us and the younger one a school kid, maybe about 10-11 years old.

    The Father-Son duo (the younger son) was sitting facing each other with the train moving in the direction where the Father’s back was, Kid says

    “Dad, you are looking at the past, me at the future”

    That time I could just manage to smile at this, today I think I couldn’t have managed more.

    P.S. – Thought of blogging this after I read about Sur’s incident on the same Railway route.

    P.P.S- Although it’s out of context I would like to mention that this was the first time I was traveling by Rajdhani and the food was awesome.

  • It was IIT time again…

    Yesterday was IITJEE day. This time 2.5 lakh people appeared for it compared to 1.5 lakh which sat for screening when I gave it. Nice to read that they gave a Multiple Choice questions based easier exam. Now its time when people will start searching for IITJEE 2007 solutions everywhere and start comparing them with what they have put up in papers. In my days there were two phases, now its one which takes away a bit of pressure from the students. Screening sorted out some 25K people for mains. But giving the final main exam was quite an affair.

    I still remember the day, 5th May 2002. Me and niddu had lodged up in a nice hotel at Sitabardi, Nagpur. Both of us back from a month long Crash Course at Delhi, quite tired of studies. Actually we both were with quite less expectations but still there is always that hope.

    Niddu left for his centre in morning, I guess it was LNIT. Mine was CP Berrar College, and as I heard it was quite far. Amol Kaka, my dad’s cousin bro came to pick me up in the morning. It was quite hot, I had a really short haircut that time and I still remember my head burning. My kaka left me with some stuff to eat(chips, a coke and biscuits) at that was quite a remote place. Ok now it was exam time.

    So it started with Chemistry, giving the paper I was feeling lie god, I could solve almost all the stuff in paper and felt like GOD!!! You know those days solving everything really meant that. All the 12 questions, I think I did well with 10 of them. The thing was the first half was marred by Band-Baaja waalahs and as people in Nagpur told me later CP Berrar was there area. In middle of first paper I asked the invigilator for telling them to stop. They stopped after sometime but when you are playing well nothing matters.

    When I came out of the hall, I heard that everyone has done well, I shouldn’t say I was disappointed but I felt a bit foolish and becoming so happy and all. Ok, next was Physics, Ok Physics, now here was a subject I never really understood quite well, I mean for 2 years I had done mostly mathematics and neglected Physics quite a lot. Before that I munched through biscuits, chips and a boiling Coke or maybe it was Pepsi. Ok then Physics started and it was horrible, I looked around and saw 3-4 guys even sleeping, I thought its OK you will make it, no thermodynamics, OMG then what will I do, a simple lab experiment based question, yes done, at least one done. Somehow I managed to crack a question on Mechanics which surprised me. I was sweating heavily and it was getting quite hot, sweat fell on the answer sheet and rubbed off a bit of ink from one of the answers I had put, the bench was Ok as compared to other exams I have given but they started feeling uncomfortable. You see I quite literally put my sweat in IITJEE. It was the longest time I had spent thinking useless things and seeing around and solving something here and there but I knew this was over. But I saw 5-6 guys sleeping around me in the hall this time and I thought maybe I am doing not so bad, you know that hope never dis in an Indian Brain.

    Amol Kaka brought me lunch in the break and asked how did it go? I said ok, there were a few people I knew around, mostly my school seniors but I avoided talking to people that day, quite unlike me. Also my Kaka told me that the temperature was something like 48-49 C that day. God! I thought maybe it was not that bad and I was sweating due to the heat only. The last paper was Mathematics which I enjoyed as much as the Chemistry paper, the difference being that there wasn’t much noise this time round. Also the first half was damn hot, when I thought the temperature was around 50 and I was sweating again, the second hour hot wind started blowing and all the doors and windows of CP Berrar started banging themselves like stupid Rock show headbangers. Someone’s answer sheet also flew across the room and all.

    It ended, I went back to hotel, had a chat with Niddu and we both knew it was over. We had to leave for Bangalore the next day and needless to say we were both a bit disappointed. A month later I think they sent me a report card which said rank something 7050. Anyway it ended but it was quite a nice experience. Those were the last days when I enjoyed studying a bit.

    Anyway I hope all the students enjoyed giving exams, and not everyone will get in, but for those who don’t still giving the JEE will remain a good memory stored somewhere in there brains.

    Caught one blogger putting up the experience of JEE 2007

    Technorati Tags: , , IITJEE 2007,

  • I Broke the Vow the Night India lost…

    This thing getting blogged a couple of weeks later after it happened. Ok something finally went inside after a gap of almost 3 months(last time it happened). The occasion deserved it though. I met Motu aka Dimpy aka Shameek after a gap of four years I think, the time I was not into the Ethanol business and he had just started. Things have changed, he is no longer Motu, I have got into the biz and left it and both have started earning a bit.

    For those of you having not a bit of idea of what me talkign about there was a vow, a vow against C2H5OH. For details you can check out the To-Do’s for New Year.

    But it was great. I mean sitting and gulping on the terrace of Pratik’s home is always great. So me, Prateek, Shameek and Sushant had a real blast, which was the same time when India was loosing it out against Bangladesh and Pakistanis against Ireland. So in went a bit of Vodka followed by Whisky and loads of stuff to eat.

    The next day was great too with Neha coming into the town from Hyderabad. I think I met her after 5 years. Also was my friend Milan whom also I met after a long time. So we all went for a walk followed by CCD followed by Mast Kalandar at Kormanagala which I should say is an awesome place for having food.

    Milan, Shameek, Neha and Me( I do look drowsy)

    That was followed by another round with me and Shameek involved again. I must say one thing everything was getting damn heavy after so much of liquor.
    Meeting old pals is always great and about breaking the vow, kabhi kabhi ho jata hai.

    Technorati Tags: ,

  • So so so many things to blog…

    Me in college, me in Gandhinagar and feels great, that drying heat in the afternoon, and that freezingly cold chill at night, R-World and Mohan Dhaba to Brijwasi food to Pathetic Hollywood movies to meeting Prof’s and meeting old pals. Everything has been great.
    In between I need to blog a couple of more things, one probably the new year pardy where Mr. Deshpande had liquor for the last time(fingers crossed). I missed one of the superb 19th nov pre- CAT party too but that I can’t put so late maybe.
    Anyway new year, I don’t know whats coming up this year. Lets hope whatever happens its much better than somethings which happened last year.