Me back !!!

After a few days of introspection, a rajasthan trip and a wonderful time with close buddies i am back in the campus. The mundane campus life has started. My marathon practise is yet to start full swing, owin to the tough schedules we have. :) ...

I have been readin these days... read a bit of works of vivekananda.. its kinda heavy... so moved to other lighter stuffs such as Don Quixote and Joan of Arc... both of them are an interesting read... they talk about leadership ...
currently i am readin 'Thinking Strategically', strategy is what i like ..and this book is all about game theory and its application in strategy... truly an awesome combination...
dont be surprised if i pitch in with few examples from the book time and again...

thats it for now.. will keep posting.. regularly from now on...

a startling fact... there are about 200 million blogs which were dormant the whole of last year.. thank god..i rescued my blog from it... :)

An evening well spent ....

Me and my friend Asuti, I have not introduced him to the blog yet but will do so later, were coming back from shopping, on the way we saw this huge hoarding of 'Janata Raja' on the road and felt like going to the play. It was already 7:50 pm and the play was supposed to start at 8 pm. Since we were on out bike, we zooomed past the traffic and reached the place at 8:10. We somehow managed to get an entry into the play even though we didn't have passes. These are the few times u feel good about the way things work in India, if not we would not be able to see the play.

I will write about the play in another post. In the break we went out to get some dinner, the Qs behind the counters were long, we stood in the Q, played with the kid in front of us and managed to get hold of some coupons. We ordered a masala dosa, a pizza, paav bhaji, 2 coffees. After a long time I had an awesome masala dosa, even the coffee was amazing.

The play was interesting. I met one of my gujju buddies during the play. Had a chat with him too.

All in all, an evening well spent... bahut majaa aaya !!!

Times wastin...

With reference to my earlier post, i came across this song in the movie 'Walk the Line'. I liked the way Cash and June, sing this song. The lyrics is too good. I have pasted the lyrics for ur convenience.

Carl Smith - Time's A Wastin' - June Carter Cash

Male: Now I've got arms
Female: And I've got arms
Together: Lets get together and use those arms
Female: Lets go
Together: Times a wastin'

M: I've got lips
F: And I've got lips
T: Lets get together and use those lips
F: Lets go
T: Times a wastin

F: A cakes no good if you don't mix the batter and bake it
M: And loves just a bubble if you don't take the trouble to make it

T: So if you're free to go with me
T: I'll take you quicker than 1-2-3
F: Lets go
T: Times a wastin

(Instrumental Break)

M: Now I've got blues
F: And I've got blues
T: Lets get acquainted and lose those blues
F: Lets go
T: Time's a wastin

M: Now Ive got feet
F: And Ive got feet
T: Lets start to walk with a lovers beat
F: Lets go
T: Times a wastin

F: You've got me feelin love like I never have felt it
M: You're full of sugar and Im think I'm the burner to melt it

M: Now I've got schemes
F: And I've got schemes
T: Lets get together and dream some dreams
F: Lets go
T: Times a wastin

Walk the Line !!!

The other day i was watching 'Walk the Line', its a movie about Johnny Cash, rather its the story behind Cash and June Carter, his second wife. It has few insights into his childhood but focuses mainly on his singing career - how he approached sun records, how he performed on stage, the way he started introducin himelf as 'Hello, I am Johnny Cash'. Then June Carter enters the seen, and the pace of the movie quickens.

The movie goes into the usual guy meets girl, girl likes the guy but she has constraints, guy is already married with 2 kids and so on. Cash will become a drug addict, due to which his performance suffers, he loses his wife, his contracts and friends. By then even June is also divorced from her second marriage. She stays with Cash to help him come back to his normal self.

There r a few gud songs both of them sing together before he proposes to her on stage. That part is truly romantic. Overall its a gud movie to watch. After watching the movie, i have downloaded Cash's songs and listening to it. They are pretty good.

By the way, the female lead, Reese Witherspoon won Oscar for her role in the movie.

Email Links ...

