Wednesday, October 24, 2007

L.I.F.E.

what's life all about , sitting today some random thoughts are coming into my mind ...what was expected from me , whether i have delivered to my potential , perhaps i have not .....so who is responsible for it ...it's only me and not someone else i would like to blame .....it's all ready three sentences and i still have no idea as to why i am writing all this crap .... to whom is it directed or whether i am venting my frustrations out by penning this ...by now everyone of you must have made it out that there is something wrong...yes surely something is ...

What started as a one off incidence has marred my life for all the years that i have started to dream about the better days that will lie ahead for me ,perhaps they will never materialize unless i start working for it .., I always tried to break the conventional mold surrounding me , never wanted to do what my peers have done , failed most of the times , perhaps each time ,even after reaching the target .some sort of extraordinary circumstances have denied me the moment where i could have basked in the glory ...but none of the others are responsible for it , it's me who is responsible for my happenings , i do take full responsibility for it.

I dreamt of being something in life (now i cannot even define this word "something")...as perplexed i am today , where there seems no light , in the open world leave aside the end of the tunnel ....i did kept running after things in life which i never achieved ...but then , what i was doing never gave me the challenge to put in all my efforts .I would not like to cram up things and then vomit them in exams ..always wanted to test my abilities to the fullest extent ...how far can i reach ...though all these resulted in failures at every stage of my life ,but i always tried to rise from them .., prove my detractors wrong even my parents were part of it ..in all these years i have realised that it's best to walk alone in life ..because no one cares where the damn you are in life ....there are other better things in life for them .I am happy that at least i played my game , never shied away from the obstacles that have marred me .

We all like to live in the safe harbor ,but then a ship never rests permanently in it ,because it is meant to sail ,bring in the revenues ,no one admires it standing still in the water ,all the beautiful canvases drawn show it sailing against the backdrop of the pale blue water. If one is happy with a routine life, the same conversations, the same kind of routine work then I have no judgments on that kind of life, all the best to you, but I haven’t met someone who’s happy living that kind of life. If you keep doing what you have been doing all your life you will keep getting what you have been getting all your life. Yet most people live their life that way, stuck in the cocoon of comfort ness and complacency. True joy only comes when you put your blood and sweat in the game and take chances, you will start to experience more failure, but the chances of success also rise, as the saying goes “Insanity is doing the same things but expecting different results”.The only failure is the failure to try, to dream and dare .The real risk is in living the risk less life, because down the life you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do rather than the things you did.

Perhaps the next 2-3 months are the most important for my life .. it's like make or break ..if i don't succeed then may be i will be lost somewhere ...never to rise again .. i shall try to fulfill my potential ,hope this time i am true to myself.



Saturday, September 29, 2007

THE CHAMPS ,YES I CAN SAY THAT NOW

So finally i am back after a long sabbatical to update my blog , perhaps i did not get the time to write anything new or may be the good old writer's block had cast a spell over me ...whatever the reason ,i hope none of you would have missed my posts ....on the contrary my friends were happy that they did not have to waste their time reading ( i literally forced them to do so) and comment on my blog......

The time could not have been right to post this one ,YES we are world champions after 24 years be it 20-20 it does not matter now ...we all are all happy and proud to say that we have won the world cup .This victory is important in two aspects ,firstly the aura of the 83 winning team will diminish a bit , i have been tired to see the being interviewed before every world cup ...news channels ran after them because they were the only heroes we could recognize ( the last hockey world cup we won back was in 1975....) ,and secondly the importance of the holy trinity of the indian team would also be paid less attention ....what i say in this world cup was unprecedented ,the 6 sixes of yuvraj after the confrontation with freddie flintoff ,the fire with which they fought with aussies ,giving them back the mouthful which we have been getting from all over the years was fantastic to watch ...never even in the wildest dream i could have thought this.

Coming back to the victory we must have realised by now that it's a team game .perhaps now our obsession with numbers and centuries will die and we would all think that it does not matter whether a tendulkar or a ganguly hits a ton .....i would be happy if sachin scores 90's and we win, beacuse winning in not everything it's the only thing ....and mr vengsarkar would also take back his words of saying that we do not have enough talent , how can we find talent when we just give few opportunities to the new players?? , and this has proved none is above the game we can still continue and win without sachin ,dravid and ganguly....perhaps our nation is desperate with sticking to it's old heroes ...why does australia pay less importance to them because they find new heroes every year who win ,unless and until we can back our passion of cricket with results we will never find new heroes.

Looking ahead this victory does signal to the holy trinity to hang up their boots atleast in the 50 over game and give chance to youngsters ....the difference in level of fielding in england and south africa was colossal ....and we dont need to be carried away so much with this win ....i would not like to wait another 24 years for a victorious moment now .....the 20-20 game doesn't test teh temperament of a batsman which a test match would , so we have still a long way to blood youngsters in test cricket....but for now the nation is rejoicing........CHAK DE INDIA!!!!

