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!!!!!!!

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!!!

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

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.

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

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.

VIVE LE LANCE

Lance Armstrong was one of the reasons for my sudden interest in TOUR DE FRANCE ,i still remember the the days of July 1999 ,when the whole world was fascinated by the victory of a man was who had only 40% chance of surviving cancer three years ago in 1996.i was also fascinated by his story and followed the so called "boring" sport of cycling that only europeans followed.

Though his seven tour victories from 1999 to 2005 has been a record in the tour history but he isn't the only one who has achieved great feats in the world of cycling ,he may have broken the record of five consecutive tour victories of MIGUEL INDURAIN and five non consecutive victories of legends like Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil but it can always be argued was he the greatest cyclist ever??

The accomplishments of Eddy merckx far outweigh anyone's achievements in the sport of cycling ,legendary for his domination of one day classics like milan sen -remo which he won seven times .He is the only one who won the yellow jersey(over all leader),polka doted jersey(king of mountains),and green jersey(best sprinter) in the same edition of tour the feat which has not been matched by anyone else till date and probably will never be done ,he was like a beast on the bike and never relied much on support of his team mates as lance did over the years in tours ,he took TOUR DE FRANCE as just one of the races in the year but lance took it as the only race of the year ,clearly he was the best bike rider till today.

My admiration of lance goes much beyond cycling ,the way he fought through his cancer diagnoses and emerged as a stronger person both mentally and physically has always made me believe that one can come out and deal with any adversity in life and come out stronger and more focussed than he has been ,though his accomplishments in cycling can never be forgotten but his deeds off the pedals are more inspiring than on the bike,one can learn a lot from him about the preparation for a long and important task ahead ,he prepared for the tour nearly 300 days a year for that 21 days on the legendary roads of France in the month of July ,so that he can prove to people that he can do it again.The time he spent at the labs of MIT so that he could get the perfect bike for the tour is truly one of a kind in sports which had been never practiced till lance did it,beyond cycling his work in the field of cancer giving hope to millions of people around the world that they can fight this disease through the LANCE ARMSTRONG FOUNDATION is one of a kind.

As Armstrong quoted after winning the tour de france in 2005 ,his last triumph on the Champs-Élysées

"Finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. But this is one hell of a race. This is a great sporting event and you should stand around and believe it. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. So Vive le Tour. Forever."

This sums up the true Armstrong we all know ,we all have admired over the past years ,as he said that people who don't believe in cycling cannot dream big ,but apart from them if u don't dream big you cannot achieve much in life , if Kekule had not dreamt we would never have seen the aromatic ring in benzene ,miracles do happen and will happen we just have to believe we can do it,as lance showed us the way.He brought cycling to the stage where people followed it all around the world ,not just in europe but in america and other parts .The true side of lance can be depicted by his autobiography "It's not about the bike,my journey back to life" ,which highlights the fact that fighting cancer is of more importance than winning races .

In the end i would like to sum up lance's story as the greatest come back in the history of sports ,he has shown us nothing is impossible if we believe in ourselves then we can accomplish any feat in this world ,so in the end i would only day vive le lance.LONG LIVE lance.