Here is a list of email providers with their capacity..
came across this on the net.. thought it will be helpful for a few

Yaycos 3GB http://www.yaycos.com
XasaMail 2GB http://www.xasamail.com
MasBytes Unlimited http://www.masbytes.com
Walla 5 GB http://www.walla.com
FreeOla Unlimited http://www.freeola.com
GMX 3 GB http://www.gmx.net
Intper 2 GB http://intper.es
Maktoob 1 GB http://www.maktoob.com
Interwaysmail 1 GB http://www.interwaysmail.net
SpyMac 1 GB http://www.spymac.com
Rediffmail 1 GB -> 2GB http://www.rediffmail.com
JLMail 1 GB http://www.jlmail.com
Suredid 1 GB http://mail.suredid.com
Omnilect 1 GB http://www.omnilect.com
GMail Unlimited http://gmail.google.com
EmailPinoy 1 GB http:/mail.emailpinoy.com
Yahoo! China 1 GB http://mail.yahoo.com.cn
Gawab 1 GB http://www.gawab.com
Megamail.cc 1 GB http://www.megamail.cc/

Here is another interesting link .. to send large files via mail...
http://s2.yousendit.com/

You find a file too big to send by email try YouSendIt, a free service that lets you send a file up to 1GB to another PC or person. Just type in the recipient's email id and upload the file. The recipient is then notified by email and has upto 7 days to download the file. No passwords, no software to install, no accounts to create, and normal/secure transfers. This free service can even provide Data Security Encrypted HTTPS session (SSL/TLS) to make sure your data is secure.

Khukri Memorial

During my Diu trip, I happened to visit the Khukri memorial. It houses a 25 foot long replica of INS Khukri which went down 40 nautical miles off the coast of Diu on 8th December 1971. It was hit by 2 torpedos fired from the pakistan submarine PNS Hangor. INS Khukri has been the largest war time casualty India has ever experienced. The sinking was a great learning for the indian navy who were over confident of their prowess. 18 officers and 176 sailors went down along with the battle ship. The memorial is erected on the shores of Diu. Do visit it once if you happen to be in Diu.

The detailed article on the sinking of INS Khukri can be found here.

Friends ...

I was thinking of old friends today
And how many of them have slipped away.
Moved, got married, or stopped calling so much,
Found new friends, got busy, and just lost touch.

It reminded me of falling leaves.
Every autumn the leaves fall from the trees.
Some stay longer than others,
but eventually - Each leaf must fall, I'm told,
Leaving the tree alone to face the cold.

Why is it that in the time of utmost need
The leaves would seek to leave the tree?
And when we need our friends around
We look and they can not be found?

Of course these friendships come and go
And in the spring new leaves will grow.
But I prefer autumn friends of old
With crackling laughter and colors bold.

It saddens me now I must admit
How somehow, someway,
I did forget Laughing with old friends of mine
During summers when the sun would shine.

And then I thought of you.
That one stubborn leaf that won't let go.
That clings despite the winds that blow.
Fighting ice, and snow, and winter's stings
Hanging on right through till spring.

So I guess that's what you are to me -
The very last leaf to leave the tree.
I know it seems silly, but it's true.
When I see that last leaf...
...I think of you.

Not my own... got it from my friend... hence can't reference it.

Dimension Z ....

In dimension Z, there are strage moments. Euclid was not always right. He assumed parallelness, in constancy, right to the end of things; but a non-Euclidean way of being is also possible, where the lines come together, far out there. A vanishing point. The illusion of convergence.

Yet one knows it's more than illusion. Sometimes a coming together is possible, a spilling of one reality into another. A kind of soft enlacing. Not prim intersections loomed in a world of precision, no sound of the shuttle.

And one moves slowly over this other reality, beside it and underneath and around it, always with strength, always with power, yet always with giving of oneself to it. And the other senses this, coming forward with its own power, giving itself to one, in turn.

Courtesy : The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County...

I completed the book during my journey back to the campus. Its a lovely book, read it if you can get your hands on it.

Here are few excerpts from the book.

The old dreams were good dreams, they didn't work out, but i'm glad i had them.

I move in dimension Z, the world goes by somewhere else in another slice of things, parallel to me.

You are always dealing with markets, and markets - mass markets - are designed to suit average tastes. Thats were the numbers are.

Profit and Subscriptions and the rest of that stuff dominate art. We're all getting lashed to the great wheel of uniformity.

The virtues of Amateurism - The market kills most artisitic passion than anything else. Its a world of safety out there.

With time in my pocket, weather on my side .....

W.B. Yeats : Realism, economy, sensuousness, beauty and magic.

All marriages, all relationships are the inertia of protracted custom. Custom brings predictability, and predictability carries its own comforts.

If time permits, probably i will write a line or two about the book, the way Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson danced together and fell in love, those four days of passion and a lifetime of memories, their sacrifices and their ends.

