My Ramblings

Ghonchu uses a smart phone

2011-12-16T00:31:00.000+05:30

Ghonchu was the proud owner of a new smart phone. He walked proudly in his office cafeteria and strategically took the phone out of pocket in a place where there were more females around and pretended to type busily on it. On looking up, he realized nobody was paying any attention to him (or his phone); then he remembered; his company had gifted the same phone to everyone.

Disappointed, Ghonchu kept the phone back in his pocket thinking that he couldn't catch anyone's attention (as usual) even with his new phone. However, while thinking of such thoughts, Ghonchu forgot that his pocket didn't usually hang (in thin air) outside his jeans, and dropped the phone with a loud 'clunk'. Twenty pair of eyes turned towards him with an expression of stunned disbelief. Ghonchu quickly picked his phone up (which thankfully suffered no damage) and walked away wondering what gave him the idea that his phone couldn't be used to catch attention (albeit not in the way he expected).

Ghonchu went back to his desk and decided to show off his phone on the internet. He logged into facebook intending to publicize the fact he had a smart phone. However, on checking other friends' updates, he was thoroughly disgusted to realize that each and every company employee had already done the same. Facebook was flooded with posts from employees flaunting their new phones.

Now, baffled Ghonchu racked his brains as to how he could show-off his new phone. Not being very techy by nature, he didn't know too many features of the phone which he could rave about. He decided to flaunt it in circles outside his company. He went to a restaurant outside with friends where he sat on the corner seat next to a table where some girls were sitting; took his phone out and kept it on the table. The adjacent table's nearest seated girl looked at his phone, completely ignored Ghonchu (no admiring glances or eyelashes); and continued chatting to her friends.

Tired Ghonchu went back home and decided that phones are meant for only one thing and nothing else. To make/receive calls. Ghonchu kept his phone on a table and decided to go to bed.

However the new phone had something better up its sleeve. Ghonchu, who didn't usually get many calls, got a call that night. It was from Sweetu. Startled, Ghonchu managed to drop the phone again; when he finally picked it up and talked to her, he could barely talk coherently. The reason for the call was a mundane one.

Ghonchu slept that night clutching the phone close to himself and with happy dreams. "This is a lucky phone. On its first night, I got a call from Sweetu. So what if no one was impressed by it!"

A decade-long tryst with football

2011-12-05T01:13:00.000+05:30

I fell in love with football on a wintry day in 2003 when I first got cable and started watching ESPN. At that time, for some health reasons I could barely walk, far less run or play football. It started as a dream; a standard teenager's dream of wanting to play, score goals to a rousing applause. That dream stayed for a long time, being nurtured and cherished everytime ESPN telecast football. Those early years of following football went by dreaming of outstanding tackles, stunning overhead kicks resulting in goals and playing in front of a large audience who would explode into rapturous ovation.

Dreams have this beautiful nature of having absolutely nothing to do with conscious reality. Despite knowing all of the above to not be plausible, I never stopped dreaming. The years rolled by steadily; the early years of college going in making lame excuses to why I couldn't play any games and being laughed at. Years rolled on, by the final year of college I had made feeble and cautious attempts on trying out sports again, little bits of cricket, basketball etc but not football yet. Thou desires most what thee don't haveth. My craving for playing football only increased in all these years.

That chance finally came in IISc when I felt confident enough to be able to challenge my body into playing. Five years after following football on TV like any average youngster, I finally was able to play it for the first time after school days. I still remember the thrill of kicking the football on that summer day in 2008. I felt like a winner on that day. My initial days in playing were more around finding more about what limits I could stretch to.

As luck would have it, one of my first achievments while playing for those initial few months wasn't scoring beautiful goals or making outstanding tackles but to break my left hand in such a way that it needed surgery. Bang went my chances of playing for another few months by which time I had to graduate.

However fates gave me another chance when I was fortunate enough to join a company with a sprawling campus and lovely lush green grounds. After now playing regularly and freely for the last one year, I felt I had achieved my dream. I couldn't have asked for more really.

Last month, we had an intra-company soccer tournament. I can't sprint, would be wheezing after a couple of minutes of hard running; I am not a great dribbler or anything like that; I don't kick the ball the correct fashion because no one ever taught me how (those who 've seen me play know that); all the things I can't do on a football field could fill out a couple of pages.
Yet on the evening the tournament ended, I looked into the mirror; and saw a broken toe, a bruised and battered body (a small price to pay), the captain of the runner's up team and the player of the tournament standing there. Not a bad achievment, considering I once doubted my ability to walk normally again. Indeed, dreams can be accomplished within the same lifetime if you try hard enough. Our team lost in the finals (in extra time), but we were still magnificient throughout.

I must take this opportunity to thank all those who believed in me, encouraged me to go out and play, and many of those who allowed me to play with them.

A couple of photos after the tournament!

Team 'Lapak Khiladiz' - Microsoft Soccer Fest 2011, Runner's Up

With the "Player of the Tournament" trophy

Ghonchu eats Vegetarian food

2011-09-25T17:47:00.000+05:30

Ghonchu stepped into the city of Hungryland with a look of awe. The cities of Europe were beautiful and Hungryland was no exception. He was impressed. However although Ghonchu was impressed, his stomach wasn’t. He hadn’t had much to eat since he had stepped onto his flight from India to Hungryland a few hours ago. His stomach which had rumbled politely earlier now voiced its displeasure more powerfully. Though it is the season of fasting in India, Ghonchu’s fasting ability extended to fasting from dinner to breakfast the next day.

Ghonchu decided to look for food options. He could see multiple options nearby. He discarded some of them after concluding they would be too expensive. He chose to go to a dingy little place which sold burgers and sandwiches.

Ghonchu walked to the shop and asked the shopkeeper, “Do you have anything VEGETARIAN?”

“Eh?”

“Vegetarian!! Anything without meat.”

“Aye, aye! Of course”, she replied happily having understood what Ghonchu wanted.

She took out two sandwiches (both looked similar) and told Ghonchu, “Theeese twoo sandwiches are vegetarian.”

Ghonchu happily paid for one of the sandwiches and just confirmed before unwrapping it, “No meat eh?”

She replied airily, “No. No. No meeet at all. Only feesh.”

Ghonchu mentally puked and kept back the sandwich.

The shopkeeper then pointed to the other sandwich and said, “Thees one has no feesh, no meeet. Only vegetables.”

Ghonchu took the other one and quietly walked away. It tasted okay.

PS: Ghonchu still doesn’t know whether what he ate was vegetarian or was the shopkeeper trying to avoid returning money to him, but he is happy with the fact that he ate whatever he bought thinking it was vegetarian.

Living your dream..

2011-06-19T16:57:00.000+05:30

What does the above heading really mean?

We crave so often for something from the bottom of our heart. Night and day, one might have had vision, that desire. It could be a moment or a period of time what one craves for.

And one day that dream materializes! It might have happened unexpectedly or might have been achieved through a lot of hard work. Do we even realize that it has materialized.

Does it really taste sweet then. Do we really appreciate it when we get it. Do we realize we 're now actually living our dream - this was something one longed for all this while. Do we maybe just sit back and enjoy whilst it lasts or do we've a tendency to start worrying about what next.

Maybe we realize and understand better when the end of that dream is nigh. And how do we react when we realize that that dream is close to coming to an end. We sit up and begin to appreciate what we had. As we look back, we see that it was a beautiful time; a wonderful dream that is now coming to an end. We remember those times when we craved for that dream; and the sheer delight that filled one's heart when that dream materialized.

What else does one feel when the walls begin to close in, the dream begins to fade. Feel satisfied at having lived one's dream! Or remember those earlier times with a sense of pathos! Or be pragmatic and just forget about it! Or develop new dreams and look forward to them! Or write such rambling articles!

Education and its uselessness ..

2011-05-06T00:15:00.000+05:30

Incident one :
Last Sunday, the AIEEE exam took place. It has been taking place for the last nine years or so. However this time there was a glitch. The exam paper got leaked. As a result, the authorities had to take some drastic measures, cancel that version of the exam paper, postpone the exam by 4-5 hours.
Now what shall thou do, ask some "so-called educated" parents (at one of the prominent 'global' schools in Hyderabad)? What can we do to vent out our frustrations, spend this time more efficiently. They beat up the security guard who was doing his duty by just not allowing students in the exam hall...

Incident two :
Observed recently at my "highly-esteemed" company! At the cafeteria, you gets idlis and vadas at one counter. You can get either two vadas or two idlis and one vada for Rs 15 (vadas being rated costlier than idlis). An employee who didn't know this logic, asked for three vadas. The person serving at the counter politely explained the rules to him. There is no excuse for the rudeness shown by the employee to a man simply doing his job. And surely this employee is "highly educated".

No doubt, these are everyday things which are visible in all walks of life. No doubt, education is highly useful. After all, it helps to stamp down on others who haven't been so fortunate and then gloat in pleasure.

Two years completed

2011-02-16T21:37:00.001+05:30

Today this blog celebrates its second birthday. The first post was on Feb 16, 2009. This is the 49th post.

(Thanks to Rupesh, again for pointing this out)

Roses are ...

2011-02-13T17:31:00.003+05:30

[A true story]

A friend's six-year old daughter got 'Fill in the blanks' for homework.
Roses are ______ and beautiful.
...
...
She wrote - Roses are hot and beautiful.

When asked why, she said that is what she heard people saying on TV..

Pride...

2011-01-09T22:08:00.001+05:30

Recently, I got into a conversation with an aged cab driver of my office. The conversation motored along (as did the cab) usual lines of where do you stay, what hours etc... Then I asked him what his children did ..

His voice swelled with a pride that was magnificient to listen. Of his two sons, one was an engineer abroad; and another was planning to do a post-graduation having refused an offer from our company itself...

It was really heart-warming to hear him describe their jobs, decisions etc.. with enormous pride in his voice..

Hyderabad 10K run

2010-12-11T00:22:00.000+05:30

I participated in the Hyderabad 10k run on 29th Nov 2010 and completed it in 1 hour 7 minutes, 11 seconds. Pretty good timing for a first-timer :-).

Ghonchu gets an email

2010-10-15T23:38:00.002+05:30

[Thanks to Soumava for the idea of this story]

Everyone gets emails from time to time.. Why should anyone be surprised that Ghonchu got one!! Well, this one was special.

Ghonchu switched on his computer at office on Monday morning with a bleary eyed look, of having to withstand five continuous days in office again. Outlook said 17 unread mails in his inbox. Indifferently, Ghonchu turned away to drink a cup of tea assuming most of them must be from his manager asking why he still hadn't started on a task expected to complete last week.

After drinking tea, and chit-chatting for some time, Ghonchu got back and casually perused the subjects and the senders of the mail. His heart leapt (as it always did) when he saw that one of the mails was from Sweetu, a colleague in his office. Even though he knew that the contents would be purely impersonal and would probably about some technical ask, he still cherished it. Ghonchu did not open the email from Sweetu straightaway. He was like a child who didn't want to eat his ice cream out of the fear that it would be finished too soon. He stared at the name for some time, gloated over the fact that he got an email from Sweetu and very carefully with one religious click of the mouse opened the email.

The email was very short. The contents were :- "Missed you :)".

Shocked, Ghonchu's heartbeat increased from 85 (when he was opening the mail) to 110. Ghonchu read-and-reread the mail again in a state of shock.. "Does she have similar feelings.. Are we twin souls after all!"

Ghonchu quickly started composing a reply to the mail. "Dear Sweetu, Even I missed you over the weekend. Two days are quite a lot of time to be separated from you. Regards, Ghonchu." Ghonchu re-read his email a dozen times, removed the second sentence as being too mushy and changed the word 'Regards' to 'Love'. Finally, as he was about to press the 'Send' button, when he saw something else which made his heart turn cold.

The original email from Sweetu had gone not only to him but also to Irritatu. Ghonchu uttered a few choice things (@#%@#$#^#) he would like to do to Irritatu whom he had always suspected of being too close to Sweetu.

However, he didn't have too much time to ponder before Sweetu and Irritatu came over to call him for lunch. Ghonchu glared at Irritatu, smiled sweetly at Sweetu and joined them. The two of them were casually chatting about some movie which Ghonchu had not seen, so Ghonchu fumed inwardly.

In the midst of conversation, Sweetu turned to Ghonchu and asked, "Oh Ghonchu! You will follow up with the partner team on our requirements, won't you."
"Eh!", said Ghonchu blankly.
"I forwarded you an email! Didn't you see? To both you and Irritatu."
"Oh!", said Ghonchu.
"The mail I had forwarded contained the context of what needed to be done. I had forgotten to add you and Irritatu in the thread originally, so forwarded it to you both in the end."
"Ok!", said Ghonchu quietly and focused on finishing his lunch.

