Sachin shines, Madrid disappoint

Sachin's back ! This should be the headline of the week. Everything is well if Sachin plays well. Nobody curses the system, Govt. policies etc. Everywhere, cricket & Sachin are being discussed.

However, I m not a big cricket fan. I used to be cricket fanatic in school but not now, I just can't stand 10 hours of cricket in a day. Although I can see a good test series like the Ashes, India-Pakistan, India-Australia (in India) etc but ODIs are a strict no. Test cricket is the true test of a player's skill. I loved to see Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis operating in tandem and destroying the opposition. I hope Sachin continues this form into the test series as well.

The void left by cricket has been filled by soccer and F1. It was a miserable week as Real Madrid suffered two defeats in 3 days. I was unlucky enough to see one of them Madrid v/s Valencia.

Madrid has already lost Ronaldo & Baptista to injuries (I m still cursing Rosenberg for that). With Zidane missing a penalty (his first for Madrid) and being uninspirational throughout, it was a poor overall performance. However, there were two positives from the match :

1. Sergio Ramos is a pretty good defender. He made a few mistakes but as he becomes mature and adepts to the team, he should improve and become invaluable

2. Robinho. In this case, comparisons to Pele seem justified. Robinho is a gr8 dribbler and dribbled pass 4 Valencia defenders on two or three occasions. Although, he needs to work on his finish but that will come in time.

Now Barca is a point ahead of Madrid. Madrid has already lost an astounding 4 matches in La Liga already. Hope we are not looking at another trophyless season here.

One month to CAT

Signs that an examination is just around the corner (atleast in IITR)

1. The weather will become just the ideal weather. Moderate temperature and maybe rainfall

2. Someone will get a book or a movie that u were looking for the past few yrs. Worst case- Someone will get a TV show, a sitcom like Friends or a Soap like Orange County which u cannot stop watching before completing

3. There will be no electricity at night when u start studying.

After a long absence, I m back. Many factors contibuted to this absence and time is not one of them. As I had holidays, I had lots of time but as IITR doesn't have internet in the rooms, blogging means coming 2 floors down to the bhawan CC and waiting for ur turn. This is too much work for a lazy guy in festive spirits and holiday mood.

Just next day after holidays, we had our mid-sems. 5 papers in 2 days. Sheer torture. It never ceases to amaze me that after every exam, I have to redefine rock-bottom. I mean rock-bottom should be an absolute term but I discovered that it isn't.

The question after mid-sems is what to do to get over them. I took one night off playing Counter Strike with a bunch of friends from 9 pm to 7.30 am. That was gr8 fun.

I remember promising that this post will not be a depressing one with the festive season going on. Hence, no further discussions regarding TS, CAT and studies.

I used the 10 days holidays to re-read Lord of The Rings. Over 1000 pages but certainly the book of the century. There is a law that Books are always better than the movies based upon them. So if u think that LOTR the movie was superb, read the book. Although there are many differences in between the book and the movies, I would like to point out a major one. In the book, Gandalf is the lead character with Aragorn being lost without him. The character of Aragorn acquires king like qualities as the book progresses. In the movie, the character of Gandalf is a bit overshadowed by that of Aragorn. Maybe because its risky to have an old wizard as the lead as compared to a young king.

On the movie front, saw Raging Bull *ing Robert De Niro in an oscar winning role. The movie is intense but a bit slow. I guess biopics are like this only. However, I prefer Al Pacino over Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro is good as a cold, calculating character like Vito Corleone in Godfather II. Al Pacino rules in roles requiring passion and communicating through eyes. I can't forget this dialogue at the end of the movie The Recruit when he looks at Colin Farrell and says You gotta give me one thing. I am a scary judge of talent.

2day there was a lively discussion between two of my friends abt why ppl pretend or why ppl fake throughout their life. The discussion started at the lunch table and continued after that too. I was a spectator throughout as I hate talking while eating. The inference was that usually ppl are so bound by the social system that they are unable to do what they really want to do. They have to keep delaying working on their passions till its too late. Hope I don't end up like this.

I just remembered that I mentioned an interview in my last post. The interview was for the post of Co-convener in our Techfest - Cognizance. When I got to the interview board, they politely informed me that the post was taken (I didn't get the logic behind it) and they would interview me for the post of Event Manager. The interview was a farce lasting only 2 mins. This might sound like a loser lamenting that he lost out because of a conspiracy.But as I am not doing nething for ne event next semester, maybe I could find time to do something which I wanter to do for a long time like Learn French/German or Guitar.

PS: Just tried posting comments on few blogs. Blogspot has started this thing of word verification. It is such a problem as sometimes the words are clustered 2gether making it difficult to distinguish the letters. Its almost like a Psychology Test in which u see what u want to see. One day I got lm with l and m so close that I couldn't decide whether it was l & m or h & n. Not to say that I failed the word verification. Made me think that am I some kind of online bot.

Can't Think of a Title for this one

How would you feel if u see 5 months of ur patient work being destroyed inch by inch within 15 minutes in front of ur own eyes. It would tear you apart from within. I had the misfortune to have this terrible experience.5 months of hardwork, toil and satirical remarks from friends all coming to nought. Before you run away with ur imagination, let me specify the incident I m talking about. The incident being discussed is me getting a haircut.

About six months ago, I decided that I'll try a long haired look. After getting a haircut on April 16 (I remember the date because it was my bro's birthday next day and he asked me to get a haircut), I started this quest. Month by month, inch by inch I could see my quest becoming a success. There were many detractors with the usual statement being - This doesn't suit u or Dude! Get a haircut. But I liked the feel of having the long haired look even though it meant regular baths, combing hair every time u leave hostel and continuous barbs.

Then disaster struck. I had to appear for an interview. Firstly, I thought that I'll go without pretending and being who I am (that's what you are supposed to do in an interview) but then realized that the long hair might be a hurdle in clearing the interview. Hence, I had to go for a haircut and see six months of my hard work come apart in front of my eyes.

For the interview, I had to dress up in formals. With short hair and in formals, I was almost unrecognizable from my look of a day ago. The remark that stung me the most after that was a friend saying : Now you look human.

Now head banging to GnR, Maiden, Metallica etc no longer has the same fun as it used to be. Head banging reminds me that finally our campus has its own rock band "Drop Dead". Just last week we had their two performances with gr8 numbers like Alive (Pearl Jam), Fear of The Dark (Iron Maiden), Megalomaniac (Incubus), Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day) etc. Head banging was so much fun then with shoulder length hair.

Now I have 10 days of Dussehra holidays. I can't go home as I have CAT prep and the institute authorities have very kindly decided to schedule our exams the next day after holidays. But with most of my friends staying back with the same reasons, it shouldn't be that bad. Seems I won't be able to have home-cooked food before Dec.

Coming to food, the student's council for mess decided not to serve bread in the mess for one month to break the monopoly of bread vendors (some price hike or something). To add to it, we are being served daliya three days a week. I don't get this. Starving students to break the monopoly of bread vendors seems to be some modern day version of Satyagrah

It has been a long post but the coming to the most integral part. Movies. I say Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi. I found it to be an abstract movie with interpretation of conduct of characters varying from person to person based on his/her perception. But it is a good movie.

With Real Madrid making a strong comeback, the next week should be a perfect one.

Just One Last Thing : My neighbour, Bong has become a zombie since his eons old computer (having the processing power of a modern day calculator) has finally stopped working. Now he roams the corridor on our floor and enters the first open room. Once he enters a room, the room occupant is sure to lose atleast half an hour of whatever he is doing. With me being his neighbour, I suffer the most. But being a good guy (don't smile), I don't mind his habbit.