Author : Robert James Waller

India Everywhere phenomenon

After 'Feel Good' and 'India Shining' phenomenon, its time for 'India Everywhere'. This was the theme in World Economic Forum meet in Davos in Jan this year. This phrase coupled with 'Fastest growing free market democracy' builds a strong 'Brand India'. As i see it, its an attempt by India to reach out to the world. It has noticed the potential the world has in store and Indians want to have a piece in the pie. The govt. has adopted a focussed strategy to woo in investments and have a steady and an increasing flow of capital. India ensured that it is 'hot and happening' at one of the world's most powerful networking events.

The event presented the country as an attractive destination for foreign investment, as an emerging manufacturing hub and as a credible partner for world business. In addition, it highlighted the Indian government's policy reforms and showcased the country's cultural diversity, with the overall goal of helping Davos participants gain a deeper understanding of Indian people and markets.

Knowledge wharton does a thorough analysis of the Indian hope trick in this article.

Few of the associated sites in this front are
India Everywhere
Indian Brand Equity Foundation

A great PR job, a well thought out marketing strategy has made the world to sit up and notice India, it all depends on how we take it forward. Whether we capitalise on the opportunity or falter as we have done before, time will only tell.

Kumaon Regiment ....

I stumbled across this article while surfing the net. It talks about how the 13 Kumaon regiment stood against all odds and the govt. apathy towards recognising them. Kumaon regiment is one of the crack troops of the indian army receivein many honours, but the recognition ends there. No one knows about them. Their sacrifice has gone unnoticed, only few quizzers apart from the soldiers families have some idea about them.

13 Kumaon's Last Stand: Chushul, November 18, 1962

Most of us studied the Alfred Tennyson poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in school. The Battle of Thermopylae we read of with goose bumps. We all know about Custer's Last Stand. And the battle cry 'Remember the Alamo!' resonates with us.

Yet, none of us has heard of the 13th Kumaon Battalion's Last Stand at Rezang La, Ladakh, in the Battle of Chushul, on November 18, 1962. I think this is a great pity.

For, let us remind ourselves of these examples of heroism:

· The Battle of Thermopylae in ancient Greece in 480 BCE, where 300 Spartans under Leonidas stopped a Persian army of 250,000 at a narrow mountain pass. They died to the last man, but provided enough time for the rest of the Greek army to escape to fight another day.

· The 13th Light Brigade of the British Army at Balaclava, the Crimea, in 1854. Six hundred and seventy-three men rode at Russian artillery and were decimated.

· At the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, in 1836, several hundred Texans held out against the Mexican Army before they were killed to the last man.

· Custer's Last Stand was the Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876, in Montana where the Sioux nation under Chief Sitting Bull wiped out George Custer and 265 men.

And finally:

· The C company of the 13th Kumaon Battalion, under Major Shaitan Singh (Param Vir Chakra, Posthumous) held off a fierce Chinese attack on November 18, 1962, at the Rezang La heights that they held. Massively outnumbered and outgunned, the defenders died almost to the last man, and expended their last round. All 114 men were killed or wounded. But they succeeded in blunting the Chinese assault, killing as many as a thousand Chinese in the process at Rezang La and at nearby Gurung Hill. Thereafter, the Chinese did not push further towards the Chushul plain. It was a critical checkpoint on a potential Chinese advance on Leh.

The story of 13th Kumaon is the kind of thing that would make the patriotic Indian stand tall with tears in his eyes. Yet, we do not stand in silence for a moment in memory of Major Shaitan Singh and his gallant men. No poet eulogizes them as Tennyson did the Light Brigade. There is only a small memorial at the site, which says:

How can a Man die Better than facing Fearful Odds,
For the Ashes of His Fathers and the Temples of His Gods,
To the sacred memory of the Heroes of Rezang La,
114 Martyrs of 13 Kumaon who fought to the Last Man,
Last Round, Against Hordes of Chinese on 18 November 1962.
Built by All Ranks 13th Battalion, The Kumaon Regiment.

I am indebted to the Bharat-Rakshak web site for this information as well as a long article on the Battle of Chushul by L N Subramanian. Yet, why is there nothing written about them along the lines of what Tennyson did, as in these excerpts from his stirring poem:

Half a league half a league
Half a league onward...
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred...

Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd;
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die...

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;...

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade...

Why have Indians so consistently ignored the great sacrifices made by our soldiers? Why isn't the story of the valiant 13th Kumaon a part of every child's textbooks? Why have we let these brave men die unwept, unmourned, and unsung? Just as we let thousands of soldiers die in Kashmir, in Kargil, everywhere, they are mere cannon fodder. India needs a draft, so people in power feel the pain of their children dying for the nation.