Ghonchu went back to his desk and reopened the mail. This time he read it completely.

From: Sweetu
To: Ghonchu, Irritatu
Sub: FW: Partner

Missed you :)

_______________________

From: Sweetu
To: Senioru
Sub: Partner

Ghonchu and Irritatu should be able to take care of the dependency on the partner team......
......

Ghonchu goes to Nagarjuna Sagar dam

2010-09-23T00:29:00.000+05:30

Ghonchu got up in the morning, feeling excited. He was to go on a road trip to Nagarjuna Sagar dam on Krishna river, around 150 kms from Hyderabad with his team-mates Vidu, Ronku and Somu. Had he known what all adventures lay in store for him, his excitement might' ve been much lesser.

Having rented a car, they set off with Somu at the driver's seat. After however driving for an hour or so, they ran into their first hurdle. The car started stuttering, and finally stopped. However Somu and Ronku had some expertise about cars and they figured the problem was that the car was overheating. On opening the bonnet, they figured out that they needed to feed something called coolant to the car. Ghonchu, who himself didn't know anything about cars, pretended to nod intelligently agreeing with the others.

They all bent expectantly as Ronku poured coolant into a cylindrical can under the bonnet. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, there was a sputtering noise ptttr, ptttr and steam started coming out of the outlet. Ghonchu, whose nose was closest to the bonnet in his bid to show-off his knowledge of cars; jerked backwards and landed 4 feet away on the ground.

Ghonchu decided nodding at the right time was sufficient to look intelligent.

After performing some more experiments on the car, and it failing to start, they started despairing. They kept pouring more and more coolant; which the car kept happily guzzling, making noises like grrrp grrrp grrrp. However, they were lucky enough to get hold of a car servicing shop where they towed their car, left it for repair and continued their journey to the dam by bus.

On reaching the dam, Ghonchu felt it was worth the effort taken to have come there. The dam looked monstrous with water flowing elegantly out of six of the gates, and causing a waterfall-ish effect with water hitting the standing water with brutal force.

Soon thereafter, Ghonchu's friends decided to take a bath in the catchment area. Their enthusiasm went up on seeing other groups there - with girls. On reaching that area, they saw a sign - "Danger. Crocodiles may be found here. Do not enter the water." However, Ghonchu's friends disregarded the sign seeing other groups there. Ghonchu, himself was extremely worried and judging by his reaction to lizards, his fear of crocodiles was only around hundred times more. Since he did not wanting to seem a coward, he entered the water. Since Ghonchu didn't know how to swim, he didn't stray too deep. He just stayed close to land and looked around at his laughing friends who had gone further in. The other groups had gone. All seemed peaceful.

Ghonchu decided to put his face underneath water. Having done so, he saw something which sent a chill up his spine. He saw a long, dark object floating towards him. With a strangled yell, he shouted "crocodile". He was waist deep in water, and hurriedly tried to run back to land. In doing so, he lost his balance, but still managed to reach the rocky outcrop near the water. With his eyes facing the water, he moved backwards until he stumbled and ended up sitting on a log of wood. The others had swam out of the water too and were watching with baited breath.

Gradually, a shape emerged.. It turned out only to be a log of wood.
"Whew!", exclaimed Ghonchu and wiped his brow and looked at the others in relief. However, the others still seemed to have expressions of horror on their faces. Ghonchu quickly cross-checked the log, and then told the others, "Hey, its just a log of wood. Can't you see?"

Nobody responded anything. All three, Ronku, Somu and Vidu seemed to have frozen into silence with shocked expressions. Before Ghonchu could ponder more on why that was so, he started to feel the ground shake. "Hey, an earthquake's happening!!", Ghonchu exclaimed thinking that so many things were happening today. The others still didn't react before Vidu slowly raised a finger pointing towards Ghonchu.

The log of wood, Ghonchu thought he was sitting on was actually a small crocodile which had just moved. When Ghonchu realized that, he leapt up in alarm with another scream and sprinted away from the catchment area. He kept runnning and did not look back until he reached the road.

Soon the others reached to the safety of the road as well with panting breaths. Ghonchu's face was ashen white from shock and it did not seem that he would ever speak again. Somu quietly asked him, "Ghonchu, are you ok?" Ghonchu tried to reply but no words came from his mouth. When finally he was able to say something, it sounded very similar to the noises the car had been making in the morning. "Gpppr wpppr", his teeth chattered with numbing shock.

They collected the car on their return journey, with Ghonchu still not speaking too much. Unfortunately, on their return trip too, the car started giving trouble by overheating. Since it had now become dark, Ronku asked the others to provide light from their mobiles while he poured in the coolant. Ghonchu, with quaking hands and remembering his morning experience enlightened the surroundings as Birbal had once prepared khichadi.

Ghonchu eventually reached home at midnight. He consoled himself with the thought that if nothing else, atleast he got a nice snap taken of himself with the dam in the background which could be posted on facebook/orkut. This was the pic taken!

The beauties of nature!

2010-09-12T13:02:00.000+05:30

A few weeks ago, I went by an early morning flight. It is a sheer delight to watch the moving clouds, and then see the sun rise and hit those clouds.

At one point, the cloud cover was so magnificent that it formed a complete massive snow-like bed on which the aircraft seemed to be gliding. A massive swirling pure white, lit by the sun's rays and the only thing visible from end-to-end; the soft-cloud bed seemed to stretch endlessly.

The aircraft continued to glide on the white sheet underneath, which gave an impression of some heavenly land. No wonder, we always perceive that heaven is up somewhere; if one is an admirer of natural beauty, what I saw could easily be described as heaven. I had this crazy impulse to walk out of the aircraft, wrap myself in a blanket of soft white cotton-type cloud cover, and go to sleep in that serene environment.

And then, all of a sudden, the white land ended abruptly with a gigantic abyss of nothingness. Watching the aircraft moving from over the white beautiful land to just empty space, where nothing exists underneath gives a queasy, yet amazing feeling feeling. Almost as though one were traversing a river and unexpectedly encountered a waterfall chasm with a dramatic drop.

It was beautiful. Period.

Some inhabitants of my terrace

2010-08-17T23:28:00.000+05:30

Ghonchu learns cooking – Part 3

2010-08-17T23:23:00.000+05:30

Links to Part1 and Part2

Ghonchu walked into the kitchen and switched on the gas with the expertise of a professional cook. “Phatak”, said the lighter; “whoosh”, roared the flames in the stove; and Ghonchu replaced the lighter with the smugness of a job well done. Having learnt to light the stove and cook magi previously, Ghonchu was already an accomplished cook. However, an artist’s pinnacle is achieved only if he cannot surpass himself any further. Ghonchu had decided to paint his next stroke in the art of cooking. This time, he intended to make chapattis (roti).

Any reader who was worried on reading the above line underestimates Ghonchu. The Ghonchus’ of this world may not be great cooks, but they are hard-working and perseverant and accomplish their task no matter what.

Ghonchu had learnt the steps to cook a chapatti. He took some wet flour (atta) and made a ball out of it. Having smeared dry flour over it, he began kneading the flour. He started using the belan to knead the mixture of wet and dry flour. On using the belan once, the round flour turned to a reasonable flat shape. Emboldened, Ghonchu swished the belan a few more times. However to his consternation, the flour started sticking to the belan, the roti plate and his hands. Having recently watched Spiderman, Ghonchu was reminded of how Tobey Maguire must have felt when he first learnt about his spider-like characteristics. With a ‘yuck’ emanating from his mouth, he quickly went over to wash his hands. Afresh he started over. Slowly, the flour, albeit wet and sticky began to take shape. Ghonchu paused for a moment to admire his handiwork. After some thought about the shape of his roti, Ghonchu eventually concluded it was like those amoebae drawings in his ninth grade biology book (read shapeless).

He put the wet amoeba on the gas allowed it to get dry. After some time, he decided it was time to turn over the amoeba. With this intention, he touched the roti plate with his fingers. Two seconds after that he was licking his fingers. It is best not to talk about the screams and oaths heard in those intervening two seconds.

But the Ghonchus’ of this world are not to be outdone. He cleverly found a pair of tongs. “Ha! Where will you run now?”, Ghonchu mentally asked the hot gas plate and the overheated amoeba. Using the tongs, he turned over the amoeba. After a few more tosses and turns over the gas, his first amoeba was ready to eat. With a smile of satisfaction, Ghonchu sat down to taste his accomplishments.

The roti tasted like papad as it had been overheated. However, Ghonchu still proudly ate or rather munched his amoeba shaped, papad-like roti.

In retrospection..

2010-07-25T17:44:00.000+05:30

I completed one year in office life two weeks ago. My thoughts on office life, and other things I learnt in the last one year..

- I need to thank all my team mates and friends made in office. Before joining the industry, there were the usual doubts which everyone has, how different is it? Is there peer pressure? Can one be thyself without facing any politics and so on and so forth?

I am happy to put all those doubts to rest. I found that people are friendly, helpful and great human beings. I could be myself without having any thoughts of all of the above mentioned things at any point. Or it may be the case that I am too blind to notice anything wrong (which may not be actually bad). I have been able to transition from college life to industry without any glitches; I can still play sports, still talk nonsense most of the time, still make people smile and still hopefully not be judged too much (not sure about the last part :-) ). This part of the post is a testimonial for all my office mates.

- Something I learnt about people in the last one year. Most people are good, if you choose to look only at their positive traits. Something I learnt about myself. It is worth investing the effort to try and look at the positives when you are talking to someone. It changes the dynamics of how the conversation occurs.

- Another thing that I learnt that is staying aloof and not talking too much is the worst thing you can do when you are already down. It formulates a vicious cycle in your mind, and coming out takes more effort than it would have been if you had shared your thoughts.

- The next thing I learnt, is that how one sees thyself is of paramount importance and that ultimately makes all the difference in self-confidence irrespective of however highly or indifferently one is perceived by peers or friends.

- Ok, enough of serious things. On another note, I joined facebook a few months ago. While I haven’t become an avid follower as yet, what I seem to see most is that some ‘friend’ or ‘friend of friend’ is getting married/engaged daily. Depending on my mood, it either worries or delights me :-). More often than not, it is the last of those. But there are signs of change amongst my peer group. Instead of updates, someone going on trips etc etc, as it was up to a couple of years ago, there are more messages of ‘got engaged’ types.. Times are changing..

Spain are World Champions !

2010-07-14T01:54:00.000+05:30

This post didn't appear earlier because there wasn't much to write about the final. All one could say is that the game was a poor advertisement for football. There must have been millions of people who were non-football followers but just watched the finals; and they would have been disappointed. Many must have wondered why this is the most popular game on earth. And that is a pity, because the tournament was played at a really high quality, and mostly in good spirit.

So Spain did the double with the Euro Cup and the World Cup. Deservedly so. Netherlands, to their credit tried their best, kept Spain at bay for all of 117 minutes before a weak clearance undid all the good work. Such are the small margins which decide high stakes.

The only point worth mentioning is that how a number of people feel that Spain play only possession football and have won just because of that. I beg to differ. What I would say is that the quality of Spanish players is such that they are the only team in the world which has the ability to keep possession for long periods of time. No other team in the world would be able to play short, clean passes, even when they are being harried and closed down by the opposition.

Sneijder, De Jong, everyone tried their best; and were successful largely because for most part Xavi and Iniesta didn't have much of an impact. Two clean chances for Robben, both created beautifully by Sneijder; and Robben might be left ruing all his life, that the world cup was in grasp. Ironically, for a player who has been much maligned for diving, Robben chose not to go down when Puyol tackled him. Had he gone down, Puyol would have almost certainly been sent off, and that too might have changed the course of the game.

Sneijder had a great game and would be my man of the match despite ending on the losing side.

The World Cup has come to an end. A small word of appreciation for the hosts who did an apparently great job w.r.t all arrangements. Lets forgive them for the vuvuzelas :)

SF2 : Efficient Spain shut out Germany 1-0

2010-07-08T03:12:00.000+05:30

Spain did what they usually do. Pass the opposition to death. Germany tried to do what they did against Argentina and England. Counter-attack. Unfortunately, they faced one minor problem in this game. To be able to launch a counter-attack, you need to get the ball first. Also they got an early goal in both the previous games, which drew the opposition out and made it easier for them.

One of my hunches before the match was whichever team scores the first goal would win. Although this match ended up having only one goal, things turned out as expected. Spain passed and passed and passed, when they finally scored late in the 73rd minute, they shut out Germany after that with some more passing. Had Germany scored first, things would have been more interesting. That would have drawn Spain out allowing the much-famed German counter-attack.

For the purists, this one was a lesson in football. Spain showed tonight why they are the rated as the most technically fluent team in the world. Tonight, one major quality which Spain possesses was on display, something which isn't so obvious and usually gets hidden behind the brilliance of Villa or the passing by the trio of Xavi, Iniesta and Alonso.