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

TAGGED .....Finallly i am............

so after one year of my blogging experience , and wondering what this business of tagging is all about and what's the obsession and madness about it .Here i am finallly taggeD by Akanksha ,well she had the patience to search for the meaning of my name so i am privileged :) ....thanks a lot to her .......and now the tagging part i have to write 8 facts about me as part of the deal ..it's easy after having faced a some IIM interviews describing your strengths and weakness which they have no interest in listening and this is a good opportunity to brag about my self tooooo.

so let's begin

1.So starting with the bad points which i have lots of ......the first one is that i am a bit stubborn ....sorry bit is not the right word actually it's "overly" just ask my parents and friends you will hear wonderful stories about it.......lets not get into the details

2.I haven't told this to anybody but i have this obsession of letting people know that i am into blogging ,that's why i give the link to my blog on my gtalk status 24 hrs a day ,in hope that someone will comment on my stuff or the crap i write :) ,my friends tell me to stop cribbing about the JEE in my blog ...but emotions do come out....

3. Turning to be quite a music freak these days .downloading all the new songs whatever....discovering new artists and learned to play the guitar one thing which i always wanted to do in my life ........by now all of you have guessed that i am completely velllla now a days ......but i am loving my time

4.This i have already mentioned in my blog earlier .....that i am in love but the feeling just seems to get better with each passing day , ya i am nuts about her no prizes for guessing ,though also enjoying my time away from her ,this separation period has taught me a lot..

5.Kind of worried for my best friend these days , who is passing through a rough phase in life ..but i pray he will emerge stronger and more refined after this and i am always with himmm no matter what ......

6.I try to attract bloggers on my blog , by visiting daily to at least 10 blogs ,so that more bloggers add me to their blog rolls and i am accepted in this community ......ya its height of being desperate par i am like that only

7.Trying to make more female friends these days ,really missed the fun in the past for years buried under my books , when i tell my friends about this girl i met an all they seriously think i am going maaaad and bezzerk...and they are a bit apprehensive about my commitment .....heheh but i am lovin it........

8.Sorry i forgot to mention that inspite of all the things that have distracted me ..i do manage to study a bit actually love reading those research papers .....they are kind of a wake up tonic for me ,though most find them borring .......

So the 8 facts are over now the toughest part ,searching for 8 new bloggers that i have to tag ......i know only a few and most of them are tagged ...well you all by now have guessed that my blog is not at all popular.....still my 8 bloggers are ishavasyam,NEFTY,Standbymind,Priysha,Sharad ,Sanchit ,Arvind and Blaaaha queen ....you all need to write 8 facts about you and tag 8 more bloggers to it ...so kep the chain running and happy tagging to you all

Sunday, June 24, 2007

My Namesake ...i am still searching

I was recently going through the paperback edition of "The Namesake", i had picked up at the airport ,though i never had the privilege to watch the film but perhaps the cover of the book ,depicting the photographs of the two main lead artists drew my attention towards it or you could say i was curious to read the story which the film critics had adorned in the film reviews of the leading Saturday dailies ,and now after finishing the whole book in a single day i think i had not wasted those 300 odd bucks of mine .

Somewhere i also feel connected to the central character "GOGOL" in the book ,though his father named him after nikolai gogol the russian author in a haste to get him released from the hospital ,i was registered under a name "daman" in my school records because my parents could not think of name starting with a letter "P" for four years after i was born and in a haste they stuck to my "good name" ,the name by which i am recognized today ,that's my identity ,i still wonder what would have been the feeling if i had a name starting with a "P" ,but perhaps unlike "GOGOL" it's the name i always wanted ,i made me feel different from my relatives who all had such big sikh names like my father's ,my mothers and my sister's.I felt i was unique.

I don't remember how old i was maybe in standard third... or fourth when a school teacher asked me the meaning of my name ,and frankly i had to answer to it ,my school mates out of sheer curiosity at that age wondered if i was named after the place "Daman & Diu" , and i went on great lengths to explain this was not the case .when i en quired about the origins of my names from my parents they said ,they gave me this good name because my cousin sibling ,three months older then me was named "aman", i felt as i was not important to them ,and they simply decided to give this name without even giving a thought over it .you could all understand the name aman is quite good it has a reason behind it ,it means one who brings peace and calmness but what does daman mean no one had a clue about it ,later i read in my hindi classes the sentence "gandhiji ne angrezzi samaaan ka daman kiya" means he wanted to boycott english goods ,then i wondered whom am i supposed to boycott ??? ,I cried that day and desperately wanted to change my name for once and final . My mom after a bit of fight wrote application to the principal that i wanted to change my name ,my father did make an affidavit supporting it ,when i was half way down the stairs to submit that application in the office ,some thing stopped me i don't know what was it ,perhaps i was scared i would have that big sikh name starting with "P" ,that i would loose my uniqueness among my relatives how difficult would it be tell to so many people about my name change ....after considering all these factors i decided not to change my name ..

The main reason behind was that the my name made me feel separated from my roots ,roots which i never felt to be part of ,was quite embarrassed in front of all my relatives ,hated to go those social gatherings which my father took me too where most of my relatives were not even graduates,never liked their discussions on the topics which i felt were absolutely absurd and that the world had moved and still they were stuck in the dark ages ,where they talked about the importance of looks of a boy and a girl not his or her talent in academics or other fields ,I would say that in spite of following all the religious followings of my religion , i never bother to go the Sikh temple we know as the "gurudwara" ,simply because i am an atheist and i have no problems in admitting it .