I think I know why there is no official celebration of the Battle of Chushul: the government can hardly bother to honour the Unknown Soldier on Kargil Day. Then how will they remember something that happened forty years ago?

There is also an element of shame. Congress governments were unwilling to talk about 1962 because it brings out the fact that 'someone had blunder'd' and that was their deity, Jawaharlal Nehru, along with his defence minister, V K Krishna Menon. Admitting this would leave them shamefaced, so they just let the soldiers 'but do and die'. Even the current government is unwilling to publish the Henderson Brooks report. Why? It will at least shed some light on what happened.

The media in India should have taken this up in the absence of governmental action. But the media, influenced by Chinese propaganda, has portrayed the 1962 war on Chinese terms. Aping the Xinhua propaganda agency, Indian media mavens have taken the stand that the war was India's fault. As though Indians, with no mountain divisions, would go over the Himalayas and attack the Chinese in Tibet and Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh!

The Marxists in India say the 1962 affair was an internal matter for the Chinese, as they have generously 'awarded' Arunachal Pradesh to China. The Chinese believe this, too. They told the CM of Arunachal Pradesh recently that he did not need a visa to go to China, as he was a Chinese citizen! Americans, Britons and Australians accept China's lies, for it suits them to support China.

But we know that all this isn't true. Individual Indians must remember the 13th Kumaon. As the Quebec motto goes, Je me souviens: I remember. And I shall always remember those brave men of C Company who died in a frozen wasteland. For me. For you.

One day ...

One day i shall fly
One day i shall soar high
One day the world will watch
One day i shall shine.

Hope i live long enough to see this day...
even though its me who decides how soon i see the light of this day..

Nostalgia...

For all you have done... thank you mate...
For all that you are .... I love you.

Love ....

I wish i knew a pretty song
i could sing for you ...
Special words of joy and love
so we could start anew

I wish i knew a story
to tell you every night
A sweet, romantic one
to make your heart feel light.

I wish i could write a poem
A verse to make you see
you mean more than all world
and all it holds for me.

I wish I knew what i could say
or knew what i could do
To make you feel the love for me
That i've always felt for you.

Schedule ...

Sit in front of the comp .. start givin finishin touches to the software already developed by some1 else :) .... work on this , work on tht... teach ppl how to use the s/w u developed for them... help them with their difficulties...

feed the data ... arrange for the logistics... hav pizza breaks.. coffee breaks in b/w... brainstorm the rules... build the framework for next days activities.. hav a meet .. .discuss issues , queries... speak over phone.. hav more pizzas more caffeine.... snatch some sleep while u can...

handle HRs ... speak to ur batchmates... help the needy... guide the greedy...
all in all... do whtevr possible frm ur end...
take up many roles... assume responsibilities...
accomplish wht needs to be done....
with no margin for error...
to ensure tht...
"alls well tht ends well"....

this is how i survived the 1 week of high stress, high tension and high drama...
but in the end it leaves me with a wonderful experience and a good bunch of friends...:) ...

no 1 outside this place can understand y ne1 should put in 20 - 22 hrs of work everyday for somethin that doesnot give you anything in return apart from experience...

well.. this is wht we want to do.. like to do... wht we get in the end of the day is the sense of satisfaction... for this we are ready to give whtevr we hav got time and again....

"one for all and all for one" ....

Marathon ....

Its a wierd experience i must say, the connect between the mind and the body.

I realised it while i was running. I run with a friend of mine who is a bit slower than my comfortable speed, since i like company while i run... i prefer to run slow than to run alone.

While running my mind tends to wander a lot... sometimes i dream .. sometimes i think... thats when i noticed the pecularity. When i dream, i instantly switch to my comfortable speed which is faster than the speed at which we are running and when i start to think i tend to slow down.. the more i get involved without my thought , slower i become... dunno why it happens... in both the cases i am not focusin on the run.. sometimes i run fast and sometimes i run slow....

i think even our mind behaves like a processor ( rather it must be the other way round) ... when ur thinkin .. u consume lot of ur mind space hence the legs do not get so much attention from the mind as required... but when ur dreamin .. the mind is relatively free.... it eases down at u switch to ur comfy levels...

hence i come to a conclusion that ..thinkin is a heavy process but dreamin is a light process....
dunno which is better ... but thts the way it is....