'Off the ball running and closing down the opposition!' This is something the entire Spanish team does so efficiently and so brilliantly that often it doesn't allow the attack-minded opposition players to even come into the game. The same reason caused Ronaldo to cut a forlorn figure in the pre-quarters, and tonight again, Klose and Podolski were barely allowed a touch of the ball.

For all the beauty, the technical ability that Spain have, they work together as a unit and close down the opposition players superbly. Force the opposition player into making a mistake, give the ball away, and then the whole probing cycle of Alonso, Xavi, Aniesta, Xavi, Alonso, wide to Ramos/Villa starts all over again.

Man of the match : Carlos Puyol. While he had a very poor game against Paraguay where he was caught out by Nelson Valdez's pace, tonight he displayed great mental strength to come back with a strong showing and showed the positive trait of his defending - dealing with high balls with strong dominating headers. To cap it all, he got a goal with another of those powerful headers. A rare direct goal by Spain.

For Netherlands, they can only win against Spain if they accomplish one task. Outrun Spain. Paraguay tried it to good effect in their first half, but couldn't sustain it. Close down, don't allow the fab two, Xavi and Iniesta, time on the ball. Yes, Spain will still have majority of the possession, but if allowed to pass, they will just pass Netherlands to death. Just as they so neatly and efficiently, wrote the obituary of an upto-so-far rampant German team tonight.

QF4: Spain vs Paraguay 1-0

2010-07-04T02:17:00.000+05:30

So Paraguay found out what must be done to contain Spain. Run, run and run. Close down, work hard and fight for the ball. Leave Spain on the ball and they will murder you. As I write this at the end of first half, it seems Paraguay know the formula and indeed look the likelier of the two teams to score. In fact, they have had a goal ruled out incorrectly for offside. Puyol has struggled against the pace Nelson Valdez and another striker might have made more use of it.

The two Xavis', Alonso and Hernandez have done extremely well with their inter-play and intricate passing, as always; but most of it has been sideways and in front of the stubborn Paraguayan defence.

Paraguay is aware of the formula, all they have to do is the minor task of implementing it.....

A dramatic second half which saw two penalties, and two misses all in a span of less than 3 minutes spiced up a drab encounter. Spain were a touch lucky, with a couple of decisions going in their favour; one the earlier disallowed goal, and the second where the Paraguay penalty should have been retaken. It would have been really interesting had Paraguay scored.

But, notwithstanding those decisions, when a dull game needed a bit of quality, a bit of finesse, a bit of crispness, in cometh Andres Aniesta. The man who was unlucky to miss the Player of the Year award in 2009, showed what a class act he is, yet again. Driving at the heart of the Paraguayan defence, he cut past a couple of defenders, to lay a perfect pass to Pedro who was unlucky to hit the bar. Who does the ball fall back to? Yet again, the Spanish talisman, David Villa. If you ever need someone, with the ball at his feet; the opposition defenders diving desperately in front of him; and all you want is someone with composure, calmness and the ability to slot the ball in the net; you couldn't ask for a better person than David Villa. Had the same composure been shown by Roque Santa Cruz a few minutes later when he was one-on-one with Casillas, the match would have been back in the balance. That is all what differentiates a good striker and a great one.

Did Spain deserve to go through? Not sure. Paraguay were definitely unlucky; and one must say that it remains to be seen if Spain can come back from a losing position, if they encounter such a situation in the later stages.

Man of the match : Andres Iniesta for his moment of magic.

QF3 : Germany trounce Argentina 4-0

2010-07-03T23:54:00.001+05:30

So the much hyped match, touted to be a virtual final after Brazil's loss yesterday turned out to be a mismatch. And that seems surprising, judging by what had been written about Argentina till yesterday. In hind-sight of course, it is easy to take Maradona and his boys to the cleaners and talk about the beautiful football played by Germany.

Interestingly the teams that have won in the later stages have quality midfielders who have the ability to stamp their class. One of my beliefs is that a midfielder or a defender has to do far more than what is expected of him to be talked about in the same breath as a forward. A forward, however all he has to do is his job, score goals and he is labeled a hero. So when the world sits up and pays attention to midfielders or defenders, it means they are special.

And that has been the hallmark of the two quarterfinals. You talk about Sneijder and Robben in the same breath, but you don't do the same for Kaka/Fabiano and Gilberto Silva. You watch a poetry in motion when Messi gets the ball, but are unmoved when Mascherano is on the move. However, for Germany Schweinsteiger and Klose are talked about in the same breath and the same is true for Spain where the diminuitive Xavi and Iniesta are talked about as much as Villa or Torres.

So it proved to be difference today. Argentina for all their class, needed the supply. When that was cut out because Schweinsteiger and Khedira dominated Mascherano and co, Tevez and Messi had to often come back deep to get on the ball from the halfway-line. Even if Messi got past one,two defenders as he did on a few occasions, there was the giant frame of Mertesacker to snuff out any danger.

To be fair to Argentina, the scoreline as in the case of England doesn't really reflect the true state of the game. Germany were just more clinical. They were deadly in counter-attack, dominated the midfield and solid in defence.

Man of the match : there could be many really. Schweinsteiger, for his drive (similar to Sneijder yesterday), or even for his single handed creation of the third goal; Mertesacker, who stood his ground against the likes of Messi, Tevez, Higuain, or even the skipper Lahm, who was his usual best, strong in defence (totally nullified Maxi Rodriguez), and rampaging while going forward.

However I would like to nominate Joachim Low as today's man of the match, because nowhere was the faith shown in his young side more sweetly proven until tonight. The Germans were swift, speedy in closing down, had the energy to counter-attack at a swift pace in both matches vs England and Argentina. The reason - they had age on their side and the legs to do it. That alone was the single point of difference between two quality sides today. And how !

QF 1 : Holland vs Brazil : Tenacious Holland keep European hopes alive

2010-07-02T23:41:00.001+05:30

Prior to this match, both teams knew that winning this match may effectively give them an entry into the final. With all due respect to Uruguay and Ghana, both Brazil and Holland must have been licking their lips on seeing the draw after group stages. They both saw off Chile and Slovakia clinically and this was the main hurdle in their paths.

The first ten minutes made it look almost as though it was men vs boys. Brazil took the game to Holland, had a beautiful move which culminated into a goal ruled out (correctly) for offside; and then went ahead by a superb through-ball and a first time shot by Robinho while the Holland defence had gone to sleep. Brazil continued to dominate, keep possession, draw fouls, and amidst all this, Kaka had a beautiful curling shot saved in a move which had originally been created by Robinho's industriousness down the touchline. In another flowing move, Maicon had a thunderous shot saved down the right flank.

Brazil, probably playing their most attractive football all tournament went into half-time 1-0 feeling pretty comfortable. Holland huffed and puffed, and for all the hard work by Sneijder and De Jong, and the threat posed by Robben, they were unable to impose themselves on the Brazilian midfield.

All great football coaches, the Mourinhos, the Fergusons are known by what they say to their team at half time. Whatever Bert van Marwijk, the Holland coach did say to his team, it had a tremendous impact. They came out looking sharper, began to close down Brazil far more swiftly and Sneijder began to show his capabilities. Much like Xavi Alonso or Xavi Hernandez, the play-maker; he began to influence the game.

The goal when it came had a touch of fortune, where a decent cross into the six-yard area caused confusion and the Brazil goalkeeper collided with Felipe Melo inducing an own-goal. Communication (which was lacking in this case) is often to key to handle such situations.

The situation changed dramatically thereafter. Not having to chase the game anymore, Holland looked more comfortable while Brazil tried to regain the earlier dominance. However, Sneijder, Van Bommel and ever-hard working Kuyt did not give an inch of space this time around. Another innocuous corner for Holland, led to another goal, this time surely through something that must have been rehearsed in the training ground. One touch header, nodded on goalwards, another touch - goal. Simple, effective and for all its predictability, still a goal worth its weight in gold. Holland lead, suddenly Brazil looked insecure, panicky and tried to press forward, but the Holland midfield kept them superbly in check.

A red-card to Felipe Melo for a spiteful tackle further changed the complexion of the game. Was it a red card offense? Yes. Period. To give credit, Brazil continued to press forward and earned a few corners in quick succession, but the closest they came was Kuyt safely diverting a header away standing 2 feet in front of his goal. For all the quality of Kaka and Robinho, there were no clear-cut chances and the no-nonsense Holland midfield and defence stood stubborn.

Did Brazil deserve to go out. The purists might disagree, but based on Holland's second half performance, they definitely deserved to go through. They may not have the flair that South American teams have but they have the tenacity and the stomach to fight, something which is typical of European teams. And for flair, they can look to one man - Wesley Sneijder.

Man of the match : easily Wesley Sneijder, and not because he scored the winner, but primarily because of ability to dictate the play against the likes of Gilberto Silva, Maicon and co.

Journalistic tendencies..?

2010-07-02T23:41:00.000+05:30

From now on, I have decided to write my opinions on the soccer world cup matches I watch. One more voice amongst the thousands that are out there expressing their views.
There are 7 matches remaining (I may not watch the Uruguay-Ghana match).

So here goes ...

Writing code...

2010-06-12T15:32:00.001+05:30

For 8 long years...from class XI and class XII, to four years in B.E., to two years in M.E.; I was taught one and only one thing.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER (I don't remember how many never's were there) use GOTO while writing code.

The first function I wrote last week (which would go out as an industrial product) had a GOTO...

So did the second, third...in fact all the functions I have written so far, have gotos :D:D.

So much for all those GOTO haters..

On another side note, I realized recently that books like 'Exploring C' weren't books just meant for placement preparation. Am needing to read it again..

Ghonchu and the random experiment

2010-05-20T23:17:00.002+05:30

Ghonchu and his flatmates Maalu and Telu were sitting on the sofa. All three of them were looking at each other hopefully. Being extremely lazy, they were trying to decide which one of them would get up to switch on the TV. Eventually after three full minutes of discussion, it was decided that Ghonchu would do the job because the TV was nearest to him.

With a nasty expression on his face, Ghonchu obliged. Just as he was about to sit down, the bell rang. Maalu and Telu convinced Ghonchu that since he was already standing it meant less effort for him to go and open the door.

Unwillingly, Ghonchu traipsed off to open the door, and it turned to be the pizza they had ordered. After paying and just as they all were getting ready to eat, Maalu remembered, "There's no ketchup."

All three of them looked at each other again. The shop where ketchup could be purchased was at a mammoth distance of 100 meters away. Three options were presented. Option one was to eat without ketchup. Option two was all of them go and get the ketchup since neither was willing. Option three was to make one of them go.

(There was an option four also which they had used up the previous day. Wishing to eat maggi, and there being no maggi in the house, they ordered five kilograms of atta to go along with maggi. Reason: the minimum order for home delivery was Rs 100.)

None of them liked option one. Option two was discarded as it was a waste of effort. "Why should everyone suffer!" They had to fall back to option three with the only thing left to decide who would undertake the herculean task of getting up from the sofa, wearing sandals, walking 100 meters, buying ketchup and then walking all the way back.

Ghonchu had a brainwave. With a true engineer's mind, and wanting to leverage what Professor Chiru had taught them in Modeling & Simulation course, he proposed a coin toss.

Maalu looked scornfully at Ghonchu and said, "we are three." Undaunted, Ghonchu explained, " we will use two coins." The others, having taken the course themselves quickly understood Ghonchu's idea and assented. Telu, being most cunning, quickly took out two coins and said, "I will take two tails; Maalu, you take two heads; and Ghonchu, you take a head and a tail."

"Done", said both. For some inexplicable reason, Ghonchu observed both Maalu and Telu were smiling. He concluded it must be due to the novelty of the idea.

The coins were flipped in the air. Everyone watched the coins with bated breath as though their lives depended on it. Due to asynchronous throws by Telu, one of the coins landed first. "Heads", screamed Telu in relief. The other coin span almost for ever in the air while Maalu and Ghonchu watched it with bated breath. It landed tails.

Maalu and Telu started celebrating as though they had won the annual grand lottery while Ghonchu left for the shop looking as though he had an albatross around his neck.

He didn't hear the sound of renewed laughter as he closed the door.

Rain rain come again..

2010-05-02T21:16:00.001+05:30

It rained today. Heavily ! :-)

And I walked around 500 meters with the heavy downpour beating on my face, getting drenched to the skin. With no worries about getting ill, or having to wash those dirty clothes blah blah.. I could see expressions of 'this-guy-is-mad' on some peoples' faces but walked on indifferently.

And I enjoyed every moment of it!

Sometimes, we must forget rules, propriety and dignity and try and remember what it was to enjoy such beauties by nature when we were young.