It was my name which helped me to have an illusion that i am away from my religion ,though some may think it to absurd it's actually true ,till date i have not bothered to understand the meaning of my name ,i like it for the above reason and it's only five letters long . I helps me as i have to blacken only five bubbles under my name in hundreds of OMR application forms i have filled till now,contrary to my sisters ten !

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Motivation .........

Last week a friend of mine had a problem she wasn't able to motivate herself to study for her entrance exams ,and she wanted to know how do I motivate myself and i jokingly said to her "I was motivated by seeing the building of my undergraduate college ",i said it in jovial moos but then i realized it was actually true .

So how does one get motivated ???? well going by my experiences you get motivated by the things you love most or the things you hate most ,but in my case it was a combination of both .some say they get motivated by seeing their peers achievement ,their brothers and relatives....,some people have told me they get motivated for money (it's quite difficult though),some get motivated by seeing the stories of the brave one's in news and newspapers ,but the one thing you get motivated is the one which you put in tour heart and soul and never achieve it.

Coming back to my so called motivation story , i was most of all motivated by the place in which spent four years of my life ,constantly dragging my body every morning to that two hour bus journey to reach a place which was like a jail or kind of torture for me ,as soon as the DTC bus crossed the noida toll bridge a sense of disappointment was engraved in my place , i started to wonder "why am i going there?" ,"what wrong did i do those 9 hours of my JEE exam?" or perhaps "was i wrong to dream of IIT sitting in my DCE exams" and i screwed up that paper what ever it was ,these thoughts constantly crossed my mind while the bus crossed the bridge over the "nala" what we all know as the yamuna river ,it was quite a culture shock seeing noida in the first place i mean leave alone the hype of a few well built sectors that place was like going to a desert where houses have been stacked upon each other like matchboxes put on top of each other ,and when i could see the red brick building of my college through the bus window ,i said to my self "the hell is about to begin" ,well it started at 9 in the morning and went on till 5 in the evening ,entering that main gate i felt some one was pushing myself ,i never wanted to cross that line and enter the college ,but still i did perhaps to see my name on the notice board ,people knew me very well because of it .Either i was on the list of short attendance ,as they loved to put my name there or on the list showing the papers i had flunked in my second semester ,whatever all the faculty knew me by these traits ,perhaps this was my identity in their mind "A Boy who is always lost in his thoughts ,day dreaming and what not",but seriously speaking that place made me learn a lesson "you have to fight it out to reach your dream" and it made me more mellow,and practical in life .All i can say that it inspired me me get out of that place and showing that i wasn't day dreaming all the time ,and i had achieved something .

Returning back from college ,as soon as the bus entered Delhi a sense of relief was there in my mind ,that i am finally back from the jail though for only to return next day ,and as soon the bus reached my stop on the ring road of Delhi a big direction sign showed "IIT" ,perhaps it was the sign that made me live through those four years ,it was the thing i loved most,my parents thought i was nut about it , it was sheer madness but they could not take away a dream that i had ,seeing the main gate of IIT Delhi ,i felt happy there have been times when i had gone inside the campus for no reasons at all just to charge myself ,to get my self motivated and to bring an a realization that i have to work damn hard to be at this place ,just to see that place i changed my journey maps ,took buses that would pass in front of it although the time of my journey increased ,i know people say IIT isn't the everything but then those who are inside them don't realize that their's avast difference between the standards offered by them and other colleges ,hope our government does something to it ,they decided to give more autonomy to private institutions so that they increased their level barring a few ones rest of all have become a place where they train you for four years so that they serve as mass recruitment centers to hire software coolies for our so called "BIG IT" companies that call themselves as product development centers but they are nothing more than a place where people fake their accents to satisfy their so called clients in US , to tweak a banking software to fit into another bank .

Motivation is one thing that comes from within it can't be taught and not be given .if you dream big and then you have to prove yourself a few sacrifices here and there can help you achieve your happiness and your dream!

Thursday, May 31, 2007

EXPECTATIONS !!is there a end i wonder

So here i am back after i puked out all my frustrations in my previous post,and got an honest opinion from many of my class mates about it ,though i never expected it seriously but at least i was able to put forward my opinions in front of my "so called" and true friends ,had a lot of arguments with a few people ,but it helped me to clear my stand in front of them ,what i truly feel about them .i could no longer live a life of being a hypocrite being sweet in front of them and lambasting them on their backs........anyways enough about the sad things there's some good news to give

It's result season and IIT JEE results are out (i know all of my readers had enough of it ),but there's a slight change in the script this time ,i did not give the exam (yee being 23 it would be shameful) but my sis did give it and she cleared it ,yesss yessss finally she was able to achieve a good rank in her first attempt ,that i could not in my three attempts ,and i was more happy than her for obvious reasons ,but then a feeling of guilt did strike me ,why the hell i was realizing my dream through her ,what right did i have to virtually force her to give JEE when she was more interested in pursuing a career in medicine ,it all boils down to the word EXPECTATION.