CCCS presentation

Another CCCS ppt down the drain. The prof makes u feel tht u hav done nothin.. that u r unfit to be in the place where u r.. u r the dumbest creature on the planet...

all those 8 hrs of work for the presentation ...
u just stand there and take what ever the prof throws at you.. any cross point will be turned out as somethin fraud... the problem lies in the articulation..

everything boils down to the general strategy of the company.. wht it is i am unable to fathom... whether it is focusses, differentiative, me too... whtevr doesnot mattter... u cannot hit the nail on the head...

General Reading

U know wht.. it is very important for people to be abreat with whats happening in the world outside... so one has to read newspapers, watch news channels, read bizz mags, do this and do that... blah..blah....

Its not just the knowledge of current affairs which make few ppl great... its their voracious reading ability that makes them what they are... i subscribe to the view that reading builds character, it makes ppl of substance...

One of the few good things i have learnt from my childhood is to read... i used to read a lot ... yup mostly novels, fiction, cartoons.. i started with Jeffrey Archer's "Not a Penny more Not a penny less' and Sidney Sheldon's "If tomorrow comes" while i was in my eight grade... i kinda liked these two... they still remain as my favourites... I went on to Enid Blyton.. reading through Famous five, secret seven and whatever i could lay my hands on.. then it was the turn of John Grisham, Robert Ludlum.... Frederick Forsyth and Michael chricton couldn't have to wait long .... with cartoons filling up the gaps... i was on a reading spree... In engineering i got hold of few of them who had an interesting collection... i went on and on...

As i grew.. i moved to a bit of seriors reading... moving away from fiction was boring initially... but it became interesting whn it made me sit back and think.... hav learnt few things frm books ... more is in store in the future...

I feel Books are man's best friends. U can read them at ur leisure.. well not entirely true.. once u get into the book... u can hardly close it ... one cannot resist the temptation...

In order to keep up with the readin i hav decided to do general readin for atleast half an hour a day.... i hav a bet with my friend Bancho.. that if any one fails to do the gen. readin on any given day... each one has to pay the other 100 bucks... a gud disincentive to persue a good habit...
hopefully i will continue this...

The marathon exercise

The practise has helped in discovering myself. IT might seem to be a bit far fetched, but nonetheless it is true.

I am not a selfmotivated person. Until and unless someone is breathing down my neck i don't push myself to do anything. Not that i am lazy, but i lose interest in what i do after sometime. Initially i used to start things on a grand scale but couldn't sustain it long enough. Instead of working on the sustaining part, whenever i came across a good idea i would think it through and later feel that i would not sustain it and stopped taking initiatives. I solved the wrong problem here. I have tried to push myself to do things but after sometime i lose interest, motivation, dedication, determination.. u name it, I have lost it... but bcoz of these ppl i hav managed to do it...hopefull i will be able to sustain it till Jan 21st... i am still working on the learnings form this exercise... hopefully it will help to get me back on the track of self motivated, enthu, cheerful guy i once was...

StanC Mumbai Marathon

Since childhood i liked to play, run.. i am not sure whether this is correct... I feel i like the smell of my sweat or rather sweat dripping from my forehead... my sweat all over me gives me kinda high.. :) .. maybe its kinda wierd but this is wht i like... due to which i liked runnin.. since thats the simplest thing which makes u sweat..

Then i met these set of ppl from my coll. A major, a CP king, the reserved Tulli and the Amazon Paro who had just began their marathon practise. It was a perfect match. I needed company for me to run and here they were. They needed more people to take part in the marathon. Hence i joined hands ( or legs) with them and then our marathon practise kick started. Running almost daily, following the prescribed schedule sacrosanctly, with disincentive schemes for ppl who miss the training, the marathon practise is on for almost 7 weeks now. Well thats one heck of a time period to sustain something.

The marathon is on Jan 21st but its a 20 week training schedule. Sometimes its kinda interestin, sometimes highly boring, sometimes thrillin and fewtimes extremely painful.. but the gang we are we just motivate eachother and carry on.

I bet if left alone i wouldn't have persued it even though i feel i can run the full marathon with a bit of practise.

To write !!!

I am back...
again after a long time.. failin to keep the promise i made in the previous post. I dunno why i keep doing it quite often. Guess I am not a great writer which stops me from posting frequently or rather i take refuge by considering myself not a good writer. Well if i don't write how am i going to become one. With all these writing takes the last priority. If i have absolutly nothing else to do, i login to blogspot. Well u guessed rite, I am kinda free now or rather i have made myself free :) .