Quote from Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix : 'Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young ... and I seem to have forgotten, lately' ... This seems apt here (notwithstanding the old :-) ).

Ghonchu's nephew - Vedu

2010-04-25T19:01:00.007+05:30

Ghonchu's two year old nephew, Vedu had come to stay for a few days. Some snippets of his stay.

Scene one :

The moment Ghonchu's sister and Vedu came over, Ghonchu welcomed him with open arms. As Vedu was perched safely in his mother's lap, Ghonchu was ignored. However, when Vedu was eventually transferred to Ghonchu, Vedu opened his mouth to make the first sound of the day - 'aaainnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. Vedu went back to his mother. Ghonchu went back to welcoming Vedu from a distance.

Scene two :

Over a few days, Vedu had now got used to Ghonchu's presence. One afternoon, he was sitting next to Ghonchu, feeling bored. Looking around, he found a new play thing. He smiled, went upto Ghonchu's face. Ghonchu, delighted at this gesture of affection, put his face forward. Snatch, went Ghonchu's spectacles. Alarmed, Ghonchu looked to see what Vedu did next. Vedu looked at the specs thoughtfully wondering in what manner to crush it. Ghonchu now decided to play tug of war with Vedu for the specs. Being (slightly) bigger, Ghonchu won the battle. The next audible sound was 'aaainnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. From the other room, his sister's voice came, "Ghonchu, why are you troubling Vedu?" Back went the specs to Vedu, and all sounds stopped. Ghonchu consoled himself with the thought that he could claim spectacle expenses as part of his company's medical reimbursement policy.

Scene three :

Ghonchu was watching IPL with intensity on television. Also sitting on his stomach was Vedu. Playing horse-horse. Sachin hit a straight drive boundary and Ghonchu exclaimed "ooooohhh" with delight. Vedu jumped on Ghonchu's stomach and Ghonchu again screamed "ooooohhh", this time because he was winded. Ghonchu looked angrily at Vedu who looked delighted with the soft flabby thing he had found. Ghonchu became engrossed in watching the match again and Vedu had to remind him of his presence by jumping again, this time a little lower. Ghonchu lay there unable to speak or move with a look of resignation.

Scene four :

"Ghonchu, I am going out for some work. Take Vedu for a walk in the park," requested Ghonchu's sister.
"Sure", said Ghonchu.
"Make sure he wears a diaper and also take his ball".
"Ok".
Ghonchu began day-dreaming of all the girls in the park who would be impressed on seeing him taking care of Vedu.

In the evening, Ghonchu took Vedu to the park in the evening and set him down on the grass to play with his ball. He himself sat on the bench and looked around to see who all were observing him admiringly. Sadly, the total count was zero. Ghonchu in his quest to look for admirers soon forgot about Vedu.

Soon, however a woman came up to Ghonchu and said, "Hi".
"Hi", replied Ghonchu delighted (He said "bingo" in his mind).
"You don't mind my son playing with your son's ball", she said pointing to where another little boy was now playing with Vedu and his ball.
"Eh!", said Ghonchu blankly.
The woman repeated her statement.
"He is not my son. He is my nephew", Ghonchu managed to stutter with a mortified expression.
"Oh".
"And no, your son can't play with mine because we are leaving now".
"Oh", she said and turned away.
"I meant my nephew", screamed Ghonchu at her back.

Ghonchu looked at Vedu who came up to him and clambered on his lap. Just as Ghonchu got up to leave before other people got the same impression as the woman, he felt something.

That something was something wet on his trousers. He had forgotten to put the diaper on Vedu. With an expression of 'the-worst-has-happened', Ghonchu looked down at Vedu's black shorts which remained of the same dark colour, and at his own white trousers which now looked a pale shade of grey in an area where one wouldn't want it to look grey.

A picture of my nephew - Vedant

Ghonchu learns cooking (Part 2)

2010-04-25T19:00:00.000+05:30

Now emboldened with the fact that he had learnt the basics of cooking, Ghonchu decided that he should make a supreme dish. Such a dish, that everyone would appreciate and say "Wow! Ghonchu, you are a wonder." After a lot of thought, Ghonchu decided to make Maggi - every bachelor's bread and butter.

The planning complete, like a true software engineer, Ghonchu moved to the implementation of this task. His prior investigations had taught him how to light the gas, so that hurdle could be easily overcome.

Ghonchu lit the gas, took a vessel, filled it with water, put maggi and the masala into it and looked satisfied. "I am a born cook", he thought. "This should be ready to eat in a couple of minutes, as the advertisement claims."

Ghonchu waited for a couple of minutes and looked into the vessel. It looked like the Ganga river with a lot of floating snakes in it. Perplexed and convinced that this isn't how maggi looked like, he decided to wait. After ten more minutes, he put his head over the vessel again. With steam coming out of the vessel, the maggi was fermenting and frothing and dancing like the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

The volcanic steam also succeeded in disrupting the flow of air traffic in Ghonchu's nose (made him sneeze). In a state of panic, Ghonchu switched off the gas and decided to eat the ashes after it cooled down. After ten more minutes of waiting, Ghonchu brought out a plate to transfer the maggi from the vessel. However, he realized that still a lot of water remained in the vessel and hence decided to eat whatever had been prepared in the vessel itself.

Ghonchu dug a spoon into the vessel. All that came out was murky water which slipped back into the vessel. Changing tactics, Ghonchu tried to pour out the Ganga into the sink without disturbing the swimming snakes. All the masala drained out with the Ganges.

Ghonchu now sat back happily and ate the leftover bland sticky remains of what was once known as maggi.

Thanks...

2010-04-20T21:25:00.002+05:30

The other day I went to watch the match between Bangalore and Bombay in IPL. There were a couple of low intensity bomb blasts nearby, outside the stadium while I was there along with my friends.

Later on, I came to know about how a few people (whom I wouldn't have expected) had tried calling me up, when they became aware of those incidents. As luck would have it, the networks were jammed and no one was able to reach me apart from my parents. This post is to thank all those people who tried to call me then; it feels nice to be cared for and I really appreciate such a gesture.

Ghonchu and the Lizard

2010-03-29T18:39:00.004+05:30

Ghonchu walked briskly towards his house. Having played cricket, he felt sweaty and dirty and decided to take a bath.

He unrobed himself and moved towards the bathroom in a towel. Just as he was about to enter the bathroom, he saw an unexpected gate-keeper guarding the bathroom. An enormous lizard was hanging precariously on the half-open bathroom door. Two of Ghonchu’s favorite nightmares were, one where he would be trapped in a den of crocodiles, and the other where a lizard would fall out of nowhere on his shirt and go underneath it. In this case, the latter wasn’t possible because he wasn’t wearing anything other than his skin.

Ghonchu looked at the lizard. The lizard looked at Ghonchu. Both eyed each other with mutual respect which foes on a battlefield have for each other. Each waited for the other to make the first move.

Ghonchu enumerated the possibilities. He could try and drive the lizard away but that was fraught with danger. The lizard could go into the bathroom instead and then he wouldn’t be able to take a bath. He could go carefully into the bathroom without disturbing the lizard and take a bath with the door half-open. Or else, he could simply wait till the lizard decided where to go next.

Discarding option two, he decided to go with option three for some time before risking option one. Ghonchu waited 10 minutes for the gatekeeper to give way. While waiting, Ghonchu was standing on one leg with a towel robed around him in a ready position to make a dash for the bathroom should the gatekeeper gracefully give way. The gatekeeper refused to budge. Feeling itchy and sweaty, Ghonchu in a rash act of bravado decided to try ugly tactics and move to option one. He knew, if the gatekeeper went inside he would be stranded. It would be like Abhimanyu who went into a chakraview without knowing how to get out of it.

Ghonchu said “hooosh” to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper looked scornfully back as though it would lose the battle so easily. It remained undaunted and ready for Ghonchu’s next attack. Ghonchu’s next attack was “hoosh hoosh”. The gatekeeper started ignoring Ghonchu now thinking him to be an unworthy opponent.

Now, Ghonchu lost temper at being ignored and felt that’s enough. He started poking the gatekeeper with a newly-found stick. At first, the gatekeeper ignored him busy looking for dinner (mosquitoes). Suddenly, when the stick came quite close to it, realization struck the gatekeeper. Ghonchu had struck back with a vengeance. With a look of disdain, because the opponent had used a new weapon not originally mentioned in the battle rules; the gatekeeper quickly moved away.

Ghonchu waited with baited breath to see where it would go. The gatekeeper moved away and out of the bathroom door. “Yippee”, screamed Ghonchu at having won the battle, albeit unfairly. The gatekeeper no longer was guarding the door, nor did it go inside.

But, Ghonchu though delighted at having won the minor skirmish, had not planned for the entire war. His opponent had another tactical masterstroke in hand. Just as Ghonchu got ready to enter the bathroom, he observed the lizard sticking a tongue at him before entering into the cupboard where he kept all his clothes.

____________________________________________________

As a response to this post, I received this wonderful anecdote in the form of a poem composed by Divya.

"Subah Subah - ek anchaha mehmaan "
Aaj yu hi jab darwaza khola wo saamne tapak gayi
bin bole bin pooche bas yu hi ander chali aayi
isse pehle ki main rokti kuch kehti wo meri table ke neeche jaake baith gayi
maine bulana chaha darwaze ki taraf ishara kiya
par wo wahi baithi mujhe tukur tukur dekhti rahi
use bhagaane ke liye maine jhoothi mooti safai ka natak kiya
jhaadoo leke uske aaspaas mandarayi
par wo to bas wahi usi jagah jaise chipak hi gayi
maine thoda aur zor se khule darwaze ke aur ishara jo kiya
to wo bhaag ke mere kamre me aur ander aa gayi
ye dekh mere muh se zor se aawaaz nikli nahiiiiiiii
fir shukar manaya ki mere padosi kabhi aise shor pe dhyaan nahi dete
ab jise ander aana tha aa gayi thi ye samajhke
maine us khule darwaaze ko band kar diya
socha ki kahin uske jaise aur ander na aa jaye
use daraane ki chah thi par khud hi darrti rahi
wo itni chup aur shaant thi is dauraan
ki thodi der me hi mere kamre ke ek samaan jaisi lagne lagi
itna ghulmil gayi wo mere kamre ki cheeso me
ki main uski maujundgi ko hi bhool gayi
kamre ko band karke aaraam se tehelne nikal gayi

ab jab wapas kamre me jana hai to lag raha hai ....

wo chipkali abhi bhi mere saamaano me kahin chupi hogi !

Ghonchu's machine hangs

2010-03-26T14:38:00.014+05:30

(Thanks to Raunak for this story)
___________________________________________________

Ghonchu walked into his office humming a self-composed tune "Chahe jo bhi ho jaye; humein kuch nahi hoga". He climbed the lift and went to fourth floor towards his cubicle. He saw Ronku and Punu who were discussing something. They greeted him enthusiastically but Ghonchu swiftly moved ahead after greeting them cursorily; he was worried they might include him in their discussion and his total ignorance about everything would be revealed.

On reaching his cubicle, he felt something was wrong. After racking his brains for 2 minutes, it finally struck him. His machine was unlocked!!! Ghonchu mentally abused himself for committing such a stupid mistake. Here goes my 1000 Rs, he thought. There was an unwritten rule in his office that if someone left his machine unlocked; there would be a mail sent from his Outlook, "I am giving a treat at Barista today."

Ghonchu rushed to Ronku who was nearest and asked, "Tell me, am I giving a treat at Barista today?"
A nonplussed Ronku said, "We won't mind if you do. Why, what happened?"
"I left my machine unlocked."
"Oh", said Ronku, now smiling along with Punu.
They all went back to Ghonchu's machine. Punu suggested, "Just check your sent mail. If someone has fooled around, you will know."
"Good idea", Ghonchu appreciated his friends' help mentally.
However, when Ghonchu tried to open his mailbox, nothing happened on clicking Outlook on the task bar.

Ghonchu tried to open other items, and then to his consternation he realized even though the mouse was moving around, his desktop seemed to have hung. Nothing was opening. He even tried the keyboard, and then realized that keyboard too was not responding. The keyboard and mouse connection ports seemed to be fine.

"Damn Windows! Why can't these folks make a reliable product which doesn't crash?"

However, soon he began to appreciate the fact that because Windows hung, no one was able to send a Barista mail. "Thanks to Windows errors, I escaped", Ghonchu exclaimed in happiness to Ronku and Punu.

"Yes, but what about your machine now?", asked Ronku.
"Oh, I will restart. All Windows problems go away with reboot", Ghonchu said confidently.
"But your keyboard isn't working. If you reboot, then you won't be able to login."

Now, Ghonchu got worried. He had to show something to his manager in an hour and hadn't done anything. "Ronku, can I remotely login from your machine to mine and check if it works that way."