I did promise myself that i would never be like the whole world ,trying to follow the herd in her case ,as i did in my case , i would try to be rational but ultimately i did follow the flock in a blind manner .perhaps it's to do with the experiences i had in my life that are to be blamed ,in my school days in class XI an XII my mom expected me to be in iit ,pursuing my bachelors a dream which i never fulfill (though i hope a masters and doctorate from IIT will some what cover up for it).coming to a wider point of view ,there have been instances when people have landed up at the wrong place because they had to fulfill someone's expectations and ultimately they ruined there life for good, what i have realized in a short span of time is that the more you achieve more the expectations of people rise and its pretty hard to fulfill them .it's like climbing a ladder where one reaches at the top and suddenly asks himself "why the hell i am here??",we all decide to be in iit's iim's because the picture is rosy ,media hypes them and we try to prove that we are the best ,its about what others thing about ourselves ,we need to build an aura of invincibility around ourselves but soon many of us realize it wasn't the the smartest move we ever made ,for instance studying computer science is not all about making those beautiful power point presentations or that flashy graphics.

It's because of these expectations from others that we change our lifestyle,our thinking and what not,perhaps the best thing is to follow one's heart and not one's mind beacuse heart is correct in 99 out of 100 cases in life .if you aren't happy with what you are doing ,no amount of money can make you think that you are happy (i know many will argue that money is everything in life ,but surely it isn't) ,if you believe you can fulfill your dream then go for it ,even if one fails the experiences will make him a better person in life ,for instance i did prepare for JEE in my college first year and now i am bearing the fruits as that preparation helped me to improve my analytical skills immensely,so don't always try to fulfill expectations of the whole world ,because more than ninety nine percent of individuals aren't as intelligent as you are.

AND finally i did dump away my JEE admit cards of three years and those counseling letters from IIT after five years after my sis's JEE result because a dream is fulfilled (ohhh wait i again started to realize my dream through her ,kya karoooon i am like another human being )

I CAN'T HELP IT!!!!!!!!!! though changes are for good , I AM TRYYYYYYYIIING .......

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

GOOD FOR NOTHING----Haven't i heard it before

There have been a series of posts which i have written during the wee hours of the morning ,to take out my my anger and frustration,but ultimately i deleted them because i thought it will not be "politically correct" to express my views in this manner,as it will be considered as a timid act ,an action which will show that i am afraid to come out in open and speak in front of everyone ,but whatever everyone else says i am going ahead with this post .

Last week when i saw a documentary of lance Armstrong on TV ,there was an advertisement which answered his critics who have lambasted him over the years over the dope allegations ,that ad had just one answer to the question "What am i on???" and the response was "I am on my bike" ,and it was a fitting reply to his critics ,well i have heard some pretty good one liners against me "you re good for nothing" ,"you take life as a joke" ,"tumhara kuch nahi ho sakta " and the list can go on an on...........................................................,these are the challenges i have faced over a short span of my life .

Life is a constant struggle for as long as we keep battling forces that can be overcome with enough effort and resolve. But when you are brought down to your knees and kept there by a giant invisible hand that is simply impossible to throw off, you can finally give up. I keep imagining being beaten by Fate so roundly that I can then guiltlessly give up the Sisyphean struggle I go through all day, all week, all year. Every time I face a problem that looks as though it might just be too big for me, I come across a new one that makes the first one pale in comparison. But the day I allow myself to finally, absolutely give up on life, the future will cease to matter,so why not better fight them and prove that I AM GOOD.

Here i would like to mention a special note of thanks to my Under graduate college ,which frustrated me so much that it ultimately inspired me to achieve big ,and put a lid on mouth of people who had lambasted me disgraced me over the years ,one of the instance which i still remember was a teacher (i wouldn't like to take the name and spoil my blog) telling me after hearing my GATE score and rank

"It's no Big deal clearing GATE"

Yeaaaah sure it isn't a big deal getting a percentile in the top 99 ,it isn't a big deal undersatnding the complexity of algorithms,learning about P vs NP itssss too easy for him ,bcoz his so called favorite students never even had the courage to sit for the exam let alone clear it .........is some one listening???

Then i was told that i was mad about JEE (i gave it twice in my college) because i wanted a thappa or a mark ,but IIT's are much beyond a simple thappa in the life ,here you learn teachers don't shy away from teaching complexities of algorithms and not teaching how to dream in class ,you get to study the mathematics behind the graphic algorithms and not flying a bird ,drawing a tree (i guess there are enough graphic designers for this stuffff)

How can i forget about the so called future wanna be facchas preparing for cat ,and showing off to the world that they are preparing for it (some of them started from the first year itself) with goal IIMA , i wasn't against them but then you dont have to take your books in the lecture classes and show that you are preparing for cat (it is ridiculous) ,so coming to the cat story one needs to understand that only speaking english in a foreign accent does not make you a good manager ,there's DI and MATHS that you need to crack and you have to work for it ,it's no styyloooo lingo that will help here and there were certain individuals which i genuinely though would make it to the IIM's ,but as the fate decided i made it ,though i gave the boot to IIMK ,because i could afford to do soooo

I would not say that i haven't committed mistakes in life ,my flunking the second semester ,will still haunt me in my life , because i made my parents cry ,left myself disappointed but what i wanted to convey is that one should never judge a book by it's cover because unless and until you see what's inside it ,you would never come to know the true contents inside it ,so please stop forming opinions about individuals ,lambasting them ,disgracing them because there are comebacks in life ,and why always follow conventional ways to success when there are alternative ones and i am of the opinion that "when people say you can't do it,it's because they are not able to do it" so follow your heart and finally show that "WE ARE GOOOD FOR SOMETHING".