For a long time i wanted to pen some of the work i do, things i did, or things i intend to do. I will provide u with a list of post i plan to write. Since i have posted here probly i will be motivated enuff to post them pretty soon. Here they go...

First things first.

1. StanC Mumbai Marathon - Jan 21st

2. Runnin on the street- late nite/ early morning

3. Jodhpur/Jaisalmer Trip
The desert safari.. my expectations.. how it matched, exceeded and failed...

4. Delhi trip part II.
I have written the first part and the second part is due for quite sometime.

5. Relationships...
Yup, I plan to write few things about relationships, things i cherish about them, things i despise, things i have learnt, things i am unable to fathom.. well to put in a nut shell.. it will be Relationships through my eyes.

6. Classes / Group preps
The unforgettable moments ... things which hav taught me those little stuffs i have learnt in this place...

7. Flash - Success rate of 100%
From a debutant to ....

8. Competitions - how i manage to fail all of them

9. Dangs - The place to visit...
One awesome bike trip with an exciting group of friends .. probably i will post some pics as well....

I want to make the count touch 10.. i am thinking very hard to find the tenth one... i should be able to think something.... hey.. here it goes.. not an interestin thing to write about but at a later date it mite bring a smile on my face.... hopefully...

10. Our CCCS presentation

By this weekend i hope i will be able to write about them.

To Delhi and back Part I

Last weekend i had travelled to Delhi to visit one of my good friends. I had never seen Delhi before and I always wanted to see it. Even then i had not made any plans to visit Delhi. But my friend forced to make my trip and off i went to the national capital.

Way to the Railway Station...

All my friends know how punctual i am. When it comes to boarding the train too i was late not that i was doing timepass, i had couple of meetings just before i left. I was delayed considerably and i was all ready to go by 5:30 pm for the 5:45 pm train. Alas it is half an hour from the campus to the railway station. I didn't have any other go, got on the auto and told him to go to Sabarmati station which is half an hour from the campus and from the main railway station, thought with some luck i will be able to catch the train. The autowalla rode as if he had all the time in the world, with a little bit of pesterin and pushing, i managed to get to the station by 6 pm and was wondering what will i do for the next 15 mins since i am early. Went to the railway station and saw the tracks were narrow gauge, i was taken aback. when i cross checked with the station staff, there were considerate enough to tell me that the train comes on the main line which is half a km from the station on the other side.. i culdn't see the main line because my view was blocked by 4 goods trains. Cursing myself, i ran with my bag to reach the main line, crossed 2 goods train since they were smaller, the third one was a long one and i was right in the middle of it. Then the real adventure began, i started to climb between the bogies but the train started to move all of a sudden. i got down and waited till the train passed. Now the last one, no luck either, i was again in the middle of it. Thought of crawling below the link, it was low enough to not let me thru easily and the grease would have spoilt the white shirt i was wearing. The link was high enough so that i culdn't jump over it easily. After examining the gap between the bogies, checking the strength of each of the metal pieces that were placed inbetween i climbed on the link. During the climb, some part of time i was freely suspended in mid air. With all sorts of acrobatics i culd manage to get on the other side of the train. Never knew crossing a train was that difficult, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. Once i crossed, ppl who were waiting for the same train started giving me dirty looks because it is not common for passengers to take that route to reach the railway station :) .

The train arrived and i was very happy to board it. If not for the adventure it wouldn't have been so satisfying to board the train !!!

The Journey

I went to check my seat and behold i see a young pretty girl sittin in the seat next to me. Well not everytime u see pretty girls travelling with you in the same compartment as yours :). The "shy" guy i am i did not strike a conversation or exchange pleasantries. I just went and sat there, when the train started to move i started readin "Elephant Song" the book i carried to read through my journey.

After readin abt 10 pages i see the seat next to the window empty and i parked myself on it. I started speakin to the guy in front of me. he was a businessman from UP and was travellin whole of India on some business. He started narrating his life to me. His education, marriage, his passion, business and football. We discussed football to a great extent since that was the only common thread we had. He had played for few clubs in the past and was into coachin now, and i play football. Its always interestin to discuss a sport with someone who is knowledgeable about the same. We discussed the technicalities, strategies, curving kicks, flank defense, front attack and what not. After that i received a call and was on phone till i got out of Gujarat. since roaming was not enabled on my cell, thanks to the telephone dept, i culdn't take refugee in my cell after i crossed gujarat.

This was just the beginnin. There is more to come !! will pen it down probably tonite.....
if i dont go to Rajasthan.