"Ya, sure", said Ronku, all helpful as usual.
"Thanks a lot, man."

Ghonchu tried that approach but even then that didn't work. Now in panic, Ghonchu looked for inspiration at his two friends. "What should I do? Seriousu won't accept this as an excuse for not doing work." Seriousu was their manager.

Punu and Ronku listed down the possibilities. Ghonchu couldn't use this as an excuse so he somehow had to get his machine to work. Calling Facilities to change his keyboard would take some time, and he didn't have time.

"The only option left now for you is to fix your machine on your own somehow without restarting. Take 10-15 minutes to do so, then finish your work in 45 minutes", Ronku calmly concluded as though it was as easy as eating breakfast.

Ghonchu tried all he could think of, with various suggestions from Ronku and Punu. Still nothing. Now their expressions were as follows. Ghonchu, in a state of total panic looked like a cat trapped in a den of crocodiles. Ronku's expression showed concern while Punu was trying to restrain himself from laughing.

Ronku remonstrated with Punu for laughing, and Ghonchu also felt very bad and decided that Ronku was his only friend. However, Punu couldn't control himself any longer and started laughing in full flow. Then, Ronku also joined him and both of them just kept on laughing unable to stop.

Perplexed, Ghonchu looked at them with questioning eyes of a curious cat.

Ronku and Punu had taken advantage of the unlocked machine. They took a snapshot of the desktop, copied it in Paint and just opened it in full screen. The real desktop was hidden underneath. Also, a small piece of paper had been inserted in the keyboard port such that it was invisible to naked eye and was the cause of keyboard not working.

Of nostalgia and memories..

2010-03-22T20:14:00.021+05:30

Two small incidents triggered this post..I just saw Yuvraj and Kaif batting together the other day. And then I suddenly yearned for one of those partnerships of yore, where they played together. And then sadly I was reminded of the realities of life, that this is now 2010 and not 2002 when Kaif got out after a miserable couple of hits.

The other incident that happened was Sachin hit a hook shot yesterday...after probably half a decade. I suddenly wanted those days back when hitting two boundaries an over were cherished and only classy people like Sachin were capable of it and not every Tom, Dick and Harry as is now the case.

I also saw a random advertisement the other day of some Max insurance where a child plays the fool with his parents about his marks and then recalled myself do something of that sort when I was around 10.

And then I stopped to think about it, and then remembered a lot more things which I suddenly missed. I missed the random nonsense shared with my BTech friends; the close ties, the fights, six people sitting on the corner-most table of 4 during meals with my IISc friends; the solving of intensely difficult Maths problems with my school friends and struggling hard preparing for IIT; all of which are now no longer possible.

Do I wish to turn the clock back to change anything? Probably not, those were great days with no major regrets. If anything, I would love to rewind it to the 2003 World Cup final, where Sachin would've played that recent innings of 200 and won the WC instead of miscuing a pull to McGrath in the first over.

Now things are just so dramatically different in office life, that all those days of school and college just mean nothing but memories. Not that office life isn't fun but still...the three earlier lives were great fun too while I was in those phases. Maybe one just has to move on, with nothing but all those memories left with you.

Visitor Count

2010-03-19T19:57:00.012+05:30

Ghonchu opened Mozilla Firefox, pressed Ctrl+T and quickly wrote my-endless-ramblings.blogspot.com. He had told a girl named Sweetu in his office about his blog and had boasted that it had more than 1000 visits. The statistics on the right panel said 963 visitors. He wanted to quickly get it to 1000 visitors. His hard-work of opening the site three times daily in the last 321 days had successfully paid off. He was now only 37 short of the magic figure.

Desperate to reach 1000 visitors on the same day, Ghonchu thought of various ways to reach the four-figure mark. His possible options were:- 1) open and close his blog page 37 times. 2) Requesting a number of friends to open his blog site.

Ghonchu pressed the refresh button. The visitor count stayed at 963 visits. Previous experience had taught him that won't help, but being an optimist he anyway tried that trick again. He then closed the web-page, closed firefox, reopened it and reopened his blog page again. His web-page visitor count stubbornly refused to move. With sweat dripping from his face (although that might've been due to Hyderabad's temperature), he now restarted the machine, opened firefox and then opened his blog page again. The visitor count limped to 964 visits.

Whew, said Ghonchu to himself, "I can't restart my machine 36 more times." He decided to move to option two. He pinged Keechu, Pingu, Quietu and Chintu and told them to quickly visit his blog page a few times. Their response was typical. Quietu and Pingu did not reply back. Keechu exclaimed, "Sheesh, why on earth should I visit your blog? Don't I've anything better to do?" Pingu just started laughing on being told that Ghonchu had a blog, so Ghonchu decided not to pursue the matter further.

At wits end, Ghonchu wondered what to do. Then he remembered bhOndOO. bhOndOO was an old friend of his whom he hadn't talked to recently. bhOndOO maintained a blog too which was far more popular.

Desperation makes people do strange things. Ghonchu called up bhOndOO and requested him to visit his blog. Every drop was crucial to fill the ocean of 36 leftover visitors. bhOndOO in his usual non-committal way replied, "I will see what I can do." Ghonchu disappointed with all his friends, decided to give up and felt that he would have to apologize to Sweetu.

On reaching office the next day, he tried to avoid Sweetu. However, she met him unexpectedly and exclaimed, "Wow, Ghonchu! Your blog is really popular. You weren't boasting." Startled but delighted, Ghonchu quickly checked his blog-page and saw that his visitor count showed 1021 visits. Shocked and perplexed, Ghonchu thought how did this miracle happen!!

Then, while surfing he accidently went over to bhOndOO's blog. The topmost post said, "This post is for Ghonchu who is currently in a lazy mood. If you have his email id, please write to him some inspirational songs." Also provided was Ghonchu's blog link.

Ghonchu uttered a few abusive words like "#$%@^@^$@#@$@!#^#$%!!%$@#$". But then he smiled recalling the appreciation from Sweetu. So what if a few thousand people got to know that he was lazy.

One year completed

2010-02-16T14:04:00.003+05:30

Today this blog celebrates its first birthday. The first post was on Feb 16, 2009.

(Thanks to Rupesh for pointing this out)

Ghonchu learns cooking

2010-01-05T23:23:00.013+05:30

Unnerved by his previous rash experiences, Ghonchu decided to take a break and focus on personality development before proposing to someone again. He decided to develop his culinary talents which would add to his curriculum vitae before making another move. He began dreaming of himself as someone who would be surrounded by eager females once he added this noble art to the other skills (or the lack of skills) that he possessed.

Ghonchu entered the kitchen with an expression of one who is about to start a conquest. He looked around trying to decide what to start with. He went over to the stove and decided that every cook worth his salt should know how to start the gas stove with a lighter. With his face averted and hands outstretched and from a distance of 3 feet he tried to start the gas using the lighter. The distance between the lighter and the stove was 10 cms.

“Phatak”, said the lighter in his hand.

The gas remained stone cold. Slowly, Ghonchu moved closer with trepidation walking on tiptoe. The distance between Ghonchu and the stove reduced to two feet. The distance between the lighter and the stove reduced to 1cm. His hands outstretched, Ghonchu used the lighter. “Phatak”, said the lighter again.

The gas remained unmoved by Ghonchu’s attempts. The distance now reduced further. With a perspiring face, Ghonchu tried again. This time the lighter (along with the hand holding it) touched the stove for a split second, said “Phatak” and immediately withdrew to a safe distance of 3 feet and waited to see the after-effects. He averted his face as though a bomb might blast any moment.

The gas sneered at Ghonchu and the lighter. So it seemed to him. He began to think if this was worth the effort. Then he remembered the greater objective. This was part of a noble cause. So what if his hand got burnt. That would be a small sacrifice to make in the quest of crossing the first hurdle on his path. With a grim face and a steely resolve, Ghonchu tried again.

This time he said a prayer to God, mentally forced his hand to stay where it was, kept the lighter in contact with the stove and tried again, "Phatak". Same reaction by the stove. Nil! Ghonchu looked angrily at the unhelpful gas stove and uttered a few abusive words to it. He felt as though everyone in this world was conspiring against him.

Ghonchu decided to take a break. He went over to the sink, washed his sweaty palms and perspiring face, dried himself with a towel, drank a glass of water and prepared himself for another arduous battle. The first round had been won by the gas stove.

After loosening the top button of his shirt and rolling up his sleeves, Ghonchu faced the stove again. Taking a deep breath, courageously, he tried again. And again. And again and again. For around 15-20 times. Total reaction shown by the gas stove : nil.

Now tired, a thought occured to Ghonchu. "The gas may not be working. What could be the cause?" With an engineer's mind, Ghonchu listed out all the possibilities mentally and tried to pinpoint the fault.
"There is no gas. No, that is not possible since we started using this cylinder only yesterday."
"Could there be a faulty pipe due to which the stove isn't working? Let me check?"

Ghonchu bent down, looked underneath and tried feeling behind the stove. When he withdrew his hands they were full of soot. After he wiped off sweat on his face, the soot happily decided to settle there. Luckily there was no mirror in the kitchen.

With a black-and-white face, a tired body and nearly-reduced-to-tears, Ghonchu's eyes rested on something while his body was in the same bent position.

His eyes registered a knob below the stove, which had On-Off markings and a sign which indicated rotation.

Heaving a sigh, Ghonchu straightened, rotated the knob to the 'On' position and lit the stove calmly as though he had been doing it all his life. The gas burst into flames.

Unforeseen obstacles while proposing

2009-12-09T20:39:00.033+05:30

Ghonchu walked into his office with a sense of purpose. A passive bystander might come to the conclusion that here goes a focused person with weighty issues on his mind and no time for idle chit-chat. That conclusion wasn't totally erroneous.

He had thought it all out the previous night. His strategy was clear. He was going speak his heart out to "her" today. He didn't know her name. He didn't know who she was. She seemed quite young and fresh. All he knew about her was the minor fact that she ate lunch at 12.30 and the more important fact that they were meant for each other and she would get to know that today.

Ghonchu walked to his cubicle, opened his mail and found seven pending action items from the previous day and three new had come up while he had been asleep. However his mind being on more important things, he ignored those tasks the same way as Nelson turned a blind eye.

He looked at his watch. It said 10:30. He had to wait till 12.30. After what he felt was quite a long time, he looked at his watch again. It said 10:31. As time trickles slowly when you wait for it, Ghonchu felt it would be an eternity before lunch time would come.

When his watch (finally) said 12.30, Ghonchu leapt from his seat like a cat on a hot tin roof. He turned around with the intention of going to the cafeteria. Two steps out of his cubicle, tragedy hit him. His manager, Seriousu spotted him!

"Hey Ghonchu, could you come to my cabin for a couple of minutes!"

"Yes." (#$@%@@%#%&#!@)

After debating over ETAs and what-nots for various tasks assigned to Ghonchu, he managed to cleverly extricate himself from his manager's clutches in just twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds. There was still time. However, just as Ghonchu was exiting Seriousu's cabin, he asked, "Ghonchu, do you want to go for lunch?"

"Today is Tuesday and all this is happening because I didn't read Hanuman Chalisa. I will only be able to do this task tomorrow", Ghonchu consoled himself with this thought.

"Yes", said Ghonchu to his manager resigning himself to the fact that he won't be able to speak his heart out to "her" today.

On reaching the cafeteria (with his manager), Ghonchu spotted her sitting alone at her usual place. Not wanting to miss out on the opportune moment and forgetting that he hadn't read Hanuman Chalisa, he excused himself from his manager saying he would join him in a few minutes.

Ghonchu walked confidently to her or at least no one seemed to have noticed his legs shaking. Be calm and composed, he told himself. He went and stood in front of her.

"Hi, can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?", he asked in a voice which seemed similar to that of a quivering jellyfish.

"Yes?", she replied with a questioning expression. Her reaction didn't seem enthusiastic or as though she had found her soul-mate. It sounded more like indifference.

Undaunted, Ghonchu continued, "Hi, My name is Ghonchu. I ..."

"Trnng trnng."

Confused and reminded of his past experiences with a phone, Ghonchu looked around.

"Excuse me", she said to Ghonchu and lifted her phone.

"Yes, amma. Is Rahul back from play-school?"

Ghonchu stood stock-still for a moment like a statue, mumbled something unintelligible, walked away cursing himself with his face crimson red.

He rejoined his manager who had watched the scene from afar. "Who was she?", he asked with a roguish glint in his eye.

With all signs of mortification wiped off from his face, Ghonchu nonchalantly replied, "Just an acquaintance."

Of idol worship .. and a gamut of emotions ..