There have been a lot of individuals which have hurt me by their comments ,and many which became my friends after having achieved something in life (you are able to distinguish between true and fake friends in this scenario),told me my life is doomed an what not but in the end i am having the last laugh and not they ,and that's what is important.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

The Class of 392 !!!


392,392 !!! it's the only thing i have remembered over the past four years of my college life ,because it's the only positive thing i can carry forward with me , morons who haven't been part of this bus journey would never appreciate the fact why we people are mad about this bus ,i have listened to comments like "aise bol rahe ho ki ye Mercedes ho " ,but still the emotions that have been attached to this bus journey will never be forgotten ,but this post is not about my feelings but the joy,sadness that we all as a part of 392 gang have shared over the past four years ,and this collage picture is a testimony to that ,its like a film script which hasn't seen the day of the light till now.

chalo ab is film ke 4 main characters hai with a special guest appearance to follow later on ,i will talk about all the main protagonists in detail ,I start from the picture at the top left hand corner and follow it (dont worry i will also put the fifth picture later)

so introducing the class of 392 :

ATIN --- there's only word which can describe him "practical" .He lives life as it comes ,with no past baggages ,knows how to get things get done by hook or crook ,takes to tensions in life and helps you whenever it is needed.over the past few years i have seen great leadership skills inculcating in him ,thanks to this bus journey (wo bhi ye accept karega).this guy was always at the forefront of all the quarrels that took place while travelling to noida from delhi and back ,kabhi bas kaharab ho jaati thi aachank se ,kabhi bus chalti hi nahi thi ,jo bhi ho he always knew how to get the things done ,i just wonder why aren't more people like him fighting for their rights ,including me ,but the one incident i would never forget was when a bunch of girls had to get down at AIIMS for it's annual fest and he agrees to guide them ,bas ussi time par i opened my big mouth and said "par tu to south ex mei utarta hai " ,i would never forget that moment , i nearly spoilt his golden opportunity.He's like the AAMIR KHAN of dil chahata hai for me ......bansalji i can always count upon you

BHARAT ---- and only one word describes him "loverboy",he's like the SAIF OF DIL CHAHATA HAI ,searching for his true love ,jo kabhi nahi mila bas kicks milti thi (i know he would kill me after reading this) i share a special kind of chemistry with him , we have talked all sort of crap from champions league football to girls in the bus to kill two hours from college to delhi ,though he ditched me in the 3rd year by opting for a hostel in the college ,but still he will always reamain part of the 392 gang ,bcoz more often than not he was at his home rather than his hostel room ,and i must warn you dont go by his bholi suraaaat itna seedha nahi hai jitna dikhta hai ,though he is the most good looking guy ,and girls had an instant crush on him ,while seeing him play football ,par afsos ye un sabka crush hi tha aaage kuch nahi hua (heheheh)........BJ i will never ever forget you (and tu bhi kabhi bhoolne ki koshish mat kariyo mujhe nahi to ????)

DAMAN-----and here comes the description of yours truly ,i have just one word for my self "frustrated",my friends relate me with AKSHAYE KHAANA of DIL CHAHATA HAI (ya i know mai itna accha nahi hoon dikhne mei ,and na hi koi dimple kapadia thi meri life mei),but i was serious kind ,always observing and cribbing in front of my friends about IIT ,the institute where i always wanted to be ,god knows how my friends coped up with me during the past four years ,kafffi patience hai unmei and i wouldn't like to add much about myself (comments hi padh lena about me)

SIDDHARTHA ---actually i don't have a dictionary with me to describe about him because thats what you need ,and his blog is a testimony to this statement , i would describe him as a complete music freak ,existentialist the most happening dude of our gang ,this guy was born to be a manager and he's almost half way there ,unlike me he has set goals in mind and achieves them ruthlessly, though i came close to him during the last few semesters but still i have lot of good memories to take with me about him......he rocksssssss

haaaan i remember that there is guest appearance to follow ,and its no ordinary guest appearance ,its a special one ...........................................

ye guest appearance mei prastoot karta hoon our very own RAGHAV .just one word describes him BINDAAAS ,though sometimes he can become a little bit senti ,please beware about this trait,though he traveled in the bus for only one semester but still he is part of the gang ,we will never forget his VATANAKULIT CAR trips from the college to our homes (sometimes we all became lucky ,that we did not have to spend 2 hrs in the bus journey),one incident that i will never forget is when he slept for the whole bus journey and landed up at the last stop ( sone ki isse kaffi bimaari hai) ,and if you ever get on phone with him,then surely your one hour is gone ,timepass karne ki to aadat hai na isse ,and its beacause of him that i have got into this bad habit of long and endless phone conversations with others (i would never forgive him for this).........JAI HARYANA RAGHOOJI

So this was about my friends ,with whom i have spent my precious four years of life in the times of happiness and sorrow ,and these are the memories i shall always carry forward with me ,wherever i go MAIN JAHAN RAHOON YE YAAAAD SAATH HAI ,though now being in IIT i dont have to spend those 4 hours on the daily bus journey but i miss it everyday ,and just wish those times come back again (though i know its not possible) ,whenever i board a DTC bus in delhi , i just hope to see all my friends sitting there and chirping and chatting about any absurd topic we all used to do ,but then i soon realize that time has moved on ,we are all at different phases of our life and we may probably never be together again (though i pray ek baar to sab mil lein.....)


