Happy New Year

Another year goes by and time to catalogue the happenings in this year.

The year started fine with 7 of us working to make Chaos: The Gaming Carnival as one of the first cross country gaming event of its kind. This pursuit took the first quarter of my year as there was work to be done ranging from arranging of the sponsorships to getting the infrastructure in place. Fortunately, everything fell in place and the event became a huge success with 1200+ participants from across the country. In course of the event, we contacted Raptor Entertainment, a game development major in B'lore where I ended up doing my summer internship and started blogging. Chaos was certainly the highlight of this year for me.

After this, I have been blogging regularly. Hence, nothing new to put up.

10 of us decided to spend the new year camping at Shivpuri, Rishikesh. The place was awesome. The camp was at the banks of river Ganges,serene and peaceful but extremely cold. Played beach soccer and I am still tired. Lit a bonfire at night and had a blast singing at the top of our voices. In the morning, got out of there, came back and slept for 5 hrs flat.

Time to make new year resolutions (and this yr I intend to keep them like every yr)
1. Learn a foreign language (French/German)
2. Lose some weight (I know its a cliche but can't help it)
3. Get to know abt working of stock markets
4. Miscellaneous Resolutions like sleep well, eat healthy, do meaningful reading etc

PS: I forgot to mention that I got placed with Manhattan Associates, Bangalore.

Somewhere I Belong

Time to go back to Roorkee after a memorable stay in Indore and Ahmedabad. Meeting ones family and friends after a long interval made the holidays a worhwhile experience. However, now most of my friends have left Indore for either PG or jobs resulting in me being confined to home for most of the time. Hence, was able to do a lot of reading like Interpreter of Maladies, The Godfather Returns, Elephants can Remember etc.
Now back to Roorkee for the placements. God knows where I'll end up. For the past few years, I have been in Kota, Roorkee, Bangalore with roots in Ahmedabad and Indore. Somehow I feel that each of these places have made their own contributions making me the person I am today. Let's see what'll be the next city in this list.

Signing Off from Indore. However for the bibliophiles, the review blog Literature & Movies is back online with a review on The Godfather Returns. Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to keep it updated throughout the semester too.

There & Back Again

The title is inspired from LOTR and from the fact that I just came back from a one day trip to Delhi and will be going back again this Friday. Once again I have to endure the morning cold of Delhi.
2day I was flipping through the channels and came across a couple of odd things on Aaj Tak:
1. Aaj Tak was asking public opinion on changing the name of Bangalore to some weird South Indian name which I don't even remember. What's more, many ppl answered in affirmative to the change. I haven't got used to Mumbai or Kolkata and I might have to remember one more name.
2. Some time later, Aaj Tak praising Pathan's exploits in 2day's match followed by his rise from rags to riches. I agree that Pathan is probably find of the past few years and has the potential to be a very good allrounder but to remind us of his beginnings after every good performance, every man of the match is a bit too much
3. Finally, the breaking news thing that Aaj Tak does. Every day, Aaj Tak finds some trivial incident, blows it up into something huge as if 9/11 has happened. It bugs me but I guess to run a 24 hr news channel needs to do this kind of thing.
While going to Delhi, I saw a book titled The Godfather Returns. Being a huge Godfather fan, I had to read it at all costs. I have completed 3/4th of the book and surprisingly the book is good. Will discuss more abt it later.
Finally, I saw a trailor for a Sohail Khan produced movie named Fight Club. Now Bollywood has shed even the pretext of changing the name.Now we won't have to try and remember the name of the original movie on seeing the copy.
Real Madrid seems to be the key runner in signing Keane. Perez hasn't learnt from his mistakes. God help Madrid

Home Sweet Home

Back from Ahmedabad and in Indore for the past few days. What have I been doing ? Eating, Sleeping and Reading. I must have gained quite a few kgs but no worries. The mess food will take care of it when I m back in rke.

Let me tell u something abt Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is my birthplace and most of my relatives stay there. Its a heaven for veggies. Anything u want - South Indian, Punjabi, Continental, Vada Pav and ice-creams. All available at economical prices. Infact I came across an offer that I havent seen newhere in India.

There's a pizza joint named US Pizza in Ahmedabad (franchisee of some US pizza joint). They have an unlimited offer going on. For 99 bucks, u get - soup, salad (from the salad bar with macroni, pasta etc. abt 20 choices), garlic bread, choice of three pizzas and dessert (vanilla with brownie). Stunned ? The best part is now. U can have unlimited quantities of all the above except dessert i.e. unlimited pizza, garlic bread, salad etc. I dont think I have eaten so much at a time. A single meal there sustained me throughout my day.

At first, I thought this was an anamoly. Then I discovered a place offering unlimited lunch package for 70 bucks. Replace above food stuff with curries, rice etc. This offer is fast becoming a norm there.

Back to the usual stuff. Almost everyone has been asking me abt CAT. This yr, CAT decided to go in with a paper tougher than usual with only 90 questions. I haven't yet calculated my score but my instincts say that I could have performed better. So lets wait and watch.

I also saw a show named Games Bond on Star One 2day. Its a television show where two Counter-Strike Clans come and play. For the uninitiated, Counter-Strike (or CS) is a First Person Shooter game with two teams - Terrorist and Counter-Terrorists. Terrorists have to bomb a target by planting explosives and Counter-Terrorists have to stop them. Amazingly realistic physics, weapons (Its the closest u can get to fire an AK 47, a carbine or be the sniper u always want to be) and team co-ordination. IMO, its the best game ever created. Being a CS player myself, I had heard abt the show and decided to c the episode. Incidentally, the episode was the annual finals. The show was crap. The teams indulged in mindless rhetoric like "We r gonna massacre u", "We're too good for u" etc. To top it all, their gameplay wasn't all that impressive. I guess the serial was made by someone who hasn't played CS. Its a bad implementation of a good concept.

Was going to write a lot 2day but had to attend a marriage 2day and am very tired. So going to sleep now. Will post more stuff later.

I'll end with the usual. I read Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies which is a Pulitzer price winner. Its a collection of short stories. Mental Note- I have to upload its review on my other blog. Currently reading Agatha Christie's Elephants Can Remember and Joseph Heller's Catch 22.

Sports - Madrid going thru another crisis. They have sacked another manager, their Sports Director has resigned and team is in disarray. They finished second in their grp meaning they r looking at facing Chelsea/Arsenal/Juventus/AC Milan/Inter Milan in the second round. Guess another trophyless season is looming.

Have to go to Delhi for a day 2morrow. The city is freezing and my train reaches at 6 am. But three and a half years in rke have prepared me well for this. Next post after coming from Delhi.

It has been a long time since my last post. A lot has happened over this month like CAT, Semester Exams, B.Tech Final Yr Presentations etc. I remember redefining rock bottom in one of my previous posts. CAT and Semester Exams kept redefining it repeatedly. Most of my friends also faced similar situation and 2gether we were able to laugh and forget out problems. Everything got even worse with RM performing atrociously at home (they lost 3-0 to Barca). I guess I should prepare for another trophyless season.
Finally everything was over and our VII semester ended.Only one more semester to go. I remember that when I was in XII, our teachers told us repeatedly that we were going to face the world after XII. I was never able to comprehend the meaning of these words. Now with only 5 more months b4 we face the world (this time, it seems for real), it scares me whenever I think abt it.
Currently, in Ahmedabad to meet my cousins and get some good food. I guess the next post will be from Indore after abt a week.