2009-11-06T21:56:00.005+05:30

Disclaimer : Written in a tired frame of mind
___________________________________________________

I read an article once about idol worship. It said ordinary people attach themselves so deeply to their idols that they develop a sense of belonging to their respective idols. If I recall correctly that article was referring more to film stars.

Well, I don't know if that is true in my case. Anyways after watching yesterday's cricket match at the Hyderabad stadium, I went blank, hence this post to vent it all out.
An overwhelming affection, admiration and respect (and all the other such feelings)
- For someone whom I have grown up watching and admiring and idolizing.
- For someone whose stature is not determined by his height.
- For someone who has withstood enough pressure over 20 years equivalent to that felt thousands of feet below sea level.
- For someone who has carried this tired, developing nation's burden of happiness and joy for 20 years.
- For someone who has somehow still escaped unscathed with a clean heart and humble demeanour despite the overwhelming adulation.
- For someone whose pain is felt by millions.
- For someone who, if he tweaks a muscle or cramps up, the entire nation feels that pain.
- For someone who, despite all he has done has to answer questions about his match-winning abilities.
- For someone who scores 175 of 141 balls and gets another ignominious record of scoring the third highest runs in a losing cause (the other two were made batting first).
- For someone who feels the pain of losing more than anyone else.
- For someone, whose batting I have never been able to enjoy. I spend most of time in anxiety praying "please don't get out". It is more soothing to see him at the runner's end.
- For someone who is a GOD worshipped in this country.
- For someone named SACHIN TENDULKAR.

There is a saying, "You get a chance to walk with Gods only once in a lifetime." If its true, I used up my chance yesterday.
I imagine myself telling someone 20 years from now - "Do you know that I watched Sachin hit his 45th century. And what an innings that was !!"

I wish we had won yesterday. Not for myself or for a billion others, who would feel disappointed, make a few comments - appreciative or snide, sleep it off and then get back to their daily routines the next day. But for someone who did so much with a tired body of 36. Still with an enthusiasm of a teenager. In the end, I was left wishing that he had scored nought but not have had to feel that same old pain of watching his team fall at the final hurdle. Not to mention hearing the criticism again of not being a match-winner.

In the end, I have nothing left except a tired mind with a gentle sense of melancholy, wishing we had won .. Just for his sake. In the end, there is nothing left except a pathetic looking wrist band which signifies I walked with the Gods at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Uppal, Hyderabad yesterday.

This is a compilation of some comments made about Him on different occasions.

Ghonchu attends a meeting

2009-10-26T10:33:00.002+05:30

Ghonchu walked through his office gate with his head held high. He felt important. He was to attend a meeting with his manager and some other people.
As he entered the conference room, he paused to look back into the glass and make sure that his hair looked in shape, tucked his shirt and forced a smile which made it look as though he had toothache. Everyone within the room was present and the meeting had already started.
“You are late”, barked a voice which belonged to his manager. “I am never late. I arrive precisely when I mean to”, Ghonchu nearly thundered, having heard of this quote in Lord of the Rings. However he managed to keep his common sense and mustered a meek “Sorry”.
The meeting proceeded with no one paying any further attention to Ghonchu. Their discussion, none of which Ghonchu understood seemed to be at a climax. They were trying to decide which would be the best way to reduce ETA. Would it be a good idea to compromise on the P0 cases or should they go ahead and not worry about ETA. Since Ghonchu didn’t know what ETA or P0 meant, he lost interest and started day-dreaming.
Suddenly, the room was filled with music, “and we twist, we twist, we twist ...” Everyone looked at Ghonchu. However, Ghonchu was more concerned about his manager’s stare. Ghonchu was reminded of a starving crocodile that had just spotted lunch. He twisted in his seat with a dexterity that Deepika Padukone would have been proud of and switched off his mobile.
The manager however continued to look at Ghonchu and started the following conversation. “Ghonchu, will you do the P1?”
“Ummm, ok.” (“What the hell are they?”)
“Good. ETA?”
“Eh”, replied Ghonchu with a blank expression.
“What do you think the ETA would be?”
“Ummm. I don’t know.” (“What does ETA stand for, please someone help.”)
“Hmm. Also make sure that P0 stays in good health.”
“Ok”, said Ghonchu praying for the continued good health of P0.
“P2 shouldn’t be a problem anyways.”
“Ok.” (“How many damned P’s are there?”)
“If you can’t decide the ETA, I think EOW should be enough. What do you think?”
Silence. (“Which idiot had to call me! I was sitting peacefully.”)
“Ghonchu?”
“Ummm. Fine.” (“I had to start saying something other than – ok.”)
“Great, while looking at P1, make sure that the NRPT settings come up if you are outside. However if you are inside there should be no SAs created.”
Another silence. (“What is this new devilry?”)
“Ummm, hmmm.” (“Anymore of this and I will start screaming for help.”)
“That’s it for today.”
“Thanks.” (“Whew!! I refuse to attend any more meetings.”)

PS:
ETA : Expected Time of Accomplishment
EOW : End Of Week
P0,P1,P2 : test cases for a product

Hmm..unfair..

2009-09-04T21:54:00.004+05:30

Well, the AP CM has passed away!
Along with 4 other nondescript people!
Why are they nondescript? Because we don't care about them. All that matters is the CM.

On the little time I spend surfing news channels, I see only condolences to the CM's family etc etc.. No doubt the gesture is appreciable, but nobody apparently remembers the personal secy of the CM or the pilots etc.

I wonder about the others' families. Having lost their loved ones, and then to bear the humiliation of not being given their due importance; forget condolences. Oh no, all that is important is the CM. For him, all kinds of security forces, commandos and others not to mention the helicopters are expendable.

I also wonder about the pilots especially; they would have known that it is not advisable to travel, but they couldn't refuse the top brass, could they? Now they are gone for no fault of theirs and lie quietly in their anonymity.

Reminds me of a scene in 'The Dark Knight' where the Joker convinces Harvey Dent, "When a mayor goes, everyone panics. But when normal people are blown up, it doesn't matter. Because it is all according to plan. Introduce a little anarchy!!"

The world is apparently kind of unfair.....

Ghonchu talks on the telephone

2009-08-30T18:45:00.001+05:30

Ghonchu entered his office for the first time. He saw a glass door in the distance which seemed closed. There was no gate-keeper and no apparent way to open the door. He walked towards it with trepidation and wondered how would he enter. However, as he went closer the door opened on its own. Unnerved but relieved, marveling the tech-savvy organization, he entered the office.

After entering, and completing some formalities, Ghonchu went to his new cubicle and looked around. 1.5 meters high, it gave him the protection and freedom to do whatever he wanted. However the drawback was that he couldn't see anyone (read girls) passing by.

He sat on his desk and looked around. A number of things were lying on the table - the computer monitor, a telephone, a water bottle etc. Impressed, Ghonchu praised his company for taking good care of the employees. Nobody from the adjacent cubicles was paying any attention to him. He opened his favourite website : www.orkut.com.

Within 10 seconds of opening orkut the telephone rang - trrrrng trrrrng. Ghonchu jumped one foot on his chair and looked at the telephone as though it was a snake. Ghonchu's train of thought went as follows :- "This is a very techy organization. They know I opened orkut.com which must be banned. They are calling me and going to scold me or worse even expel me."

Ghonchu quickly closed the website and looked at the phone hoping it would stop on its own. However, the telephone continued to ring, trrrrng trrrrng. With shaking hands, Ghonchu lifted the telephone.

The ringing stopped soon after.

Ghonchu said 'Hello' in a quivering voice.

He heard a 'hello'. After which, there was a silence for 10 seconds. Ghonchu thought they were deciding on what punishment to mete out to him.

After another 10 seconds, Ghonchu mustered enough courage to then say 'Yes?'.

He heard, "That cannot be done. It won't work."

Worried, Ghonchu said, "It worked for me, but I am sorry. I won't do it again. Maybe your site-blocker didn't work properly."

The reply came, "What? No, even that isn't possible."

"But, orkut did open."

"See, if you add this feature, it would mean a lot of change to the code. That would be difficult. The entire thing would have to be rewritten."

Ghonchu blinked in perplexity, slowly as realization hit him, he cautiously got up, saw the person in the next cubicle talking on the phone. He sat down quietly, kept the phone back on the hook and reopened orkut.com.

Interesting...

2009-08-30T18:34:00.004+05:30

A couple of interesting things which I observed at my office :-

- Whenever, people around here wish you to look up something - they say 'bing' it. On a couple of occasions, it was actually a conscious effort, something like 'goo..bing it'.

- Recently, during a presentation, the speaker gave an example of what might go wrong with a program. His words were as follows - "Let's say a program crashes. A program like uh..uh.. google talk may crash" .. and so on. Again, the pause was palpable.

Interesting though :-)

The end of the beginnning

2009-07-16T16:35:00.002+05:30

I seem to like this title as I wrote a previous article with the same heading. However, this time it is about a different topic. Well, so-to-say my student life has ended. Can I call it the end of the first phase in my life? Probably yes, 23 years are done and dusted and so is my education with a couple of degrees.

How do I look back at these years? With nostalgia? Relief? Happiness? Sadness? Probably neither! Just a trace of melancholy as I look back upon those happy years as they passed by. Happy because I was always happy as a student. Time to move on?

Unless I suddenly decide to do a PhD which seems unlikely, I am going to stay in the corporate sector for some years to come. People who have been there tell me all sorts of things. Some of them are already fatigued and bored within two years, others are happy with the pay check but there isn't a zip in their tone when they talk, some others crib about the work they get and so on and so forth. Everyone is happy (however you may define happiness) but none of them are enthusiastic about what they are doing. I try and remember the enthusiasm and expectations in their eyes when they went out into the industry a couple of years ago, while I went to IISc. Two years down the line their tone surprises me a bit. Will I suffer from the same fatigue an year down the line?

Another thing which I have heard is that the industry sucks all your innocence out. You need to learn to be diplomatic, to lie, to be able to wheedle favours out of your superiors and all such stuff.You can't be frank and honest or rude if you want to. Well, I never did such things and have more often than not said what I wished to. I still intend to try and retain that. How will it all pan out?

Lots of such questions and the answers are yet to come. Time will hopefully answer these questions.

Ghonchu drives a bike

2009-06-30T15:51:00.002+05:30

Ghonchu saw an opportunity to impress Sweetu. He had learn to drive a bike from his friend Shanu. Shanu was out of station and had left his bike keys with Ghonchu. Ghonchu, even though not very confident of his driving skills decided to take Sweetu out for a ride. He phoned Sweetu and asked her if she would take a ride on the bike. Being free then, she accepted his offer.

Ghonchu made a rush to the bike which was parked at N-Block to pick Sweetu from girls' hostel. He tried to start the bike. The bike refused to start. After n failed attempts where n ->infinity, the time consumed was five minutes, the spectators watching him trying to start the bike increased from zero to ten; Ghonchu realized that he hadn't put the vehicle in neutral. After doing so, and having to endure the smiles of ten people, he tried to kick start the bike again. The bike sputtered to life and became dead. Ghonchu's phone rang. Sweetu scolded him for keeping her waiting. Ghonchu sputtered through out the conversation after which the line went dead. She would wait five more minutes for him.

Ghonchu cursed the following- Shanu for having chosen a bike with kick-start; his audience of ten people who didn't seem to have anything better to do and himself in case he got late. His audience started whispering amongst themselves. Two of them exchanged money. Ghonchu thought they had a bet as to whether he would be able to start his bike or not.

After n more failed attempts where n → infinity raised to the power infinity, one of the audience, an angel from heaven came to him and asked him to get down. Ghonchu mumbled, 'this bike isn't starting' and got down. The angel from heaven started the bike with one strong kick. Ghonchu thanked the angel while the two of the betting syndicate started arguing whether this was allowed by the betting rules or not. Half of his audience left in disappointment thinking that there was nothing more to do in life except research.

The other half optimistically waited. It wasn't daily they got such a treat. Ghonchu was yet to drive the bike so they waited. Fortune favours the patient. Ghonchu started the bike in first gear. Slowly and steadily the bike picked up speed. Two pedestrians walked past Ghonchu as his bike picked up speed. After swerving one of the pedestrians, and nearly trampling the other, Ghonchu successfully made his way to girls' hostel. His audience had a few more laughs and went on its way to do research. Some of them pitied the person who would sit behind him.

This extremely lucky person – Sweetu had nearly given up hope that Ghonchu would ever come. Suddenly however she saw Ghonchu coming at a distance. The events unfolded as follows (from Sweetu's point of view) – Ghonchu came closer on the bike. He lifted one hand and waved. He lost control of the bike. The angle made by bike and the ground became 60 degrees having originally been 90. The angle then became 0 degree in a split second. Ghonchu and his bike were on the ground at the same point with Ghonchu underneath the bike. His spectacles were lying 10 feet away.