PS:Last heard the DTC bus no 392 had stopped plying between delhi and noida due to some dispute ,may be this bus was waiting for our last journey together to come to an end!!!!!!!

Sunday, March 25, 2007

HAPPYNESS yes it's with a "Y"

This is not a movie review of the "pursuit of my happyness" because almost everyone has heard about how well the movie is,but its a blatant admission of a relationship that i wasn't able to build with my father .This movie taught me what a father son relationship should be like , not what i had with my dad.

In the movie the protagonist played by will smith does every thing to protect his son ,he teaches him what life is all about ,i can still can weirdly remember the lines that he said to his son "they say you cannot do this because they were not able to do it themselves." My father also tried to give me some "gyaan" on what life is all about but then i never listened to him because i thought i could do better than him,though i do realize now that his achievements far outweigh mine because the resources that i was provided with by my father were not with him.

The reason for the the so called rift with my father was the "JEE" exam .Though he knew that i could clear the exam but he was always apprehensive because of the sheer competition ,during 2002 one had a 1 in 45 chance to clear the exam for the coveted seat at iit's ,but i had that stubbornness thats it's got to be IIT nad nothing else ,so i did not fill any other forms (except my ug college form that too after a long fight).As destiny went i wasn't able to make it to iit ,so had the choice whether to drop a year and prepare again or to join another college .i was always against the former but after a long argument with my father i had to join another college ,but contrary to his thinking i studied for JEE during my first year ,which he never liked .There was a feeling inside me to prove my father wrong ( now i realize that i was wrong ) ,he did not sign on my JEE application form so i had to forge his signature which i admit here.I did not attend even 15 days of my college in my second semester which always let to a lot of arguments between us.i did not clear jee gain and flunked my second semester in the college (failed in all papers because of short attendance) ,this did shatter him completely because this was never expected from me ,i was indifferent to the feelings of my family.He did not talk to me for a month after this debacle so did not i ( well i was freaked out ) but the differences rose more when i decided to give jee in my second year also (now i was reallllly mad) so we had no interaction for that one year, though i attended my college regularly.

This film has taught me that a father always cares about his son ,which he always did but i never bothered to appreciate it .i could not talk straight with him during those crucial years which are important, i was a bit selfish always wanting to prove him wrong ,be better than him and show him i am more capable than him .Now i realize that i missed the happyness in my life for those four years just because i was stubborn wanting to prove things which i realize are not important any more ,you do not have to show other people that you are good ,because whats more important is to be good son ,which i have not been.

After the film i did call up my dad and said i was sorry,though i accept it cannot cover all the disappointments that i have given him during his life ,in spite of all his best efforts but this is the least that i could have done .I am aware that i cannot bring back the time i have lost with my father but from now onwards i would be more frank with him,talk openly to sort out my differences ,i will try to be a GOOD SON!!!

Monday, March 19, 2007

Arre!!! Bhai It's just a game

So India lost to Bangladesh in their first world cup match and everyone has started saying the "the dream is over", "call back this team", "sehwag should be thrown out" and lots of blaaah blaaah ,and they have all started with their favourite passtime of bashing indian players,burning their effigies ,tearing their posters to vent out their anger after the defeat to so called minnows of world cricket ,Bangladesh (but are they really minnows??? one should ask themselves)

Agreed that India played miserably ,seemed low on confidence ,seemed afraid,lacked the team spirit and our fame batsmen were more like tigers in the cages than in a jungle ,but then why are we blaming our team only ,no one is looking at how well bangladesh have played ,they bowled and batted out of their skins,were like cheetahs on the filed showed no fear to the so called Indian pace battery (someone forgot how the young kid ,barely 18 stepped and hit zaheer khan out of the park),and to be fair the tag of minnows does not suit them now.the alarm bells should have really been sounded when they defeated newzeland in the pre world cup warm up game.

Now the reaction of our public has been more disappointing than the loss itself ,in our country where we live ,eat and sleep cricket and where everyone is an expert on cricket (arre ye dravid ko to kaptani chor deni chahiya,sachin mein wo baat nahi rahi ,sehwag to shaadi ke baad nikamma ho gaya hain) are some of the chats one hears on our roads,buses and households.most of our fans do understand that the game is not easy ,and defeats are part of any sport.