Perfect 10

Here is a list of people who achieved perfection in the games they played. These are not any miniscule achievement. These were played when the individuals represented their country, when the media had made them superheroes, expectations were sky high. They never disappointed anyone and etched their names in the books of history. The accomplishment reflects not just the talent they had but also their mental strength, their grit and their passion.

1. Jim Laker - 10/53 at Old Trafford
2. Geoff Hurst - 1966 World Cup Final Hat-trick
3. Torvill & Dean - 1984 Winter Olympics 9 perfect sixes
4. Anil Kumble - 10 wickets against Pakistan
5. Mark Spitz - 7 gold medals in 1972 Olympics
6. Frankie Dettori - Winner of all 7 races on Sep 28, 1996
7. Steffi Graf - 1988 Golden grandslam
8. Jesse Owens - 4 gold medals in 1936 Olympics
9. Nadia Comeneci - Perfect 10 in 1976 Olympics
10. Jonny Wilkinson - Golden left boot in 2003 Rugby World Cup

Here is the source.

15 yrs of internet ...

OMG.. its been 15 years since internet has entered the world...
what a phenomenol growth it has seen in these 15 years, it has been a part of everybody's life...
one cannot imagine a life without browsin the net... its a one stop solution for nethin under the sun.. well beyond too...

on the 15th anniversary here's a list of top 15 sites on the net ... courtesy guardian

1. eBay.com
Founded: Pierre Omidyar, 1995, US
Users: 168m
What is it? Auction and shopping site

2. wikipedia.com
Founded: Jimmy Wales, 2001, US
Users: 912,000 visits per day
What is it? Online encyclopaedia

3. napster.com
Founded: Shawn Fanning, 1999, US
Users: 500,000 paying subscribers
What is it? File sharing site

4. youtube.com
Founded: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, 2005, US
Users: 100m clips watched a day
What is it? Video sharing site

5. blogger.com
Founded: Evan Williams, 1999, US
Users: 18.5m unique visitors
What is it? Weblog publishing system

6. friendsreunited.com
Founded: Steve and Julie Pankhurst, 1999, UK
Users: 15m
What is it? School reunion site

7. drudgereport.com
Founded: Matt Drudge, 1994, US
Users: 8-10m page views per day
What is it? News site

8. myspace.com
Founded: Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, 2003, US
Users: 100m
What is it? Social networking site

9. amazon.com
Founded: Jeff Bezos, 1994, US
Users: More than 35m customers in over 250 countries
What is it? Online retailer, primarily of books, CDs and DVDs

10. slashdot.org
Founded: Rob Malda, 1997, US
Users: 5.5m per month
What is it? Technology news website and internet forum

11. salon.com
Founded: David Talbot, 1995, US
Users: Between 2.5 and 3.5m unique visitors per month
What is it? Online magazine and media company

12. craigslist.org
Founded: Craig Newmark, 1995, US
Users: 4bn page views per month
What is it? A centralised network of online urban communities, featuring free
classified advertisements and forums

13. google.com
Founded: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, 1998, US
Users: A billion search requests per day
What is it? Search engine and media corporation

14. yahoo.com
Founded: David Filo and JerryYang, 1994, US
Users: 400m
What is it? Internet portal and media corporation

15. easyjet.com
Founded: Stelios
Haji-Ioannou, 1995, UK
Users: 30m passengers last year
What is it?: Budget airline


Its a very interestin article.It talks about how gutenberg revolutionised the thinkin of the common man and draws parallel from this to Tim Berners Lee's invention of the WWW.

Unnecessary formality ...

As usual, i am back after a long time...
its not tht i dont hav nethin to write or time to write... its just tht i dont push myself to write... however hard i try .. the last thing i do is to write ... well sooner or later i need to get rid of this habit of mine...

now cumin back to the topic...
i came across the title as a description for a ceremony we regard in high esteem... the response was on a class survey that was circulated in the class..
regardin class surveys .. we used to hav it durin my undergrad days.. it was very much fun and the whole class used to be part of it... we used to pick somethin thts of common interest to the class and pass on the survey across the class when the class was goin on .. at the end of the class i used to write few of the responses on the board.... man, life was so interestin then.. i miss those days.. well almost.. not those where i hav been the victim of the survey :) ...

since i entered into post grad.. didn't hav nethin similar to it durin the first year.. in the second year .. in order to kill time me and my neighbour started this survey on "wht do u think marriage is".. as it made its way thru the guys.. it had only lustful remarks such as licensed sex ... unrestricted sex .. so on and so forth .. we had to chip in with couple of senti lines to
keep the sanctity of the survey.. well there were few interestin responses but the one tht caught me is the topic of this post...

there was plenty of discussion over the topic.. but i am not goin to write about it now...
will surely do it sometime later....