Sweetu lifted the bike off Ghonchu, told him coldly to get up, sat on the bike, started it easily, and drove Ghonchu to the Health Center.

Of IPL and its divisive nature!

2009-06-30T15:50:00.000+05:30

As a regular follower of English and European football, I happen to know of its divisive nature and the bitter feelings that it rouses. The fans there go totally berserk on winning or losing and taunting the opponent fans is one of their chief pleasures. This has lead to riots/stampedes and what-nots in the past in Europe. In Spain, in fact the ways of Real Madrid and Barcelona are so different that the fans of two clubs call themselves as two separate cultures and simply can't tolerate the sight of other. Even at the country level, they find it rather difficult to unite themselves and support the others' players playing for the country.

I followed the IPL in new hostel last month. I realized that in block 2 there is a clear cut division – bengali supporters sit on one floor while the others sit in another. This is because some taunts went overboard and nearly led to a fight.

In the IPL final last month, things went out of hand. The telugu group went totally mad and jumped up and down, created a huge bedlam, hit stones on tables to make noise, taunted the other few Bangalore supporters. Forget the rights of other hostelers. The Bangaloreans retaliated when they got an opportunity. Finally, when the Deccan Chargers were clear winners, the Bangalore supporters quietly walked away.

If this is the case in IISc, what is the scenario outside. I wonder if we are going the same way as Europe. In an nation already fractured and fragmented by 101 other conflicts of religion and other issues, I wonder if IPL is the best thing that has happened. It might be the best thing that has happened to Indian cricket but what will its impact be on India in the long run?

Of cynicism, Howard Roark and more cynicism ...

2009-05-25T16:46:00.003+05:30

I read the Fountainhead recently. My conclusions -

It is a very heavy book and it hurt both my wrists.
It is a very heavy book and gave me a headache after reading it.
It is a very powerful novel, whether you agree to it or not, it gives you a lot as food for thought.
It hurts one's self esteem a lot; I found I have a lot in common with Peter Keating and none with Howard Roark.
I feel unworthy of even doing a review of this book; it seems similar to analyzing the 'The Gallant Gallstones', a futile book written by Lois Cook. Ayn Rand subtly or not-so-subtly mocks fun at such frivolous people who try to analyze books and incorporate them in their own lives.
I felt as though every thought or question I had for the book, was answered then and there itself.
Normally, I am indifferent to philosophical books unless I am in a disturbed state of mind. The fact that this book affected me is a testimony to its power.

Also I read this blog post recently. Enjoyed it a lot; for its tinge of cynicism. All in all, I feel quite cynical right now towards a lot of things.

I attended a meeting recently where I was the youngest. Without going into details, it was about trying to do something. Is it the case, that as you grow older you tend to ramble a lot? That was the conclusion I came to. The people in that meeting were all wonderful, they had vast experiences and were genuine. However, they talked on and on about what they had done, rather than what needed to be done. Some of them told us what they didn't like, what was actually the problem with the system!! ; and bored me to death, apart from irritating me as well. I listened and listened and listened. Also, somewhere it made me feel cynically like one of those people who sit under fans, ACs comfortably and casually discuss what should be done. That is a pity...

This does away with my cynicism. I am not proud of this post.

PS : If I try to be too cynical, after re-reading the post, I found that I did exactly what I mentioned. Narrated my own experiences, rambled on.. and told what I didn't like ... Either cynicism is making me too clever, or I am falling prey to my own criticisms.

Ghonchu speaks Kannada

2009-05-11T14:01:00.011+05:30

Ghonchu was standing in the queue for tea-board. He was feeling sleepy and wanted to drink a cup of tea. While he was waiting, a couple of girls joined the queue behind him. After overhearing their conversation, Ghonchu figured out that they were talking in Kannada. He decided to try and impress them with his Kannada knowledge.

Ghonchu quickly revised all the Kannada that he knew. He knew the word 'madi' from a sign-board he had seen once - 'scratch madi jeeto gaadi'. He also knew the sentence 'Kannada gothila'. However, he suddenly remembered proudly that he had learnt counting in Kannada from one to nine - ondhu, yeradu, mooru, naalaku, aidhu, aaru, yelu, yentu, umbatu. He decided to show off his Kannada knowledge by asking for yentu (eight) tea-coupons.

When his turn came at the counter, he asked for yentu tea-coupons. The shop-keeper was counting the money given by the previous customer absent-mindedly said 'yeshtu'. Ghonchu stood perplexed. He thought his kannada was flawed and maybe eight was called 'yeshtu' and not 'yentu'. He replied 'yeshtu'. The shop-keeper looked up and again said - 'yeshtu ?'

'Yeshtu', Ghonchu nodded promptly now convinced that he had come to the correct conclusion and mentally praised himself for doing so.

'Yeshtu ?', asked the shop-keeper again , now exasperated.

'Yeshtu', replied Ghonchu, also getting impatient and exasperated.

The shop-keeper now held his head in his hands. 'Yeshtu ?', he asked again now looking like a drowning man who clutched at a straw and found that it was broken.

Behind Ghonchu, one of the girls interrupted and asked Ghonchu, 'how many?'

Ghonchu turned and seeking sympathy, he said, ' eight, but this fellow doesn't understand !! '

The girl moved over to the counter and smoothly said, ' Yentu tea-coupons. ' Then she told Ghonchu, "Yeshtu means how many .'

Ghonchu was left clutching his yentu tea coupons open-mouthed with a similar expression to a person who had put more sugar in his coffee thinking there wasn't any, and later on found that all the sugar was at the bottom.

Ghonchu and Sweetu

2009-05-05T13:58:00.006+05:30

Ghonchu, Peechu, Cuteu, Kemchu and eight others went to the hill station Munnar, for the weekend. For those who are unaware, Munnar is in Kerala and is considered one of the best tourist spots in India.

However, Ghonchu was indifferent about the ten other people on the trip. His attentions were taken up by Sweetu. The problem was that Sweetu and Ghonchu barely knew each other and therefore she paid no attention to Ghonchu. Ghonchu decided he would have to impress her by doing something drastic.

His opportunity came when they arrived at a place where there was a large rock overhanging a lake. Reaching that rock was risky but Ghonchu decided that he would go to the rock and dive into the lake. The group members had split into smaller groups and Sweetu was shopping nearby with two of her friends. Ghonchu was disappointed that Sweetu would not see him diving but his razor-sharp brain – one capable of doing research in IISc, hit upon a solution. He decided he would have his picture taken while he would dive into the water.

He handed the camera to an elderly lady standing nearby and requested her to take his photo while he was in air diving into the water. After teaching the lady how to take a picture, he made his way to the overhanging rock. After numerous scrapes and minor cuts, Ghonchu neared the rock. His last barrier was a four feet jump to the rock. The minor problem was that if he missed the jump he would be injured badly. The thought of Sweetu’s glowing face on seeing his diving photo made him decide to risk the jump. He jumped and successfully reached the rock. His mission was all but accomplished. He waited to catch his breath and imagined Sweetu’s affectionate look after he would show her the photograph. He gave the signal to the lady in the distance to get ready to take the photograph.

Ghonchu dived into the water, swallowed a lot of it and came up gasping for breath. Since the water wasn’t deep, he came out only half-drowned. The elderly lady came over to him and happily handed the camera back to him commenting that the picture had come out nicely.

In the distance, Ghonchu saw Sweetu and her friends and rushed towards them dripping wet all over. Sweetu’s first reaction on seeing Ghonchu was “eeeeeeeeeee”. She failed to recognize him for a second. Ghonchu’s enthusiasm undampened, he told her proudly about he had dived into the water from the rock. Sweetu stared at him as though he was insane and thought why someone would want to do such a thing. However being polite, she took the camera which Ghonchu was pleadingly offering. She pressed the button which showed the last picture taken. Her expression changed. From thinking Ghonchu was insane, her face now showed a totally straight and non-committal expression. Ghonchu thought she was impressed but did not want to show it. With the same straight face she handed the camera back to Ghonchu. Ghonchu looked at the last picture taken.

It showed the rock, the lake and a splash of water at the place where Ghonchu had gone underneath.

Ghonchu, his Soul Mate and the Professor

2009-04-19T16:11:00.019+05:30

Ghonchu was tired and upset. His assignment to Professor Strictu's course was due (it was 10 minutes to midnight) and his code wasn't working. He had a brainwave. He decided to ask Professor Strictu by mail for an extra day to complete the assignment.

The next day, he entered the lab after lunch. On checking his mailbox, he was relieved to see that the Professor had granted his request albeit reluctantly stating that this should not become the norm ... you should maintain deadlines and other such nonsense.

He sat down to debug his non-working code. He opened the terminal and wrote './run benchmarks'. The terminal said Segmentation Fault. The same had happened the previous night; Ghonchu being the eternal optimist had hoped his code would have corrected itself overnight while he was sleeping.

After half an hour of tinkering with his code and cursing Professor Strictu 36 times during that period, he wrote './run benchmarks' again. The terminal said Segmentation Fault again.

Frustrated and thirsty, Ghonchu decided to drink a glass of cold water. On his way to the water cooler, he saw a beautiful girl. Suddenly, Ghonchu's eyes told him that the girl was speaking to him. Ghonchu's ears told him that the girl was asking him if there was any place on campus to eat something. Ghonchu decided that he would have to drink a cup of hot tea to quench his thirst. He heard himself saying that he was on his way to Tea Board and would love to escort her.

Ghonchu, his code already forgotten, walked jauntily to Tea Board along with his soulmate. He had fallen in love on previous occasions. However, despite having fallen in love 17 times previously, he felt this was the real thing. Some people might say Ghonchu could give Bingo Little a run for his money.

However inevitably, a calamity was waiting to happen. At a distance of around 50 meters, Ghonchu spotted Professor Strictu coming towards him and on the same side of the road. Ghonchu cursed Professor Strictu for the 37th time in forty minutes and thought of his options :-
- Ignore him totally
- Just wish him 'good afternoon' and walk past
- Hide behind his soulmate

Problem with option 1 and 2 was he remembered his code and the Professor's mail about adhering to deadlines. He knew Professor Strictu well and knew that he would derive a sadistic pleasure in stopping Ghonchu and asking him about his assignment. Option 3 wasn't feasible.

However then he suddenly spotted bhOndOO walking towards him on the other side of the road at a distance of 20 meters. With the cunning of a jackal, Ghonchu decided to crossover to the other side, talk to bhOndOO on some pretext, greet the Professor from the other side of the road and then catch up with his soulmate later on. He told his soulmate he had something important to discuss with bhOndOO and asked her to carry on to Tea Board where he would catch her.

Ghonchu executed his plan to perfection and started talking with bhOndOO keeping one eye on the Professor. As the distance between them grew closer, Ghonchu smiled (more like baring his teeth like a wolf) at the Professor. He then realized that the Professor was paying no heed to him. Surreptiously, he followed Professor Strictu's line of sight and realized that he was busy staring at his soulmate.

The Professor passed Ghonchu and bhOndOO without even noticing them and continually looking backwards at the diminishing sight of Ghonchu's soulmate. With evil thoughts, Ghonchu cursed Professor Strictu for the 38th time in forty five minutes and compared him with a poisonous snake.

After the poisonous snake had passed, Ghonchu got rid of bhOndOO quickly (who was unaware of all that passed), and quickly rushed to Tea Board. His eyes searched for his soulmate and finally found her already walking away from the Tea Board with a packet of Kurkure in hand. The distance between them was already 30 meters and increasing.

Dejected, Ghonchu gave up the chase, walked back to the lab and started debugging his code.

Am I getting older !!

2009-04-07T13:45:00.006+05:30

I always had the impression or the belief that myself and others of my age are still quite young. So, more often than not, it is a pleasure to indulge in pranks, make silly, nonsensical jokes and what-nots. No need to behave in a mature manner, that maturity and thoughtfulness (assuming of course that I possess it) preferably lies underneath the facade of childish playfulness. However, I recently have had train of thoughts which led me to think otherwise.

A few days ago, I chanced to look upon an old Maths notebook of 11^th standard. To digress a bit, 11^th and 12^th standard were the only times I really studied and evolved as a person. Credit goes to my school but mainly to my coaching institute – Vidya Mandir Classes who gave me an experience worth a lifetime. Those lectures about life; the amount of intense study, sometimes upto 12-14 hours a day which were accomplished without a grudge or a thought- why am I doing this.. those days really left me with a lot of poignant memories. They were inspirational. Period. I never needed to or had the will to work as hard again, neither during my BE, maybe a bit during 1^st semester of Masters. So to speak, I always held 11^th and 12^th standard as the point in my life from where it all began. Those are the days I always held as the start date to calculate anything...