This picture can best sum up the mood of an 11 year old boy, after the disappointment on the Sunday morning after the match because he was let down by his hero's ,but he wont go back to his home and burn his bat and cricket kit ,but he will take his practice kit and run to his practice grounds to bat like sachin ,bowl like kapil and filed like yuvraj ,it was amazing to see young kids back on ground after sleeping in the wee hours and the disappointment of india's loss. it is what our fans do best they play and follow the game hard because they dream of representing one's country on the world stage ,they have the passion and accept defeat (u can't win every day),they rise up from it and achieve their goals (and i can wow for that)


Now come the so called fraction ,which we see on televisions after every defeat ,busy in vandalizing property ,burning cars and posters to vent out their anger.

so what they want to prove??? ,that they are the only one concerned about the cricket in india ,they have taken the responsibility on their shoulders to make players realize that they are not doing the job ,or that they are better than our selectors and administrators and can manage cricket better than them ,in short their only objective is to get into the limelight ,and media does a fantastic job in promoting them because our so called 24 hour news channels want the masala for their daily pro grammes because they have nothing better to show (when was the last time u saw a documentary aon aaj tak and star news ???,please remind me of one)


I agree that players might not preform well on days ,but then is everyone perfect?? is my question to them ,they are humans which are bound to fail ,even the invincible aussies lost five ODI's in a row ,they lost ashes to england but then they were ever more determined to win them back (they plummered the poms in this ashes),so our players are professionals and they know thei job better ,they are not really here to make money as people thing they have the passion ,tell me one individual who will devote his 18 prime years ,sweat and toil for the country that tendulkar has ,agreed he earns money,but why dont we question individuals like us from iit's and iim's who earn great pay packets after the subsidised education which all taxpayers pay for .

The last bit of thing i would want to add is about the so called "cricket experts" that news channels have roped in be it saba karim and company and the 83 world cup team which seams in great demand every world cup ,they might have won the cup but this team has better players than that team if we compare man with man ,just playing well for that one month does not give them the license to bash the team again and again ,players like yashpal sharma before rubbishing current player should look at their records.

so i would like to sum up by saying that we should have faith in our players ,they are as much passionate as we are and they also don't like loosing and playing badly and we should treat cricket as a game and not anything else and remember that everyone of us can fail ,and this hoopla over the world cup has raised our expectations too much ,i think none of us would like to see pictures of the policemen standing in front of cricketers house to protect their family ,if they can sacrifice nad play for us then we should also pay our regards bu not vandalizing their homes ,what's the fault of their families??

so we must remember CRICKET IS A GAME





Friday, February 23, 2007

AGNOSTICISM A PATH BETWEEN THEISM AND ATHEISM??

So does agnosticism serve as a middle path between the two beliefs of theism and atheism, contrary to the common belief, that it is an alternative to atheism, people are mistaken by the narrow definition of atheism in their minds.

Agnosticism is about knowledge, and it is separate from the realms of belief, which constitute the domain of theism and atheism. Agnostic means “without knowledge “but somehow we have started it using exclusively with respect to the issue “Do god exist or not?” .Dilemma over the use of term agnosticism arises when we assume that it is used in the context of a person who is undecided about the existence of god, if this were to be true then it would serve as a third way between theism and atheism, however this assumption is far from being true.

Contrary to the general notion of agnosticism, it is based upon the two principles which are needed to be studied closely before nay concrete conclusions can be drawn out. Firstly it supports the idea of empirical and logical means to acquire knowledge about the world and Second principle which it follows is that we have a moral duty of not asserting claims for ideas which we cannot adequately support through evidence. Therefore the term “agnostic” may be used in context of a person who cannot claim, if any god exists.
Thus there are two kinds of people ,some people are not sure of something but they believe it anyway and in other case people cannot support the proof so this becomes the reason enough to not bother believing.

Therefore agnosticism is no third way between theism and atheism but an issue which is compatible with both. Majority of people who believe themselves of being theist or atheist might be justified in calling themselves as agnostics, because a theist is adamant in his belief but also adamant in the fact that his beliefs are based more on faith than on absolute knowledge. Agnosticism may be referred to a state where one is not sure about the existence of god ,but people take can take this stance for different reasons and apply it in different ways creating two sets of agnosticism weak and strong on the lines of weak and strong atheism .If someone is a weak agnostic he states that “I am not sure whether god exists or not”, but he does not rule out the possibility of there being any theoretical god ,or the fact that someone might be knowing about the existence of god .Most of people we know fall into this category .whereas a strong agnostic claims that he is not sure of the existence of god but he also believes that no one can claim about the existence of god ,though this stance can be difficult to defend.

Thus people with weak agnosticism are easily accepted in the world because they respect the feelings of other people and don’t try to impose their beliefs on others, but people with strong agnosticism are not easily accepted in this world as they indirectly come a conclusion that they know something about god which others do not, which is not easy for others to accept. Whatever the beliefs agnosticism is not the middle path between theism and atheism though this argument can go on for ever.

Friday, January 26, 2007

ORKUT !!! So what's the fascination


My daily ritual ,waking up at 7 in the morning with my blurry eyes ,double clicking on my mozilla ,entering the words "ORKUT" and then pressing control+enter .
(sorry i would not reveal my username and passwrord),and then i seem to get stuck to this site for at least an hour doing nothing but wasting my time ,but i still love to do it,and the question that i ask my self again again is why i do it ???
well simply speaking i have no answer to it ,in short i am ADDICTED to it and this is quite contrary to the days when i did not even bothered to open my orkut account for one and a half years after my friend sent me an invitation ,after i inquired what's this ORKUT all about in my undergraduate college.

I never even bothered to accept any friend request that people sent me seriously speaking i thought it to be a "piece of crap",bt thinks changed in April last year when i logged into my orkut account ,and saw there's a world out there to be explored,literally speaking i did not even have a single scrap during these 18 months ,though had at least 10 friend requests,people in my college were always fighting on the no of scraps they had ,and i thought what's this fuss all about ,they talked as if the scraps pointed to the cash balance in your account ,well i have realized today that unless one uses ORKUT he would not be able to understand the importance of the no of scraps(they tell something about ur popularity) or for that matter the no of fans that u have made ,and the best way to increase them is to be fan of others.