The Quote ...

Well.. comin back after a really long time..
i hav promised myself yet again tht i will be a regular blogger...
but this is one promise i hav not been able to honor... but the promise saga continues..

ok.. back to bloggin...

i luv quotes.... ne witty retort impresses me...
i used to hav a gud collection of the quotes i had come across...frm the books i read, newspaper, conversation and evn i subscribed to quite a few quote sites too...

these days i hav started browsin thru wikipedia very often... thts one place u get info abt everythin.. i don't vouch for it.. nonetheless it gives u whtevr info u need ... i agree there are some doubts regardin its authenticity.. but thts the last thing tht bothers me....

while generally browsin thru wikipedia... i came across the Richard Bach page...
came across his quotes... i tell u i hav come across lots of them.. but his is a class apart...
i luv the quotes because it helps u to stop and contemplate on things.. gives u a different perspective to think about... eventually one feels it shuld be obvious...

my favorite quote from his collection is...

---->
I used to think that the purpose of language was to communicate. That if we were clear enough and careful enough, we could make anyone understand anything we write, make them see anything we see. Not so, I found.

The only people who can understand us are the ones who already know what we want to tell them, and then the best of our writing can merely remind, can simply whisper, "I know that, too."

Have you ever wondered why some readers love a book and others just don't get it? I'll tell you why (but you'll understand only if you already know)

------>

gud isn't it...

one of my good friend culdn't get thru an interview... she was down in depression.. she was not the rite fit for the profile.. she felt bad because she failed in the interview.. and she culdn't digest the fact....

That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.

"The Bridge Across Forever"

guess.. this will do her some good..

ok..
folks.. bye frm me ...
will try to keep the promise i hav made...

The WACky Time

Well... comin back after a long hibernation....
my first since i joined MBA....

will post my experience of "MBA" sometime later
whn i find some spare time

WAC as for the non MBA junta is Written Analysis and Communication
wht crap each one of us written somethin or the other in our lifetime
and done lots of analysis b4 we got here...
people with workex would hav created lots of reports
so y spend time on something which doesn;t add any value to u...

well my friend, the simplicity ends here
WAC is one thing where even the native english people might falter ...
the subject curbs the natural talent and the free flow of thought
and claims to provide a structure and logical flow to the thought process

believe me thts the last thing u get out of here
if u haven't got out of the insti yet... (only for the ppl who understand wimwi ways)
atleast as far as WAC 1 in term 1 is considered

u do some shitty analysis, spend ur weekend pouring thru hazaar internet sites
churned out by google... discuss with ur friends..
and come up with out of the box alternatives.. creative thinkin will be awarded
thts wht they say...

u see to it tht ur thoughts, ideas, analysis everything combined do not exceed 1000 words...
well it boils down to sort of precis writin for few and OMG ttthhhhooooouuuuussssssaaaannnnnddddd words for the rest...

the deadline is fast approaching...
clock strikes 3:45 .. the submission window opens...
then comes the gruntin sound of the printer...
whn it starts churnin out papers and more papers..
a small group assembles around the printer...
whr they "thank" the profs and the TA for the assignment

how can people realise technology if it doesn't fail...
the printer says Jam in tray 2....
intellectuals as we are... we don;t knw how to rectify it...
u need the printer mgr and set it right...
the worse part ppl don;t learn anything they want the printer mgr to come for the same error umpteen no. of times..

with the report all done and one glance @ clock which reads 4:25 pm...
shit... the submission ends @ 4:30... thn comes all popular WAC run...
whr u run to ur classroom to submit before time... which most of us manage to do so..
thn comes the time of relief... whr one forgets to submit the soft copy

we need to submit the softcopy of the assignment at two places..
ya.. u read rite... soft copy to be copied to two places..
well one is impressed with the intellectual level of the system..u see..

u hav ample amt of time for submission... well by 11:59:59 !!!!...
evn then manage to forget and lose a subgrade...

and now regardin the grades...
the guy who gets a C and a B ... doesn't hav a clue of
how he/she got wht he/she got...
its a random grade generating algorithm these ppl follow...
whtever is the reason they will force u to get convinced tht
the gradin is right for ur report...

this is WAC for u...