But now looking at that notebook of 11^th standard, I happened to glance at the date of a class. It was 9^th Dec 2001. 8 years (7.5 to be precise) ago. That suddenly seemed like a long long time. And yet as I glanced through that notebook, I remembered things as though they had happened yesterday.

In another incident this weekend, a 17-year old kid (notice the way I call a 17-year old person a kid) scored a wonderful match-winning goal for Manchester United. I looked at him, and thought, not so long ago I used to dream to do something like that. Not so long ago, I dreamt of hitting a century (even double would do) in a world cup, scoring a goal or two in football, winning a grand slam ... and so on. I am sure everyone goes through such fantasies as a teenager.

At twenty three and a half, questions like 'am i getting older' shouldn't ideally be going through one's mind. But those reminiscences left me with this feeling. Dreams I had, things I thought happened just yesterday actually happened a long time ago; 8-10 years ago. Those years in between passed away without my realizing it.

Maybe all this is like a moving window. Maybe two-three years down the line, I would have forgotten school, and would remember things starting only from my BE and so on.. I certainly hope not. Yet again here I remember a comment in Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix by Dumbledore : “Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”

I certainly hope I never I commit that mistake.

Of course, all these are just random senti thoughts; it could just be the case my food didn't agree with me today, or I got up on the wrong side of the bed; which led me to write such stuff. Tomorrow I will get back to my nonsensical normality.

Some of my favourite quotations/words/dialogues

2009-03-31T14:41:00.003+05:30

Frodo : I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf : So do all who live to see such times but that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

-Excerpt from Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Ring.

IF you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you have spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to be broken,
Amd stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools.

(Excerpts from the poem IF – by Rudyard Kipling)

Shahid : Sirf hasi, khel, mazak zindagi nahi hota. Life mein serious bhi hona padta hai.
Kareena : Tum to life mein bahut serious the na. Kya hua. Bahut bade problem mein tum bhi to fas gaye. Aage kya hone vala hai, is par kisi ka control to hai nahi. To aise mein main vohi karti hoon jo mera dil kehta hai. Kal ko main kisiko blame nahi karna chahati. Meri vajah se hoga jo bhi hoga..... Funda jyada hogaya na.

-From the movie Jab We Met

Dumbledore : Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, I must avoid.
Harry : I don't -
Dumbledore : I cared about you too much. I cared more about your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.

-Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix

"Well, it is clear to me that he has done a very good job on you," said Scrimgeour, his eyes cold and hard behind his wire-rimmed glasses, "Dumbledore’s man through and through, aren't you, Potter?"
"Yeah, I am," said Harry. "Glad we straightened that out."
And turning his back on the Minister of Magic, he strode back toward the house.

-Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Some people are too tired
to give you a smile.
Give them one of yours,
as none needs a smile so much as he
who has none to give.

-Unknown

Ghonchu plays football

2009-03-15T17:38:00.001+05:30

One night, Ghonchu had a dream. He was playing a football match (something he hadn't done since ninth standard) in IISc and scored a magnificent goal which earned him a tumultuous applause from girls (importantly) and boys alike. Usually Ghonchu used to forget his dreams by the time he woke up but this time was an exception. He remembered his dream. So, he decided to go and play football in the Gymkhana.

During breakfast at the mess, he announced his intentions to his friends. His audience consisted of Peechu, Cuteu, Buddhu, Kemchu and a cat which had come in by the mess window in search of breakfast. Their reactions were as follows :-
Peechu : 'Don't be a fool, Ghonchu! Do you even know the rules?'
Cuteu : 'You will get hurt.'
Buddhu, Kemchu and the cat were indifferent to Ghonchu's desire to play football. The three were more interested in their breakfasts or the lack of it (as in the cat's case).

Undaunted by the curtness and indifference of his friends, Ghonchu decided to go and buy a football jersey before venturing out to the Gymkhana. After some search and bargaining, Ghonchu bought a football jersey of his favorite player, Steven Gerrard.

In the evening, Ghonchu strutted out to the football ground wearing his brand new red-colored jersey. To his pleasant surprise, he was easily accepted and inducted into one of the teams and asked to play in defense. The first time the ball came close to him was when the opposition forward dribbled past him with total ease and scored. After earning the wrath of his team-mates, Ghonchu resolved to defend better. The next time the same player came along, Ghonchu kicked him on the shin while attempting to touch the ball. This time he earned the wrath of everyone, with his captain lecturing him not to play violently. Harried and perplexed, Ghonchu finally touched the ball on his third attempt which was a pass by a fellow defender. Delighted and relieved, Ghonchu decided to indulge in some fancy footwork. Determined to show his Ronaldo-like skills, he dribbled past one of the opposition. Then he decided to do a step-over. That in essence was where he made his mistake. His friends, though curt and indifferent, had they been watching, would have shaken their heads sadly. Even the cat would have miaowed mournfully had it known Ghonchu was going to try a step-over.

For those pitiable and ignoramus readers who don't know what a step-over is; a step-over is when a player steps over the ball. Quite elementary, isn't it.

Well, no more dilly-dallying, let the unhappy sequence of events be laid down before the reader.
The sequence of events were as follows :-
- Ghonchu tried a step-over.
- Instead of stepping over the ball, he stepped on the ball.
- He lost his balance, and flayed his arms wildly.
- His direction of movement then became downwards.
- He desperately used his left hand to get some leverage while falling down.
- When he finally landed, his left wrist took his entire body weight.
- Ghonchu lay on the ground clutching his left wrist in agony.
- His red jersey was now red-and-brown.
- He got up and left the football ground with all thoughts of scoring a goal discarded.
- Thus ended Ghonchu's brief foray into playing football.
- The next day he went to the Health Center where it was discovered that he had fractured his wrist.
- Now Ghonchu wears a cast.

Ghonchu told his story to his friends hoping for sympathy. His friends' reactions were as follows :-
Peechu said, “I won't say I told you so, but I told you so.”
Cuteu said, “I said you might be injured but even I didn't imagine you would injure your hand while playing football. This must be something unique.”
Buddhu and Kemchu were yet again indifferent, they were busy gobbling their dinner.
The cat (not sure if it was the same one as the previous) miaowed pitifully, which Ghonchu took to be a gesture of sympathy.

Henceforth, Ghonchu decided that it is advisable not to place any trust on dreams.

Ghonchu travels by train

2009-03-04T18:11:00.005+05:30

Ghonchu had traveled by train many times in the past. Having seen the movie ‘Jab We Met’, he was always hopeful of meeting a ‘Kareena’ to whom he could be a ‘Shahid’. But as luck would have it, he had drawn a total blank in all his previous journeys. On prior occasions the closest he had come to a ‘Kareena’ was the girl in the next compartment who had refused to talk to him since he was in another compartment. Ghonchu resented compartmentalization. Why was it that only people from the same compartment could talk to each other?

However, another opportunity had presented itself. This time he was going from Bangalore to Bombay and back. Being an incurable optimist, he went to Yeswantpur station with a smile on his face humming the tune ‘hum jo chalne lage’. He reached the station fifteen minutes before departure. On entering his coach and after finding his seat, Ghonchu was pleasantly taken aback. There were not one, but three Kareenas’ sitting there and gossiping. No one else was there. Ghonchu kept his luggage and thought to himself, “jab Bhagwan deta hai, to koi kanjoosi nahi karta”.

After sitting opposite to them, he observed some other people passing by and lingering in front of their compartment. Ghonchu glared at them and developed a fierce liking for the compartmentalization concept. After getting rid of the undesirables, he sat back trying to decide which one he liked the most. After some thought, he chose the middle ‘Kareena’. But then suddenly the left ‘Kareena’ smiled and the right ‘Kareena’ laughed in quick succession causing Ghonchu to become dizzy and murmur “left, no right”. Suddenly, he realized the three were looking at him maybe because he had been staring at them for too long. To avert embarrassment, Ghonchu showed great presence of mind and asked, “Are you all going to Bombay?” The middle ‘Kareena’ replied yes causing Ghonchu to switch loyalties again.

However after this ‘breaking-of-ice’ conversation the three of them studiously ignored him. Ghonchu wasn’t perturbed; he felt 24 hours was a long enough time for a person of his capabilities.

The train now started moving. Suddenly, three ‘Shahids’ entered their compartment and sat down pushing Ghonchu to the corner. The six of them chatted freely while Ghonchu looked at them with a sinking heart. Suddenly one ‘Shahid’ (looked more like Amrish Puri to Ghonchu) turned to him and asked, “Hey, we are a group but my seat is two compartments away. Would you mind switching seats with me?” Ghonchu, even though an incurable optimist knew that he was beaten. “Too many ‘Shahids’ spoil the broth”. He accepted defeat and said yes to Amrish Puri. After all, there was still the return journey to come.

PS: During the return journey, his compartment consisted of an elderly couple and three fat men in their forties who kept chewing paan.

Ghonchu

2009-03-04T17:46:00.007+05:30

Some twenty-three years ago, Ghonchu was born although not known by that name until now. From now on, his reminiscences will be occasionally published on this blog.

"But what of his earlier life details?", you might ask. Well, fortunately the loss to literature is not irretrievable as who knows one day, like all the other great people in this world, Ghonchu may bring out his biography. Until that time, the public will have to be patient and satisfy themselves with his occasional narrations on this blog.

Learning to appreciate what we have

2009-02-26T14:55:00.001+05:30

We often crib about a number of things. I don't have this, don't like that, this thing is useless and so on.. Often we don't find the time to appreciate what we really have and what are our true assets. Those are just taken for granted.

We grumble about the quality of food and the hygiene at tea-board. However at the same place, there are children who are working, mistreated, often man-handled and they don't even get two square meals a day. We talk about various problems faced at IISc - quality of mess food etc etc. Yet we realize IISc's value and its ambience is missed only when we leave the place. We fight with loved ones over trivial issues. Only when we lose them, we realize their value and how much we miss them.

I have a strong belief that whenever one feels bad, depressed or upset about something; there is a way to feel better. Just look around with your eyes open, and you would definitely find someone else in a worse situation than yours. Looking at that person you might actually feel ashamed and appreciate that your problems are trivial compared to what the other person might be facing.

It might actually be a good idea to spend a minute daily to reflect upon what all we really have, what all God gave us and be thankful.

Food for thought:

This is a slight digression but is based on a conversation I had with a friend. The recent hullabaloo about lack of hot water in hostels is known to everybody (now the problem has been solved). I was one of the sufferers as well. Still, this is a slightly different view point.

One wonders that do we students really appreciate the amenities they are provided with. Do we really deserve any better!! Do people like us who may not have basic civic sense have a right to complain! There was an incident of someone in the hostel running his nose and throwing it on the washed shirt of a mess worker. Many of us put on music at loud volume in the middle of the night or any time for that matter without giving a care to whether other people might be disturbed. We jump queues, remove newspapers meant for everyone and take them to our rooms, and do all sorts of things that may not be correct. It just requires a little common sense to see that and to know where to draw the line. It is not that everyone belongs to this category, but still I wonder whether we deserve amenities like hot water if we can't be responsible for ourselves. A highly pessimistic view point, but if this is the case in a place like IISc, how can we expect people outside to behave better ...

My previous articles

2009-02-19T17:36:00.000+05:30

Since I have written only a meagre number of articles up to now, I can collect them, gloat over them like a child savouring the last bite of an ice cream :-) . The pdfs for all of them are attached. Each of these appeared in a previous Voices issue or bulletin or magazine.

bhOndOO goes to an IPL match (first appeared in another blog)
Choose your attitude
IISc as a subcity
The Unsung Heroes
The end of the beginning

The beginning

2009-02-16T19:50:00.000+05:30

Hello

This is my first baby-step into the world of blogging. Embarrassed by my fellow Voiceians (Voices : a students group in IISc that I m a member of) and other people who seem to be at home in this world of blogging, I decided, in a (regrettable?) burst of enthusiasm, that I will join this world. No more, will I feel jealous of comments like "I read your latest post" !! It seems every aspiring writer worth his/her salt has a blog with a big following...

Well, in my opinion, there are three kinds of blogs. One - highly humorous and fictional, which garners the largest following. This blog by Rupesh is my favourite. Two - Entirely personal with inner thoughts and ambitions. Three - General thoughts which can be shared by everyone. These are some samples of blogs of type three by other Voiceians. Madhurima, Mukta, Maneesh.

Problem with type one is that I doubt that I have such a sense of humour. Problem with type two is I have rarely expressed my true feelings and so on to anyone, let alone publish them in a blog. So I have to fall back to type three. Of course all this is based on the assumption that my enthusiasm doesn't wane away after a couple of posts as seems to be the case with a lot of blogs. To be frank I almost gave up at the first step itself, finding a URL for my blog :-| , which proved to be rather tedious.

Well now that I have found an URL, let the journey begin :-).

-Arun