Now ORKUT is not total time pass as i used to think earlier it has helped me trace my friends ,who had no contact with me for the past ten years or so ,and my school friends whom i did not contact after leaving school for many years ,but the best thing is that u make friends from all around the world on orkut ,i made a dear one from Brazil and i think though i don't know this guy but there is a bonding with me as our interests are almost the same coding assembly language and having endless discussion on football.

For total time pass the best thing is to go to any Brazilian communities and send friend request to all the girls there ,and if u don't know Portuguese it does not matter Google translator is out there to help me ,trust me it works quite good i have been chatting and scrapping using it for so many months and the girl's think i am good at Portuguese.

The best thing about orkut is this policy of open scrap book which makes it easy to know what's happening in everyones life ,without the others coming to know that You have been spying on them ,one more feature which adds to the fascination is the "recent profile visitors" one becomes quite excited to know who all have visited your profile ,though this feature can be turned off but the this adds to the fun ,i know that people would come to know that i am visiting their profile and spying on them but does it matter i don't think so.it adds to the legend of the ORKUT.one more use that i forgot is that it acts as a good birthday reminder (in case u forget them ,as i do).

and how could i forget the testimonials on orkut ,they have helped me a lot, i have received some strange emails (from girls) after reading the testimonials on my page that my friends have written for me ,i have also been on a testimonial writing marathon for months now ,problem being that i don't have enough good words which make people happy, i have begged so many time to people to write a testimonial for me but only a few have responded till now.

Whatever ,the name ORKUT has become a part of my life ,and i am sure i would not be able to leave it for sure so in short HAPPY ORKUTTING!!!!

ps:you can check my orkut profile here daman




Monday, January 22, 2007

MARAT "mystery" SAFIN

DATE:10 September 2000
VENUE:Arthur ashe stadium ,Flushing Meadows New York
EVENT :US OPEN FINAL
PLAY MAKERS:Pete Sampras and Marat Safin
SPECTATORS:23,000 plus the American President Bill Clinton
EXPECTED OUTCOME:Pete sampras to win his 14th grand slam in singles

But every one discounted the fact that the 20 year old something Russian was also playing the match ,and contrary to everyone's belief that sampras would have a stroll in the park ,the Russian completely annihilated the the great American in the presence of the home crowd 6-4 ,6-3 ,6-2 in 1 hour and 40 mins ,and a star was born .

After the match the great sampras had praise for his opponent as quoted by him "He passed and returned my serve better than anyone I've ever played" and "He reminded me of when I was 19 and came here and won it for the first time" .Safin had played a spectacular match with the best ever tennis that any one could have imagined his ground strokes had the raw power of Agassi and the finesse of Sampras,Marat reminded of the the player Pete was in 1989 when at the age of 19 years he became the youngest to player to win the men's singles by defeating his great adversary for many years to come Andre Agassi.

Everyone saw a great tennis star in the making who would dominate it after the sampras era had ended ,but it was not to be so ,so what went wrong for the Russian??

Though everyone saw the talent of the man in the game of tennis but no one saw the mercurial nature of the man that was to follow ,he became well known for his emotional outburst during matches where he would smash his rackets every time a call went against him ,this roller coaster ride of emotions did not let him focus on his game and as a result of which he slided down the tennis rankings in the subsequent years,subsequent series of injuries in 2003 also did not help his cause or one could say he himself pressed the SELF DESTRUCT BUTTON .

This story highlights the fact that though one may be talented a lot but if he is not able to channelize his efforts it ultimately results in mediocre performance from the individual ,and this fact is more emphasized in the filed of sports ,as the great SUNIL GAVASAKAR had said "Cricket is played between the two ears more than on the field" All the great champions that we have witnessed so far are more mentally stronger than their peers though they may not be as talented as other.For instance Steven Waugh was so strong temperamentally it overshadowed his natural talent ,who can ever forget the hundred he made against england in 2001 Ashes on one leg and the words he said to gibbs when he dropped his catch in 199 world cup "You just dropped the World Cup " .as opposed to players like named Vinod Kambli who were talented but could not live upto it because he wasn't mentally strong.

Coming back to tennis from where i had started ,there have been instances where players have achieved less because they lost their focus ,for example the great JOHN MCENROE could have won more titals but he did not because he always spent his time arguing more than playing as opposed to the cool BJORN BORG who won 11 grand slam titles as he was mentally more tougher than him.

In The present Era to the great champion ROGER FEDERER is becoming is because of his temperament which supports his abundance talent. when asked about how he always won and the hunger that kept him going his reply was "As a child i used to cry a lot when i lost a match ,so the best way was to win every match that i played so that i would not cry again" It is this attitude that separates him from the rest of the field,though safin may match him for talent as he did in 2005 Australian open by defeating him but he does not have the temperament and focus to be consistent as him.


The willingness to succeed at every occasion can be best summed by SHANE WARNE who despite his off field controversies always wanted to win and give his best as he said to IAN HEALY in an interview "It's all about winning mate" and it truly is.